Inspiring Authors: J. Michael Straczynski

Every once in a while, I look over my writing style, and I look at what I've taken away from the authors I've been exposed to.



The first, and most important writing influence is someone named J. Michael Straczynski (JMS).



JMS, who I have mentioned once or twice, was an executive producer on Murder, She wrote, created Babylon 5, and writes almost anything else he can get his hands on. He's written comics, TV, novels, science fiction, battling demons....

Just look him up on amazon, buy everything except for “Rising Stars” and “Supreme Power.”



I'm not joking. Go now.



If you saw Thor -- and who didn't? You didn't? Go see it. I'll wait..... Back now? You liked it? Good. -- JMS had a cameo in the film as the first fellow to find Thor's hammer, and organized that big sequence with trying to drag out the hammer with a truck.



There is Tribulations, a book about demonic possession in modern LA. Surprisingly well put together and very religious ... And he's an atheist. So, he at least knows how to appreciate religion, even if it's only for use as fantasy fodder.

I first experienced the writing of JMS a very long time ago, before I even knew who the man was. Originally an author for television, he worked his way up from cartoons and into prime time. He penned the only episode of The Real Ghostbusters that I can remember.  Twenty years after the original airing of Murder, She Wrote, all of the episodes I knew off the top of my head happened to be written by him (if you remember an episode in the Psycho house, that would be Joe).

I first became aware of Joe Straczynski with his television show Babylon 5; at the time, it seemed to be a rip-off of a Star Trek program that had just come on called Deep Space 9. Then odd things started happening. To start with, the show had character. The characters on the show had personalities. They had backgrounds. They had character flaws. When there was fighting, there were actual military tactics, and the science fiction .... had science.

If you are not a follower of science fiction, you may not be aware of this, but to find military tactics in most science fiction filmed media is almost as rare as finding science in a Star Trek film. As mentioned during our week of Infinite Space, Infinite God II, most sci-fi will resort to technobabble before using actual science. Babylon 5 is the first science fiction television show that ever explained how their artificial gravity worked.

With military tactics -- how much in the way of tactics did anyone see in Star Wars or Star Trek that did not amount to "Watch two armies. See them ram into each other. See them ignore that space is three dimensional."

With Babylon 5, NASA has asked permission to use some of their designs, because they can't come up with better ideas.  If you ever hear about a NASA space construction craft called a "Star Fury," it's because JMS allowed them to use it on the condition that it shared the name it had on the tv show....

Constant readers of this blog will see the fingerprints of JMS all over it. The most popular blog post Disasters to Marvel At was made possible by Joe Straczynski. After Babylon 5, JMS went on to writing comic books; in particular, Amazing Spider Man (ASM). Being a fan of Straczynski's, I followed. It was the first time I had picked up a comic book in about five years. At least.

And it was a gloriously enjoyable run. If you ever saw an issue of ASM that involved Spider-Man dealing with the 9-11 attacks, that was JMS' doing. It was a throwaway issue in a grand story arc that had Peter Parker questioning his own origins, pondering whether or not he was part of a larger plan, and finding himself embroiled more and more with supernatural problems. The solutions became more cerebral and scientific than requiring an ability to pound someone into dust.

Also, in pure JMS fashion, he took the marriage of Peter Parker and made it work -- after all, Straczynski's strong suit is having two people interact with each other. And it's nothing like having a reconciliation in the middle of a super-powered smackdown at Denver airport.

And then there was the surprisingly epic ASM 500, where JMS managed to condense the entire 500 isues before into one, simple question.

Which is why I was somewhat enraged when editorial mandate came down from a clear blue sky and decreed that every Marvel comic would be dragooned into the Event of the Week. The story arc for Straczynski's Spider-Man run was stomped on by the far inferior Civil War. And, while I liked what JMS managed to do with it, despite editorial mandate (it was the only part of the Civil War I remotely enjoyed), and he managed to make the follow-up Back in Black, a fun read, at the end of the day, management came down and destroyed, literally, every achievement JMS wrote over the course of his six-year run.

When I saw JMS at New York Comic Con, he had a running phrase: "Joe, you suck." He even had the audience repeat it back to him.  However, between the links above, there's a reason why I think it should be "Joe (Quesada), you suck."

JMS would also take over duties on Thor, where he placed the Norse deity in the middle of New Mexico (Thor movie fans, sound familiar?)

