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HELLO FROM THE AUTHOR! Since you evidently read all the way through my third novel of The Retreads, I guess I didn't piss you off too much.
This series wasn't originally meant to be a series. Hell & Gone was written with the intention of getting it traditionally published, because that was the only game in town at the time. I wrote it as a stand-alone novel and assumed it would remain such. Plus, I killed off all but five characters. But over time I was convinced I should write a sequel, and Tier Zero was a lot of fun—partly because I knew from the start it was not going to be traditionally published, so I need not kowtow to the thought police of the industry.
That realization has sunk in a little deeper now, so I wrote this novel in a way that guaranteed it could never be published if every book was still filtered through the gatekeepers of the New York Publishing Cartel. Or any gatekeepers anywhere, for that matter. As the recent controversy over science fiction's Hugo awards have shown, sooner or later every governing body in the arts comes under the iron-fisted control of left-wing tyrants who not only suppress the work of any who disagree with them, but throw quite a tantrum when their monopoly is threatened.
So as you can tell, I'm moving these characters through a genre transition, now. Whereas False Flag is speculative fiction with a dystopian flavor, I anticipate a sequel that is full-blown TEOTWAWKI. But I don't plan on writing a survival manual disguised as a novel—that's been done, and personally I'd rather read one or the other, not a fusion of the two.
A technical note: back in the day, during a cross-M.O.S. bull session, a helicopter crew chief informed me with authoritative confidence that a chopper can be brought down with a rock. (And during my first years at Fort Bragg there was an epidemic of fatal Blackhawk crashes. This was during peacetime conditions—no hostile fire contributed to the disasters. We grunts came to call the UH60 “the CrashHawk.”)
While it is true that the tail rotor is the Achilles' heel of a helicopter, bringing one down is not as easy as the crew chief made it sound. So while it may be improbable that two choppers could be brought down as depicted in this novel (one by rifle fire), it's far from impossible.
[Begin mini-rant.]
And isn't reading about exceptional individuals accomplishing improbable feats a keystone of enjoyable adventure fiction? Wasn't our victory in the American Revolution rather improbable? Wasn't it improbable that the mighty and hitherto undefeated Japanese Navy, in the span of a couple minutes at Midway, would be struck a blow it could never recover from? Both fiction and real life would be unbearably depressing if what is probable didn't get pushed around once in a while.
[End of mini-rant.]
If you liked this book, please consider leaving a review. It would be greatly appreciated, could help me write an even better next installment, and your insights will help other readers decide whether this book is for them or not.
Here's one of the reviews I received for this novel:
If you took out the extended political and poorly disguised racial ranting you would barely have a short story. Good enough for the preachers choir but hardly good story telling. It's no wonder the author couldn't get a real publisher to touch his work...Tom Clancy has nothing to fear!
Individuals like this are 50X more likely to leave reviews than folks who actually appreciate the story False Flag tells. If satisfied readers were to make their voices heard, cheap shots like the one above would have little impact.
Oh yeah: visit www.virtualpulp.net where I blog about twice weekly on average. I post reviews of movies and books, report on sports, current events, and spout off about politics.
Thank-you for reading.
Henry Brown
