Posted on 02/04/2012 9:10:25 AM PST by Travis McGee
Over the last two weeks I've totally overhauled and revamped my website, especially the home page and author page.
The last step was adding this bit, which I hope you will find worthwhile reading.
What the books are about, and why I wrote them:
I began writing Enemies Foreign And Domestic in 2000, after too many years of watching our constitutional republic morphing into a police state. These novels, based upon nearly a half century of carefully studying historical patterns, are my attempt to shine a light forward in time. My goal is to warn my compatriots that we are inescapably losing our freedom, one step at a time.
The Muslim terror attacks on 9-11 kicked the process into high gear. But instead of new laws targeting our actual enemies--radical Islamists bent on the global spread of their Sharia Law nightmare--the new police powers were aimed equally at all Americans. Projecting forward, the inevitable outcome will be to turn the United States into a dictatorship--the USSA, if you will.
The federal government, under the rubric of fighting a generalized terror threat, has for many years been providing local police departments with high-grade military weapons, equipment and training. The quid-pro-quo for this federal largesse is unquestioning local cooperation with federal law enforcement agencies, turning thousands of local police SWAT teams into force multipliers for burgeoning federal police power. In the name of fighting a murky and undefined "war on terror," we have allowed the creation of a militarized national police force, something which our Founding Fathers explicitly warned us against and tried their best to prevent.
During the same period, our debt-based economy has nearly reached the bitter end of the road. It is only a matter of time until America experiences an economic crisis on the level of what is currently taking place in Greece, or even far worse. If and when federal entitlements, food stamp payments, housing allotments and all the rest are curtailed, I believe our major urban areas will explode in riots beyond anything America experienced in the 1960s. This will cause a breakdown in the national distribution of food, fuel and other commodities necessary to sustain life. At that point, some form of martial law will be put into effect, and our newly-militarized national police forces, along with active-duty military units, will be called upon to "restore order." In so doing, the last nails will be hammered into the coffin containing our legacy of American freedom.
Obviously, I don't desire to see this happen, but if such an outcome is preordained, I want at least to provide a beacon into the future. My goal is to provide my readers with some alternatives that will be less horrible than the worst-case scenarios, which otherwise shall be arrived at by chance and happenstance.
This is why I prefer to write what I call semi-dystopian novels, set in the near future. The post-apocalyptic genre has been beaten to death, and life in the rubble at a bare survival level provides few practical lessons. To me, the slide is more instructive than the post-collapse period. The often-repeated historical process of economic collapse and the loss of freedom is what interests me the most, and that is why I am driven to write these novels. I hope that you enjoy them, and that you gain some insights which might prove of value during the tumultuous years ahead.
Baen Free Library:
http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm
Discussion is on the “Home” page (by Eric Flint).
Thanks for that link!
>>>print was too small<<<
Maybe it’s a poor question (my eyes are still functional if fading) but have you ever tried those page magnifiers? A kind of sheet that you lay on the page?
I hope there’s something out there. It’s a heckuva thing to lose some of that freedom to read.
I have one of those. The good news is I have cataracts. I had surgery on one eye Friday and can already see better in it. (Now I can see dust and cobwebs.) Will have the other one done within a week or two. I think I may need only reading glasses soon.
Great essay on free books driving paid book sales. Thanks. I’m almost convinced to put my first novel out of four on Kindle for free or for .99 cents, at least for a while. But not until I’ve updated all of my contact lists, so I can prepare the beach landing site a bit in advance.
The only thing that concerns me now is the actual formatting of the article and the cover art. I'm not too good at the latter although I know you can use the standard Kindle art for this. I would prefer something with crossed checkered flags.
You are welcome!
My Kindle is jostling my arm as I type this, it’s not on the charger, but it’s next to the cell phone, which is, so I won’t forget to take it in the morning.
I’ve got 6 pages on the listing of titles, one of which is Castigo Cay, on it.. so far. But Castigo Cay was the first book I got for it, other than some historial stuff, like the Declaration, the Constitution, Federalist and anti-federalist papers, etc.
The most recent is a reference book on C++, which I need to study, having failed a test on the subject miserably. Just Rusty though. Using C++, I built an AWACS radar simulation, and a process to make up to 8 ground radars look to the rest of the traing system as if their “hits” came from a single AWACS. They use ground radars for controller training at the schoolhouse where the training system is installed.
I do take a charging cable when I travel, but only because the Kindle uses the same cable as my cell phone. But I can charge from the USB port(s) on my computer, or in the car I have two chargers, and I charge on the go. But not often do I need to charge the Kindle.
I find all the “gift” copies of his novels at gunshows, thety are NIB (new in box) condition, and are not, for the most part marked up from the original asking price per unit...
The last release was available for the Kindle user crowd...The previous series is not...As far as I know...
I still like to keep these in hardcopy form anyway...They look good on the bookshelf...And they get a lot of attention...I’ll lone them out, or outright give them away so others can be entertained, and informed, and best yet, make up their own minds about the issues being dealt with in these novels...
I can’t help you with Kindle art, that’s for sure. I think JPGs are standard fare for uploading to Kindle. So anything you can swipe, alter (hiding the origins), and convert to a JPG should be good to go.
My cells take totally different chargers, so I don’t even bother taking the white Kindle charging cable on trips of 2 weeks or less. It’s never run out of juice, no matter how much I use it for 2 weeks.
All of my 4 novels are on Kindle now. Over the course of 2011, my Kindle sales have stabilized at about equal to my dead tree books.
Ahhhh, good to know...I’ll tell the only member of the familia who is a Kindle user to get the first series now...He’ll be very pleased...
The only “gadget” I’ll be looking at this year will be the Panasonic “ToughPad”...I should be able to get a “reader” app with that thing I believe...They should be out on the market in the next few months...
You can drop those things from 4 feet into water and it should keep right on ticking...
Well, water is pretty soft. How about dropping it 4’ onto a curb?
I fergot the “and” part...It is of course something I might not test when I get one...But its good to know they say it’ll take a little more punishment than the average “Pad” device...
Okay. I sort of have a gif ready but would you recommend converting to jpeg?
That's beyond my area of knowledge.
I think it’s smart to buy a tough one. If I was designing a tough pad, I’d want rugged grommets or links at each corner, for attaching lanyards or bungie cords for when you want hands-free access.
One of these days I’m going to google, “Open Heart Surgery For Amateurs.” It’s ALL there!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.