Bob Mayer's Blog, page 5

The Last of Us has seen The Last of Me

Spoilers ahead. Intentionally.

I watched the first season and was good with it (liked Fallout a lot better; loved Peripheral but it got canceled for being too smart); until Joel went on his shooting spree. I sort of got that, given his own history, etc etc but still. Pretty unredeemable.

Which the second season starts with as the daughter of the doctor he killed swears vengeance.

I’m not a big fan of revenge as a motive. It takes the person seeking revenge to the level of the person they’re going against. Revenge is different than justice.

So we fast forward five years from the end of Season 1. Ellie is still moping about because on some level she knows Joel lied to her. Joel is moping about because she’s moping about and seeing a therapist because he lied but he won’t even tell the drunk therapist, lying on top of the lie, whose husband we find out he killed, the truth (things, apparently, are complicated). And doc daughter finally makes the trek to Jackson from Seattle. Revenge is a dish best served cold. In the middle of winter. Huh?

I hate stupid and implausible in plot. The timing is both.

I mean seriously? Even driven from Seattle to Jackson Hole? Never mind walked. Getting through the Cascades? Then into the Rockies? Give me a break. I did Winter Warfare Training in the Wasatch in February and, nope, aint buying it. And she’s got a group of people with her whose only investment is their affinity for daughter? They make faces about her brutality but walked all the way there with her and never thought about what she was going to do? Talk about dumb.

Meanwhile they awaken the zombies/whatever who suddenly do a mass assault on Jackson as daughter conveniently captures Joel. I get cause and effect but this was a real stretch in all ways. Suspension of disbelief requires stronger support than this plot had.

The town had some really complicated defenses but, excuse me, couldn’t you have plundered a National Guard armory or two and gotten some M-60s and M-2s? A few .50 cal Ma-Deuces would have made mince meat of those things. Perhaps some artillery? At least some mortars? Why do people after the apocalypse, with a buffet of armaments just sitting there, always arm down? Sort of like when they rejoice in Walking Dead after finding the knife set in the trunk of a car among all the abandoned cars escaping Atlanta. Dude, you could equip and Infantry bn with the weaponry that would be in those cars in real life.

There are moments when a protagonist does an unredeemable act and that’s that. Perhaps that’s why Joel had to die at the end of Episode 2? With Ellie, of course, swearing her own vengeance. So now we’ll have more dumb stuff in the midst of the apocalypse.

I can only follow revenge after revenge so long. I need someone redeemable. I don’t know who that is in The Last of Us.

A Different Kind of Alien Invasion. FREE today

Area 51 Invasion is free from 18 April through 22 April.

While this book is far into the Area 51 series it can be read as a standalone. The Swarm, also known as the Ancient Enemy has found Earth. And is determined to Reap it.

Chthulu, Naga, Kraken, Dragons and other creatures of myth and legend are the invading force. Why are they in our collective subconscious? Has our planet been reaped before?

How can our species survive against a force that destroys all intelligent life it encounters?

Pick up your copy for free and find out!

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Adolescence: A Scary and Mind-Blowing TV Series

First, as a writer, watching an hour-long episode with zero cuts is stunning. I’ve had to watch several videos of how they achieved this, the camera always recording, always moving and following the story. I’m still wrapping my brain around what was done here. Simply outstanding.

It strikes me that what makes this different from other television by doing that is the immediacy. Because there are no cuts, it feels real. There is no editing. What you see is what plays out. It’s almost reality tv. It’s as if you are participating in the story. Which is what’s intended because the story is something that is every  parent’s worst nightmare. A child accused of murder.

This is not a who-done-it. It’s a why-done-it. Episode 3 is one of the finest episodes of television ever done and kudos to the actor and actress at the center of it. Owen Cooper is chilling in his debut role. And Erin Doherty as the psychologist is superb. You have to listen very carefully as she digs into his psyche and the moment he lapses in his denial almost passes unnoticed but in retrospect is glaring.

The series also focuses on the effect on the family of the perpetrator. Anyone who is a parent will relate to episode 4.

I’m not qualified to get into the psychology of the story, but it does show how a certain type of person will deny the most horrific things to the very end, no matter the cost to those around them. How their entire psyche is designed to protect themselves no matter who else it hurts. Most apropos for our current situation in the United States.

The Conclusion of the Rocky Start series published today!

The climactic book of the Rocky Start series, The Honey Pot Plot, is live today in ebook on all platforms (paperback tomorrow, audio in May).

This is our 9th collaboration. Nothing but good times ahead as we are currently arguing about our next series, which tentatively is about art crime. Or aliens. Or zombies. Something.

