F.C. Schaefer's Blog

The Korean conflict of 1975. An excerpt from WORLD WAR NIXON.

In my novel, WORLD WAR NIXON: An Alternate History of the 1970s, I ask what would have happened if President Richard Nixon had gotten away with Watergate, and had not been forced to resign ahead of being impeached. It is also a world where Chairman Mao dies before there could be an opening to China, radically altering the course of the Cold War. The story is told in the form of an oral history, one where many characters caught up in the turmoil of an alternative world where history took a much different course than the one we know. In this excerpt, a young enlistee in the United States Army, Timothy Reilly, suddenly finds himself about to be caught up in a war he didn’t see coming. Joining the army right out of high school because jobs were scarce and he needed a steady paycheck to support a new wife, Timothy thought that with Vietnam over, he would have an easy gig in a peacetime military. Then a potential conflict between the Soviet Union and China spills over into the Korean peninsula, and American forces are rushed across the Pacific to the Philippines in advance of deploying to defend South Korea. What Timothy doesn’t count on is Richard Nixon, and his ambition to end the Cold War once and for all, even if that includes throwing guys like Timothy into a very hot war by coming to the aid of a sworn enemy. In the excerpt below, Timothy, while waiting for deployment in the Philippines, learns that he is not in the peacetime army anymore.


An excerpt from WORLD WAR NIXON:

We had been baking in the heat of Clark Field for exactly one week and a day when the whole battalion crowded into a hangar at 0900 hours on a Friday to hear President Nixon speak live from the White House. We expected him to announce the commencement of military operations in defense of South Korea, but that was not what we heard. “The United States and the Soviet Union will stand together in the face of Chinese aggression,” were the words of the President which came through the loudspeakers in that sweltering hanger on that morning. He went on to add, “Therefore, American forces will commence immediate ground operations on the Korean Peninsula in concert with troops of the Soviet Union with the objective of driving back the Chinese and restoring peace to that land.” He went on to explain how Air Force and Naval units of the United States stationed in Japan and Okinawa would join their Russian counterparts in the western Pacific in supporting this effort. General Alexander Haig, whom I had never heard of, was being immediately dispatched to assume command in South Korea. The President further added that American and Soviet troops were on their way to Iraq, presumably to take sides in that war. Lucky for us, the Marines got the honor of putting boots on the ground in the Middle East. There was some more stuff about how American and Russian naval vessels were going to confront Chinese ships on the sea before the President ended with, “The coming days and weeks will be hard, and sacrifices will be made, but they will be worth it, if when peace is restored, it ushers in a new era of harmony, not just between the superpowers, but between all nations and peoples.”

A lot of us looked at each other when the President’s speech was done—the Russians were on our side? We thought we were going in there to fight to protect the people of South Korea. And this General Haig, we were told, had been commanding a desk at the State Department for the past few years, none of which inspired confidence.

Whatever doubts we had, there would be no time to ponder them. The next day, a battalion of the 1st Cavalry Division crossed the DMZ and began pushing northward toward the Russians, who were cut off from their beachhead at the port of Wonsan. They came under fire almost right away from Chinese MiGs, and the battle was on. Just to make things even more interesting, four more Chinese divisions crossed over from Manchuria to the North. We didn’t know it, but between the Americans and Russians on the peninsula, the Chinese outnumbered us nearly two to one.


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Get started on my horror trilogy at BIG CRIMSON 1: THERE'S A NEW VAMPIRE IN TOWN, found on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/3GsBh2E
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My alternate history novel ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964 can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m
and on Smashwords at: http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH

My other alternate history novel, BEATING PLOWSHARES INTO SWORD: An Alternate History of the Vietnam War, can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/12RMOT5
and on Draft2Digital at: https://bit.ly/1iuzXXf

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The President meets with the North Vietnamese face-to-face in the Kremlin. An excerpt from WORLD WAR NIXON.

In my novel, WORLD WAR NIXON: An Alternate History of the 1970s, I ask what would have happened if President Richard Nixon had gotten away with Watergate, and had not been forced to resign ahead of being impeached. It is also a world where Chairman Mao dies before there could be an opening to China, radically altering the course of the Cold War. The story is told in the form of an oral history, one where many characters caught up in the turmoil of an alternative world where history took a much different course than the one we know. In this excerpt, President Nixon is in Moscow for a summit with the Soviet leadership in September of 1972 in order to finalize a nuclear arms control agreement. But behind the scenes, a clandestine meeting in the Kremlin between Nixon and the leadership of North Vietnam has been arranged with Soviet foreign minister Andre Gromyko presiding. They hope to find a way to end the stalemated Vietnam War.


An excerpt (told from Nixon’s POV) from WORLD WAR NIXON:

I wanted peace in Vietnam with honor, not peace at any price. That is what the Democrats would have settled for, even though they were the ones responsible for the war in the first place. I replied to Brezhnev that I would hear the North Vietnamese out but nothing more. For over a year at the talks in Paris, they had been demanding a complete American withdrawal from Vietnam and the elimination of the Thieu government in Saigon, which was to be replaced with one that included the Viet Cong (the South Vietnamese Communists), as a prelude to reunifying the country presumably under Hanoi’s rule. They flat out refused to discuss the return of our brave POWs until these demands were met. While they were refusing to budge even one inch at the negotiation table, the North had invaded the South with a force of over 60,000 troops in April of ‘72, an offensive which required an equally tough response on our part, as wave after wave of bombers pounded the North on a daily basis.

