Archive for the ‘ Guardians ’ Category

Even blogs need a vacation!

Author: rja

Jun 1

I’ve been blogging here since mid-March but beginning today I’m switching to an abbreviated summer schedule. Instead of daily blogs, I’ll post news and information irregularly but at least once a week during the months of June, July and August. I’ll switch back to a more regular schedule on September 1st, just in time to follow the 2010 Baja hurricane season. If you’ve been following my blog, I suggest you subscribe to the RSS feed (the sugar packet just left of the coffee cup on the main page) so you’ll receive the new content whenever I post it.

Good news for Parallel Ops fans! Over the long Memorial Day weekend I completed two more chapters, so now I’ve finished Chapter 10 of each of the first 3 books: The Scientists, The Informants and The Guardians. Beginning today, my goal is to write 2 chapters per week until I finish all 3 books. Then we’ll publish and then I’ll start the 4th and final book in the series, The Teachers. Writing 3 books at once is turning out to be an interesting experience and I’m already considering ways to “pimp up” the Book 4 experience. One possibility is to let readers of the first 3 books take part in developing the story line for the series finale!

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Filed under: General, Guardians, Informants, Novels, Parallel Ops

Waiting in the Wings – Supporting Cast of the Future

Author: rja

Apr 10

If you follow this blog, you know I’m writing the first three novels of my new Parallel Ops series simultaneously.  I write a chapter of The Scientists, then a chapter of The Informants and then a chapter of The Guardians. Last night I completed chapter 10 of The Scientists which means I’ve now completed 28 chapters of my project. While I still have a long way to go, many new characters have already been introduced. Here’s a small sample of those you will meet in Parallel Ops:

Sophie Hoffman is a graduate student and self-proclaimed social activist currently working on her doctoral thesis in Northern European Languages at the Ludwig Maximillian University in Munich, Germany.

Sgt. Danny Miles is a young Marine assigned to the security detail of a major U.S. government research facility. A martial arts expert since he was six, Danny is a real life saver (literally).

 
 

Max Becker is a special agent with the BKA, Germany’s version of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. At the orders of his boss, the notorious Colonel Wilhelm Kruger, Becker is on a mission he is sure will end in failure and embarrassment.

Javier Reyes is the same character you met in Triangle, the final book in the Seeds of Civilization series. This time he’s back as a major player. If you’ve read Triangle, you’ve probably already figured out which new book he’s in, but you won’t guess where he is!

Carlos Gonzales is a semi-retired underwater videographer and a volunteer with Sea Watch, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the oceans and their marine life. Carlos also served in the Mexican Navy and his experiences there prove to be a valuable asset.

Carley Quinn was born in a remote Mennonite community in the Orange Walk District of Belize. When she married a British construction worker her family disowned her and she hasn’t spoken with them since. After her husband’s untimely death, she spent three years fighting with the rebels in Guatemala.

Rob Jefferies was born in Gresham, Oregon and graduated from Oregon State University with a degree in Computer Science. Before retiring to the Caribbean in 2005, Rob owned a successful software development company that specialized in banking and credit union applications.

Erik Mueller served as a decorated member of the U.S. Army Green Berets during the Gulf War but gave up a promising career in the military to become a ruthless soldier of fortune for a paramilitary group known only as The Six.

 
 

And, finally, there’s Michael “Buzz” Edwards. He makes appearances in all three books of the Seeds series and he’s already mentioned in each of the first three books of Parallel Ops. In Seeds we never really knew which side of the fence he was on but in Ops there will be absolutely no doubt!

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Filed under: Guardians, Informants, Novels, Parallel Ops, Scientists

Tony Nicoletti – I’ve Got Your Back!

Author: rja

Apr 6

This is the second of a 4-part series in which I hope to (re)introduce you to the main characters in my Seeds of Civilization and Parallel Ops series of mystery/adventure novels.

    

Tony Nicoletti is probably the most colorful of my four main characters and the only one based on a real person. He and Frank first met in the jungles of Southeast Asia where they formed a bond that has survived the years even though they are very different people with very different experiences. Where Frank is a strategist and a planner, Tony tends to take the shortest path to an objective, leveling anything that gets in his way.

(click for a surprise!)