Some other books for sale today, including one that got me an angry letter from someone at the Association of Graduates at West Point about a military coup: The Line, which is free today.

Thanks to all our readers and spread the word!

Nothing but good times ahead.

Bob

Money Can’t Buy Happiness, But Can It Buy Survival? What the Rich Get Wrong

I “what if” for a living.

What makes Special Forces elite is our planning before the actual mission. Planning for all possible contingencies, on top of the actual mission. I did it as an A-Team leader, as a battalion operations officer responsible for deploying 15 A-teams around the world, and as an instructor/writer for many years at the JFK Special Warfare School, which also runs the SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) school.

I’ve applied those experiences as a bestselling writer in multiple genres in fiction, including thrillers, historical and science fiction and in nonfiction writing with my Green Beret Preparation and Survival Guide as well as my Disaster books. In the former I’m looking forward to possible disasters; in the latter I look back at past catastrophes and dissect them for the cascade events that caused them and examine how similar disasters can be prevented in the future.

I constantly study and examine how many different types of people have been preparing for what the rich call the ‘event’. The ‘event’ is a breakdown of civilization.

Those preparing for the ‘event’ range from the person in the remote already living off the grid, to hard-core bunker preppers, to those plunking down billions/millions of dollars for their exclusive estates in places like New Zealand or the isolation of Montana or buying ‘condos’ in survival silos.

One of the problems when approaching the ‘event’ is that it could be many things. Frankly, a key event is going on all around us right now as the climate changes. We are experiencing survival situations right now as a byproduct of that from wildfires to stronger and more frequent hurricanes to persistent drought to flooding and more.

Thus, the first thing I teach is to conduct an Area Study. Every person and group need to examine their situation, beginning with themselves and expanding outward. For example, in my survival book I cover dealing with a house fire (which odds are you will experience at some level) well before learning how to make a fire for survival out in the woods (have a lighter?)

Thus, the rich make the same mistake most do: they’re focused on the end game and miss the more likely, dangerous events in their everyday life, such as stalking (aka Gavin DeBecker’s Gift of Fear), a natural disaster or even health issues that are ignored or the dangers in their various mansions.

I’ve put a lot of thought and war-gaming into various scenarios for the rich because of some of my fiction. I’ll discuss more of these in other blogs, but one of the first that comes up is security in case of the ‘event’. The moment you establish a static position, you become a target. Thus, one must consider how to protect that position. Hiring guards raises many issues. Money will be worthless after the ‘event’. So, what are you offering? A place in the survival site? But why then is the no-longer-rich person in a better position than the security? Can you buy loyalty? With what? How long will it last? Does your security have family they will have a higher loyalty/love for?

I have an exponential rule of security: the more you need, the less likely you will have it.

There are ways around this, but one thing I’ve learned is that the rich didn’t get that way by giving things away. As I noted, each person’s situation is different so there is no one answer solves all.

For the rest of us? Get prepared now for the more likely occurrences and even for the event. Start small. Build from there.

A thriller set in New York City in 1977. FREE

I remember this summer. So I wrote about it. New York Minute is the first book in the Will Kane Green Beret series. He’s sort of a realistic Jack Reacher, flaws and all. But he gets things done.

N ew York Minute.

As usual there are other good deals on my freebies page, including the first book in the original Green Beret series featuring Dave Riley, with the second discounted to .99. And Psychic Warrior based on a real program we conducted in 10th Special Forces.

Nothing but good times ahead.

The Green Beret Pocket Sized Survival Guide Is FREE

From today through the 24th. It’s a good resource to download to your cell phone and have on hand in case of emergency or disaster. On my FREEBIES page.

As usual there are other deals today, but I wanted to get this out there so people have an opportunity to take advantage.

Stay warm!

Bob

Valentines Day Special! Two Crusie-Mayer First in Series Free and Discounted

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The first books in our two new series are on sale today. Lavender’s Blue is free for the first time ever until the 18th and Rocky Start is a Kindle Daily Deal today only at .99. Both are, of course, in Kindle Unlimited if you prefer going that route (and we get paid a pittance, which is always nice).

As always there are other deals on my freebies page, including Lost Girls and Ides of March for free. Shane and the Hitwoman, the sequel to Agnes and the Hitman is $2.49 and Kindle Unlimited all month.

The Honey Pot Plot will be out before the end of the month. I’ll be updating the preorder date to reflect that as soon as I get it back from the editor this weekend.