That was where things stood on our third day in Moscow when I went to meet with the North Vietnamese delegation in the great hall of the Kremlin. I was accompanied by Kissinger and his aide, General Alexander Haig, among others. Though there had been no intelligence before arriving in Moscow as to who from Hanoi we might be meeting with, upon arriving, word got to us that Pham Van Dong, the North Vietnamese Prime Minister, was in the city. That was who greeted us upon arriving in the great hall; Pham was one of the late Ho Chi Minh’s most devoted followers and was known to be a hardline Communist. He and a half dozen of his fellow members of the North Vietnamese Politburo were seated at a table in the middle of the immense hall, all of them dressed in the same drab khaki uniform popular among Communist leaders in Asia. None of them stood when we entered, nor so much as allowed even the hint of a smile on their faces, acknowledging our arrival with only the slightest nod and a stony expression. We were shown seats at a table facing Pham and his delegation. About 20 feet separated us, and just off to the side was a much smaller table; sitting at it was Gromyko, playing the role of host.

Once we took our seats at the table, Gromyko spoke, welcoming both sides and saying it was in the interests of peace that the Soviet Union had asked the North to send a delegation to the summit and stressing that perhaps a meeting like this one, held behind closed doors, unseen by the prying eyes of those who do not share a desire to see the war end, could surely help the cause of peace. I immediately took notice that Gromyko left out the usual Communist boiler plate about the solidarity of socialist countries or a mention of the Soviets’ support of their brave allies in the North. He actually sounded sincere.

Since there was no itinerary, I spoke up as soon as Gromyko was finished, saying that though there was nothing that would cause America to waver in its support for the free people of South Vietnam, I had come to this meeting with an open mind, ready to listen and take part in any honest discussion that might end the war, which had gone on far too long at the cost of far too many lives. In effect, I was saying, I’m listening, Premier Pham; the ball is in your court.


Order WORLD WAR NIXON now at: https://amzn.to/45HEw34

Get started on my horror trilogy at BIG CRIMSON 1: THERE'S A NEW VAMPIRE IN TOWN, found on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/3GsBh2E
and on Smashwords at: https://bit.ly/3kIfrAb

My alternate history novel ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964 can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m
and on Smashwords at: http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH

My other alternate history novel, BEATING PLOWSHARES INTO SWORD: An Alternate History of the Vietnam War, can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/12RMOT5
and on Draft2Digital at: https://bit.ly/1iuzXXf

Find CADEN IS COMING: A Southern Vampire Epic on Wattpad at: https://w.tt/3ESmQXK

Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
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A "black bag job" man explains himself. An excerpt from WORLD WAR NIXON: An Alternate History of the 1970s.

In my novel, WORLD WAR NIXON: An Alternate History of the 1970s, I ask what would have happened if President Richard Nixon had gotten away with Watergate, and had not been forced to resign ahead of being impeached. It is also a world where Chairman Mao dies before there could be an opening to China, radically altering the course of the Cold War. The story is told in the form of an oral history, one where many characters caught up in the turmoil of an alternative world where history took a much different course than the one we know. In this excerpt, William Harlan Brady, a veteran of political espionage and “black bag” jobs is introduced to the reader when he details his back story, and why the Nixon White House would want to hire him during the 1972 Presidential campaign.



An excerpt from WORLD WAR NIXON:

How did I end up in a fancy suite in the Watergate complex on the first evening in August of 1972? By being willing to step forward and do the hard jobs, or shit jobs, a lot of others went out of their way to avoid. Like jumping out of a plane and landing behind North Korean lines when I was only 20 years old in 1953 or working for army intelligence in West Germany a few years later, where I slipped through the Iron Curtin in Berlin and spent 62 days gathering information on Warsaw Pact forces, all of which I committed to memory since my commanding officer thought it much too risky for me to carry any radio equipment because they didn’t want to risk having any of their technology fall into the hands of the KGB. I was thankful to the army for providing me with a place to live after my father divorced my mother and my new stepfather evicted me from the Marion, Indiana, home she owned the day after their marriage, but I didn't want to turn it into a career. I left the service in 1957, intent on making some real money, and as it turned out, the Central Intelligence Agency was paying well for people with my experience. No, I was never officially a Company man because I lacked the Ivy League pedigree necessary to get ahead in their little club. I was more of a gun for hire, and if I can’t go into specific detail as to what I did to earn a paycheck, let’s just say I saw the inside of many cargo planes flying back and forth across the Pacific in the late ‘50s. My last work for Langley took me to Cuba during Castro’s first year, an operation that ended when a boat was sunk out from under me in Cuban waters, and I very nearly ended up spending time in one of Fidel’s prisons.

That close call convinced me to seek other, less risky work. My next job was for a private investigator named Vance Harlow, a former FBI agent who worked in the Miami field office. Harlow also worked for the Senate Investigations Committee, where he made the acquaintance of Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts and his brother, Robert, the committee’s counsel. I thought I knew a thing or two, but I learned a lot from Harlow, especially about surveillance and black bag jobs and about how to make connections. His clients ranged from Howard Hughes to the Hollywood studios, insurance companies, and the Big Three in Detroit, but Harlow’s most consistently lucrative clients came from the political world, starting with the Kennedy brothers. Harlow once told me how, right after the Missile Crisis, he proposed to Bobby Kennedy a plan that would have guaranteed Castro’s removal before the ‘64 election.

