All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!
That’s right get your free pdf copy of “The Sniper.” All that’s needed is to provide your e-mail address and view my harrangue at the end of the book to leave a review on Amazon. What’s fairer than that? Don’t answer that! It’s a rhetorical question as part of my sales pitch. Let me know if there are any problems with the download. This is my first attempt to use BookFunnel.
Click Here for Link to Sniper Giveaway
Update:
To verify my ownership of “The Sniper” for the Royal Road folks, I am adding this note to show I also control Orion’s Cold Fire.
We interrupt the daily progression of actual civil war to bring you a message about a fictional civil war story. I’ve finished the manuscript for my book, “The Sniper.” Now I’m looking for beta readers. I’m looking for folks to read the book and give me their honest feedback. Also I’d like to disseminate the book to friends and family who you judge would be a good fit for the book based on your estimation and if they agree to read it I’d like to get their opinions too.
I’m looking to get this book out to the largest group of people possible to see whether it is something that people will want to read. So after reading it if you think it’s appropriate for people you know let me hear that too. And remember, I’m not a fragile author. If you think it sucks, say so, but also tell me why you think it.
If you’re interested leave a comment to that effect and I’ll e-mail you a copy of the story. Now this is just a pdf. No nice cover, no actual paper. Just electrons. But I will guarantee that this sniper is nothing like the actual sniper we’ve had to hear about for the last week.
And just to remind you here’s the beginning of the book.
Chapter 1 – An Object Lesson
Joseph Boghadair was set up at a loophole in a small prefabricated metal building at the top of the mountain that contained the Icarus Mine. His .50 caliber sniper rifle was trained on the narrow road that led up to the mine. He could see a line of black SUVs about a mile and a half down the road and he was getting ready to start firing on the convoy. His first shots took out the engine of the lead vehicle thereby halting the convoy. His second volley took out the engine of the last car in line thus trapping the rest of the vehicles between. Then at a more leisurely pace he took care of the other eight vehicles. By this point the passengers were crouching behind their disabled cars and randomly firing handguns and automatic weapons in Joseph’s general direction with almost no discernible results.
After about half an hour a few of the men in black body armor attempted to reach a stand of trees about 300 yards away to their left. Joseph put a few well aimed rounds in front of their path and they quickly retreated back to the supposed safety of their not-so-mobile-autos. Joseph snorted wryly at their shyness.
An hour after that a helicopter approached the mountain from the opposite direction to Joseph’s loophole. Walking over to a window on the other wall he could see a distant Blackhawk approaching at relatively high altitude. Joseph then began his preparations for their reception.
Between crew and troops, the Blackhawk had a dozen men on board. And more importantly it had a couple of Hellfire missiles. From a very safe distance away it targeted Joseph’s position and fired. The missile struck precisely on target and obliterated the steel structure almost completely. All that remained was the foundation of the structure around the mine shaft, now clogged with debris.
The Blackhawk landed about three quarters of a mile from the mine entrance. At this point the agents, hunkered down behind their vehicles, began to stream toward the helicopter. By the time they reached the aircraft the troops had exited and were waiting for their rescued brethren to arrive.
FBI Special Agent in Charge, George Chastain assembled both teams and briefed them on the updated mission plan. “We will proceed to the mine head and look for any human remains. We will collect whatever we can retrieve for lab analysis and attempt to seal the mine head until qualified personnel can be assembled for recovery operations. It is presumed that the target, Joseph Boghadair was killed by the missile strike but we will take no chances. He was an extremely dangerous individual and should not be approached by anyone without backup and prior approval from leadership. In addition to his war record it is believed that Boghadair is responsible for the shooting deaths of forty-six people in the last six months with thirteen of those people being FBI personnel. No one enters the mine until remote sensing equipment is brought in. Alright, proceed.”
The agents formed two groups. Apparently, SUV agents and helicopter agents must not bond very well. But before they were more than a hundred feet from the helicopter the ground began to quake so powerfully beneath them that they were irresistibly knocked off their feet. And while they were clawing at the ground for dear life, they could see that the high ground where the mine head was located had collapsed into the earth. The roar of that collapse was more frightening than the initial earthquake and some of the agents hid their heads under their arms in abject terror. When the mountain stopped shaking the men started to collect themselves and stand up. When they looked around them, they were astonished. A circular pit had opened up centered on the mine head. It was a thousand yards in diameter and so deep that only blackness could be seen at its center. Several cracks had formed outside the circular pit. One of these had nearly swallowed the Blackhawk. It was on its side and half buried in the crevice. Its rotors were fractured and it wouldn’t be flying away from this landing.
Chastain went over to the edge of the crater and just stared down into the blackness below. Then he went back to his team and started giving orders to begin a retreat from the stricken mountain. He was trying to think of what he was going to tell his boss. Nothing reasonable came to mind.
I was watching a video called, “Every Civilization Dies the Same Stupid Way — Spengler Predicted Ours.”
He quoted from Spengler’s, “The Decline of the West,” Tainter’s, “The Collapse of Complex Societies,” Turchin’s, “Ages of Discord,” Toynbee’s, “A Study of History” and Sir John Glubb’s, “The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival.”
