Stephen R. Cox's Blog
October 6, 2015
COPAN: MILES FROM NOWHERE
I’m a spy
In Copan, Oklahoma.
I don’t know why,
I’m like a carcinoma.
Love and Loss,
I write it down,
No matter the cost
Or if we drown
All over again,
A painful déjà vu
Of our first sin
When our souls did slew.
I’m a spy,
In the past I dwell.
I’m like a die
Cast into a well.
I’m a spy.
In the 1960s, Copan was a tiny, rustic speck in the great cultural landscape of our country. It was like Earth compared to the galaxy, or the galaxy compared to the universe. Its insignificance in the scheme of everything was so great that it’s almost unimaginable. Yet the very thread on which the universe spins ran straight through that place and it was there that great truths were discovered and it was there that the depths of loss were plumbed.
Excerpt
Linda was an attractive, freckle-faced woman with a voluptuous body and an appetite for Wild Turkey whiskey. She and Gene would often bring a bottle into the station and we would all proceed to get smashed, drinking it straight, washing it down with 7-Up. And when we did this she would be downing twice as much as everyone else, repeating that she loved the stuff because it “doesn’t take your breath away like cheap whiskey.” When she appeared at the screen door the day I was performing collection duties for Al, she looked like she had been drinking the stuff that does take your breath away for the past several days. Her already full face was puffy and tired, her eyes were bloodshot and jaundiced, and her short, sandy hair was matted and oily. She was wearing very short cutoff jeans with the top button missing and a stained T-shirt stretched tight over her large breasts. I could see her nipples beneath the thin cotton.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“Albert sent me to pick up the check,” I answered, using Albert instead of Al since it was the form of his name they always used. “He said he called.”
“I didn’t talk to him.” Linda picked a package of Winstons up from a cluttered table next to the door and shook one out. She pulled a lighter out of the front pocket of her shorts and lit the cigarette, inhaled deeply, then blew a thick stream of smoke out of the corner of her mouth.
“I’m just doing what Al asked me to,” I said, feeling strangely awkward and uncomfortable as she took another drag on her cigarette and French inhaled, opening her mouth slightly and drawing the white smoke up and into her flared nostrils.
She then did something that caught me so off guard I could only stand there and stare while my mind tried to comprehend what my eyes were seeing. Using one hand she grabbed the front of her shirt and slowly pulled it up until her protruding brown nipples were completely exposed and staring me in the face. I was stunned, scared and transfixed by her unexpected move and remember the tan areolas covered nearly the entire front of each breast.
Once before, when I was maybe eleven, I had seen a woman do this same thing and, at the time, I had no idea what it meant. I was tagging along with my brother and Bobby Campbell at a parking lot carnival in Bartlesville. We were playing the ten cent crane games, the little cable-operated buckets you tried to maneuver by cranking a loose knob on the front of the glass case in usually failed attempts to win worthless treasure such as toothpick holders shaped like cowboy boots, miniature spy cameras that used a film you had to mail to a place in New Jersey to get developed, and pocket radios that looked like transistors, but were really only cheap crystals – the kind that used no batteries and could only be heard through an ear piece. It was getting late in the afternoon and Bobby was supposed to be home at a certain time. None of us had a watch so he asked the woman running the cranes, “Excuse me lady, do you have the time?”
Without hesitating, the woman, who I only remember as being red headed and wearing, what else? a T-shirt, bent over the row of cranes and lifted it up, briefly exposing smallish breasts that were covered with freckles. “I’ve got the time if you’ve got the money,” she said.
Bobby turned to my brother, his mouth open and his face screwed into a big dumb question mark. It was probably the same expression I had on my face as I stood there in front of the Drumheart’s screen door.
Linda took another drag on the cigarette and this time blew the smoke through the screen into my face. “Gene’s not here,” she said. “Want to come in and wait for him?” Her breasts were still exposed, the shirt lewdly hooked over the top of her fleshy orbs in an erotically trashy manner.
