Okay, Here's the Deal

 My sci-fi vampire revenge epic, titled MONSTER: NIGHTRIDER'S VENGEANCE, releases May 1st. I'll send a free Kindle or EPub copy to the first 20 people, not related to me by blood or marriage, who e-mail me at dustyr@nc.rr.com and put MONSTER in the subject line. In exchange, you agree to post an honest review when (or within a reasonable time after) it's released. Reviews can be on Amazon, B & N, blog, wherever, but they must be honest. Specify mobi (Kindle) or Epub format, and if you want me to send it direct to your device give me the address (e.g. mykindle@kindle.com), and remember to set dustyr@nc.rr.com as an address you can get files from. 

NIGHTRIDER'S VENGEANCE Cover

This is the cover for my upcoming e-book (the long-awaited sci-fi vampire revenge epic), by the multi-talented David Terrenoire. I like it a lot, hope you do too.

The Chairborne Rangers of the Right Wing: Pushing Barbarism

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You know, I've never been to Afghanistan. I've never been in a firefight anywhere, although I have had a gun pointed at me, which is as close as I care to come, thank you very much.
But from some of the reporting coming out of there - such as Sebastian Junger's harrowing book "War" and the accompanying documentary "Restrepo" - Afghanistan is to stress, fear and paranoia what Mount Everest is to rock formations. And it seems like we can't go a month now without hearing about some of our soldiers (almost all of whom have been through multiple deployments) who have completely lost it under the stress.
From the Marine snipers photographed urinating on enemy corpses to the soldier who walked out of camp one night and started slaughtering civilians to the recently released photos of American troops posing with body parts and corpses, it's just one image after another that makes you wonder if maybe we've finally stressed our military past its breaking point.
Now, desecrating the bodies of fallen enemies is not a new phenomenon by any means. In "The Iliad," Homer describes how Achilles, maddened with grief by the death of his best friend, Patroclus, killed Hector, the Trojan crown prince responsible, then desecrated Hector's body by dragging it behind his chariot for nine days during Patroclus' funeral feast.
In the 15th century, the Wallachian prince known as Vlad the Impaler (later the inspiration for the blood-drinking Count Dracula) became well known for desecrating the bodies of vanquished enemies, mainly by sticking the bodies (and more than a few live prisoners) onto pointed stakes and leaving them for the invading Turks to find.
In the harrowing World War II memoir "With the Old Breed," Marine John Sledge describes the mutilation of American corpses by the Japanese on the islands of Peleliu and Okinawa - and the corresponding looting (particularly of gold teeth) and taking of other "trophies" from dead Japanese by our own people. And so on.
What does seem to be new is the idea, particularly among the right, that this is either (a) no big deal or (b) actually a good thing.
Homer describes how Achilles repented from his act and returned Hector's body after being confronted by Hector's weeping father, King Priam, not to mention getting a stern warning from Zeus himself that he was "tempting the wrath of heaven" by his act of disrespect to a dead enemy.
Sledge describes how he was dissuaded from the act of stealing the gold teeth from a dead Japanese soldier by his friend, corpsman "Doc" Caswell, who admonishes him, "You don't want to do that. What would your folks think?" And Vlad ... well, as noted above, his major claim to fame is as the inspiration for one of literature's greatest monsters.
In contrast, when those pictures surfaced of Marine snipers urinating on dead Taliban fighters, conservative radio host Dana Loesch turned gushing fangirl: "I'd drop trou and do it too. That's me, though. I want a million cool points for these guys." Anti-Muslim blogger Pamela Geller tweeted, "I don't CAIR that these Marines wee wee'ed on murderous savages" (CAIR being the acronym for one of Geller's favorite bogeymen, the Council on American Islamic Relations).
Fox commentator Ralph Peters went on the air nearly apoplectic with rage about how the recent photos of soldiers with dead and dismembered enemies were being used by people - including, according to Peters, their own commanders - to "trash our troops."
I look at those images of young Americans, truly our best and brightest, behaving this way, and my heart breaks for them. I don't know if they'll ever make it back to sanity from that. I don't know if any person could.
Then I think of the passage from Sledge's book where he talks about Doc Caswell, the man who dissuaded him from desecrating enemy bodies: "He was a good friend and a fine, genuine person whose sensitivity hadn't been crushed out by the war. He was merely trying to help me retain some of mine and not become completely callous and harsh."
I compare that with the "callous and harsh" and downright barbaric statements from some of the Chairborne Rangers of 24-hour news TV and I wonder if we, as a country, will ever make it back from the abyss they're pushing us toward.