I said it was a shame Bobby didn’t go for it, and Harlow replied, “Who says he didn’t go for it; sometimes things just don’t work out.”

I never could get him to tell me the whole story.

Most of my work from the mid 60’s was in the field of what is politely called “opposition research.” This meant that I was hired by political campaigns to get the dirt on their opponents, usually on a cash-only basis, as the candidate’s manager didn’t want any direct link to me in case things went south on my end. Picking locks and wall safes, opening mail and photographing documents, taking pictures of married men leaving motel rooms after spending time with a woman most definitely not their wife—that’s just the stuff I can talk about. I had a lot of meetings in parking lots in the wee hours of the morning where I handed over a stuffed envelope to some political operative who handed me one stuffed with hundred-dollar bills in return. Harlow got out of this side of the business after 1964, handing it off to me, and my name had a good reputation among Democrats running for state-wide office during the LBJ years.

But things got lean after 1968. It seems that after Bobby Kennedy was killed and Lyndon Johnson went back to Texas, there weren’t as many Democrats who wanted to play hardball anymore. I made some good money from the growers and ranchers out in California, giving them the lowdown on what the United Farm Workers were up to, which mainly meant screwing over some poor guy who just wanted to make more money so he could take care of his family. It was not my proudest moment, but I was married by then to a woman I’d met in the Philippines, and we had two small children, so I had bills to pay.



Order WORLD WAR NIXON now at: https://amzn.to/45HEw34

Get started on my horror trilogy at BIG CRIMSON 1: THERE'S A NEW VAMPIRE IN TOWN, found on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/3GsBh2E
and on Smashwords at: https://bit.ly/3kIfrAb

My alternate history novel ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964 can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m
and on Smashwords at: http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH

My other alternate history novel, BEATING PLOWSHARES INTO SWORD: An Alternate History of the Vietnam War, can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/12RMOT5
and on Draft2Digital at: https://bit.ly/1iuzXXf

Find CADEN IS COMING: A Southern Vampire Epic on Wattpad at: https://w.tt/3ESmQXK

Visit my Goodreads author's page at:
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Richard Nixon gives the orders. An excerpt from WORLD WAR NIXON.

In my novel, WORLD WAR NIXON: An Alternate History of the 1970s, I ask what would have happened if President Richard Nixon had gotten away with Watergate, and had not been forced to resign ahead of being impeached. It is also a world where Chairman Mao dies before there could be an opening to China, radically altering the course of the Cold War. The story is told in the form of an oral history, one where many characters caught up in the turmoil of an alternative world where history took a much different course than the one we know. In this excerpt, Nixon’s Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman, recalls a conversation between him, the President, and John Erlichman, another member of Nixon’s inner circle, where the President made very clear what he expected from his campaign to win re-election in 1972.

An excerpt from WORLD WAR NIXON:

“I know all too well the mistakes of the past,” the President continued, “They are not going to be repeated in ‘72. We are going to have to run again with the albatross of Vietnam around our necks, and it’s going to be pure hell, but they’re not going to do to me what they did to LBJ. They think they are, but this time is going to be different. This time, I’m fighting back, and there will be no mercy, no punches pulled. We’re going to be two steps ahead of them all the way. Let those sons of bitches know what it’s like to be smeared for once. Let them be exposed for taking Communist money. Let’s show the liberal hypocrisy for the world to see and prove once and for all where their union and Communist support come from. The big media, the Cronkites, and that bunch in bed with the Democratic Party are not going to ram some peacenik Vietnam sellout down the throat of America. They hate me, and I’m going to make them watch me win. Raise the money, spend the money, buy whoever it takes, we know where it can be gotten. Take off the gloves and get down and dirty; that means whatever they’ve gotten away with in the past, we’re going to do it ten times over in this election. There’s too much on the line not to do it. And when I say gloves off, I mean gloves off. When it’s over, they’re going to know they were in the biggest fucking fight of their lives, and they lost to Richard Nixon.”

We had our orders, Erlichman and me, and within 24 hours, we passed on the Chief’s commands to the people who would lay the groundwork for the coming campaign. In meetings with John Dean, who had succeeded Erlichman in the job of White House Counsel a year earlier, and Jeb Stuart Magruder, the head of the Committee to re-elect the President, we laid it on that the President expected everyone to take the “gloves off.” Ultimately, that might have been a poor choice of words, but it was what the President commanded, and it was our job to make it happen. Erlichman had hired Bud Krogh earlier that year to take care of internal security leaks in the administration, and he had put together a team that went after Ellsberg over the summer. Jokingly, this group called themselves “the Plumbers;” now their operations were folded into the CRP. Charles Colson, whose job title was Special Counsel to the President but who had proven himself very effective in handling political matters for the White House, was ordered to sit in on meetings of the CRP as well. There was some friction there, as Colson, a tough operator from Boston, had a low opinion of Magruder’s talents. No matter, the message we sent down the ranks was to get the job done and beat the Democrats and their Viet Cong loving allies in the streets at their own game. The President expected results, and he was not going to be disappointed.