THE CANCER CLUB
Having been diagnosed with prostate cancer, Ridley is recruited by the Club through a renowned cancer treatment center in Virginia. It is there that he is told his cancer is untreatable. The pitch is: do something worthwhile with the short time you have left — do something meaningful for your country. After giving up all he owns and severing all ties, including those with a woman he’d planned to marry, Ridley joins the group whose members are sent on high-risk, often one-way missions to take out selected targets in the United States’ global war on terror.
In the meantime, the Lions of the Jihad, a sophisticated Islamic terrorist organization with a sleeper cell in New York City, moves forward with a plan to detonate a powerful and highly radioactive dirty bomb near the Hell Gate section of the East River. This pending disaster looms large when Ridley discovers the Cancer Club carries its own malignancy, one that makes all other CIA-run black operations look like child’s play.
Excerpt
The Osprey began dropping like an out-of-control elevator as Ridley staggered toward the opening at the back of the airplane. He felt light on his feet and grabbed a stabilizing arm of the ramp with his left hand. Reaching down, he gripped the M-4 and pressed its selector switch to semi-auto with his thumb. The aircraft bottomed out causing Ridley’s knees to buckle slightly and once again they were just above the surface of the water, the grey stream jetting out behind and below as if he were standing on the stern of a speedboat. The rotors of the Osprey were roiling the blowing snow up on either side of the aircraft and it snaked behind them like corkscrews.
“Lower,” Qualls said.
“If I get any lower the blades are going to be in the water,” Mario answered, his voice stretched wire-tight.
Ridley felt numb, out of it, and he forced himself to focus. For a moment he thought he was going to puke up the pills he had dry swallowed minutes earlier. His stomach had even started the violent process, but he tightened the muscles in his throat and forced the emesis to check down. The taste of his own bile spread in his mouth and he spit, or at least tried to. Nothing came from between his pursed lips. Strach must have sensed or seen that he was having problems because his voice came through the earpiece. “Come on Bill, cut your head in.” Ridley could feel sweat pouring down the front of his face in rivulets.
“We’re coming up on them, Terry,” Qualls said. “Hold on and get ready.”
Ridley felt himself pulled toward the front of the airplane as Mario suddenly reversed the pitch of the propellers and tilted the engines upward, transforming the propellers’ configuration once again into rotors. It felt like the pilot was standing on the brakes with both feet as the Osprey decelerated, wallowing in the air like a fish in mud. Hydraulics whined and servos screamed as the pitch was again changed, allowing the machine to hover. Another round of banging broke out inside the aircraft and Ridley was conscious of metal bits and pieces of airplane ricocheting behind him.
“You ready, Bill?”
Strach’s voice was coming at him from a million miles away and Ridley heard himself say, “Don’t worry about me.”
CONFESSIONS OF A DOG ASSASSIN
CONFESSIONS OF A DOG ASSASSIN: STORIES FROM AN AMERICAN MIND captures the good and the bad, the longing and the loss, the pleasure and the shame, the noble and the low down… all of the elements that make us what we are, however measured or defined, however desperate or disquieting, however broken and sadly mortal.
February 3, 2015
Mutant Hunter Update
The MUTANT HUNTER books are no longer available on Amazon. I have suspended sales of THE SLICKS and SPLINTERLAND in anticipation of obtaining a publisher for the series. Your patience during this process is appreciated.
The series is in great shape. THE SKIN BAGS, GREY CITY, and MUTANT WINTER have been written. Michael Whelan has finished his cover for SKIN BAGS and has an image working for GREY CITY. Here’s an inset from the Skin Bags painting. This aggressive strain of mutants, you see, dig human weapons.
My writing continues to evolve with each book. GREY CITY, at 186K words, is the longest novel I’ve written. Michael thinks it is the best of the series, but he’s yet to read MUTANT WINTER.
