Now Available: Maelstrom, A Civil War Novel!

 

The story of the greatest rivalry in American History.

Buy at Amazon

The Left Failed to Co-Opt Animal Farm

The Left used Hollywood to claim Animal Farm for itself. Andy Serkis’s adaptation reframes Orwell’s anti-communist classic as an anti-capitalist animated film. The $35M movie made $3.4M on opening weekend from 2,600 screens, averaging $1,307 per screen. Ticket buyers had their pick of seats.

The audacity is breathtaking. Orwell disemboweled communism in a simply told fairy tale that is considered a literary and political classic. The idea of revising someone else’s famous critique of the Left to sell the Left’s empty bombast was silly to begin with, but doing it was super-dumb. How many thought-challenged zealots on the Left will leave the theater with the intent of reading the book? Okay, not many, because few saw the film.

Yet films often revive interest in books. Many who skipped the film may read about its failure and think, "Hey, I remember that book from school," and, like me, decide to read it again. I did, and found it’s still a great story—just as relevant as 81 years ago. Human nature hasn’t changed.

Animal Farm uses the enduring form of a fable to reveal an eternal truth. Orwell succeeded. (The movie did not.) Having once believed in socialism, Orwell later changed his mind. People who have lived under socialism certainly don’t like it. Eastern Europeans aren’t buying this crap. Misery and despotism entrap North Koreans while their brethren to the south live in the eleventh richest nation on Earth. There are no refugee boats risking life and limb to reach Cuba. East Berlin didn’t build a wall to keep Westerners out. Even people in Russia and Albania prefer a kleptocracy to communism.

The truth is, socialism works exactly as portrayed in Animal Farm. The world needs this book to go viral. Buy a copy. Make George Orwell’s Animal Farm a bestseller once again.

 

 

Now Available: Old Haunts, A Steve Dancy Tale

 

Honest westerns. Full of dishonest characters.

Old haunts is now available in hardcover, trade paperback, and Kindle. Get a copy while they're still hot off the press.

Lincoln Book Review: The Shut Mouth Society

 

The Shut Mouth Society is my own Lincoln book. This modern day thriller is a typical chase novel à la Robert Ludlum. The Ludlum formula for this genre has a man and woman oddly meet to be accused of a crime and then chased by good guys and bad guys until they save themselves by unraveling a mystery that threatens social order. In my book, the mystery is a secret society formed after the Civil War that threatens to take control Mexico. The chase is launched when a small town police chief and renowned professor are asked to assess the validity of a pre-presidential document in Lincoln hand. Abe Lincoln is interwoven throughout the story as they must examine his life and motivations to solve the mystery.

I had done an enormous amount of research on Lincoln to craft an exciting story that was also historically accurate. These are book reviews but I’m too biased to rate The Shut Mouth Society as a work of fiction. (However, 405 Amazon readers have given it an average rating of 4.3 and the book was a finalist is the APA Glyph Awards for Best Novel.) This reading was to revisit my Lincoln research for my historical novel Maelstrom. I found no substantive errors. (However, if a set of dialogue begins with something like, “Some historians believe,” then what follows is not necessarily true. It only means that some credentialed authors believe it true. I believe I wrote the story in a manner where a reader will have no difficulty separating historical fact from speculation.)

All of that said, I believe The Shut Mouth Society is a fun way for readers to enjoy a rousing story and obtain a better understanding of our sixteenth president.