My checklist for key documents to put in a lockbox and scan and upload securely in case you have to evacuate went viral on social media. It’s actually Task #29 in my Preparation and Survival Guide, so it might be good idea to get the guide and walk through the tasks to get ready. Too many people are finding out they aren’t prepared when it’s too late, after the fact. I wrote this book for those who are confused by all the conflicting advice out there.

Stay warm and stay safe!

Bob

Life After Life: A Review. Book and Series

I really enjoyed the book, Like After Life, by Kate Atkinson. We didn’t know a mini-series had been made out of it but found it by randomly searching on Amazon Prime.

Essentially, the story is about a woman, Ursula, who experiences, you guessed it, life after life. At first she dies in childbirth, umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. Then each life progresses, each time ending in death.

While she doesn’t clearly remember each life, she has dreams about them, and at times takes steps to prevent the deaths, such as when the maid goes to the WWI victory celebration and comes back infected by the Spanish Flu that kills Ursula. In another life is kills not just her, but her siblings.

It can be a little confusing and I see that the book reviews indicate that. The concept of life after life is hard to grasp but an intriguing on to contemplate. If you can live your life over, what would you do different? Would it make a difference?

One key to both book and series is it shows how random life is. How the smallest thing, like a slip on the sidewalk can completely alter your life.

Even with four episodes, the miniseries leaves a lot of the book out.

The show, and the book, provide no clear answers. But it does make you ask questions. Ones that we all need to answer for ourselves. After all, what is the meaning of our life?

American Primeval: A Review of History Garbled in Transmission

We binged American Primeval yesterday and while it had its good moments, it left a bad taste in our mouths. Yes, spoilers ahead, but also understand some of the show is loosely, very loosely, based on actual history, one of them a key event I incorporated in my own work of fiction.

The show has a couple of storylines which do not interact with each. A woman and child on the run from the law who get aided by a reclusive mountain man on a nebulous mission to link up with the boy’s father on the other side of the Wasatch. And the battle over land between Mormons, Native Americans, the US Government and, in a good role, Jim Bridger.

People have remarked on how brutal the show is, but the interesting thing is their faint recreation of the Mountain Meadows Massacre (they refer to it only as the “Meadows Massacre”) is not anywhere near as brutal as the actual event. The real event was indeed a massacre, when emigrants who had surrendered to the Mormons and were guaranteed safe passage, were slaughtered. Here they go down fighting. Sort of. It seems no one, not a wagon train, not the US Army, not people on the run, ever thinks of posting guards.

I used the Mountain Meadows Massacre as one of the storylines in my Time Patrol book, Nine-Eleven, having it occur on 11 September 1857, which is the day the actual massacre took place after a couple of days of negotiation and standoff.

As far as I know there was no massacre of US Troops by Mormons. The ultimate result of the massacre in history was years later, after the distraction of the Civil War, the Mormons gave up one man as a scapegoat and he was executed.

Anyway, it’s fiction. Back to the story. There were several logic inconsistencies that felt like editing mistakes. Things were cut and then we were left with stuff that didn’t make sense. Like the party tracking the woman and kid suddenly increasing in size. The wolves busting into the cabin but leaving the horses alone?

The wound recovery in this show put modern medicine to shame. I’ve had ingrown toenails that hobbled me more than arrow and gunshot wounds in this show. Compound fracture of the leg that goes gangrenous? Just stick a hot knife on it. What? That kid was walking like no problem a day after getting it set. The mountain man’s two wounds disappeared after a poultice is applied. Toes are chopped off with a shovel and the guys not even limping the next day. And on and on.

There was also the constantly shifting terrain. I know one story took place on the high plains and the other in the Wasatch Mountains, but it was snowing, not snowing. Day in one scene, night in the next, day in the next all on the same day sort of?  In one scene, I swear the road to a convenient cabin was plowed. I’ve parachuted into the Wasatch in January on Winter Warfare training with 10th Special Forces and I kept shaking my head as I watched them supposedly go through it.

The bad taste? Frankly, the ending sucked. In one storyline everyone dies. I mean everyone. Except Jim Bridger. And the history around him was a bit flaky too. In the other storyline instead of a HEA we got a half-HEA while everyone kind of sucks. There was no need to kill off the Taylor Kitsch character.

Overall, it felt like an attempt to capture Larry McMurtry’s west, which is brutal and hard and unforgiving, without the character and story touch of his genius. I didn’t really care about any of the characters. Pretty much everyone, except Jim Bridger (played very well by Shea Whigham), made stupid moves. There were several good scenes, some great dialogue at times through the series and if the ending had worked, it would have been acceptable.

There was also a message that resonated about faith and hope and religion that could have really worked. It was just undercut by not giving the viewer character pay-off. Death is not a good pay-off.