I’ll keep you updated.
SRC – February 2015
March 31, 2014
GREY CITY…
Here it is. Completed and half-edited draft. At 185,000 words and more than 700 pages, it’s the longest novel I’ve written. Minimal exposition, lots of action and heartbreak. A surprise at the end. Will post an excerpt as soon as THE SKIN BAGS is published.
March 11, 2014
Sitrep, New Mexico, March 2014
BBelieve it or not, THE SKIN BAGS will be available on Amazon soon. The manuscript is written, edited, and formatted for the Kindle platform. Whelan is finishing the cover. I apologize for it taking so long and fear I may have lost some readers as a result, but that’s just the goddamned way it goes. For those of you who haven’t given up on me, hang in there. I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Coincident with publishing THE SKIN BAGS, I will be un-publishing LEGENDS OF THE FALLOUT. I’ll explain why one of these days. THE SLICKS will become the first book in the series. It contains more than enough background to command the lead position.
The MUTANT HUNTER order of battle will become:
THE SLICKS
SPLINTERLAND
THE SKIN BAGS
GREY CITY
NO BLOOD
I am currently writing GREY CITY. Originally I’d planned to make it two books – Part I and Part II – but have now decided to make it one long novel. I’ve written more than 500 pages so far and still have at least five chapters to go. NO BLOOD will follow and that will probably be it for the series.
And, I had planned to publish a first person novella describing Leon Miller’s incarceration and escape from Changabang prison – the place where the mutant hunter received the infamous tattoo on his arm. I set up the telling of this tale in THE SKIN BAGS. I drafted the story and then rewrote it. Then I rewrote it again. And again. It wasn’t working. Maybe it’s the first person perspective, I don’t know. I spent a lot of energy trying to sync the piece with the story in my head, but as Treadlow would say, “No Dice.” So, I’ve had enough. At this time, there will be no CHANGABANG. I’m concentrating on GREY CITY.
It was a tough winter. I’m glad it’s over.
October 4, 2013
Legends of the Fallout Book Trailer
Here is the official book trailer for LEGENDS OF THE FALLOUT, which features art by Michael Whelan and music by Kevin MacLeod.
August 13, 2013
The Sitrep
From THE SLICKS:
“What the fuck was that?” Spears’ voice was close to panic.
“I don’t know, rockets?” Horn said. “Look out your side, Raleigh. I think they got our right wing.”
Spears craned his head around. “Shit, there’s a big chunk out of the aft wing. It looks like something chewed on it.” He turned back toward Horn. “How’s it flying?”
“It seems to be okay,” the pilot answered. “Where the fuck are we?”
“I don’t know,” Spears answered. “Wait, okay, here we go. There’s the goddamn Speeder.” The copilot pointed ahead to the right of their aircraft. The hulking form of the big war machine was winding its way into the Knuckles, heading back in the direction of the Barlow Swedge.
“Treadlow, what’s your sitrep?” Miller asked. He felt his heart skipping beats as he waited for the answer.
“I’m losing blood,” the tracker finally said. “But I think I’m alive.”
Sitrep, the military term, means situation report, and I thought it was time to give one.
Summer is my least favorite season and usually my least productive time for writing, but I built momentum coming out of last winter and have three MUTANT HUNTER works in the pipeline:
THE SKIN BAGS – The fourth book in the series is ready to be published as soon as Michael Whelan finishes the cover painting. For the first time, Leon Miller will not be on the cover. The honor goes to Treadlow. I don’t have a clue what it looks like, but I’m excited to finally see what Michael sees when he reads my descriptions and accounts of the tracker.
Michael reports the painting will be ready for Mike Jackson’s cover treatment soon. My only anxiety in all of this is that the book measures up to the cover, i.e., that my writing is worthy of his art. You’ll be the judge of that.