After Marvel and he had a falling out, he went direct to DC. He did some spectacular Team-ups of the Brave and the Bold, tried to work on a new arc for Wonder Woman, and even a Superman arc called Grounded. Right now, he's heading the bestseller list with his graphic novel Superman: Earth One.  If Warner Brothers is smart, they'll reboot the Superman movie franchise with Earth one as a model.

WHAT I LEARNED FROM JMS.

I learned how to write people. Taking a cue from Rod Serling, JMS knew how to make a conversation be dramatic with just two people in a room, no ticking bomb required. He knew how to work dynamics with different characters for different results. He even went so far to lock two people in a room together, he literally trapped two characters in an elevator.

If you wondered why my short story One Way to Stay out of Jail consisted mostly of two people in a room just talking to each other, you can probably guess. It's the joy of having characters (some of whom are deeply flawed) interacting with each other.

Another thing I got from JMS -- how to take cliche's and turn them inside out.

For example...

Situation: Two people who hate each other are trapped in an elevator; fires are burning outside. If they don't work together, they will die.
Hollywood standard procedure: The trapped duo will overcome their grievances in order to stay alive.
JMS: One character says to another "I'm not going to help. This way, I can watch you die and I won't be prosecuted."

It's fun.

In A Pius Man, there is a reason that the book has plenty of deep, in-depth conversations between people who have some obvious flaws .... although a lot of it revolves around Sean Ryan, who is, himself, really weird.

Further Reading.

Other works by JMS include.

Demon Night (I haven't read it yet, but it should be fun)



Othersyde: Another book I loved. High school, meet demonology 101.

Two high school nerds, "losers," tormented and tortured on a routine basis, buy curiosities -- two telegraph signal senders.



And then, the devices start tapping out Morse code on their own.



It was elegantly written, and even made the angst of high school tolerable. And, no, there is no Twilight level, whiny-angsty BS. I would take a power drill to my head before I even read anything remotely like it, to heck with recommending it.

Book of Lost Souls: A late, lamented comic book series JMS wrote while at Marvel. While there were only five issues of this run, I think it has a good, solid story arc. that reads well even though Marvel pulled the plug on it early on.

 

Straczynski Unplugged: A collection of short stories, mostly novelized versions of screenplays JMS did for The New Twilight Zone back in the 80s. I can only assume these few were all he did, otherwise the show would have done much, much better.



These were all awesome.  I suggest clicking on the link and buying the book, rather than trying to find the episodes on youtube.



Trust me on this. 

Under the heading of both "touching" and "I never saw this coming," was Silver Surfer: Requiem. The premise: the Silver Surfer originally made a devil's bargain to save his home planet, becoming the Surfer, herald to a planet-eating being called Galactus. Years later, the Silver Surfer's own body is turning against him. Everything that makes him the Surfer is breaking down. The story arc is broken down into four parts. Benedictus, Sanctus, Kyrie, and Agnus Dei. All parts of the funeral mass.

Let's put it this way: I never liked Silver Surfer, and this brought me to tears ... yes, I'm a nerd.

Bullet Points: Another Marvel project. A simple "What if?"



What if the assassin who killed Captain America's creator completed his task 24 hours earlier, and, at the same time, killing one of the bodyguards, a Ben Parker, what would the world look like?



The only thing that I've read that compares to it in comics is the ASM 9-11 issue ... also by JMS.

-- Okay, this was pure, unadulterated awesome. An LA cop finds himself caught in the crossfire between Heaven and Hell, and loses his soul, becoming one of the lost people of the Midnight Nation.



In order to get his soul back, he has to cross all of America to New York City to face the Devil himself.Midnight Nation

Squadron Supreme and Rising Stars -- the only works I can honestly not endorse. Even JMS has complaints about Squadron Supreme.

Update: Sorry, I'm from New York, the Midwest, unfortunately, does look alike to me -- New Mexico or Oklahoma. Especially since the artwork in the JMS Thor comic and the images in the Thor movie looked the same to me. I suspect Kenneth Branaugh looked at the comic and said "This doesn't match Oklahoma, where does it match? Nex Mexico? We're there."

Babylon 5 and Religion in Scifi

You know, with all the posts yesterday, I can't believe I forgot this one.



I did a guest post over at Steph Souders' page. It's all about Babylon 5.



Enjoy.

FAQ: Where do you get your ideas?

I've touched on this briefly during the series on how I created A Pius Man, but, apparently, the question many authors are besieged with is “How do you come up with your ideas?”



Short answer: formal viewpoint. Or a functional mentality.