Order WORLD WAR NIXON now at: https://amzn.to/45HEw34

Get started on my horror trilogy at BIG CRIMSON 1: THERE'S A NEW VAMPIRE IN TOWN, found on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/3GsBh2E
and on Smashwords at: https://bit.ly/3kIfrAb

My alternate history novel ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964 can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m
and on Smashwords at: http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH

Find CADEN IS COMING: A Southern Vampire Epic on Wattpad at: https://w.tt/3ESmQXK

My alternate history of the Vietnam War, BEATING PLOWSHARES INTO SWORDS, can be found on Amazon at: amzn.to/12RMOT5

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https://bit.ly/47dOR5N

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An alternate history Nixon speaks. WORLD WAR NIXON, an excerpt.

In my novel, WORLD WAR NIXON: An Alternate History of the 1970s, I ask what would have happened if President Richard Nixon had gotten away with Watergate, and had not been forced to resign ahead of being impeached. It is also a world where Chairman Mao dies before there could be an opening to China, radically altering the course of the Cold War. The story is told in the form of an oral history, one where many characters caught up in the turmoil of an alternative world where history took a much different course than the one we know. Below are the opening lines, where Richard Nixon himself, speaks.

An excerpt from WORLD WAR NIXON:

I am proud of the enemies I made during my many years in public life, and though they tried mightily to defeat and destroy me, they did not succeed, not even when they put me on trial for murder.

Who were my enemies? Too many to list by name in this space, but they could be found among the tenured professors at any Ivy League university. They were the so-called journalists who sat in front of the cameras for the big networks or pecked away at typewriters in the newsrooms of more than a few big city daily papers or weekly periodicals. They stalked the halls of Congress, many of them members of the Democratic Party, but far too many could be found among my fellow Republicans. They were the sons of rich men who had everything handed to them, contemptuous of those who had to struggle and work hard, those who made something of themselves by their own sweat and talent. They were the so-called intellectuals, smug in their disdain for their “inferiors.” They were the spoiled youth who spat upon brave soldiers returning home from an honorable war, who hurled obscenities at true patriots, who whined and complained and never appreciated the sacrifices of and advantages given them by the generations of true patriots who came before them.

They hated me because I wasn’t one of them, because I did not need them, but most of all, because my triumphs proved that the millions of good Americans who placed their trust in me did not need them either. They showered me with their sneers and insults, and not just me. Their ire was directed at Pat as well, along with Tricia and Julie. None of us were spared.

But Harvard professors and dirty, long-haired kids were not my worst enemies, not by a long shot. The worst by far were the men I trusted, the men to whom I opened the doors of power, who I thought shared my vision of a better America, for peace with honor in Southeast Asia, for an end to the endless tensions of the Cold War, and wanted to help me achieve those things, and who then betrayed me.

They were the worst.

They struck at me in the hour of my greatest triumph, a moment when America and the Soviet Union had found common ground at last after decades of rivalry that could have at any moment exploded into a nuclear conflagration that would have ended civilization. A golden future of peace and cooperation was at hand, and my enemies shattered it all; such was their hate for me.

How did it all come to pass?

I’ve written about my time in the White House in great detail, and I have read what others have written, too, especially Stephen Ambrose and David McCullough; their door stopper tomes couldn’t be more wrong in their assessment of my actions. But both men point to the fall of 1971 when my fortunes took a turn, specifically when our outreach to Communist China fell apart.

Order WORLD WAR NIXON now at: https://amzn.to/45HEw34

Get started on my horror trilogy at BIG CRIMSON 1: THERE'S A NEW VAMPIRE IN TOWN, found on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/3GsBh2E
and on Smashwords at: https://bit.ly/3kIfrAb

My alternate history novel ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964 can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m
and on Smashwords at: http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH

Find CADEN IS COMING: A Southern Vampire Epic on Wattpad at: https://w.tt/3ESmQXK

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A werewolf novel that lacks one important thing.

Having enjoyed Catherine Jinks’s THE REFORMED VAMPIRE SUPPORT GROUP, I was looking forward to reading its immediate sequel, THE ABUSED WEREWOLF RESCUE GROUP. Jinks, a native of Australia, sets her fiction there, and it is an interesting change of location for a YA supernatural series. As is plain from the title, the first book centered on blood suckers, but in this book, they are not the charismatic immortals of so many other novels, not to mention the silver screen, but instead are victims of a wasting disease that makes them weak while still craving blood and being unable to go out in sunlight. Never growing any older was about the only perk of being a vampire, and characters in SUPPORT GROUP were presented as a bunch of miserable misfits, estranged from the society around them. In the course of the story, these vampires are forced to become heroes when they help rescue, Rueben, a young werewolf from a group of thugs who have kidnapped him to fight other werewolves in an underground lair as if they were pit bulls. The characters were well drawn, and you rooted for them when the going got tough.

