Editing Viper

Editing and tweaking VIPER before it's re-published, and in retrospect I don't recall making it this dark, but it has incest, rape, torture, a touch of cannibalism, collateral damage, high civilian casualties, numerous characters with miserable or pyschotic backstories, and the last page leaves the main character possibly left for dead and bleeding out in the desert. Oh, and someone gets his balls shot off. Kinda makes me wonder where my head was at back then.

Weapons Grade now available

WEAPONS GRADE (formerly SCORPION) is up and available to download for free today through Friday.

Book News, Finally

I've completed edits and revisions on Book One (formerly SCORPION, now WEAPONS GRADE). Keeping in mind author Steven Hildreth, Jr. 's criticisms on showing vs telling, I've ended up adding 14,000 words. I made numerous changes and added some new stuff (like Avery being detained for interrogation by Tajikistan's KGB) throughout to make a more cohesive narrative and tighter story, as well as tweaking some technical details, like swapping out the Ground Branch team's MP5 subguns for M4A1 CQBRs. Suffice to say, if you already have the old edition, I'd highly recommend replacing it with the new edition, especially since it will be free the first week week it is published (sometime in the next two weeks). VIPER will be next and probably published the following month.

Books Relaunched

After a trademark dispute earlier this week, the books will be re-launched as new editions, this time without the "Scorpion" series branding. The books will be up on Amazon shortly. Each week for the next three weeks, one of the books will be available for free, so even if you already have them, now is a good time to get the new editions. Plus, I've done a lot edits and re-writes on them over the years to clean up the text.

Book One, now called WEAPONS GRADE, will likely be up this weekend, and free. TARGET VIPER will be free the following week, followed by SUBVERSIVE ACTION on the third week. 

Given how some Amazon reviewers operate, hopefully I can avoid a slew of 1 star "reviews" from people complaining that they bought (re: downloaded for free) the same book with a different name (despite identical plot summaries and being able to read the free preview).

If you previously left a review for the original editions, please consider re-posting them if you have the time.

With that out of the way, it is time to continue writing ROGUE STATE, which is at 100,000 words and awaiting a conclusion.  

Also,  be sure to follow my Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/author.ross.sidor/

character age and longevity

I saw this review on Amazon for SCORPION: SUBVERSIVE ACTION, which got me thinking.

 

 

At this point, since Avery joined the army before 9/11, he's somewhere in his 40s, or very late thirties at best. 

These types of protagonists in action thrillers can generally continue indefinitely, and often do, if they're profitable. While Mitch Rapp's lack of aging isn't something I care or think about as a reader, age and literary longevity is something I've been thinking about when it comes to my own character and series. 

Other authors, like Daniel Silva, who have aging protagonists have been making a point of saying the new story is set just days, weeks, or months after the previous one, but one can only keep that up for so long. 

From the first book, I'd always intended that at some point Avery will need to retire and fade into the background, likely to be replaced by a new character, who has not been introduced yet, but he won't necessarily need to retire from my writings. 

Inspired by David Hunt and RJ Pineiro's book, WITHOUT FEAR, which is a historically-set prequel to their contemporary novel WITHOUT MERCY, I've been toying with the idea of setting stories within the past decade or two, both as a means to keep Avery alive, as well as to cover subject matter that's interesting to me but no longer topical or current. For example, I have a story in the back of my mind that involves Ghaddafi's WMDs during the 2011 Libyan Revolution.

Either way, that still's not not likely to happen anytime too soon, so we shall see.   

nearly there

Broke 90,000 words on ROGUE STATE, and now moving the pieces in place for the climactic setpiece battle in the Sudanese desert and what will be the biggest action scene in this series.

Follow me on Facebook

Just a reminder that anyone interested should follow my author Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/author.ross.sidor/ 

I post a lot of updates, articles, and content related to the books there that I do not always cross-post to this blog.