THE SKIN BAGS picks up where SPLINTERLAND left off. In it, I introduce some new characters and bad actors. One, Cassius Frakes, a young upstart mutant hunter from Los Angeles, is wired tight and out of control. He makes Miller’s quest to find the woman even more complicated and dangerous than it is already. The nuclear weapon is still in play, Treadlow continues to wrestle with his moral and ethical demons, and Magnus, the leader of the mutants called Skin Bags, makes his move to destroy the New States government.
The book should be on Amazon in a couple of weeks. I’ll post a notice when it’s released.
In the SKIN BAGS, Miller agrees to tell the story of his escape from Changabang prison. After finishing the book, I wrote a first person novella in which Miller tells this tale. Even though I wrote the non-fiction novel COPAN and several short stories in first person, CHANGABANG was a challenge. I don’t know why, but it took me as long to write this novella as it has any of the other MUTANT HUNTER full-length novels. At one point I came close to scrapping the thing. But finally, it came together.
Excerpt from CHANGABANG
After in-processing, I was escorted to my cell and heard the door slam and lock behind me. My cellmate, a heavy, almost obese, dark-faced man called Lothar – the PC had told me his name – was sitting on the stainless steel commode taking a shit. It stunk. Badly. Lothar stared at me without saying a word – no greeting, no make yourself at home, no go to hell, nothing. He just stared at me, looked me up and down, disgust plastered on his unshaven, fat face like a rash. He wore a dirty purple sweatshirt and grey sweatpants that were dropped around his ankles. His hairy, corpulent thighs were fish belly white.
It was obvious the top bunk was mine, and I tossed my few belongings onto it. I turned and stared through the bars at the concrete wall on the other side of the walkway while Lothar grunted and wiped his ass, at least that’s what it sounded like he was doing.
“What’s yo name, new boy?” he asked.
“Miller,” I answered without turning my head. Lothar didn’t wash his hands. I heard his bed springs creak.
“Here’s da rules in dis cell.” Lothar spoke with a heavy Euro-Russian accent. “And der’s just one rule. I makes the fucking rules.” He started laughing loudly, like a swine snorting in a barnyard.
It prompted someone in the next cell to yell, “Shut the fuck up, you goddamned sweat hog.”
“Fuck you,” Lothar countered.
I remember feeling pretty low right about then. It was like I was trapped in a bad dream. Lothar’s voice, the diseased smell, everything was like a parody of my vision of prison. It was a hopeless feeling exacerbated by the stench of human feces and rancid sweat. But one good thing about my Special Forces training was they taught us to focus on surviving. To concentrate on getting through the moments while planning for the minutes, building on what you could control.
One thing I did know, was that I could probably control Lothar. Besides being overweight, he looked out of shape, and didn’t come across like he was that smart. I was thinking about how to tell him to stay out of my face, when my head was suddenly jerked back and the point of something pressed painfully into the side of my neck.
“Now, youse listen to me and listen to me good, boy,” Lothar said, his mouth centimeters from my right ear. He grasped my hair in his right hand and held a blade of some sort against my throat. His stinking hot breath washed over my cheek. It smelled like sardines and stale tobacco. I thought I was going to gag, and cursed myself for not having my guard up.
“They’s going to call us for chow in a couple of minutes, and when we’s get back to the cell you and me’s going to get acquainted real good, youse understand, Mildred?”
I almost laughed. Mildred? But the knife pressing into my windpipe made the ridiculous prison lingo and sexual innuendo suddenly ugly and serious, weird and scary, real and mortal. It was like a joke that had gotten out of hand. One second you’re fooling around with a loaded weapon, the next second the muzzle is pressed against your temple with some psychopath telling you it’s time to play Russian roulette.
“Take it easy, Lothar,” I said. “You make the rules, I understand.”
“Dat’s good, boy,” Lothar said. “Real good. When we gets back, I’ll show you more.”