The central character of the sequel is Toby, a thirteen-year-old kid who wakes up one morning naked in a dingo enclosure at the local zoo with no memory of the night before or how he got there. After doctors can find no medical reason for why Toby ended where he did, he is approached by Reuben and a Catholic priest who explain that Toby, who was adopted, is a werewolf. In Jinks’ book, lycanthropy is not passed from a bite, but is a genetic condition, passed down to the unlucky seventh son, which manifests itself at puberty. Of course, Toby and his mother do not believe this for a moment, but things take a turn when the werewolf nappers turn up again, and snatch Toby. He finds himself stuck in the outback with another werewolf boy, and it is Reuben and some familiar faces from the vampire support group to the rescue, along with another older werewolf who is far from right in the head. But as it turns out, too many werewolves do not mix well with vampires, and things take a turn.

Judging from what some of the other reviewers wrote, I liked THE ABUSED WEREWOLF RESCUE GROUP better than most, but with some big reservations. Jinks has a style and knows how to make characters stand out as Rueben, Danny, Toby’s mother, and Estella, all had distinct voices and personalities. I even liked Fergus, Toby’s hyper precocious best friend, and Sergio, the anxiety ridden fellow teenage werewolf he finds himself imprisoned with in the Outback, these two often being found annoying to the point of ruining the book by other reviewers. Some readers just can’t deal with ill-behaved characters on the page, much less in real life, but I thought they added to the story. Boys that age do act stupid, make poor decisions, and can cause a lot of trouble for themselves and others, and in that, THE ABUSED WEREWOLF RESCUE GROUP is pretty much on the mark. The story is told through Toby’s first person POV, and at times, he does come across as something of a doormat for a kid, but that might have been to move the book along.

The biggest reservation I have with this book is that it is a werewolf story, but all the transformations happen off page, and that just doesn’t work. A transformation scene is an essential component of any good werewolf book or film, just think of THE HOWLING or AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON when considering the latter. We need that moment when teeth become fangs, fingers become claws, ears become pointed, clothes rip and split apart at the seams as the body they cover changes from human to beast, all while hair sprouts and grows everywhere. And when its all done, a monster howls in the night for blood. That’s how you do it. I know this is a YA book, and can only get but so graphic, but to ditch the best part of the story just feels so unnecessary.

Anyway, aside from that very big disappointment, I liked most of THE ABUSED WEREWOLF RESCUE GROUP, and wish Catherine Jinks had continued with this series, it had potential.

Get started on my horror trilogy at BIG CRIMSON 1: THERE'S A NEW VAMPIRE IN TOWN, found on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/3GsBh2E
and on Smashwords at: https://bit.ly/3kIfrAb

My alternate history novel ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964 can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m
and on Smashwords at: http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH

Find CADEN IS COMING: A Southern Vampire Epic on Wattpad at: https://w.tt/3ESmQXK

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EMPIRE OF THE VAMPIRE: it literally puts the "dark" in dark fantasy.

I like a good vampire story, same for dark fantasy, or almost any fantasy for that matter, and because it appeared to be a mashup of a couple of genres I read, Jay Kristoff’s EMPIRE OF THE VAMPIRE ended up under my Christmas tree last year. It also helped that the book came highly recommended by some people whose opinions I value. And I am not afraid of a lengthy tome, as this book comes in at more than 700 pages (for my paperback). It certainly could have been edited down to quite a few pages less, but like many fantasy writers, Kristoff does like to build his world extensively.

One definite thing about EMPIRE OF THE VAMPIRE is that it literally puts the “dark” in dark fantasy, as it is set in a European medieval style society where there has not been a sunrise in 27 years, as the direct daylight has been blocked by a permanent cloud cover, the reason why is only speculated at, but many believe is supernatural in origin, and thus requiring a supernatural salvation. In this world, vampires are free to go about uninhibited by nature, and are waging a war against humanity, one that the latter is slowly losing. The main character is Gabriel de Leon, a silversaint, making him a member of a holy brotherhood dedicated to fighting the blood suckers. These silversaints are recruited from the offspring of vampire fathers and human women, and possess some of the traits of the former, including a desire for mortal blood. Give Kristoff credit for tweaking the vampire myth in a way that adds something to his story. The book is told through two parallel stories, one through the eyes of a teenage Gabriel as he enters the brotherhood as a novice and has to prove himself to some very tough mentors, while also meeting Astrid, who will be the love of his life, this despite a rule against silversaints marrying and carrying on their cursed bloodline. The second story is told by an older Gabriel, who has been kicked out of the order for getting Astrid pregnant and then marrying her, as he seeks to protect a character named Dior, who just might be the Holy Grail that will end the permanent twilight. Kristoff borrows from Anne Rice here, in that the story is framed by Gabriel as he tells both tales to Jean-Francois Chastain, a vampire historian after Gabriel has been taken prisoner.

I liked this book a lot, as I am a sucker (pun intended) for a good vampire story, and though I pointed out that Kristoff is wordy in his world building, he does a good job of it. There is a lot of cut and paste from medieval history and other fantasy novels, but it feels pretty seamless. The land where most of the action takes place in is clearly modeled on France (a lot of French names and terms are used), and there is a state religion modeled very closely on Christianity. Kristoff liberally borrows a lot of fantasy tropes, including the young novice who must endure a lot of rough treatment from his mentors and a bullying fellow novice as well (shades of Harry Potter), and a forbidden library filled with ancient books and scrolls where knowledge vital to the hero’s origin might be found. There is a mystery in the main character’s background: who is the vampire that fathered Gabriel? Throw in a couple of plot twists and a Big Reveal or two and you have a story. Kristoff makes his vampires very menacing, something essential to making this kind of horror novel work. Danton Voss and his sister, Laure, are monsters right out of a great nightmare, and their father, Fabien, is even worse. His appearance in the book, which constitutes a major scene, is a master class in horror writing. My favorite part of the story is when a young Gabriel has to gather a makeshift army of nuns, monks, and blacksmiths to throw back an invading vampire army coming through an unguarded mountain pass. It’s another fantasy trope, but done very well.

