Midlist Writer: postcard

Showing posts with label postcard. Show all posts

Friday, 13 February 2015

Old West Photo Friday: Cowboy Riding Jackalope

Here's an old postcard showing a cowboy riding the fabled Jackalope. While most Jackalopes are rabbit sized, sometimes they get big enough for cowboys to saddle them up and hop around the plains. A Jackalope, of course, is a cross between a jackrabbit and an antelope.

You can read about Jackalopes and a lot of other weird stuff in my new booklet out by Charles River Editors, The Weird Wild West: Tall Tales and Legends about the Frontier. There was a free giveaway on Amazon for the past couple of days, but since I was traveling up to Oxford I didn't get a chance to tell all of you. Sorry about that! I think a lot of people will be reaidng about Jackalopes this week because it made it to #271 on Amazon!

Charles River has come out with a second booklet of mine on The Trench Warfare of World War I. It got up to #338 on Amazon during the free giveaway. Sadly, that's also over. I should really get a Smartphone and start obsessively checking the Internet like everyone else. On second thought, I think I'll stay in the real world. That's where the Jackalopes live!

Photo courtesy Jackalope postcards, which has an amazing collection online. Seeing is believing!

Friday, 25 July 2014

Military History Photo Friday: Swiss WWI Postcard

Back in high school, one of my friends had a father from Switzerland. He told me a story about how during World War Two, Hitler was speaking to the Swiss ambassador. The Nazi leader arrogantly pointed out, "The Swiss army only has 100,000 men. What if I sent a million men against you?"

To which the Swiss ambassador dryly replied, "Then my men would each have to fire ten times."

A wonderful bit of propaganda that has stayed in my memory for 25 years!

Right now I'm up in Oxford for my usual summer of research and travel. I'm busy researching and writing Digging In, book two of my Trench Raiders series of World War One action novels. While rummaging through various books I came across a collection of Swiss postcards from WWI. Switzerland never fought in the war but they were concerned with German expansionism. It turns out the anecdote about Hitler had been recycled from an earlier conflict. This card show a conversation between a Swiss soldier and the German Kaiser. A rough translation reads:

"In the land of the great marksmen.

Good job, son! You have 100,000 marksmen in Switzerland. What will you do when 200,000 Prussians come?

Ah, we'll shoot two bullets, Majesty!"

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The Case of the Purloined Pyramid

The Last Hotel Room

He came to Tangier to die, but life isn’t done with him yet. Tom Miller has lost his job, his wife, and his dreams. Broke and alone, he ends up in a flophouse in Morocco, ready to end it all. But soon he finds himself tangled in a web of danger and duty as he’s pulled into scamming tourists for a crooked cop while trying to help a Syrian refugee boy survive life on the streets. Can a lifelong loser do something good for a change? A portion of my royalties will go to a charity for Syrian refugees.

Warpath into Sonora

Arizona 1846: Nantan, a young Apache warrior, is building a name for himself by leading raids against Mexican ranches to impress his war chief, and the chief’s lovely daughter. But there is one thing he and all other Apaches fear—a ruthless band of Mexican scalp hunters who slaughter entire villages. Nantan and his friends have sworn to fight back, but they are inexperienced, and led by a war chief driven mad with a thirst for revenge. Can they track their tribe’s worst enemy into unknown territory and defeat them?

Radio Hope

In a world shattered by war, pollution and disease. . . A gunslinging mother longs to find a safe refuge for her son. A frustrated revolutionary delivers water to villagers living on a toxic waste dump. The assistant mayor of humanity's last city hopes he will never have to take command. One thing gives them the promise of a better future--Radio Hope, a mysterious station that broadcasts vital information about surviving in a blighted world. But when a mad prophet and his army of fanatics march out of the wildlands on a crusade to purify the land with blood and fire, all three will find their lives intertwining, and changing forever.

Refugees from the Righteous Horde (Toxic World Book 2)

When you only have one shot, you better aim true. In a ravaged world, civilization’s last outpost is reeling after fighting off the fanatical warriors of the Righteous Horde. Sheriff Annette Cruz becomes New City’s long arm of vengeance as she sets off across the wildlands to take out the cult’s leader. All she has is a sniper’s rifle with one bullet and a former cultist with his own agenda. Meanwhile, one of the cult’s escaped slaves makes a discovery that could tear New City apart. . . Refugees from the Righteous Horde continues the Toxic World series started in Radio Hope, an ongoing narrative of humanity’s struggle to rebuild the world it ruined.

The Scavenger

In a world shattered by war, pollution, and disease, a lone scavenger discovers a priceless relic from the Old Times. The problem is, it's stuck in the middle of the worst wasteland he knows--a contaminated city inhabited by insane chem addicts and vengeful villagers. Only his wits, his gun, and an unlikely ally can get him out alive. Set in the Toxic World series introduced in the novel Radio Hope, this 10,000-word story explores more of the dangers and personalities that make up a post-apocalyptic world that's all too possible.

Trench Raiders

September 1914: The British Expeditionary Force has the Germans on the run, or so they think. After a month of bitter fighting, the British are battered, exhausted, and down to half their strength, yet they’ve helped save Paris and are pushing toward Berlin. Then the retreating Germans decide to make a stand. Holding a steep slope beside the River Aisne, the entrenched Germans mow down the advancing British with machine gun fire. Soon the British dig in too, and it looks like the war might grind down into deadly stalemate. Searching through No-Man’s Land in the darkness, Private Timothy Crawford of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry finds a chink in the German armor. But can this lowly private, who spends as much time in the battalion guardhouse as he does on the parade ground, convince his commanding officer to risk everything for a chance to break through?

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Friday, 13 February 2015

Old West Photo Friday: Cowboy Riding Jackalope

Friday, 25 July 2014

Military History Photo Friday: Swiss WWI Postcard