I felt the pressure of the blade ease and forced myself not to react. I knew I needed to wait until we were with some of the other prisoners so I could at least claim I wasn’t the one who had taken the man down, which at that moment is what I wanted to do, badly. They say prison turns men into animals, and I can attest to that. It was just happening to me a lot sooner than I expected.
A loud buzzer went off in the cellblock and the door immediately rolled and clanked open. I could hear the other doors up and down the line sliding on their steel rails. A bored voice came over the intercom, “Prisoners, take your positions outside your cells.”
Men were already lining up along the narrow walkway for the march to the chow hall. Lothar and I took our places. The same voice I had heard earlier telling Lothar to shut up was behind us. “Is that your new cellie, Lothar?” the man asked. “Too bad for him, huh, fat boy?”
“Shuddupp, Latimore, you piece of shit,” Lothar responded.
It was crowded on the walkway. I could hear men on the floors above and below us coming out of their cells, lining up, joking, laughing, and swearing. It was as good a time as any, I figured. Lothar was behind me. I could feel his belly pressing against my buttocks.
“Tighten it up,” the man behind Lothar said, laughing. “Dick to asshole. This’ll be a first. Lothar screwing his new cellie on the way to the slop chute.”
Lothar jostled behind me and I swung my elbow up and around, aiming for where I thought his face would be. I caught a glimpse of his eyes just before my strike hit him in the cheek. Spit flew out of his mouth, his jowls flapped and his oily hair swung away from his forehead. His saliva stuck the man behind him, whom I assumed was Latimore. There was cursing, and Latimore shoved Lothar toward me. Without hesitating, I struck him again with my elbow. This time I aimed for his throat, and put my weight behind it. He went down to his knees, choking and grasping at his neck. I knew I didn’t have much time before the guards descended on us with their stun guns and riot clubs. Lothar’s head was twenty or thirty centimeters from the bars of the cell. I pushed Latimore back a step to get some room. Grabbing the walkway railing with one hand, I cocked my right leg and kicked the side of Lothar’s head as hard as I could. Something had triggered inside me, and I wanted to drive my boot straight through the man’s skull. It was a weird spike in my rage. There was a smack and loud thunk as Lothar’s head bounced off the steel bars. His eyes rolled up in his head and he fell on his face. His big head was still fifteen centimeters or so from the bars and I kicked him again, aiming the toe of my boot for his temple. Again his head bounced off the bars. Blood poured out of his nose. He wasn’t moving.
I felt a hand slap my shoulder and a low voice say: “Line up, goddammit. Act like nothing happened.”
My heart slammed against the walls of my chest as I stepped over Lothar’s unconscious body and started marching down the walkway with the other prisoners. I glanced around. None of the men looked down at the body. They stared ahead as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. As we started down the stairs I heard another voice behind me say, “Welcome to the jungle, new boy.”
There are some surprises in CHANGABANG and some interesting connections to circumstances and events in the other books. We’ll publish it after THE SKIN BAGS, hopefully late this fall.
The third piece in the pipeline is the fifth book in the series: GREY CITY PART I. The second draft is done and the manuscript is currently being edited. Originally, GREY CITY was going to be one book, but when I got into it, it grew. The chase returns to the Slicks with two renegade Skin Bags as Miller’s target. The mutants have struck a deal, involving the bomb and a metric ton of gold, with the Inliers, the same Oil Eaters with whom Number Six had aligned himself with in THE SLICKS. The Inliers now occupy what is left of the South American city of Asuncion, and have established their new headquarters in the only Mega Tower – a massive, 800 meter-tall building – still standing on the planet. In the meantime, David Starling, High Counsel to the New States Board of Governors, carries on his own private war against retired general Charlie Brooker, the power-hungry governor of the Green States. Miller continues pushing his luck to the ragged edge and beyond. But in Grey City, even his bad luck finally runs out.
I’ve got GREY CITY PART II storyboarded and will start writing when summer finally burns itself out.
So, that’s the sitrep.