The Best Answer to North Korea

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When I heard that North Korea was preparing to launch a rocket into space, I experienced quite a few different feelings.

Certainly I was concerned, because engineering-wise, it's not hard to turn "rocket for space exploration" into "rocket that can carry that nuclear warhead we really hope those crazy so-and-sos who run North Korea don't have yet." But what I felt mostly was annoyance. Not at the North Koreans (see "concerned," above), but at our own government and its weak response to this event.

What's this, you say? Has Rhoades suddenly become one of those fire-breathing jingoistic hotheads that want us to perform a military strike on North Korea, immediately if not sooner?

Nope. I'm not thinking that small. That's what annoys me: that we here in the U.S.A., both the left and the right, are doing just that - thinking small. Military strikes? Sanctions? Pfft. Weak.

Return with me now to the glory days of the late 1950s, when America discovered that our mortal enemies, the Soviet Union, had launched a satellite called Sputnik into Earth orbit. Sure, we flipped out, since the Rooskies actually did have nukes and were most certainly willing to aim them at us.

But what did we do in response? Did we talk in stern tones about provocation and threaten to cut off aid? 

No. We went to the freakin' moon. 

That's right. The moon. None of this pussyfooting around with sanctions and useless finger-shaking. The Soviets put rockets into space? Well, by golly, we decided, we'll do that, too.

After a few setbacks, we were doing it better.

Oh, sure, the Russians sent a human up first, but Yuri Gagarin was just along for the ride, on a spacecraft flying on automatic mode. Not only that, but when he returned to Earth, it was by bailing out of his craft at 23,000 feet and landing by parachute. Our guy, when he went up, was an actual pilot, controlling his craft and bringing it down safely (even if it wasn't good for much afterward).

Then President Kennedy doubled down. "We choose to go to the moon in this decade," he said, "and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

A mere eight years later, we'd done it. We had men walking, driving dune buggies, even playing golf, on the surface of the moon. Along the way, we developed some of the technologies that we use every day: communications satellites, weather satellites, and nonstick cookware. Take that, Ivan!

That's how we ought to deal with some jackleg dictator shooting rockets into space: We show him we can do it better, faster, and with more vision and ambition than his sad little backwater could ever dream of doing.

Personally, I'd love it if one of our diplomats could approach some North Korean functionary at a cocktail party and go, "I hear you're putting a satellite into space. That's just adorable. We're going to Mars, you know. Probably be mining the asteroid belt in 10 years. More caviar?"

Sadly, we seem to have lost that desire to show the world what we can do, to "organize and measure the best of our energies and skills" by doing things like visiting our celestial neighbors. The Obama administration killed the ambitious Constellation program in favor of a smaller, less aggressive vision. While they're doing some interesting things in the area of private research and development, those seem mostly focused on keeping the aging International Space Station in Earth orbit, not doing big things like going back to the moon or exploring Mars.

And make no mistake: Expanding our capabilities and our options beyond this fragile blue ball isn't just a matter of showing up our international adversaries; it's a matter of our survival as a species.

One planet isn't going to be enough forever, and this one's right in the cross hairs of some big, extinction-causing rocks. You could ask the dinosaurs, if they hadn't been wiped out by the aforementioned rocks.

Even if the thought of thumbing our noses at North Korea doesn't launch your rocket, that's another reason we need to remember who we are, hitch up our britches, and get ourselves back to the High Frontier.

Who Said It?

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Hey, let's play a little game. I'm going to give you five statements regarding the judiciary, in particular the Supreme Court, and ask you to guess who said them. If that's too hard, just guess whether they were a Republican or a Democrat.

(1) "The proper role of judges [is] to apply the laws as written, and not to advance their own agendas. Our founders gave the judicial branch enormous power. It's the only branch of government whose officers are unelected. That means judges on the federal bench must exercise their power prudently, cautiously, or some might even say, conservatively."

(2) "I believe on the great moral issues of our time, the people have a right to speak and say what their collective morality is, the kind of country that they want to live in, and a few unelected, in some cases, or even elected, judges should not impose that."

