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.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Seven Days Until GRUNT LIFE Hits the Streets

With seven days until Grunt Life hits the streets, the excitement is mounting. This is my plunge into the military sci fi pool where I take on and try and break new ground concerning the realities of PTSD, suicide, and depression. Not only am I trying to make readers understand what it's like, but I'm also making PTSD sufferers heroes. Too often they think themselves the opposite. This is where I show them how they can save the planet, if only between the pages of Grunt Life.

Reviewers are raving over GRUNT LIFE so far.

Beauty in Ruins called Grunt life 'a fast-paced story with some daring ideas, Grunt Life: Task Force Ombra is a must-read for fans of the military science fiction genre, and definitely worth a read for sci-fi fans in general.'

Reviewer Bob Milne goes on to say that 'the opening arc of the story was, by far, the most interesting to me. Getting to meet the suicidal men and women recruited for Task Force Ombra, seeing how they're trained/conditioned in prison-like conditions, and watching as they engage one another in a confessional sort of catharsis is fascinating. Ochse devotes a considerable amount of time to setting the stage for his grunts, and I liked that.'

He also nailed my Lethal Weapon reference.  Nice!

Pop Cults focused heavily into the PTSD aspects with an absolutely glowing review of the book. 'With Grunt Life, I feel like Ochse was striving to write the kind of military narrative that Heinlein or Haldeman would have written. I am a huge fan of both authors, and Ochse is well on his way to
joining their ranks, but I don’t think he is quite there.  He is close, and he is on the right track — heck, he even acknowledges Haldeman at the end of the book. Ochse goes beyond the normal chaos of combat and asks of the tough questions that we, as a greater society, are just starting to ask. In this novel, he addresses one of the biggest killers of our veterans these days: suicide.  While the taking of one’s life has been addressed before, Ochse embraces it and integrates it into his story without making it the focus of the book or glorifying it. The book starts out with a suicide attempt, but it isn’t for the reasons that you would expect. Ochse was willing to get past the Hollywood and mainstream media explanations of military suicide and try to address some of the real reasons why veterans would be willing to end their lives. This is a subject that needs to be addressed openly and honestly, and Ochse was brave enough to risk turning some readers off to do it. I think that many of the readers who do get turned off by his frank observations on this subject might feel that way because it hits way too close to home. I don’t want this to sound like a challenge, but for some folks out there, this might be the book that makes them stop and think.'

Even SFF News weighed in. ''Grunt Life' at its heart is an Intense, Thought Provoking and Eye Opening look at the issues soldiers have to face everyday during and after their service.'

Reviews will be coming faster and faster. I hope to be able to link all of them. 

In the meantime, help this hardworking guy make this a NY Times Bestseller and order a copy  today!

For an independent bookstore near you, try this link to find where the book can be found.

Click this link to see all the Barnes and Nobles nearest you.
Mysterious Galaxy has Grunt Life available for preorder. They are one of the preeminent genre bookstores on the planet so consider supporting them. You can request a signed copy through them.
The Poisoned Pen, which is a mystery suspense bookstore in Scottsdale, is also a preeminent book store. They've shown me a lot of love by having me sign with them. Consider supporting them as well.  
 
Here's the back cover copy- 

This is a brand new Military SF series from Weston Ochse, an experienced military man and author.

Benjamin Carter Mason died last night. Maybe he threw himself off a bridge into Los Angeles Harbor, or maybe he burned to death in a house fire in San Pedro; it doesn’t really matter. Today, Mason’s starting a new life. He’s back in boot camp, training for the only war left that matters a damn.

For years, their spies have been coming to Earth, mapping our cities, learning our weaknesses, leaving tragedy in their wake. Our governments knew, but they did nothing—the prospect was too awful, the costs too high—and now, the horrifying and utterly alien Cray are invading, laying waste to our cities. The human race is a heartbeat away from extinction.

That is, unless Mason, and the other men and women of Task Force OMBRA, can do anything about it.

This is a time for heroes. For killers. For Grunts.
 

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