2009: The Year of the Pirate

Attacks:
324 Attacks Worldwide
37 Ships Captured
639 Hostages Taken

Still Missing:
15 Ships Still Held
250-300 Hostages Still Held

Distribution of Attacks:
66% Somalia & East Africa
30% Malacca & South China Sea
4% Other (including West Africa)

Most Recent Attacks:
Yesterday (Mon. 12/28) pirates seized two ships -- a British flagged chemical tanker and a Greek-owned bulk carrier -- both in Somali waters.

Sources: Australia.to; BBC; New York Times; YouTube world focus online
Photo © 2009 bbc.co.uk

What is Kali Doing in California?

photo: Disney's California Adventure

In Nomads in the Land of Fire, Idaho wonders why the mysterious and seductive goddess, Kali, is messing with him. Idaho and Ilsa had a long talk about it during a rare peaceful chapter as they rode the camel caravan across the Mojave.

“You could have been killed,” Ilsa explained, examining him closely. “I’m glad you stopped after one sip. That took courage. Any more and you’d be dead.”

“Kali,” he considered. “Goddess of Death?”

“Goddess of death and life,” she corrected.

“But I’m Catholic.”

Ilsa shrugged.

“The Gods don’t concern themselves with our rules. Christians believe in a God that is all good and a devil that is all bad. But Kali does both, giving birth and taking life. Just as the Earth does, especially in this land. Which is appropriate since it bears her name.”

American Gods

Have you ever read Neil Gaiman's American Gods? It's a great book. In Nomads, When Western Civilization fell and those who could fled back east abandoning Cali, very few people were left.

Anyway, as the Catholics fled, they took their god with them. As the Protestants fled, they took theirs with them. And the Baptists and the Jews and pretty much everyone, including the Hindus.

So there was a power vacuum left. No people, no gods.

But since California is the namesake of Kali, Kali moved into Cali.

From the 1510 novel Las Sergas de Esplandián (The Adventures of Esplandián), by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo:

"And there ruled over that island of California a queen of majestic proportions, more beautiful than all others, and in the very vigor of her womanhood."

"It is known that to the right of the Indies there exists an island called California very near the terrestrial paradise; and peopled by black women among whom there was not a single man since they lived in the way of the Amazons. They had beautiful robust bodies, spirited courage and great strength. Their island was the most impregnable in the world with its cliffs and headlands and rocky coasts. Their weapons were all of gold"

"And there ruled over that island of California a queen of majestic proportions, more beautiful than all others, and in the very vigor of her womanhood. ...She was valiant and courageous and ardent with a brave heart, and had ambitions to execute nobler actions than had been performed by any other ruler — Queen Califia."

Readers of Nomads in the Land of Fire will immediately recognize the heroic protagonist, Nova, in the description of Califia/Kali above.

How to Fight Off Pirates

photo: abc.com.au

In a fascinating article by Robert I. Rotberg on boston.com, several solutions to counter acts of piracy are explored:

Hard Force

• Rigorous patrolling by the US Fifth Fleet, European warships, and combined task force patrols from China, India, Pakistan, Turkey, and other nations has forced Somali pirates to venture more than a thousand miles out to sea to find targets
• Convoying, accompanied by members of the task force patrols, air surveillance with fixed-wing craft and drones
• More vigilance by the merchant vessels themselves, even though pirates are hard to distinguish - until too late - from ordinary fishermen (which is one reason why satellite observation is not an option). The biggest container and petroleum carriers can outrun the pirates if they notice them in time. About sixteen knots headway and evasive maneuvering works, but some ships are too slow and are caught unawares at night. In addition, the number of crew members has been reduced for economic reasons.
• Hardening ships with barbed wire or other obstacles would help also
• Posting armed guards, particularly on slower vessels and ones with with lower freeboard (the distance between the water the lip of the hull) has been of the most effective new deterrents. Specially trained guards can respond strongly when pirates attempt to shoot out the steering bridge or climb aboard. But some owners oppose arms on ships, and some ports will not allow merchant vessels to dock with armed crews.

