The Method

My books and you are something I respect and adore for those who have read them. I think overall in the scheme of things, that I’m supposed to write “typical” tropes, like Marines and stuff, like that. And aliens, gotta look at aliens and stuff. But so far, I am working on a plot involving a first-contact scenario, and I just have to sort of explain myself. I don’t know if I write badly, or whatnot, but I think what I write is what keeps sales down. I don’t need to write conventional war; I’ve spent nearly two years fighting the counterinsurgency fight, and so that’s what I know military-wise. I don’t know the conventional fight too well, and frankly, I don’t see how difficult it is to write. So I do the “smart fight”, where conventional fighting is pretty easy to do more or less, even if you have a limited understanding of the fight. Tank goes boom, fight infantry, fight. Pretty standard stuff, and how it applies in my universe, at least the Eagle Hammer Universe that I write in right now.

But conventional war against an alien armada is pretty standard fare for most genres and notice that sells more than the thinking man’s war. I don’t know why you need the same thing, and essentially counterinsurgency is that “same thing” too, but not as well written and such. David Drake sold conventional war. Sure, he mentioned the counterinsurgent battle here and there, but that wasn’t what he is known for. He’s known for supertanks, powerguns, and the nod to the infantry and artillery that supported those tanks against the myriad enemies of his own universe. At some point, he had to break it down to an infantry fight, which “Counting the Cost” addressed, and a good example of armor supported by infantry did the intended work.

But post-Afghanistan and years later, I still fawn over the counterinsurgent/insurgent force, and how it applies in the far-flung future. If you want to know the method behind the madness, this blog entry will explain my intentions and motivations. It’s a long road, and I think the path I should be on anyway. I think I do well in my writing, and a recent look at Goodreads shows that I write good work. One person said I had good dialogue, which I never realized, but I will keep on writing it when I do write. But the focus is on the counterinsurgent/insurgent force and how it’s applied in far-flung future scenarios. It’s a different aspect to write, and you need to address the nuances of that particular fight. In one book, I put the “good guys” assisting rebels when they weren’t clearly cut out for the task. A therapist commented that the good guys always won, and that was the theme of both Hammer’s Slammers and my 2-4 Cavalry series. I think, though, 2-4 Cavalry Book 3: Another Day In Paradise, was a failure of the mission they were hired for, and didn’t so much reinforce that, instead focusing on the glamor of a Somali-esque deployment by heavily armed mercs.

Overall, though, they “won,” and that was always in the bag. I think with my C Troop, 1/5 Kommando series, Captain Bradi is failing, and that’s not thinking that Captain Juniper succeeds, Bradi does not. It’s just that I’ve finally made losing a part of the series. There will be wins, and so on, and I think surviving is a win in itself, at least for Captain Bradi. But the story moves along, and I think the next book I’m working on, C Troop, 1/5 Kommando: New Eden, will be an abject win for him, so as to pump him up story-wise, and to deliver a win finally after a few failures. But the method remains the same: Keep it to counterinsurgency/insurgency, and maybe conventional war as an afterthought, since technically the Troop can fight a conventional war scenario, if not limited by the amount of force they can employ. But it is a high-tech war zone wherever they go, and something that David Drake touched on was that even with high-tech, a regular bullet can splash your brains out in your helmet just as easily as a powergun, though. But I don’t write powerguns, that was an unofficial agreement and an opinion that while powerguns made good scifi, it was still overpowered, and was just too easy to kill things in the Hammer’s Slammers universe. I prefer railguns and regular cased, or more prevalent caseless weapons in use in the future, than that stuff.

But overall that’s kind of the method and madness of me and my writing. I have dabbled in other genres of course, and wish you could read Miss Midnight, my poetry about my own current cat, Miss Midnight. Anyway, I hope you look into my book sometime, and remember, if you’re looking for grand battles, look elsewhere, though, since I like to think a bit more than “Plasma gun disintegrates bad guy” or some such stuff like that.