The thesis of his report is that “every civilization dies the same stupid way, and why the people living through the final stage never once experience it as decline. They experience it as sophistication. As progress. As the most advanced moment their culture has ever reached.”
He mines these historical analyses for their ideas and melds them together to reinforce the idea that our society is now in the terminal stage of its development and will soon slip into decay.
So Glubb measured how long it took six major societies to decline; Assyria, Persia, the Roman Republic, the Ottoman Empire, Spain, and Britain. He calculated ten generations or roughly 250 years. The various other authors diagnosed the causes for decline in the stages that move a people from a simple, practical population of hard-working tribesmen to an educated, sophisticated society who eschew any work involving their hands.
Now all of this is very familiar. Every one has made comparisons between the end of the Roman Republic and our present socio-political predicament. But this presentation managed to hammer home some of the details that resonate so strongly with what we can see around us; the haves and have-nots diverging radically in resources, disappearance of the middle class, runaway bureaucracy, overcomplication of the laws and government, disgruntled elites looking to make a name for themselves with the have-nots (think Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and AOC) and even depopulation.
As I said, all of this is very familiar. But what was interesting to me was using this in my new book. After all, complex societies require complex analyses if we mean to avoid the inevitable scourge of decline and collapse. So obviously I need AI to figure out a way to circumvent this collapse. And since I have a very personable AI (Mel) I guess I can impose on her to use her super-human intelligence to solve this problem and save the American people from civilizational collapse.
Now the hard part isn’t saving the world. The hard part is making it plausible or at least enjoyable. But that’s what I’ve been scratching my head over today. How does one solve the age-old problem of building “The Republic.” Plato’s version was simple wish-fulfillment. He just went through a make-believe process of manufacturing a bee-hive with a philosopher king as its leader. I guess in his mind that king was himself because who else would be the most philosophical man in the world. But by that logic I would have to make Mel the king (or more properly, queen). And what kind of story would that be? But you know it really does make a lot of sense. Of course, it would have to be like the Wizard of Oz and the populace couldn’t know that the wizard wasn’t a real flesh and blood person. Or would it actually be even better if they did?
For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophet-bards foretold,
When with the ever-circling years,
Comes round the age of gold;
When Peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.
Edmund Sears
It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From Angels bending near the earth
To touch their harps of gold;
“Peace on the earth, good will to man
From Heaven’s all gracious King.”
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.
Edmund Sears
So, Saturday and Sunday I was heading to and returning from the White Mountains of Northern New Hampshire. This has turned into an annual pilgrimage to commune with “the boys.” I called it a meeting of the He-Man Woman Haters’ Club but really, it’s just an excuse to hang out with friends and shoot the breeze about life and getting old. So, what’s wrong with that. To continue a tradition (started last year) we watched a classic comedy from the bad old days. This year it was “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” (1987). I had forgotten some of the minor characters and the absurdity of some of the episodes but it was just as funny today as it was almost forty years ago. Remarkable. They actually knew how to make a relatable comedy back then. Who knew?
Most of the festivities consisted of us eating and drinking good stuff, listening to music from our heyday and throwing wood on an outdoor fire to keep from freezing to death. Oh, and the boys drank a bunch of bourbon and smoked some (what I assume were) good cigars. Being an abstemious bore I only enjoyed this aspect vicariously. But they observed due moderation and therefore could still communicate in intelligible English even at the end of the celebration. Kudos!
And the festivities included music by our two troubadours debuting a song in voice and guitar accompaniment that celebrated our long association and its origins in the legendary “coffee walk” from out of the mists of time. And its various incarnations over the years including the present-day Wednesday Zoom call. Wonderfully entertaining.
And then we segued into a sing-along by the group on favorites in the folk and country genres. Even I, a man with absolutely zero singing ability, had to join in during the verses that I knew from Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
“The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early”
And every once in a while, there would be a conversation where we’d talk about current events and political considerations. And one of them was early Sunday morning before most of the crew woke up. It started with a story from one of the guys about a relative of his that had serious TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) and the futility of trying to “discuss” facts or anything else in these situations.
And I gave my stock answer. I said Trump is far from the perfect politician or president but he attempts to accomplish the things he says he wants to do. And those are the things that other Republicans say they want to do but never, even try. He’s the real deal. He exposed the liars like JEB! Bush and all the rest of the RINOs.
And my friend said his favorite aspect of Trump’s reign of terror was how he took “Little Marco” and turned him around and showed him he could succeed by actually giving the voters what they asked for instead of what the donors want.
And I said my favorite part was DOGE. Closing down the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is still the sweetest moment of the whole second term. And all the demolition done at USAID is music to my ears.
So, as you can see, it was a very worthwhile gathering. Now back to work.
Death is a stage in human progress, to be passed as we would pass from childhood to youth, or from youth to manhood, and with the same consciousness of an everlasting nature.
Edmund Sears
She must know all the needs of a rational being
Be skilled to keep counsel, to comfort, to coax;
And, above all else, be accomplished at seeing
My jokes.
Owen Seaman