Soft Force

• Effective governance by local authorities themselves would end piracy over time. This has shown some effectiveness in the Strait of Malacca (See: Piracy on the Rise in Singapore)
• Private enterprises can develop community-based employment in lands such as Somalia, which lack good governance (or any governance for that matter). A coalition of shipping firms and American and European allies would only need to spend the equivalent of 50 percent of this year’s ransom money to dry up the supply of youthful pirates
• Tax ransoms. If local community elders can be encouraged, ransoms could be taxed and devoted to job creation. Piracy, after all, is an occupation in a desiccated land devoid of jobs. Ransoms already are redistributed by the local pirate chieftans to pay for schools and hospitals (See: Pirate "Stock Market" Lures Investors)
• Freeze their assets. The US Treasury and other governments should follow the money and attempt to freeze the assets of those groups that are financing the pirates and profiting from their successes. (See: Lack of Fair Play Disappoints Pirates)

The Plan

Status

Phase 9 of my plan to conquer the publishing world has been achieved and I now have in my possession the 2010 Novel & Short Story Writer's Market, which is invaluable. I've seen it mentioned by well-known authors as the guidebook to breaking into the industry.

After Phase 9 comes Phase 17-B(i), which is collecting rejection notices. These I will use to line the walls of our home during the chilly Southern California winter, when the mercury can drop to a barefoot-numbing 65 degrees above zero.

I've collected 16 rejections so far and collecting more shouldn't be a problem because as the book so helpfully points out on page 125:

"Finding a good agent is as hard as finding a good publisher."
And on page 373:

"Although having your novel published ... is difficult, it is not impossible."

It helps you get published if you have an agent. And it helps you get an agent if you've been published.

Make sense?


Helpful Comparison

It's like this: Suppose you have food poisoning. Vomiting and diarrhea.

For the diarrhea, swallow the green pills. "But I threw them up," you say.

Oh, for the vomiting, take a compazine suppository. "But I have diarrhea!"

Oh, then swallow the green pills. And so forth.

Make sense?


Notice to Agents or Publishers

To any agents or publishers who may read this, I apologize for trivializing food poisoning. Looking forward to working with you soon!


It's All About the Reader!

It's got nothing to do with the publishing industry! Or the agents! Or event he writers (gasp)! It's about the readers! And here's what the readers on Authonomy.com say:

Nomads in the Land of Fire

"Ten chapters in and I want to read the rest of this. It’s a fascinating mix of action and talk."

"This is an easy read, something I’d be happy so take home from the library."

"I really like these characters."

Sailors and Scumbags

“What I love is the dialogue and really the descriptive nature in which you write.”

“This is great, lose yourself in, kick-arse storytelling. From the first line we are transported into another world, an exciting one, a gripping adventure in an exotic place…a book that transports the reader through clipped and concise writing and a focused discipline to the story.”

“I found your book and the title grabbed me. Love the detail about celestial navigation, I’ve had many a midshipman state the same. GPS is brilliant until it stops working. Your opening chapter is full of wonderful descriptions.”

There's a lot more to see on my website. Check out dapearce.com. Or shoot me an email and let me know what you're thinking.

Piracy on the Rise in Singapore Area Due to Lack of Cooperation Between States

photo © timeonline.co.uk

Pirate attacks in the South China Sea are increasing and Malaysia has urged the bordering nations to work together to fight the threat, reports said Monday.

Pirate attacks in the Malacca Strait, which was once the world's worst piracy hotspot, had declined sharply in recent years thanks to large-scale coordinated patrols involving Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

But a November 30 report warns of its resurgence. The International Maritime Bureau (IMB), a global maritime watchdog, said there were 22 attacks reported in the area for the first 11 months of this year compared to 17 for the whole of 2008.

"Pirates feel that the countries don't patrol the sea enough," according to Defence Minister Zahid Hamidi. State-of-the art technology was useless, according to Hamidi without the local navies cooperating with each other in combating the high-seas menace.

More than 30 percent of world trade, and half the world's oil shipments, pass through the Strait of Malacca.

The challenge is apparently to get the neighboring countries to contain the piracy level before it gets out of hand like in Somalia, on the other side of the world in Africa.