A number of reviewers online have taken Kristoff to task for his language and for what they consider to be his misogyny toward his female characters. I think some of them are being way overly sensitive, while others just have an agenda against certain types of storytelling, mainly having to do with the “male gaze.” They are certainly entitled to their opinion, but I think Kristoff was trying to create a gritty and down and dirty world modeled very closely on medieval history much in the manner of George R.R. Martin and his GAME OF THRONES. And in that real world, as in the fantasy one, women, to put it mildly, often did not get treated well. As it is, EMPIRE OF THE VAMPIRE may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but also, that is how it should be. This fantasy and horror fan certainly enjoyed it, and because it is the first book in a trilogy, I am looking forward to finishing the series.


My latest book, WORLD WAR NIXON: An Alternate History of the 1970s, is available on Amazon at https://amzn.to/45HEw34

Get started on my horror trilogy at BIG CRIMSON 1: THERE'S A NEW VAMPIRE IN TOWN, found on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/3GsBh2E
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My alternate history novel ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964 can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m
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Stephen King's THE LONG WALK on page and screen.

As a die-hard Constant Reader of Stephen King, a copy of THE BACHMAN BOOKS has long had a prized place on my bookshelf. That compilation of his best works published under the pen name of Richard Bachman had some pretty hardcore stories in it, but maybe the most hardcore was THE LONG WALK, a dystopian tale set in an America where it is implied that WWII lasted into the 1960s, and the country sustained such damage that martial law was declared and the military took over. It’s an America where young men compete in an endurance marathon, created to raise national morale and productivity, where the winner is literally the last man standing. Because the economy is in a permanent depression and with opportunities so meager, the youth of the country gladly take a 100 to 1 shot at winning the prize: having any wish granted by the government, not to mention unlimited wealth. This “long walk” has become a national event, with crowds gathered by the side of the highway to cheer on the young walkers, and to be there to watch when one of them fails to maintain the minimum speed of four mph, does not resume it after two warnings, and then gets a bullet to the head on the spot by way of one of the accompanying soldiers, riding along beside them in a personal carrier. King’s book, written in the late’60s while a college student, and published in 1979, is very much a thing of the Vietnam era, with its images of young men sent to be slaughtered by their own military after being selected in a lottery, while a complicit public watched. King clearly wrote this story when the My Lai massacre and Kent State were still fresh memories.

So nearly a half century later, we get a film adaptation of THE LONG WALK, directed by Frances Lawrence, who also directed some of the HUNGER GAMES adaptations. There are a number of changes from the book, mainly that the walking speed is reduced to three mph rather than four, which is understandable since the latter is nearly jogging speed, and the actors wouldn’t be able to act, they’d just run. And the number of participants has been lowered to 50, a change no doubt dictated by the film’s budget. Gone also are the crowds that lined the highway in the book because that would have meant hiring a bunch of extras. That takes away an aspect of the story from the book that played well: the bloodlust and complicity of the average citizen in a state sanctioned act of barbarism. But the film also adds some things missing from King’s original story that really makes THE LONG WALK worth seeing, namely the bonding and deep friendships that form between these young men while they walk along together as their bodies begin to tire, cramp up, and break down as mile after mile passes, and one by one, their numbers grow less. Stephen King has a well-deserved reputation for writing horror, but has proven himself quite able to create stories built around deep friendships, see STAND BY ME and THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION as examples. Not to mention an ability to create believable and sympathetic young characters. I really got invested in Ray Garraty and Peter McVries, along with Stebbins and Barkovich and Hank Olson, and genuinely feared for them, knowing that in the end, only one could possibly survive. Give great credit to Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Garrett Wareing, Charlie Plummer, and Ben Wang for giving terrific performances. Make no mistake, this is still a brutal film, with extremely violent and disturbing deaths, and it also touches on the more gross aspects of King’s story dealing with what happens when you have to perform a bodily function but can’t stop walking and lack the privacy to do it. Also like the story, the film is vague about what exactly transpired to create this American dystopia, alluding to a destructive war 19 years in the past. The automobiles used in the film resemble those we see in reruns of the Andy Griffith Show, so it could be assumed that a limited nuclear war occurred in the early or mid-60s, and the events of the film take place in a very alternate 1980s America. One of the major changes the film makes from the book is the ending. As far as the book was concerned, I think King came up with a great premise, but didn’t know how to end it. The film version’s climax is an improvement, though not everyone will agree. And Mark Hamill as The Major, the military dictator who presides over the race, is allowed to overact in the extreme, something he has a penchant to do. At least Hamill comes off better here than in his last appearance as Luke Skywalker.