June 8, 2013
Summer Promotion
Saturday June 8th through Monday June 10th, we’re doing a free ebook giveaway on Amazon for THE SLICKS, which is an excellent point for new readers to jump into the series. LEGENDS OF THE FALLOUT and SPLINTERLAND will also be priced at $2.99 as part of a cheap summer reading promotion.
Feel free to share details of the promotion widely. We’d appreciate the hell out of your support.
May 22, 2013
The Skin Bags – Excerpt 2
“You ever hear of this ATW missile?” Frakes asked as he crouched in front of a cabinet and grabbed a handful of single shot servings of vodka and whiskey. “I didn’t understand a single fucking word that chick was saying.”
Miller didn’t answer. He sat in one of the soft leather seats, his Jaff across his lap. He watched Frakes stuff the bottles into a pocket on the leg of his fatigues and retrieve another, unscrewing its cap as he fell back into the seat opposite his.
“I’m thinking I’ll take the lead once we board their machine,” Frakes said before tilting the bottle back and letting it drain into his throat. “Skrine will back me up. You and your tracker can clear the ship while I find the two targets.” Frakes pulled his data scribe out of his vest and flipped it on. He stared at the screen and laughed. “Man, these fuckers look like dogs. Common fucking curs.”
“Listen,” Miller said slowly. “If we disable the Speeder, which is a big if, all of us will sweep the machine. I’ll tell you how we’re going to do it when the time comes. You’ve never been on a Speeder, I have.” The bounty hunter turned his head and looked out the window. It was severe clear, not a cloud in the sky.
“Is that right?” Frakes said, hiking one of his boots up into the plush seat. “The veteran is taking over.” The younger bounty hunter stared at Miller a couple of seconds. “Your reputation has faded, Miller. You did kill a top ten mutant, but that was from the old list. No, wait.” Frakes tilted his head up. “You did take down that RUC in New York. I forgot about that. But the thing was frog-brained, right? Not much of a challenge, I’d think.”
“Your point?” Miller asked. He stood his Jaff on its end and wedged its cylindrical barrel between the seats.
“My point is,” Frakes said, his head still cocked. “That shit don’t mean nothing anymore. That tattoo on your arm, that piece of shit shock weapon, that fucking inbred you call a tracker. You had your day. Starling made me lead for this mission. It’s a young man’s game now. You need to accept that. Nothing personal.”
Miller couldn’t help it; he laughed. “I’m thirty-six” he said.
“Fuck you,” Frakes said, slowly moving his head back into a more normal position. “That doesn’t change the fact Starling put me in charge.”
“No, he didn’t,” Miller said. “Run the conversation back through your head, if you’re able. He didn’t say who was lead and I don’t give a shit what you think you heard. Here’s the deal, and I’m only going to say it once.” Miller slid to the edge of his seat and leaned toward the younger man. “I’m not going to let you fuck this up like you did back in Wacheetah Springs. You’re drunk, and I mean you’re drunk right now. We’re launching in less than an hour. If we’re lucky enough to board the Speeder, I know how it’s laid out.” And he didn’t know why, but Miller added one of Treadlow’s antiquated words, “Savvy?”
Frakes swallowed. Perspiration had formed across his forehead. His smug arrogance had been replaced by anger. “Man, Starling’s got you by the balls, doesn’t he?” he said, staring snake-eyed at the older bounty hunter. “He’s probably banging that slut of yours as we speak.”
Miller’s hand was a blur as he grabbed his combat blade. Then he was on Frakes. His knee jammed hard into the man’s chest and he pressed the younger bounty hunter’s head against the oval window of the aircraft with his left forearm. His right hand held the edge of the knife against Frakes’ throat. Oddly, Frakes’ head was in the same theatrical position it had been in a minute earlier.
Several seconds of silence passed before Miller moved his face close to Frakes’ and said, “You bring the woman up again and I’ll cut your fucking eyes out.”