Ripped from the headlines, my thriller novel Sailors and Scumbags illustrates the chaos that can occur when a ship in the Straits of Malacca, which is bordered by three different countries, is attacked:

Flames sprouted from her portholes, yellow and hot, and black smoke billowed from the ship’s superstructure, pouring into the sky like an inverted waterfall. The Maru was drifting from the northbound lane across the traffic separation scheme into the southbound lane. She was a tanker, like the Paine, and Chief could see that the fire seemed to be limited so far to just the port side of her house.

But it would spread.

Shipboard fires could burn with such intensity that neighboring staterooms might burst into flames even though separated by a steel wall.

“Mayday, mayday,” crackled the VHF. “This is the Kobayashi Maru. We are on fire. Due north of Sami Island. We on fire.”

But he was interrupted by a burst of static and competing voices.

“This is Singapore Police Coast Guard,” chattered one British-accented voice.

“Malaysia Maritime Police,” another interrupted. “What is your cargo?”

A third signal stepped on the others. “Indonesia Coast Guard. Do not enter Indonesia territory.”

Which navy is supposed to respond? It depends on the ship's precise location. And with a long and bloody history, the responding navies are frequently more concerned with keeping each other out of their sovereign territory than with fighting the pirates.


One of the ten best talent spotters on Authonomy.com called Sailors and Scumbags "great lose yourself in, kick-arse storytelling."

The Lost Treasure of the Fall

In Nomads in the Land of Fire, grizzled old No-nose sets aside his dusty top hat tell the story of the Lost Treasure of the Fall, a fabulous fortune that disappeared when civilization in the American Southwest hit the skids forcing the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco to rush an evacuation of its bullion reserves.

"Water no longer flowed through the city in pipes or sprouted from the parks in fountains. It hadn’t fallen from the sky in a long, long time.

"There wasn’t enough water behind the dams to make electricity, so the lights dimmed. And then they went out.

"There was shooting in the streets and soldiers were dispatched. A whole season came and went and nothing got better. So the Feds decided to move the gold.

"The plane got into the air and the Deep Reserve gold was taken away from San Francisco.”

No-nose waved his hand slowly toward the darkened hills.

"But the plane never landed and no one ever saw it again.”

How much bullion are we talking about on this lost shipment? Well, a C-130 Hercules can haul a maximum of 45,000 pounds or 22.5 tons. Which is 656,000 troy ounces of gold.

A forklift can only lift small bundles of gold, about 3 feet cubed, weighing about a ton each, which would be strapped down along the cargo deck at regular intervals to distribute the weight. This is what our protagonist, Lincoln Idaho, saw in his hallucination.

Today's gold price is $1,134 per ounce. Multiply that times 656,000 troy ounces and you get a value of $743,904,000 or three quarters of a billion dollars. Billion with a "b."

The Lost Treasure of the Fall would buy a lot of weapons for the Blue Hand rebels. If it even exists.

Nomads in the Land of Fire is listed on Authonomy.com. Lose yourself in this great story today.

photo © Gold-Bullion.org

Abuse

photo © Doug Pearce

Mr. Robin is the antagonist in my thriller novel, Nomads in the Land of Fire. Well, one of half a dozen antagonists.

Where to start with Mr. Robin? He’s a real bastard. Let’s start with his twisted relationship with Raven, his best assassin.

Some snippets from my research notes on battered women shine some light on this perverse relationship:

Like a battered child, a battered woman gets a powerful feeling of overwhelming relief when an incident of abuse ends. And she becomes addicted to that feeling. The abuser is the only one who can deliver moments of peace. So the abuser holds the key to her feelings of well-being.

One neat trick is forced teaming, implying he shares some goal with the victim, like they’re in the same boat. This blurs any differences between them, erases her protective boundary and establishes rapport and trust, which he then leverages for himself.

Robin, like all such predators, is charming and apparently a “nice” guy. Not threatening at all. The additional fact that he’s gay means that he is frequently underestimated. You sort of understand him. You want to like him. You just can’t.

The pain helped her focus, he knew, although he pretended not to notice he was hurting her. She was a hell of a weapon, he thought, studying the way she filled out her dress. Long, shapely legs; warm, round breasts; big, brown eyes.