For example, last year, I saw Forbes Magazine with cover article about how al-Qaeda was losing money, and it suggested that Osama "needed a new business model."



I can not make this stuff up.



The point is, people look at things from a “formal viewpoint.” I would look at a large pile of money and think of where a character would hide it. An accountant would probably count it all. A pyromaniac would look at it as stuff to burn.

[More below the break]



In my case... to use an example, in 1998, my family went to London and stopped off to see the Crown Jewels. Everyone else stared at the jewels. I went and looked at the security. I didn't take notes, since I didn't want to be thrown out of the Tower of London by the fastest possible route [the jewels were a few floors up]. The British Museum got the same treatment from me -- The Elgin Marbles from the Greek Parthenon had their own wing.... so, if the Greeks really wanted them back, they could steal them with a few construction helicopters and just airlift the whole wing—the Israelis did that with an Egyptian radar tower once to great effect.



Basically, it's a matter of looking at things from a certain viewpoint. I suspect that if I go see the Mona Lisa, the majority of my time will be pondering how someone could disable the security guards, the electronic surveillance, and walk away with a few paintings from the Louvre. Though the answer would probably be to steal something from the basement storage area—less security, without the individual alarms on every piece.... hmm, now that's an idea....can someone scan for Semtex at the entrypoint to the Louvre? Hrm...



The sad thing is that the above was really thought up as I wrote it.



I created one character because a teacher in high school, on the first day of class, said “I'm a wanted terrorist. I've been hunted for 19 years.... I can kill you with two fingers.” He was the creative writing teacher, so we went with it....



And I wondered... “What if he was telling the truth?”



He's in a back pocket somewhere, for when I get around to writing that novel. The annoying thing is, I have it outlined....



Some, like Harlan Ellison, have described writing as a compulsion, and that's because that's how we seem to be wired. Be it the Tower of London or the British Museum, writers wonder how we can do something with where we are, what we're doing, some little factoid we picked up, or a stray comment.



I don't think I've ever gone to someplace and not wondered how to blow it up, shoot it up, or what would be required to do something like that.



Rebekah Hendershot, author of Masks, described a similar experience when creating her book: “Why doesn't LA have any superheroes?” Answer: “Because something killed them all. And it's still here.”



With A Pius Man, Scott “Mossad” Murphy came out of the mass of Evangelicals flocking to Israel after 9-11. What does Israel do with all of these meshuge goyim? And what do you do with them if they want to join the military, or even the intelligence services? Answer: the goyim brigade—Mossad agents who not only "don't look Jewish," but aren't.  Murphy was just a throwaway character I had come up with to use “someday.” He had literally been shoved into a notebook and left there for three years. I had used him once as a supporting character in one book, and all but forgot him. Later, he came in handy.



And that's why writers have notebooks—to keep track of all the random neurons firing off with ideas. You never know when there's going to be something that comes in handy. Stephen King supposedly has a trunk filled with notebooks of ideas past.



So, if you ever think that a writer is odd, well, they are. They look at things from different points of view—if only because they have to be able to see things from the points of view of different people as they write them. Stephen King writes about things that scare him... and that seems to be everything... the author of Rebekah saw how much LA had been shortchanged of superheroes and decided to explain why. I think up various and sundry ways to kill someone with a ballpoint pen (I'm on nine).



That's how we find ideas. We're wired to.



But then again, who'd go into this profession if we weren't?

Month in Review: September, 2011

Ah, another month shot to Hell.

So, where are we?  Ah, yes, it's been a very strange little month.  Since I've cut back on the daily ... and weekly ... output, it's been interesting.  I don't even though I've gotten around to posting a music blog in a while.

So start with, we opened the month with a new concept from August: Characters answering Surveys.  In this case, I used Scott Murphy.

Then I looked into how terror can also be a form of communication: sometimes, the most intimidating characters are the ones you least expect. And, sometimes, they're just in your face.

Then there was how to torture characters: with some Masks, some JMS, and some Jim Butcher.  Muwhahahahaha!!!!!

Yes, I've been having too much fun around here.

Can you tell?

Speaking of which, there was also my Impossible Odds blog, focusing on million to one odds, and Talisman.


Anyway, there was also another Self Defense review.  In this case, I covered how I spent my 9-11; mostly it was learning how to save a life.... no, I'm not joking.  How to save someone from chokes, and guns, and knives.  I also covered the latest in bulletproof clothing, and how to spot a concealed weapon, and such ...