Although a softie at heart, Tony’s Special Forces background makes him a tough adversary. As Frank’s “Number 2,” Tony is often called upon to work solo on high-risk tasks or to lead the rest of the team out of imminent danger. In the Parallel Ops series, Tony once again has the most perilous mission and must confuse and harass the very people that want him dead.

We don’t know much about Tony’s years after the military except that he worked as an independent trucker hauling classified cargos between military bases in the continental United States. Although we never know what he carried in his eighteen-wheeler, we do learn that his contract with the government required that he maintain a Top Secret security clearance.

To help you better understand Tony, here’s his back story prior to the Seeds series:

Tony Nicoletti was born and raised in the suburbs of south Los Angeles. He enlisted in the Army in 1972 and served as a forward air controller in Southeast Asia from 1974 to 1976. Tony and Frank Morton met in June, 1975, when they were both assigned to a covert military operation in Laos, and they remained close friends until they formally joined forces in 2001 to create the non-profit investigative group called NWIDI. Tony was discharged from the Army in 1976 and returned to southern California to become a long-haul truck driver. When his 5-year marriage ended in a bitter divorce, Tony moved to Atlanta where he was recruited into a civil service job by his former Viet Nam commander.

I’ll see you tomorrow with a little about NWIDI’s female team member, Linda McBride.

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Filed under: Guardians, Novels, Parallel Ops, Seeds of Civilization, Tractrix, Triangle, Tsubute

The Guardians – Dolphins, Diving and Danger on the High Seas

Author: rja

Apr 2

The third book in my new Parallel Ops series is called The Guardians and it features the infamous Tony Nicoletti. If you’ve read my Seeds of Civilization series, you know Tony as the “bull in a china shop” character who always manages to get things done – one way or another. In the Guardians, Tony is on a mission to keep an international group known as “The Six” from discovering a site so important that it could change the course of world events.

As the book opens, Tony is fleeing for his life from the very people he must soon challenge head-on. Having been out of contact with his former NWIDI team mates for more than five years, he sets out with a new cast of characters to confuse and distract The Six in ways only Tony could conceive. Using a live-aboard dolphin research vessel as cover, Tony and friends sail into the Caribbean and the jaws of the enemy to carry out their covert mission. The Guardians has my usual secondary plot and this one provides a glimpse of The Six and makes you wonder whether or not such a group could (or does) exist in our real world.

And here’s a little secret you’ll only hear on this blog: The Six show up in Book 1, The Scientists, when Professor Jim Barnes is handed a file by a stranger, and they appear again in Book 2, The Informants, when Linda and friends intercept a string of coded messages.

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Filed under: Guardians, Novels, Parallel Ops

Writing a Novel x3

Author: rja

Mar 16

As many of you already know, I’m working on a new, four-book series called Parallel Ops. This series is a follow-up to my Seeds of Civilization series and begins five years after the conclusion of Triangle, the final book in the Seeds series. The concept of the new series is that there will be a book featuring each of the main characters from Seeds as they each, in their own way, try to make semse of the event that took place in the final pages of Triangle.

Three of the books take place along the exact same timeline (hence the series title Parallel Ops) so I decided to write all three at the same time. I write Chapter 1 of Book 1, then Chapter 1 of Book 2, and so on. When all the Chapter 1s are finished, I go back to Book 1 and start Chapter 2. It’s a ”novel approach” (no pun intended) becasue I have to keep three story lines going in my head but it’s also fun becasue I get to shift characters and geographic locations every few days.

You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t mentioned Book 4 yet – that’s becasue not much is known about Book 4, even by me! I haven’t decided whether Book 4 will chronologically parallel the other three or whether it will overlap and/or follow them. I may even leave that decision up to those who read the first three books! The one thing I do know, is that Book 4 will not be started until the first three are on their way to the printer.

I keep referring to the books of Parallel Ops as Book 1, Book 2, etc. but they do have names, so here’s the run-down, including the Seeds character featured in each:

Book 1 – The Scientists – Jim Barnes
Book 2 – The Informants – Linda McBride
Book 3 – The Guardians – Tony Nicoletti
Book 4 – The Teachers – TBA

If you’ve read the Seeds of Civilization series, you’ve probably already guessed why Frank Morton is the “star” of the mysterious Book 4!

Well, the cup is empty, so that’s it for today. See you again tomorrow?

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Filed under: Guardians, Informants, Novels, Parallel Ops, Scientists