I’ve always been a sucker for a story where most of the characters are taken out one by one, like AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, SAHARA, or PREDATOR, and I would count THE LONG WALK as firmly in that sub-genre. I think the producers were correct to keep the budget low as possible, as THE LONG WALK surely remains a hard sell to many audiences, thus limiting its commercial appeal. Unlike Kubrick’s THE SHINING, Tobe Hooper’s made-for-TV miniseries SALEM’S LOT, or Frank Darabont’s THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, the film made from THE LONG WALK will likely not make it to the top of anyone’s list of favorite Stephen King films. But like MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE (which I like, but acknowledge that THE LONG WALK is superior to), it’s surely destined to find an audience beyond the movie theater. It has a heart that wasn’t there on the page of King’s book, and I think it will connect.

My latest book, WORLD WAR NIXON: An Alternate History of the 1970s, is available on Amazon at https://amzn.to/45HEw34

Get started on my horror trilogy at BIG CRIMSON 1: THERE'S A NEW VAMPIRE IN TOWN, found on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/3GsBh2E
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James Gunn's Superman: My review.

I always try and avoid early reviews for superhero and comic book films, preferring to go in cold and without any preconceived notions. That is what I did for James Gunn’s eagerly awaited reboot of the SUPERMAN franchise, and I’m glad I did. I liked Gunn’s work on the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY franchise, but a little less so for THE SUICIDE SQUAD, and I will hand Gunn this, he knows how to make a comic book film, often fully embracing the goofiness of the Silver Age of comics. His films aren’t grim and gritty, nor are they comments on what a burden it is to be a super hero, or what a curse it is to have super powers. He may deal with serious themes, but he never lets us forget that being a super human, or a metahuman in the DC universe, can be a lot of fun. James Gunn knows why we read comics.

What I liked about SUPERMAN:

As far as I’m concerned, the best thing Gunn does is that the film jumps right into the middle of a DCU where super heroes and super villains are common place, and totally dispenses with the origin story. Clark Kent already works at The Daily Planet, and Lois Lane is already Superman’s girlfriend with full knowledge of his alter ego as a reporter. Other heroes like Guy Gardner’s Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and Mister Terrific, exist and fight giant monsters, or whatever super menace that rears its head. This is how you do it.

David Corenswet is an excellent Superman, and a very good Clark Kent (who is not in the story that much), even if Gunn did write a few scenes early on that make him look whiny. Corenswet makes a good guy interesting, not always easy to do. Rachel Brosnahan is a worthy successor to the other great actresses who have played Lois Lane. Lois is smart and tough, but she is not turned into another insufferable girl boss who is smarter than everyone else. That’s become a tired cliché.

A good comic book movie rises and falls on its Big Bad, and Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor more than fills the bill. This Luthor, an insecure and megalomaniacal tech billionaire (sound familiar?), is truly evil. A petty man out to destroy a heroic and brave one because he can never be the latter is a good take on one of comic’s most famous and durable villains. This Luthor has a particularly cunning and cruel plan to enrich himself at so many others’ expense, and there is not a trace of Gene Hackman’s wily used car salesman persona in Hoult’s performance, and that is a good thing. Hackman was fine in his day, but Hoult’s performance is thoroughly grounded in the here and the now, and his comeback to Superman in the finale confrontation is a great villain’s justification. Too many bad guys turn out to be misunderstood, or victims of trauma, and it has become a tired trope.

James Gunn has a real knack for taking C-list characters and making them stars in his films. That is what he did in GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY and THE SUICIDE SQUAD, and he does it again here with Nathan Fillon’s Guy Gardner, Edi Gathegi as Mr. Terrific, and Anthony Carrigan as Metamorpho, and Maria Gabriela de Faria as The Engineer. It’s a case of putting the right actor in the right part, and letting them shine onscreen. Gathegi nearly steals every scene he is in, and Fillon is just right for playing Guy Gardner as the jerk he is in the comics. And Skyler Gisondo is a standout as Jimmy Olsen, who in this film, has a more important role in the story than just comic relief.

Somehow, they made Krypto, the Super Dog, work in this story, he’s one of the best things in the movie.

The pacing, for the most part, is pretty good, except for some static scenes early on, such as when Lois “interviews” Superman. That scene veers uncomfortably close to cringe inducing. The film is a brisk two hours and some small change, and the throw the viewer into the deep end at the start works well. Gunn, who wrote the screenplay, keeps things moving, and builds momentum by letting us know Lex Luthor’s devious plan, and why Superman is particularly vulnerable to it. And the film really delivers on the action, whether it is super heroes fighting a kaiju, or Superman throwing down with Luthor’s Raptors in the sky. We want to see Superman throwing down and using all of his power and might against a super threat, that is really what we buy are tickets to see. Superman has that in spades in the third act, and again, that is how you do a comic book film.

But there are some things that didn’t work for me in James Gunn’s SUPERMAN:

A clone? Really? I don’t have as big a problem with that trope as some, but it feels hacky to go there this early in the reboot. Supergirl? Sorry, but she has always been a lame character as far as I’m concerned. Wendell Pierce, a good actor, has too little to do as Perry White. It has been pointed out by others that Neva Howell, who plays Ma Kent, sounds like a character on Hee-Haw, and I have to agree.

