Living Dangerously: Blood Ocean and Demons

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Weston Ochse is a former intelligence officer and special operations soldier who has engaged enemy combatants, terrorists, narco smugglers, and human traffickers. His personal war stories include performing humanitarian operations over Bangladesh, being deployed to Afghanistan, and a near miss being cannibalized in Papua New Guinea. His fiction and non-fiction has been praised by USA Today, The Atlantic, The New York Post, The Financial Times of London, and Publishers Weekly. The American Library Association labeled him one of the Major Horror Authors of the 21st Century. His work has also won the Bram Stoker Award, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and won multiple New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards. A writer of more than 26 books in multiple genres, his military supernatural series SEAL Team 666 has been optioned to be a movie starring Dwayne Johnson. His military sci fi series, which starts with Grunt Life, has been praised for its PTSD-positive depiction of soldiers at peace and at war. Weston likes to be called a chaotic good paladin and challenges anyone to disagree. After all, no one can really stand a goody two-shoes lawful good character. They can be so annoying. It's so much more fun to be chaotic, even when you're striving to save the world. You can argue with him about this and other things online at Living Dangerously or on Facebook at Badasswriter. All content of this blog is copywrited by Weston Ochse.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Blood Ocean and Demons

Many of you probably know that I finished my first round of edits for my Abaddon Books novel, Blood Ocean, at the beginning of September. Although I didn't have enough time to send them out to my Beta Readers before I sent the novel to my editor, I did send them nonetheless, hoping for comments and corrections I could add in the final round of edits. But that was it. Since then, it has been a black hole of comments, the gravitational pull so severe, it had begun ripping free ideas that my novel was a crapfest where nothing happened that anyone cared about. But then, one of my Betas, Paul Legerski, who I first met when I lived in L.A., Twittered the following comment to me--

"Combine parts Tarzan, Three Musketeers, Peter Pan, add a splash of Hawaiian Horror, a splash of Far Eastern Martial Arts, a dollop of 1970s flair, a skewer of WWII Nazis, shake well, and serve-- call it BLOOD OCEAN and drink deeply. Brilliant! This is gonna be huge!"

Yeah. Paul saved me from myself and that vigorous and vicious monster, self-doubt. Now to hear back from my editor. I expect it any day now. If it's true to form, the manuscript will bleed red from track changes. But that's okay. It's never as many edits as I think and ultimately not as many as it needs.

Do me a favor. I've already had several people email me that they pre-ordered it. Not sure if they charge you now or later. What I would like you to do is add it to your wishlist either on Amazon or Barnes and Nobles. Even better would be to contact your favorite bookstore and ask them to put you on a waiting list for the book. I recommend Mysterious Galaxy for one of the best brick and mortar stores on the planet. Although they have stores in San Diego and Redondo Beach, they do heavy business online as well. You can contact them there. Tell them you'd like to be on the 'Reserve List' for Blood Ocean.

On Thursday, I received the John Skipp-edited anthology DEMONS in the mail. It's a big, hardback-sized, paperback book at 631 pages. I am so happy to be in it. Frankly, it was touch and go. Skipp loved my story, but there was some concern that the publisher Black Dog and Leventhal might find the subject matter a little too disturbing.

But after Dinah Dunn at Black Dog read the story, it was a done deal. In fact, I was at the World Horror Convention when I got the text from John telling me I was in. PSYCHED!

So I was so excited when I got the book in the mail that I immediately set about creating this video. You'll note it starts with Take 57. Let's just say I had trouble starting it. Then about halfway through, my wife walks in the front door, coming home from work. Jeese. What a soup sandwich. Still, I left this up and posted it to Facebook because I need to be true to my fans and friends and you need to be able to laugh at me from time to time.

I hope you enjoy it. I also hope that when you pick up a copy of DEMONS that you turn to my story first and learn the glory of a forest filled with demonic still-born babies and a hero you don't want to root for.