He modulated his voice carefully, for maximum effect.

“Raven, I’m relying on you. I need you. We’re in this together.”

Her voice was like a little girl’s. “I know.”

He released her and watched his pale fingerprints fade from her lovely, brown skin.

"We’re a team, right? You’re my best girl. My best!”

She smiled shyly and tried to look at the ground, but he wrapped his thick fingers around her sunglasses and smoothly pulled them from her face.

The young soldier holding the camels immediately noticed a fading bruise around her eye. He shifted uncomfortably, ignored by them.

Robin’s voice was soothing. “You’re my eyes,” he said, gingerly brushing the backs of his fingers against her bruised eye.

She flinched even though the swelling was mostly gone, thanks to the anti-inflammatory he’d administered after.

“You’re my hands.” He slid his big hands down her bare shoulders and down her arms, gently grasping her long fingers.

He whispered, “Without you, I’d be lost. You know that, don’t you?”

She looked down shyly. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, sir.”

“No, no, no,” he chided tenderly. “Yes, Robin. We’re on the same side.”

“Yes, Robin.”

Mr. Robin is a cannibal with megalomaniacal designs on the US. He plans to take the American Southwest (Cali) away from the military governor, General Kobayashi, before invading American’s vulnerable Midwest with a rebel army of misguided nomads and Mexican drug runners.

Read more about Mr. Robin in Nomads in the Land of Fire on Authonomy.com.

Drones

Drones Deployed Over Los Angeles

L.A. Sherriff's Experimenting with Drones, BBC.com (2006)

"It has a video link that sends data in real time down to our ground station - the operator can then see, in real time, what it's seeing," explains SkySeer inventor Sam De La Torre, from Octatron Inc - a surveillance technology firm.

SkySeer can fly at speeds of 30mph (48 kph) ... at any height. At 250 feet above the ground, it ... is almost invisible. The UAV's ability to hover in virtual silence over an accident or crime scene, without any risk to a pilot, provides both a tactical and economic advantage.

"It has different cameras - colour, low light and even infra-red - and so as a result of that we can even find heat signatures that are coming through the bushes and overhead," says Commander Heal [head of the LASD's technology exploration project].

The developers are working on a so-called cyber command post to enable images to be viewed, anywhere in the word, in real time. ... The police believe it
will be impossible for a suspect to outmanoeuvre the UAV.

"You simply point the camera at him and keep following." Commander Heal is quick to point out that it is not their intention to launch 'big brother' style surveillance operations.

"There's no place in an urban environment that you can go to right now that you're not being looked at with a video camera and you have nothing to fear from your own government - you are being watched by your fellow citizens," he says.

Drones Kill One Dozen Al Qaida Leaders

The Drone Dilemma, Newsweek.com (Today)

A clandestine CIA search-and-destroy program, which launches missile strikes from remotely piloted drone aircraft, has killed more than a dozen senior leaders of Al Qaeda during the last two years.

Among the dead: Abu Khabab al-Masri, reputed to be Al Qaeda's top expert on weapons of mass destruction, and Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the Pakistani Taliban and reputed mastermind of the murder of Benazir Bhutto.

U.S. government spokesmen won't even confirm the program's existence, but a U.S. national-security official—who, like others cited in this article, declined to be named talking about sensitive information—says the program has been so successful that some counterterrorism officials want to expand it. They say the drones have been effective not just in killing terrorists but also in keeping them on the run and disrupting their ability to plan new attacks.

They have asked for authority to target terrorists in more densely populated areas of Pakistan.

The Future of Drones

From my thriller novel, Nomads in the Land of Fire

“Thank you,” Val said solemnly, his eye on a distant spot in the sky to the south.

“Come again?” asked Idaho.

“Back in town. You saved Petty. She’s precious.”

“I was just lucky.”

“We’re all lucky,” Val smirked. “To live in Cali.”

No-nose said the same thing, thought Idaho, back when he’d jumped out of the way of that mountain lion. He rubbed the fresh pink scar tissue surrounding the scab on his arm.