(3) "[F]or years what we've heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint - that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example. And I'm pretty confident that this court will recognize that and not take that step."

(4) "Supreme Court justices have always had tremendous power within our constitutional system of separated and enumerated powers. In recent decades, growing concern has arisen over judicial activism on the court, which has the necessary consequence of taking power away from the elected representatives, and thus the people themselves, and conferring it to those with life tenure, unelected judges who have occasionally used this power conferred upon them in the Constitution to impose their own views and their own agenda on the American people and substituting that for the views of their elected representatives."

(5) "Today, unelected judges cast aside the will of the people. ... as president, I will appoint judges who interpret the Constitution as it is written and not according to their own politics and prejudices."

OK, pencils down.

(1) was said by He Who Must Not Be Mentioned, the former chief executive whose very name brings an immediate reflexive answer from conservatives asking, "When are you going to stop blaming everything on Bush?" Yes, folks, that statement deploring judicial activism came from the Dubbyaman himself, George W. Bush.

(2) comes from the mouth of right-wing hero Rick Santorum, whose voice seems to be growing fainter and fainter, yet more and more shrill, as he falls further and further behind Mitt Romney.

(3) is a recent statement from President Barack Obama (a Democrat, in case you didn't know), in response to a press question at the White House.

(4) was said by Sen. John Cornyn, conservative Republican of Texas.

(5) was said by presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

Now, let's go to Part 2. Which one of the above statements caused the following eruptions of indignation from conservatives:

"This isn't right. It is threatening, it is intimidating." - Mike Johanns, Republican Congressman from Nebraska.

"[H]e's rejecting a basic premise of American law that has not been seriously questioned in 175 years, which is this: The courts have the right to review what the Congress does and what the president does and if the court finds that behavior unconstitutional, they can void, they can invalidate what the Congress and the president does. That's our system. That's what preserves the Constitution against the tyranny of the majority. No president has questioned this since Andrew Jackson!" - Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano.

And so on. The Wall Street Journal even called the remarks "unnerving."

If you guess that conservatives went ballistic over a statement by Barack Obama about "unelected judges" and judicial activism that they would have cheered had it been made by any of the other people mentioned above, you win a cookie.

It's one of those events that so perfectly sum up the culture of Wingnuttia: the faked indignation; the hysterical whining over "threats and intimidation" where none exist; and above all, the shameless two-faced-ness that presumes the audience is too stupid or too blinded by partisanship to recall that the statements they're supposed to be indignant about could have come, and in fact have come, from the mouths of one of their own candidates.

The truth is not in these people. They have proven over and over that they will do or say absolutely anything to win, because winning is their only goal, not governing. They cannot be trusted to do either.

BREAKING COVER FREE FOR KINDLE!

Laura Lippman says: "Breaking Cover won't surprise J.D. Rhoades' fans, who already know just how good he is, but it should win him many more. A breath-taking pace, paired with a sure sense of character and place, makes this book another winner. Rhoades' star on the mystery scene is rising almost as fast as his own stories rocket across the page."


Tess Gerritsen says: "Breaking Cover is one of those rare thrillers that combine smart, tense prose with a momentum that never quits. J.D. Rhoades revs this baby into action from the get-go and never eases up on the throttle."


BOOKLIST says:" Rhoades takes a break from his Keller series, featuring the Gulf War–haunted bounty hunter (Safe and Sound, 2007), with a stand-alone thriller starring rogue FBI agent Tony Wolf. Forced to break cover after rescuing two abducted children, Wolf—officially dead but living under the radar in rural North Carolina—suddenly finds himself on the run from both his former colleagues in the bureau (including his wife) and, more seriously, from the gang of drug-dealing bikers he infiltrated in his last FBI assignment. Tired of running from trouble, Wolf decides to go on the offense: take down the bikers, and expose the mole in the FBI power structure who is feeding the bikers information. If thriller fans are thinking Lee Child here, they’re right on target. Like Child, Rhoades dishes out one airtight action scene after another, mixing in just enough character-building moments and holding our interest in a full cast of nicely developed supporting players. All that, and a Sam Peckinpah–like bloody, bravura finale that will leave even icy-veined thriller fans panting for breath."


BREAKING COVER: Free for Kindle for a limited time! 

–Laura Lippman,