Living Dangerously: Is Military Horror Too Much of a Niche?

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.

Thursday, August 30, 2018

Is Military Horror Too Much of a Niche?

"Burning Sky is masterpiece that I am more impressed with the longer I think about it. If you like your horror, political and thoughtful, I would say you should pre-order this novel. It will be on my best of the year list for sure." - Postcards from a Dying World

David Agranoff is proprietor of Postcards from a Dying World and the PK Dick Podcast known as Dickheads. He reads heavily in the genre and is one of the most thoughtful and intelligent readers I know, so to have him say those words is immensely humbling.

This is the second review in for Burning Sky. The first review called Burning Sky the pinnacle of the military horror genre. Now on the heels of that to have it being called a masterpiece can't help but make me smile. Too often, during the cold dark moments of writing a novel alone -- months and months of self-doubt- to know that you connected with some people on the DNA level is wonderful.

Will this last? Will every review be so great? Probably not. The odds are that there will be some who won't like it. Plus, and let's face it, the military horror genre isn't for everyone. I have niched myself inside the seventh and smallest of a Russian nesting doll. If people look askance at the horror genre, what will they think about MILITARY horror?

But they say "write what you know," so at least for the time being, I'm the flag bearer. My hopes is that some out there will try military horror and see that the best of them are more about the cost of war than the glorification of it. The best of them are about how a man or woman shuffles through a life made harder by what they were forced to do and survives despite the emotional and physical scars visited upon them. Isn't that what literature is all about?

I urge you to read the whole review.

Burning Sky will be available September 25th. Please pre-order so we can sell out the print run before publication. That will help guarantee more books in the series. You can click on one of the book links on the left, or go to the following links for your favorite stores.