Oh, and I also looked back on September 11, 2001.

Also: DC Comics rebooted their universe, and I'm not that happy about it. Though I'm told I'm dead wrong.

I did a review of The Expendables..... The Pain! The Pain!

And, there was Talk like a Pirate Day, where I got to be lazy ... in other words, I had nothing for that day, and I was saved by the realization it was September 19th.

And, finally, we had the return of Karina Fabian, discussing her new book Mind Over Mind. She gave us Ten Reasons to Love Science Fiction, an interview, and my review of the novel.

Anyway, I thought this was a good, fun little month.

And I've already started on the blogs for October.

Enjoy, all.


By the way, before you leave, check out some of our sponsers' ads ... please. We can use the money. :)

"Suffer characters suffer!" Jim Butcher, JMS, Masks.

I love screwing around with my characters, about as much as I like messing around with my audience.

Over time, we've talked about who can you trust in A Pius Man, how I like to keep my characters vague ... sometimes the most vague being the one who is the most blunt.

Now, I didn't get into writing to be a sadist of my own personal playthings. Unlike some authors, like J. Michael Straczynski, I don't "torture my characters." In some cases, like JMS, he does it literally.

And guys like Jim Butcher have literally said "Suffer characters, suffer!" in describing his writing style.  Back at DragonCon, he practically leaped at the microphone when asked about beating up on characters, and said "I'll take that one."

In my case, I just enjoy giving them mental problems that confuse the hell out of them.

And, also in my case, I like throwing in a love story, just to screw with some of them.

[More below the break]

Music blog: Babylon 5 & Tom Smith

This is the last cut of the music from the aborted Babylon 5 video game from last week. It was fun while it lasted.

And now, the parody version

Top ten blog posts for "A Pius Man."

I must admit, working at Examiner.com has gotten me used to posting lists of things. One mass email told me that top ten lists were really rather popular.



So, since blog reads tend to be down for national holidays, I've decided to do my own top ten list for the blog.



The top five are, right now, always posted on the right hand side.

Disasters to Marvel At: A Comic Discussion. -- Discussing how Marvel Evented itself to death. I got there before Rebekah Hendershot did. Honest.

Mr Phelps, You Are Disavowed… Beating up on everyone's favorite loser.

Snarky theology 3: Evolution, Creationists, and other irritants. Part of my Snarky theology series. I'm not sure why this went anywhere. Seriously, I don't think the issue is half as interesting as some seem to think.

Snarky Theology 2: FAQs about Lent. -- this one started a nice little firestorm, mainly because someone decided to, well, slightly annoy me.

DragonCon 2010, Day 2, Part 1. I have no honest idea why this is so popular. I did several DragonCon reports from last year, and this one took the cake.



Now, for the rest of the top ten list, the you haven't seen posted anywhere ... because posting a top ten list isn't an option with this blog template. :)



Inspiring Authors: J. Michael Straczynski-- Exactly as the title says. I think this one was popular because I wrote it the week Thor came out in theaters, and he was credited with the story.

Snarky Theology 4: "Things that go boink in the night." I can credit my friend Jason for this title. I mentioned I wanted the Catholic position on sex. The title was the first thing that leapt to his mind. I guess it worke

Guest Blog: Murder in the Vatican Author Ann Margaret Lewis. When I was offered the option of allowing Madam Lewis on the blog, I was asked if I wanted a guest blog, an interview, or the option of reviewing her book, I went for all of the above.

The flame war is postponed .... While the little war of Lent was ongoing (see the comment section in the Lent link above), some idiot went online, and posted the most offensive post about Japan I have ever seen. I tore her a new one. Twice.

Snarky Theology 5: The Passion, Jews, and Good Friday... I posted this because, well, it was Good Friday, and I was tired of people who got their theology from Mel Gibson's The Passion.



Anyway, I don't think I'm going to waste anyone's time with a music blog today. I doubt many would want to read it. However, June had the record for most page views of any month. Almost for any three months.



I think July might be a time to break this record.

Music: Epic Video Game music

Yesterday, I started a series of music clips that should have gone with an aborted Babylon 5 video game. However, it was over an hour of music, and even the thirty minutes I posted yesterday was a little much.



I hope you enjoy

Music: Epic Video Game Music

In the world of video games, there are some really stupid decisions.



And then, some ideas that are dumber than others.



