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Sam Foster

Goodreads Author

Born

in Amarillo, Texas, The United States

Genre

Historical Fiction, Fiction, Suspense

Influences

Homer, Renault, Michener, Clavell, Pressfield, Cornwell

Member Since

October 2020

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My ancestral home is a dying little port on the Illinois River. But my father was, as the ‘80s country song tells, “The next of kin to the wayward wind.” One result being that until I came to Los Angeles for college, I’d never lived for more than two years in the same place in my entire life. That was in 1962. My intention at the time was to become a vet, to drive around country roads in a pick-up truck and do for farm animals what the farmers could not do themselves. But my inability to pass organic chemistry and my draft boards clear statement that I had only 8 semesters of deferment before “going into the pool” changed my major to history.
When I was graduated I, like every other man who was graduated that year, had a choice for my gradu My ancestral home is a dying little port on the Illinois River. But my father was, as the ‘80s country song tells, “The next of kin to the wayward wind.” One result being that until I came to Los Angeles for college, I’d never lived for more than two years in the same place in my entire life. That was in 1962. My intention at the time was to become a vet, to drive around country roads in a pick-up truck and do for farm animals what the farmers could not do themselves. But my inability to pass organic chemistry and my draft boards clear statement that I had only 8 semesters of deferment before “going into the pool” changed my major to history.
When I was graduated I, like every other man who was graduated that year, had a choice for my graduation trip - Canada or Vietnam. My antipathy to cold weather and a little of Socrates wisdom picked up in college caused me to select the latter. So, my first job out of college was with the U.S.M.C. A few years later I was honorably discharged after 5 months in a Naval Hospital but body and spirit mostly intact.
I’ve always been a story teller, but at 24 I was not willing to “starve for art” and wanted disparately to find stability. So, I married, moved back to Los Angeles and dove into corporate America. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-forties and a divorced father of two with a house and a little money that I was brave enough to indulge my creative impulses. I’m not entirely my father’s son. I’ve got the “wayward wind” gene but mine is recessive. Aside from a year in Washington DC and a few years in New York City I’ve lived at the beach in Los Angeles my entire life. That “wayward wind” gene I inherited just makes me travel a lot, not pick up and move.
The stories I’ve always liked best have more than a plot and a couple of memorable characters, they also introduce me to an entire world I do not know. I write about things I know just so I can show you worlds you may not. My first book was about a business hustle and set in Los Angeles. My second was about the U.S.M.C. during the Vietnam era. (It is more about race in America in the 60s than killing Vietnamese.) But this story, the one that led you open this webpage and bio, is about the American I grew up with and know well, whose history I understand perhaps better than it’s present, and whom I will love until I die.
I had a friend who died a few years ago, one whose name you may have heard. It was Al Sparlis. Al was U.C.L.A.’s first football All American. He was 185# center on the 1941-42 & ‘45 teams. Al flew in three American wars. He flew with Chennault in China; he flew in Korea and was one of only 7 pilots in his squadron to come back alive; when he volunteered again during Vietnam, they told him he was to old. Al could be very forceful. They gave in and let him fly soldiers back and forth to Hawaii – live ones going over and dead ones coming back. I tell you about Al because he once said something that struck me as so profound, I’ve never forgotten it. “The measure of a man is the things he’s willing to die for.”
My stories are about the things in America men, and women, are, if not willing to die for, at very least risk all for.
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Sam Foster's Blog

Why Agave Americana Books

The Agave Americana is commonly known as a Century Plant. It is so called because myth has it the plant blooms once a century. During the other ninety-nine years it is about the most resilient thing growing on hillsides in the Mojave Desert around Southern California. Its leaves lie low to the ground, extend as much as six feet in length, with the width of broadswords, and edged with inch-long spi Read more of this blog post »

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Published on November 16, 2021 13:20

Combine Editions
Sam Foster’s books

Average rating: 4.0 · 80 ratings · 13 reviews · 6 distinct works • Similar authors

	A Panther Crosses Over (The American Trilogy #1) 4.22 avg rating — 27 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Alpha Male: A Tale of the Battle of Commerce 3.38 avg rating — 26 ratings — published 2002 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Beardstown (The American Trilogy #2) 4.36 avg rating — 14 ratings — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Non Semper Fidelis 4.33 avg rating — 6 ratings — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	American Pied Piper (The American Triology #3) 4.33 avg rating — 6 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	American Pied Piper (The American Triology #3) it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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The American Triology (3 books)
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A Panther Crosses Over

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Apr 15, 2022 05:05PM

Quotes by Sam Foster (?)

“As a writer of historic fiction I feel little obligation to the precision of the facts, but I do feel a very strong obligation to the accuracy of the historic narrative.”
― Sam Foster, A Panther Crosses Over

tags: historic-fiction

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