My lost books.

The two completed books I rarely ever mention is "I walk the walk" and "Under the Mud."  Both of these were edited/coached by Vonbluvens aka Mike Blevins.  As I'm hearing reports that Vonbluvens is gravely ill or dying, I decided to talk about these two forgotten novels due to his involvement in the project. 

"I walk the walk" was lengthy novel about an American revolution against a Zoinist government.  It wasn't like the Turner Diaries in the sense that it was more geared towards things slowly slipping out of control for the government due to political/economic/social problems while nationalists fought an IRA-styled campaign to hurry along it's demise.  There were cameo appearances from the personalities of the day too.  The nameless main character's dedicated belief in Odinism probably somewhat annoyed Vonbluvens at the time.  In all, I don't think he cared for the book.  It had a few good scenes in it and one or two good characters that I might recycle one day.  The book lacked much dialog, which Von always told me was my strong point in writing. 

Ironically, I hadn't thought much about the book until Rick Remmer came up to me in Trenton, NJ and said, "You definitely walk the walk."  He was referring to my participation in the huge street brawl that had taken place the day before and how I'd rushed into the thick of it, knocking enemies to the ground before I came under a chemical attack.  That was the first time I'd heard anyone use that phrase outside me titling a book with it.  Remmer gave me a choice of any book he had for sale that day.  I picked one called "Panzer Battles", a paperback. 

"Under the Mud" was the one Von liked and got interested in.  It was politically charged but more of a thinking man's novel than "I walk the walk."  It had a lot of sci-fi elements and left out most of the Odinist leanings that seemed to annoy the editor.  This book was about the later stages of the revolution and how a war profiteer became a revolutionary himself.  It goes into great detail of underground secret bases, abandoned because of plague research gone wrong.  It also talks about FEMA camps.  Vonbluvens had his name all over that part, so to speak.  In fact I brought Under the Mud to a rapid end so we could start a FEMA camp style book which was to be Under the Mud's sequel. 

The sequel, though we never decided on a name, was a brutal book.  It was about the camps set up towards the end of the revolution, which started out as a good idea to most people.  Life had been allowed to get so bad  outside the camps that people were all the more ready to go.  People who didn't want to go, hid and most often joined the revolutionary forces.  This book showed not just the ready and plentiful example of how race would play into the camps but also class.  Though never finished, the book was hot.  Vonbluvens went from dreading looking over the newest chapters to calling and asking why they weren't finished yet.  And bit by bit, the book climbed up to around 300 pages long.  Von would call up and throw out an idea or give a direction the next chapter should go in.  I'd type away for two or three days and send it to him to look over.  He'd often send something back and say, "don't let the person be beaten by a guard, let them be bludgeoned to death!"  In response, I'd tell him, have patience...both the interned prisoners and the guards are headed towards that point. 

And that is the line the book traveled down.  People went in, relieved to have hot water, plumbing and reliable electricity again as well as basic human safety.  Guards were glad to be off the front lines.  Resources got scarce, people got bored and guards got restless.  Then the rebels started attacking the camps, not so much to take human lives but to make things uncomfortable.  The more politically reliable prisoners were in the "green zone" while the yellow zone was for those who were unknown or the government was cautious about.  The red zone was for those deemed political dissidents or potential political dissidents who, who in the government's eyes, just hadn't got around to committing an actual crime yet.  Since the rebels only attacked the green zone, the prison officials eventually de-zoned the entire prison.  That is when all hell broke loose and life became very difficult in the camp. 

I may actually re-write that one someday.  Vonbluvens essentially wrote the original with me and since he's no longer wanting to be associated with politics, I'd have to take out the parts he came up with.  But the other two books, though read and liked by a few people, will probably never be published.  I'd certainly like to establish myself more as an adventure writer before I dive into politically charged adventure stories.  And even then, I may just continue to write books like the Cruel New World books, which are just adventure novels minus any trace of Marxist or Zionist propaganda. 

Right now, I'm concentrating on finishing Baron of the Coast while the second Cruel New World book is being edited.  I'm not sure where either books will be published and due to entry into the IPPY awards by In Search of Universal Truth Publishing, I might just go ahead and see about publishing the second Cruel New World book with them.  This way people won't have to hunt all over for the second book in the series.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the second book at this point.