Val, Idaho noticed, was studying something in the distance.

A bird of some kind. Big. But if it was a condor or a vulture, it should be circling lazily on rising thermals. This one was moving in a straight line.

“Thought it was a condor, didn’t you?” Val asked, nodding at the distant shape. Idaho nodded. “Man-made.”

“But unmanned,” answered Val.

The robotic plane, or drone, had a long fuselage with a bulge on top near the front to house the cameras and antennae that linked it to its remote pilot. Twin pods on the tail held the jet engines. As the UAV continued on its course, the plane’s long, straight wings became more distinct.

Nomads in the Land of Fire is seeking representation. The entire manuscript can be read online here at Authonomy.com.

Map of Cali

This is a map of the land of Cali (formerly the US States of California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico, but now the Special Administrative District (SAD).

It's a companion piece to my novel Nomads in the Land of Fire, which is set in the Southwest after the Colorado River runs dry.

This cyclical megadrought, which happened in the past and will happen again, possibly for centuries, could deprive the west not only of water -- destroying our agriculture -- it could also put a dent in our hydroelectric power -- harming our industry and driving away jobs.

With no water for our crops, no power for our homes, and nowhere left to go to work in the morning, what will be left of Cali?

Nomads in the Land of Fire is fiction, but the drying up of the Colorado River is not. The inspiration for Nomads came from Robert Kunzig's article in the February 2008 National Geographic, but you can read it online now at National Geographic.com.

And check out the beautiful (but ominous) photos.

As you follow Val, Idaho, Ilsa, and No-nose across the Mojave toward Salt Lake City (or what's left of it) this map will be your guide. Read Nomads on Authonomy.com. It's currently climbing the charts and is at 1,360 on the hit parade.

Photo © Vincent Lafore

Kali!

This artwork by Neng Yang is my favorite depiction of Kali (and I have collected hundreds). You should check out his other outstanding work, too.

The Hindu goddess, Kali, plays a pivotal role in Nomads.

She makes her first appearance when our protagonist, Lincoln Idaho, after sneaking a nip from a mysterious liquor bottle discovered in shaman Ilsa's saddlebag, finds himself mysteriously yanked from the Cali wasteland and deposited in his favorite Manhattan cafe 3,000 miles away:

Backlit by the boiling atomic sun, her long, black hair swirled like Medusa’s. Her eyes were wild, the edges blood shot, the blue-black irises fully dilated. Thin black eyebrows rose high; nostrils flared wide. Her full-lipped mouth opened impossibly wide, stained red with blood like berry juice dripping from white teeth. Her long tongue dangled over her chin, dripping crimson droplets onto her chest.

She was topless. In Manhattan?

She wore a skirt of sorts. A thick belt of braided gold
encircled her dancing hips, from which dangled the amputated sword-arms of her enemies. Bejeweled with rings, their lifeless fingers dangled between her thighs.

They’ve changed the dress code, Idaho thought. This used to be a family place.

Nomads in the Land of Fire is climbing the charts on Authonomy.com. Read it for free without a membership, or join for free to leave comments and back my book!

Being a "Writer" Means Very Little Writing

I'd say at least half of what I do these days with regard to my writing "career" has nothing really to do with actually writing ... as in staring at a blank page and stringing together words from scratch.

Most of it is marketing. Some of it is learning the business. A little bit is networking and making friends (which is pretty cool). But I haven't started my third novel or begun my short story yet.

I'm not slacking. I'm just working a number of other angles, trying to find a way to storm the gates of the publishing industry.

Angles of attack I'm pursuing:

1) Authonomy.com. It's a great learning environment for how to work the site. But how much relevance will it have to actually getting published? Only time will tell. The top 5 most popular scripts at any given end of the month get sent to HarperCollins to be analyzed for a potential book deal. No guarantees. And the odds of success are probably the same as for the regular approaches (query letters to agents and publishers).

But I love the people I'm meeting there and their work is great to read. (You should check it out. You don't need to be a member to read all the manuscripts or comments.)