But the biggest problem with this new SUPERMAN is the tweaking Gunn did to the back story of Jor El, played by Bradley Cooper in a cameo. This really goes against the grain set down by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster way back in 1938, and I think longtime Superman fans are really going to have a problem with it. For me, it is not as egregious as that scene in MAN OF STEEL where Clark Kent stands back and lets his father die in a tornado (though he clearly had enough time to rescue him), but it feels so unnecessary here. I kept expecting it to be corrected in the finale, but it never happens.

Is this Superman too “woke?” Well, he is if you are a supporter of Vladimir Putin type tyrants, as one of the secondary villains clearly is modeled on, or who believe the future belongs to techno billionaires with God complexes, and the fate of the rest of humanity is to live in their shadows.

We’ve come a long way since Richard Donner directed Christopher Reeve in that truly awesome first big screen appearance of Superman. That film is justifiably legendary, and beloved. And the road since then has often been filled with contention and disappointment. It is too early to tell where James Gunn’s interpretation falls, but my first impression is very positive. Where should the series go from here if there happens to be a sequel leading to a franchise reboot? How about tackling Braniac and the shrunken city of Kandor, it’s never been done on the big screen before, and I’d like to see James Gunn try his hand at it.

Get started on my horror trilogy at BIG CRIMSON 1: THERE'S A NEW VAMPIRE IN TOWN, found on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/3GsBh2E
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My alternate history novel ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964 can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m
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It's The Stand Lite, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I am a sucker for a good apocalyptic end of civilization story, and I’ve been known to enjoy a YA book or two even if I am very far outside their target demographic. That is why I picked up Erik J. Brown’s ALL THAT’S LEFT IN THE WORLD. The story is set in an America ravaged by a super flu virus that has wiped out most of the population. This is a pretty standard dystopian trope, probably best executed by Stephen King in his legendary epic horror novel, THE STAND, which, incidentally, is one of my favorite books of all time. ALL THAT’S LEFT IN THE WORLD is pretty PG-13 compared to that classic, no surprise since it is a YA novel, and I did not expect the grim and gritty horror of King’s work, or that of Justin Cronin’s THE PASSAGE. But one thing Brown’s book and those others have in common is that they center the story on the survivors and their attempt to navigate in a world where everything has changed, and where they must struggle to stay alive after life has lost much of its value.

Brown’s protagonists are Andrew and Jamie, two teenage boys who have somehow survived an apocalyptic pandemic and have been thrown together. The book starts out in New England and then follows them on a journey south in search of other survivors and safety. Andrew and Jamie are basically good kids who have lost everyone closest to them, and have had to do what was necessary to survive, especially Andrew, who feels particular guilt over some actions he had to take to defend himself from other survivors. Andrew is gay, and immediately feels an attraction to Jamie, who is a little slower to come around to his feelings for Andrew. Theirs is a very slow burn romance at the start, even though there is no longer a society or authority to disapprove of their mutual feelings. That is until the two boys encounter a community of survivors in the Carolinas that have some very definite ideas on how civilization should be rebuilt. A desperate situation forces the truth to be spoken out loud at last.

Romances, gay or otherwise, are usually not my thing, but I enjoyed this book a lot. I thought Brown’s take on an apocalyptic pandemic rang pretty true, stating that it took many months for the super flu to completely decimate America. In his notes, Brown states that he wrote most of the book before covid, and only slightly touched up the story before publication after the worst of the pandemic had passed. But some things, like a character commenting that the government didn’t take the virus seriously early enough at first and insisted that life go on as normal even as the infection rates and deaths increased, sound very similar to some bad history we all lived through. The book is told through the POVs of the two main characters, with each chapter alternating between Andrew and Jamie. It’s a good device for the reader to get to know, and to come to like the both of them, they prove to be good company for the duration. I give Brown credit for knowing the I-95 corridor of the east coast very well, and gets a lot of details and locations right. He knows how to raise the stakes appropriately, and get us invested in the fates of his protagonists. And he does know the tropes of this genre well. As any long time fan of THE WALKING DEAD knows, beware of any community of survivors that appear too good to be true, and in this book that is the people of Fort Caroline, who do appear to be heavy with MAGA types, though Brown wisely doesn’t get too deep into contemporary politics. One of the things I would fault Brown for is that he simply lets his antagonists lose interest at one point, and just give up and go home after pursuing Andrew and Jamie nearly to Florida. Did Brown not have a more compelling way to resolve a tense plot development? Stephen King would have settled for nothing less than a bloodbath, and for that reason I’m calling this book THE STAND LITE.

But that is fine for a YA novel, I didn’t expect anything otherwise. Andrew and Jamie’s romance remains pretty chaste for the most part. No doubt Moms for Liberty would hate this book, but no one is making them read it anyway. ALL THAT’S LEFT IN THE WORLD satisfied my expectations, exceeding them in a lot of ways, and there is a sequel titled, THE ONLY LIGHT LEFT BURNING, which I will definitely check out to see what happens next to Andrew and Jamie.

Get started on my horror trilogy at BIG CRIMSON 1: THERE'S A NEW VAMPIRE IN TOWN, found on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/3GsBh2E
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My alternate history novel ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964 can be found on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/2jVkW9m
and on Smashwords at: http://bit.ly/2kAoiAH

Find CADEN IS COMING: A Southern Vampire Epic on Wattpad at: https://w.tt/3ESmQXK

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