Babylon 5, created by J. Michael Straczynski, inspired a video game. It even came with an entire soundtrack.  Multiple soundtrack cuts, as done by why sounds like a full orchestra (I haven't looked up the data to see how much was done with Christopher Franke and the Berlin Symphony orchestra )



And then Sierra games cancelled it.  Pulling it from the shelves entirely.



Ahem .... Morons.



However, I've found over an hour's worth of the soundtrack on YouTube. It might be the whole thing.



Enjoy.

More after the break

Part 2









I think that's enough for the day.  Thirty minutes is a bit much for anyone.  Be well, and see you tomorrow.

Image Comics and The Big Lie

The first time I had ever heard of Image Comics, it was in a column by Peter David called But I Digress.  It was all mostly a matter of the strange and wonderously stupid things done in the comic book industry, as well as writing, and structure of stories, and why doesn't anyone ever stay dead already?

What I recalled of Image Comics was that it was art-focused. Essentially, all of the artists decided that they didn't need anything stupid like, oh, writers, for example. Because, after all, writers are just those people who fill in the word bubbles after the artist is done with the pictures, right?

Tell it to Joss Whedon, or JM Straczynski, or Peter David.

Now I digress ....

Anyway, with this background, I read about Image Comics trying to do a Twilight Zone episode.

Okay, goody.  I always like it when people try to imitate better writers. It's worked for some people better than others.

The Twilight Zone episode they wanted to mimic was one of their few hour long episodes, No Time Like the Past. A time traveler named Paul Driscoll tries to stop major events in history from going wrong.

Driscoll tries to evacuate Hiroshima.  The Japanese take one look at this anglo, and throw him in jail.

Driscoll tries to shoot Hitler. He is stopped because an annoying cleaning lady just won't leave him alone, and then becomes suspicious and calls the men in black trench coats on him.

He even tries to stop the Lusitania from being sunk.

At the end of the day, Paul Driscoll says to heck with it all, goes back in time to the old west. He knows a tragedy is about to happen, and tries to stop it ... but by screwing around with events, he is actually the cause of the tragedy.

Okay, great. If a comic book is going to mimic this, then great.  This looks like an interesting idea.  So, what does image comics do?

September 11th, 2001

Okay, I'm cool with that. Load up enough images on an iPad, iPhone, what have you, and bring it back in time to show off and persuade people that Bad Things Will Happen.  And, in the Twilight Zone format, people will be more interested in the magic of the future technology than what you're trying to say. I'm hip.

And then ... oh, and then ... I took a look at what they were doing.  It's called .... dramatic pause....

The Big Lie.

About 9-11.

Can you guess where this is going?

If you think into the land of the Illuminati Polka, you guessed right.
[More below the break]

I took a look at some of the images.  Fighter planes? Looking like they've taken off and targeting buildings?  We haven't been told everything about 9-11?  Why did the towers fall that way?

We're going back to the tinfoil hat brigade? Really?  We're going to do this?  It's been a decade, people! The towers were struck by planes. We have the footage.

The planes were not flow by remote control, or the Mossad.

We have video of Osama waiting for news of it on the radio, and then hearing about it and laughing.

We have al-Qaeda documents discussing how Osama was actually surprised the towers fell -- because he hadn't taken burning jet fuel into account when hitting the WTC with a plane.

The original designers of the WTC created the building so that it would pancake straight down, instead of toppling over like dominoes.

Just for the people over at Image comics .... I got your conspiracy theories right here.

Author Review: The Wrath of Zahn

Timothy Zahn will always be marked as the man who resurrected the Star Wars series from it's unholy grave. He wrote three books in the early 1990s, and the Star Wars book series was born.

Starting with Heir to the Empire, it was one of the few modern novels at the time I had encountered protagonists who thought. Not just a passing thought, covered in Italics, but whole paragraphs of tactical thought and maneuvering. And sometimes for entire pages. Shootouts in space and in infantry tactics had become chess games with lasers and missiles. And the antagonist of the piece was brilliant; the conversations between him and his side kick looked like Sherlock Holmes and Watson with a tactical manual.

 Though, to be honest, Zahn is the only person in the Star Wars world I'll read ever again.  There are only so many books about X-Wing pilots, and trashing the universe before it gets tiresome.  With Zahn, All of his books are well thought out, and no one is stupid. There are some cases you can probably say that everyone thinks too much, but a smart book is never a bad thing, as far as I'm concerned. Every time George Lucas entered into the world of Star Wars, Zahn followed, and improved it.