But I did have to pull my "Sailors and Scumbags" manuscript from Authonomy because it was competing for popularity with "Nomads" (Formerly "Chaosifornia," "46-Stars," and "Sands of Kali." We'll see what the apogee of "Nomads'" popularity will be and then I'll re-post "Sailors" and market it.

2) In the meantime, I'll start the traditional attack for "Sailors." Finding agents who got similar books (but not too similar) published and approaching them with queries. This information I get from "Writer's Market" which is a thick book published by the same folks who do "Writer's Digest," my favorite writing magazine. Loaded with tips and interviews of people who do this for a living.

3) Going to a convention (at least one) and seeing if I can do my 10-second elevator pitch for real to an actual human who isn't a mirror. Hopefully a human who has something to do with publishing.

"Hello."

"Hello."

"Shooting it out with Presidential mercenaries in a deadly wasteland is
easy. Raising a teenage daughter is hard."

"That's nice. Did you need your parking validated, sir?"

4) Take over the known world and bring all agents to my palace in chains. Can't really tip my hand too much here, because you never know when the NSA is listening.

Well, actually you DO know exactly when the NSA is listening. They're always listening. They're never not listening.

Pirate "Stock Market" Lures Investors

A couple of days ago I pointed out a story about pirates complaining of unfair play during negotiations and using legal terms like "good faith." And I asked the question, "What kind of pirates are these?"

Well today I have my answer.

According to Reuters in the pirate capitol, Haradheere, sea gangs have set up a cooperative to fund their offshore hijackings, forming a quasi-stock market in which locals and foreign nationals can contribute money or weapons in exchange for a return on their investment.

Pirate Stock Exchange (photo: AFP )

The exchange has grown from just 15 'maritime companies' last monsoon season to over 72 now. According to one wealthy former pirate named Mohammed, ten of them have so far been successful at hijacking.

“We've made piracy a community activity.”

Piracy investor Sahra Ibrahim, a 22-year-old divorcee, was lined up with others waiting for her cut of a ransom pay-out after one of the gangs freed a Spanish tuna fishing vessel.

“I am waiting for my share after I contributed a rocket-propelled grenade for the operation,” she said, adding that she got the weapon from her ex-husband in alimony.

“I am really happy and lucky. I have made $75,000 in only 38 days since I joined the 'company'.”

“Let the anti-piracy navies continue their search for us,” enthused Mohammed. “We have no worries because our motto for the job is ‘do or die’.”

Haradheere used to be a small fishing village but is now a bustling town where luxury 4x4 cars owned by the pirates -- and those who bankroll them -- create honking traffic jams along its pot-holed, dusty streets.

According to the story, even the local district gets a percentage of every ransom, which pays for public infrastructure, including the local hospital and public schools.

Pirates Seize 300,000 Ton Prize

In another story by Bloomberg, Somali pirates seized a huge prize on Monday, capturing the Greek-flagged, 300,000-ton, Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) the Maran Centaurus, fully loaded with 2 million barrels of oil.

Neither report indicated what effect the seizure of the Centaurus had on the price of pirate stock.

Maran Centaurus (photo: timesonline.co.uk)

A related excerpt from "Sailors and Scumbags":

When the children saw the prisoners being led ashore they scattered, vanishing down the paths and into the wooden buildings. At the same time Erik saw a woman come out onto one of the driftwood decks. She was thin and proud and beautiful, wearing a long flowered dress. She had the longest, blackest hair he’d ever seen. In her hands a long, white scarf seemed alive, fluttering in the sea breeze.

She stepped halfway down the stairs, searching the faces on the approaching pong-pong for Squirrel’s, knowing that his return would be both a blessing and a curse. She’d seen the big foreign ship approaching the harbor for hours and had been pacing the floor of her little home the entire time.

The pong-pong nosed onto the sandy river bank and a man she hadn’t seen before jumped ashore, tying the boat to a crooked piling. She heard angry shouts and the group of tall white men stood slowly and stepped ashore one by one. They walked with a cowboy gait from spending years at sea with a deck rolling underfoot.

Mega-droughts in Cali's Past (and Future?)

According to a story in today's Modesto Bee, scientists have been sampling stalagmites in caves around California, reading the minerals inside like tree rings, and finding evidence of a 140-year drought that happened around nine centuries ago.

