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, May 30, 2017

Grunt Hero Smashes to Earth

I'm so pleased that I can finally say that Grunt Hero has been published and it looks amazing. Solaris Books did an incredible job with the production (like they always do). Writing the series was so cathartic. Coming to terms with my own issues, realizing what kind of PTSD I have while writing about others, hearing from fathers and daughters and fellow veterans that I was getting it right have fueled me beyond belief.

I was also extremely pleased that I was able to tell the story of invasion and the after effects over three books. So many characters and so many loose ends to tie up. Quite a few of my loyal readers came up to me at PHX Comiccon and thanked me for wowing them. They were equally surprised I was able to answer all of the outstanding questions. And that, my friends meant the world to me because there were so many loose ends that I had to address without pulling the readers out of the story.

Back and 2015 I wrote an article for Sci Fi Bulletin about writing the first book. The title was Necessary Evil: PTSD in Military Sci Fi.  I wanted to write it to explain why I was writing the book and about how tired I was about soldiers being able to kill in fiction without any emotional cost to them.  Here's how it begins:  

I wanted to write a series of books about soldiers with PTSD and I wanted to get it right. I didn’t want my characters to be some lone gunmen, but to rather show them in a PTSD-positive light. But where would I start? How far could I go? How far should I go? After all, writing about PTSD is a trigger all unto itself. What is the line that separates entertainment and harm?
I recently wrote a few more blogs celebrating the release of the third book. 

One was also at Sci Fi Bulletin titled This is What Happens When a Horror Author Writes Science Fiction. Although my tongue was firmly in my cheek when I wrote it, I did want to point out that there is a need for more darkness in some science fiction.  Here's how I began the blog:

My science fiction publisher told me that my last three military sci fi novels were the bleakest books they’ve ever published and that’s a good thing. Let me explain.



I also wrote a blog for Sci Fi Now. This one was about the craft of writing and was titled The Ancient Art of Writing Trilogies. I wrote it because I felt that I failed to write a trilogy for SEAL Team 666 and took my lessons learned when I approached the Grunt Books. I spend a lot of it disambiguating between trilogies and series. Here's how it begins:

I grew up reading The Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift Jr, Nancy Drew, and The Hardy Boys. These mysteries were packaged by the Stratemeyer Syndicate and specifically targeted kids. Like many of my contemporaries, I liked reading these books because they were about kids like me solving fantastic mysteries. I fell in love with the characters, following them from book to book. I was especially fond of Frank and Joe Hardy, adventuring with them in The Sinister Signpost, The Phantom Express, The Ghost of Skeleton Rock and so many more. Reading them was like reading about old friends and I never tired of it.

Finally, I have an interview up at The Quillery where they posed some hard questions and put me on the spot. 



I Blame It On The Green Power Ranger

By now everyone knows that a crazy man from Mesa, Arizona came to Phoenix Comiccon thinking that he was the Punisher and that he needed to kill bad cops AND the Green Power Ranger. Not sure where the Green Power Ranger fit into it, but you can't explain crazy. Seems the 'Punisher' had three loaded pistols, a shotgun, a knife and ninja stars. Yes. Now pause a moment to imagine when and where he thought he was going to use throwing stars.

Because of this, numbers were down. That still didn't keep the wait on Friday from being 1.5 to 2 hours to get into the hall. Chewbaccas were passing out left and right in the desert heat. I didn't anticipate the heightened security and I sauntered over from my hotel at 1030 thinking I was going to make my 11:00 panel. The line had at least 4,000 people in it. I walked up to who I discerned (correctly) as the head of security, showed him my guest badge, then was told to get to the back of the line. I pressed, pointing out politely that I was a guest of the con and had con business I had to get to and he let me in a side door where Don the Maintenance Man patted me down and escorted me into the convention center. I doubt Don the Maintenance Man was part of the backup security plan... or was he.

Still, the con handled the situation and by Saturday, the lines weren't as long.
Great convention this year. I'll give a full report later in the week.