Zahn created a planet called Coruscant -- which appeared in the first "prequel" movie. Lucas made droids with little shields, Zahn came up with a way to out-maneuver them. Lucas went back in time, Zahn went back in time, and, while Zahn couldn't make Anakin Skywalker interesting, everyone else around him was.


And, in true George Lucas fashion, he took everything that Zahn created, and promptly ruined it ... read the most recent Star Wars novels, and you'll see why. Zahn and an author named Michael J. Stackpole had come up with a concept to expand the Star Wars novels into a kind of Next Generation series ...

It went ahead without Zahn.

Let's just say that there's a reason Zahn's latest Star Wars novel is set in the past, before the first and second movies.  I would rather read his take on the rise of the most brilliant tactical leader the bad guys ever had, than read one more petty, pedantic, grim novel set around Lucas's regular Star Wars novels.  It also includes the funniest group of rogue stormtroopers you've ever seen, and possibly the only ones who have the ability to shoot straight.

What I've learned from Timothy Zahn

There's really only one thing I've learned from Zahn -- never assume your audience is stupid. If you're willing to explain everything, the audience will follow you, as long as your story is engaging.

As some beta readers of A Pius Man can tell you, I rely on the audience's intelligence a lot ... some might say too much. But, I figure any editor will tell me when I lose them. 

Other works by Zahn

At the start of Zahn's career, he started a series called Blackcollar. Twenty years after Earth loses to an invading alien race, the chemically enhanced guerrilla soldiers made to fight that war have come out of retirement ... while not his best series, you can see the seeds of everything that Zahn would become.



And by "Not his Best" I mean that the characters are not very engaging.  They are, for the most part, plot vehicles. Ironically, the most interesting character in the entire series was a human commander working for the aliens. But, the plot is intricate, the maneuvering and the strategy is brilliant. Basically, the quality of the plot and the characters is on par with, say, Mission: Impossible.

There are only two books, but they're both fun little reads.

The Cobra Trilogy, one of his later series, was a multi-generational epic involving and examination of guerrilla warfare, high-tech implants, and what do you do when soldiers come home from battle.

The premise: humanity is struggling with a war against an alien race called the Troft. The best idea to counter the Troft: Cobras; soldiers who are cybernetically enhanced with micro-hydrolics in their joints, metal laminae over their bones, and weapons systems implanted in their bodies.

But when the war is over and the Cobras come home, what happens next? What does one do with a person whose response to a near collision with a car is to shoot out the tires with weapons in their little fingers?

You send them to another end of the galaxy, and let them become frontiersmen.

At the end of the day, this becomes a solid family saga of three generations as they go from warrior, to statesmen, back to warriors.

I actually wonder what Zahn's going to do now that he's starting a new trilogy... which is not a multi-generational epic, but takes place over a single month.

Sometimes, old soldiers don't have the option of quietly fading away. Sometimes, it's time to start hunting again...

Anyway, next book....


Angelmass was an interesting one-shot....

A nebula is the source of "angels," small molecules that radiate positive energy. They make politicians truthful, they make criminals honest. Angels remove people's fear ....

But to everything there is a polar opposite. By removing "angel" molecules from the nebula, what dark forces are they breeding within?

And, by books end, it's up to two tramp freighter Captains, a thief, and a rogue politician who have to save the entire planet, and possibly the galaxy, from a creature that can eat the sun....

As I said, it was a fun one-shot.

In another end of the Zahn Galaxy is the Quadrail series. The intergalactic train system is run by a mysterious race called the Spiders. No one knows anything about them and there's a good reason for that -- they're actually a front for an older species, one with a hidden agenda, and a secret so deadly that the entire universe really is at stake. A secret army has been gathering in the shadows for decades, leading into a cold war that's about to warm up.

It's the Third Lynx, but the

second book... got it?

Into this particular mess is thrust one Frank Compton. Like Burn Notice's Michael Weston, he's a spy who's been burned by political superiors who have decided that he's too inconvenient to have in government employ. When a billionaire's messenger drops dead on Frank's doorstop, in perfect Mickey Spillane fashion, he has to hop a train in short order.

And in doing so, he's going to be sucked into the biggest cat and mouse game this side of the pod people ... or maybe fighting the Flood in Halo.

This book has all the trademarks of a Zahn novel -- character who think, plan, the overthink and over plan. 

And then all plans are shot to hell upon first contact with the enemy, and it's time to run.

So, they're fun....

A bonus for those of you who understand where the title of the blog was stolen from: