Set two generations after THE LAST SKINWEAVER, the saga follows the same bloodline.

The Flash severed Earth from its Martian colonies. Cut off and abandoned, the colonists harden, shaping themselves into something different, something ruthless. They call themselves Marinthians and live by a stark martial creed that believes in a holy war against their home world.

When they return after six centuries, it is not as prodigal children but as exterminators. Their Purge Ships first destroy the floating castles that guard American settlements in the Transylvanian Mountains and the tribal lands of the allied Vosgiens.

But conquest gives way to occupation when they discover long-abandoned, highly coveted antigravity factories buried beneath Earth’s surface. A handful of realms are spared as vassals to provide a constant supply of slave laborers to work and die at the excavation sites.

But rebellion smolders. From a hidden castle, a salt-veined mine and the shadows of Islambol, an insurgency takes shape, igniting a war between twin worlds with irreconcilable destinies.

The E-edition can be purchased from Amazon, Apple Books, the Nook and other E-sellers. The paperback can be bought through my website at https://www.wghladkyauthor.com/shop/.

 Essien Asian wrote about the book:

W.G. Hladky’s The Red Occupation is the sixth book in The Book of Ruin series. The detailed list of characters, maps, places, and a beautifully written prologue that flows like poetry make it easy for readers to grasp the larger plot of the series, or to enjoy this installment as a standalone. Although the dialogue mostly has a cloak-and-dagger tone, Hladky seamlessly includes segments of thought-provoking drama, as shown when Kagan reminisces about the decisions that led her to become a RangerKnight. A rapidly shifting narrative perspective gives relatively equal attention to human and Marthinian activities, pulling readers into the action to align with whichever factions appeal to them. A masterpiece in a class of its own.

Iron John wrote about the book:

Okay, so even if you haven’t read the earlier books, you can jump into The Red Occupation. W.G. Hladky throws you straight into a wild ride…The action is nonstop, the politics are messy in a fun way, and the characters? You actually care about what happens to them… It’s the kind of book where you keep thinking, “Just one more chapter…” and suddenly it’s 2 a.m. If you love sci-fi that’s adventurous, a little intense, and just plain fun, this one’s a solid pick, even as a standalone.

Jamie Michele wrote about the book:

The Red Occupation by W.G. Hladky presents a superbly executed vision of a fragmented geopolitical future shaped by faith, fractured alliances, and historical divisions…The book’s strength lies in how it makes a fractured world feel operable, with every region and faction defined by its own functional logic. The result is a sustained sense of cohesion that holds through shifting alliances, military operations, and the embedded presence of belief and history. Very highly recommended.

If you like the book, give it five stars on Amazon and Goodreads.

PS: Years after publication, readers are still discovering my books!

The Last Skinweaver — #21 in Alien Invasion Sci-Fi, #23 in Alternative History on Kindle’s free book listings.

The Flashfall Sword — #6 in Military Fantasy, #24 in Alternative History on Kindle’s free book listings.

RangerKnights — #8 in Military Fantasy, #26 in Alternative History on Kindle’s free book listings.

The Book of Ruin — #34 in Alternative History of Kindle’s free book listings on Kindle’s free book listings.

Thank you to everyone keeping these stories alive!

The post THE RED OCCUPATION: SIXTH NOVEL IN THE BOOK OF RUIN SERIES IS OUT. first appeared on W.G. Hladky Author.

But once there, she discovers South Florida has become a dystopian cityscape of prey and predator. A drug called Wisht runs rampant, distorting minds and morphing bodies. Violent cults called Malforms relentlessly battle each other and hunt Goodfolk in competition with genetically engineered cat-size Komo Spiders, a dangerous EPA failure. And solar storms keep striking Earth, slowly pushing Florida into a new version of the Middle Ages.

Abagail’s only hope of survival is a group of Miami-Dade sheriff’s deputies who save her during a shootout between two cults. The problem is her half-sister got left behind in the rescue – and finding her is not the deputies’ top priority. Searching for a mysterious Father Benoit is, and they won’t divulge why. In the meantime, she becomes entangled in government conspiracies, religious zealots and a surprising new passion: aiding the deputies in protecting those who can’t defend themselves.

K.C. Finn, a multi-award-winning author, wrote this in her review of the novel.

“(The novel) an atmospheric, detailed, and immersive experience in a post-apocalyptic world that is like nothing I’ve seen this year. The narrative is a smoothly-written blend of dystopia, survival, and conspiracy that keeps the fast-paced plot rolling on through different trials and tribulations, making it a gripping read with lots of action but also a thought-provoking exploration of humanity’s downfall.”

Rabia Tanveer, in her review, said, “W.G. Hladky weaved magic with his words and crafted a believable world that was full of surprises…(The heroine’s) growth was remarkable…I loved how the environment shaped her into a larger-than-life character who was toughened by the world around her. The fast-paced narrative was phenomenal, and the overall feel of the story was incredible.”

The novel’s e-edition is available on Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, and most other platforms. The paperback can be purchased through Amazon.

If you like the book, give it 5-stars on Amazon and Goodreads.

The post In the Time of the Flash: 5th novel in The Book of Ruin series is out first appeared on W.G. Hladky Author.

The novel is about Roge Callan, who to escape his father’s despotic claw, changes his name to serve as a sergeant under a banished RangerKnight. They live among former enemies, the Skinweavers, who seek help to find a path out of their barbaric tribal past.

But the benevolent Widow Witches and their sentient Yetis have gone missing, and only someone with Widow Witch blood can find and rescue them. Unbeknownst to Roge, he has the blood and is the League of American Castles’ only option. In a hobbled and sabotaged swiftship called the Drunken Stork, Roge pulls together a small crew of misfits and travels from Mitteleuropa to Russia to the Middle Kingdom. They confront along the way ambushers, pestilence, vicious chimeric predators and titanic storms.

However, Roge is not the only one with problems.

Thousands of dead Han soldiers keep disappearing after battling brutal steppe invaders. Plus, alien-looking outlanders are stalking the Middle Kingdom in powerful skyships no one can match. All the while, court intrigue, well-guarded secrets and backstabbing keep Luminous Emperor Zhong Ren from learning the meaning of his diviner’s mysterious predictions.

The novel includes pictures of the Drunken Stork, maps and a Weir family tree that covers all the generations.

This is what editorial reviewers are saying about THE LAST SKINWEAVER:

The world-building here is intricately done, well thought-out, and believable, with multiple cultures interacting according to their own particular views and needs…The story is full of action, with excitement and danger at every turn, and the main plot unfolds as a series of little events whose relevance and relation to larger events is revealed, bit by bit, as the story goes on. In the end, mysteries that have been hidden since the beginning of the series are revealed, and the epic drama comes full circle and finds a solid and satisfying resolution. — Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader.

Over the course of the novel, Hladky offers prose that’s measured and assured, and his action-packed narrative enhances the story’s enjoyable mix of court intrigue, dirty politics, well-guarded secrets, and backstabbing. Although the story echoes many other dystopian tales (including the almost middle-earth-ish settings), Hladky manages to carve out new territory for himself, constructing a story that is able to stand on its own. His knack for blending the fast-paced lingo of paramilitary thrillers with the intriguing worldbuilding of sci-fi and fantasy keeps the pages flying. Throw in the sharply drawn characters, atmospheric setting, and the roller-coaster pacing, and you’ve got a winner. Readers will be enthralled. – The Prairies Book Review.

The post THE LAST SKINWEAVER — 4th novel in The Book of Ruin series is out first appeared on W.G. Hladky Author.

The reader wrote, “JAYZUS! I wish i were a WOMAN !!!!! THEN I COULD TOO BE THE GREATEST PILOT WHO EVER LIVED IN ALL THE GALAXY!!!!…This book was SO FCKNG BAD, I stopped reading at Page 12 and returned it (sic).”

He was referring to a scene early in the novel where my protagonist, a veteran senior chief, says this about a rookie ranger: “…(She) had shown Weir some of the best piloting he had seen in years. He couldn’t tell her that, for it would fuel her cockiness, but he didn’t want to dampen her spirit…”

While he’s entitled to his opinion, I considered the scene that triggered his bile fairly innocuous. Bewildered, I did some digging. According to his book review platform, he has reviewed 378 books, giving, on average, 1.8 stars. Okay, the guy’s a harsh grader. I’ve had professors like him, but then I looked at his other reviews.

He said this about another novel. “IN MY OPINION, this is just the same old trite bullsht. The wimmins is waaayyyy stronger and smarter than the mens (sic).”

He blasted another book this way. “By reading this I found that the best fighters and scouts in the history of the entire world have always been women. And are women (sic).”

And in another review: “…A WORLD WHERE WOMEN SEEM TO HAVE ALL THE MUSCLES AND BRAINS, and are more soldierly than the crappy Neanderthal men, (sic)…”

And,

“O! M! G! I wish I were a woman!!!! I really need to read more books BY women and ABOUT women!! They hold so many surprises and things I never knew!!! (sic).”

There are more reviews like that.

The reviewer is an older male (like me), and I had two reactions to his words. I disagree with his implied claim that women are incapable of being warriors. In my thirty years policing South Florida streets, I found women cops to be just as tough and smart as men.

I also view his words as evidence of the backlash against women for their progress in filling traditional male roles. The U.S military has opened up combat arms to women. They are fighter pilots, submariners and special ops operators. Females comprise more than sixteen percent of American cops and almost twenty-five percent of Miami-Dade County police officers.

Some have claimed that the collapse of masculine roles in our culture has led to a “hyperbolic male reaction to minuscule improvements to women’s rights.”

I agree with Susan Faludi, who wrote, “(T)he once-valued male attributes of craft, loyalty, and social utility are no longer honored, much less rewarded.”

William Goode, a sociologist, has argued many men view “even small losses of deference, advantages or opportunities (to women) as large threats.”

Many men compensate for their insecurity with toxic masculinity, which emboldens domination, devaluation of women, homophobia and wanton violence.

I got lucky. I found a career that served the greater good through a mutual effort, a beneficial role most men want. However, too few such jobs now exist in our culture, leaving men frustrated and apprehensive. Susan Faludi posed the question our society currently faces in an essay. Will American manhood come down on the side of nurturance or the curled lip and exaggerated snarl of aggrieved aggression?

The post “I wish i were a WOMAN THEN I COULD TOO BE THE GREATEST PILOT WHO EVER LIVED IN ALL THE GALAXY” first appeared on W.G. Hladky Author.

Writing has prevented me for some time from posting. Since the fourth novel in The Book of Ruin series is now with beta readers, I have time to reflect.

What’s on my mind is Joseph Henrich’s fascinating but overwritten book, The WEIRDest People in the World. WEIRD people are Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic. In other words, those of us who live in North America and Europe. The book’s main thrust is that the rise of Christianity undermined tribal or clan societies by stressing loyalty to the Church over kinship. Europeans became more individualistic because they worried less about what the family and clan thought than their reputation in the wider community.

Many good things came from this switch. Getting out from under stifling kinship traditions fostered openness to outsiders, trade, innovation, new institutions and greater economic prosperity. However, Henrich points out only a small percentage of countries are truly WEIRD. Loyalty to families or clans and their power to shape reputations still dominate most societies. This is especially true in Asian countries.

Many have argued that humans naturally yearn to be members of a tribe or extended family. In his book Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, Sebastian Junger claims native Americans rarely ran away to join white society. Emigration always seemed to go from the civilized to the tribal. He also points out that cohesive and egalitarian tribal societies do better at mitigating the effects of combat trauma than does “modern society.”

I believe we WEIRDers have lost a quality of life. We have become too atomized, separate from others. My brother and my wife’s sister reside in California, and her brother lives in Ohio. I cherish my relationships with them from my perch in Florida, but none have met each other. That would not have been the case with an Asian extended family.

To compensate, WEIRDers have replaced kinship tribes with voluntary organizations. One of my tribes is a local Aikido dojo. The husband and wife who run the dojo are the dojo’s patriarch and matriarch. Its members come from all over the world, including Russia, China, Germany, Italy, North and South America and the Caribbean. They party together, swap jokes, and gossip on WhatsApp as if part of a family or clan.

Although modern society has gravely disrupted our social bonds, we are strongly wired to be part of a group larger than ourselves, especially when we share adversity. That is why first responders and soldiers, after experiencing shared trauma, forever become brothers and sisters. To paraphrase Junger one more time, the willingness to place oneself in harm’s way for another is a form of love that even religions fail to inspire.

Hence, cops who policed the violent streets with me comprise my other tribe. Although we are retired, we still keep in touch, and our opinion of each other is more important than what our kinfolk thinks of us.

A lone “John Wayne” type of hero does not exist in my novels, just as they do not exist in the real world. My stories describe a protagonist who gathers warrior-companions around him to help him in a quest. They go forth as a family. Such will be the case in my new novel, The Last Skinweaver. As the African proverb says, If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to far, go together.

The post We WEIRD People: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar first appeared on W.G. Hladky Author.

In the Book of Ruin novels, I portray a post-apocalyptic world that emerges from our modernity. I enjoyed speculating about what would be different and familiar, forgotten and remembered. I am surprised, however, about what depictions upset readers. Some have objected to my claim that those living during dystopian times would forget how to make smokeless gunpowder and magazine-loading guns. I laid out my arguments for why I believe this in a past blog. (In my latest novel, RangerKnights, a Teutonic gunsmith, several hundred years after the Flash, finally rediscovers smokeless gunpowder and carbine manufacturing).

A reader recently took issue with another aspect of my worldbuilding – that the English that NATO Americans spoke in Germania evolved into a separate language called American. In my first novel, The Book of Ruin, the break between English and American was not complete but had begun. I slipped in a twisted Easter egg when I wrote that a university and boarding school were nestled inside the English Quarter, so named because the classical language of learning was English. The English Quarter is based on the Latin Quarter. During the Middle Ages, European universities were said to exist in Latin Quarters since professors and students spoke and studied in Latin.

The reader who took issue with me wrote, “Any event originating from the sun that disrupts life on Earth is not likely to alter language sufficiently to be considered a new language.” Although he did not say so, he probably was upset that in the novel RangerKnights, Americans in the United States also no longer spoke English. Instead, they spoke a creole, as different from English as the Haitian tongue is from French. I understand why many living during our relatively stable, modern age see society as resilient. But I see culture, which includes language, as fragile.

All languages evolve. They are never static. We probably would have a hard time understanding the English spoken in Shakespearean England. As a white rookie police officer from the Midwest, I did not always understand the African-American English spoken in Miami-Dade’s innercity. Although all Germans learn in school what is called High German and hear it on TV and radio, regional dialects persist. A German from the northern part of the country traveled to Bavaria. When he checked in at a pension, the clerk talked to him in Bavarian. He said he did not understand her. She replied, “You are in Bavaria now… and people speak Bavarian here! Get used to it!”

An empire’s language can become a lingua franca, a common second tongue that different peoples speak to communicate. Alexander the Great’s conquests made Greek a lingua franca. Roman legions and straight roads pushed Latin to the top of the language heap. Arabic spread far and wide during the Islamic Golden Age. The British and American empires made English the modern lingua franca.

But what happens to a lingua franca when an empire falls, roads crumble, fleets and planes no longer sail and fly, Internet, TV and phone networks permanently crash, and another great power does not fill the vacuum? The lingua franca splinters and mutates in all sorts of ways. This is what happened to Latin after the Roman Empire fell. Latin became French in Gaul, Italian on the Apennine Peninsula, Spanish and Portuguese in Iberia, and Romanian in Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia.

Worldwide empires fell in my novels. A continual series of solar storms destroyed power grids and electronics. Holes in the ozone layer created cancer zones. The world was reduced to city-states and regional startups.

***

I must add a postscript. Two women book reviewers from the United Kingdom took issue with a scene in RangerKnights where a female warrior protagonist wearing a full-body burqa sneaked into an enemy town. After reaching a safe house, the character removed the burqa. She discovered that blood had stained her pants from the pelvis to the knees. “I guess my period started a little early,” the character said, doubling over with laughter.

The scene jarred the reviewers and colored their entire view of the novel. One said the scene was “not at all realistic.” Both reviewers said the book could have benefited from a female editor and beta reader.

My editor is female, and several of my beta readers are women. The scene is based on an actual event described in Ashley’s War, a non-fiction book about the first American women who went through Special Forces training and deployment. Author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon described the incident this way:

“And then she looked down and saw that her pants were soaked in blood from her waist to her knees…And then she burst out in laughter. She had been out there in the field for well over twelve hours and had somehow missed the fact that her period had started hours before.”

 I partnered up with several women during my thirty-year career policing Miami-Dade County. Several told me it was not uncommon for a female cop to approach another to ask if she had any protection because a stressful event, such as a physical confrontation or foot chase, had triggered an early period. One particular partner also said that such incidents, for her, could start a second cycle in the same month on occasion.

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