Shameless Self-Promotion

What’s the point of having a website if you can’t use it to sell your shit? With that in mind, I hereby announce that my second book, The Blasted Lands, is now available in the Kindle store for $3.99 in the U.S., and adjusted in other markets.

The Blasted Lands is a follow-up to last year’s Impact Winter, a sci-fi novel where the earth has been enshrouded in ejecta from a meteorite impact in northern Canada. This latest novel is a standalone tale, not a direct sequel to the first, but it does take place in the same area of central Pennsylvania, and features some of the same characters.

In writing this book and the one before, I did my best to imagine what would happen to the land and the people after a significant impact. What would the seismic effects be? How much damage would the air blast do? And what about the most lasting effect; the dust flung into the stratosphere, blocking out all light from the sun for an extended period? There are no good answers as to what would befall civilization were an event like this to take place.

In this novel, some time has passed since the impact, and dusky light has managed to penetrate the shroud, giving the land an eerie countenance. Edward Gray and his small group have weathered the worst of the collapse of society and government, and are now, like other survivors, preparing for the time when the sun will shine once more. They have claimed a small farm in rural Pennsylvania and have set about readying house and field. But, a land with no laws can snatch away plans and dreams without warning. Edward and his people learn that lesson, much to their hardship.

Check it out.

Oval Office Thunderdome: George Pataki Has a Shot

Former Governor of New York George Pataki has announced that he is running for the 2016 Republican nomination for president. He joins a pretty crowded field (the Wikipedia page on the GOP candidates is fascinating). His name recognition isn’t great, and it’s been nine years since he last held public office. At first glance, there isn’t a lot to separate Pataki from all the other candidates whose polling hovers in the low single digits. But there is one big thing. He’s not an arch conservative. He hasn’t spent the entire Obama administration blasting anything and everything the president has done, nor has he spent much time pandering to the nut job base of the Republican Party. He hasn’t pegged gay marriage to natural disasters, called the Constitution the word of God, or questioned whether or not the military is going to invade Texas. In short, he doesn’t have nearly as much baggage as someone like Ted Cruz or Mike Huckabee. Continue readingOval Office Thunderdome: George Pataki Has a Shot”