Such a lengthy drought would devastate the Sierra Nevada, one of the state's biggest natural assets, with millions of forested acres. Some animals and vegetation would move to higher elevations, according to the story, while some others might not survive at all.

photo: Bureau of Land Management

The Sierra probably would be even more susceptible to large, intense fires, according to UC Merced wildfire expert, Anthony Westerling. "There could be a sudden and dramatic shift," he said. "Areas that will burn in the Sierra would expand."

In my novel, Nomads, No-nose recalls what it's like to face a fire when there's no one to fight it for a thousand miles in any direction.

"Whole valley went up. Then the next one. And the next one. “Barely got you
all out alive. Rode like hell but the flames just kept coming. Smoke, black as
night, covered the whole sky for days. It was like a damn …” No-nose paused as
understanding dawned “ …eclipse.”

Read more in Chapter 18 of Nomads in the Land of Fire.

Camels in LA

Sketch by Lincoln Idaho.

Excerpt from my apocalyptic thriller, Nomads in the Land of Fire:

A raucous cry overhead announced the passage of a mating pair of bright blue parrots with long, red tail feathers. Other parrots, some green, one a vivid red, were flying in and out of the high-rise ruins.

The nomads pulled their headdresses up around their mouths to block out the streams of sand pouring off the desiccated skyscrapers. The cackling of the parrots was suddenly echoed by No-nose, who began laughing maniacally.

At first, Idaho thought that No-nose was choking or having a heart attack, but Ilsa rode beside him placidly while he bent at the waist, laughing and sputtering and pointing northwest.

Now that the storm was gone, the air had been scoured crystal clear and the visibility was excellent. They looked in that direction and saw on the rounded, brown hills in the distance an icon of the glory days of Los Angeles. Steel letters stripped of their paint stretched along the ridge of one hill.

“Holy wood!” cackled No-nose like a crow. “Holy wood!”

Idaho looked again at the sign. The windstorm had stripped one of the L’s away. Now it read HO LYWOOD and No-Nose was dying of laughter.

“Now it’s holy. It just took killing or exiling every living soul and burying the place in desert sands for forty years to make it holy!”

Read Nomads in the Land of Fire online at Authonomy.com.

Zeppelins Over Cali

My brother sent me this link to a YouTube video.

It was produced by the Los Angeles Times about the Zeppelin airship Eureka flying over Long Beach, California. Yes, she’s an actual Zeppelin made by Zeppelin AG of Germany. Since everyone thinks Hindenburg, they use helium instead of hydrogen, despite the 50% reduction in lift.

This clip has two connections to my books.

1) In my first book, “Nomads,” the evil Feds spy on the heroic nomads from a high altitude stealth airship (excerpt below).

2) If you pause the video at 2:52, the red and black tanker in the center of the frame is my brother’s ship, which is the model for M/V Paine in my second book, “Sailors and Scumbags.”

On a related subject, a burned bottle of Lowenbrau swiped by a firefighter in 1937 from the scene of the Hindenburg disaster was recently auctioned off for $16,000, making it the world's most expensive bottle of beer.

No, you can't drink it. It's expired.

And cooked.

Here's an excerpt of airship dominance over a wild land from "Nomads in the Land of Fire."

A prickly feeling came over Idaho as he studied the map on the screen. The icon for Big Brother 12 was all the way up in Salt Lake. How in the hell could he have seen dust from the explosion?

And a brushfire just ten klicks away.

The radio crackled. “Chato 3, what are all those civvies doing at your position? Over.”

Idaho stared around at Willard’s team, crawling over the wreck like ants. He stopped breathing and his finger hovered above the transmit button.

“Chato 3?” crackled the radio. “Come in, Chato.”

The icon, Idaho suddenly realized, a triangle with a circle in it. Effing stealth blimp!

Idaho looked up and saw that the valley was no longer covered by the brown pall of smoke from the brush fire. The wind had shifted. They were exposed.

“Willard!” he hollered, “We’ve got to cover up this vehicle. Bury these bodies. Get some guys over here and let’s start piling these stones!”

Read the rest of the book online.