Progressive protests start with a few concerned and responsible citizens deciding they’ve had enough. I can’t claim to be the first (the EU has been going after Google for a while), but I’ve hated Google for a long time. I finally did something about it.

Long before their kissing Ronald McDonald Trump’s fat McD’s butt and changing their map names (Denali to Mt. McKinley and Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America), Google’s browser Chrome was annoying me a lot. I’d already stopped using Facebook and X; Zuckerberg had proven himself to be a kiss-ass fascist oligarch backing Narcissus le Grand; and that slimy Elon Muskrat, who has no creds as a serious leader or even an elected office and is a complete fascist, lost my support the moment he walked into the X HQ with his kitchen sink. (The Muskrat probably had it lying around one of his penthouses, having replaced it with a gold one, because he’s emulating his fuehrer’s love for gold that represents their fascist greed and desires for power.)

Most progressives more than likely grimaced when they saw those fascist oligarchs sitting there as special invitees to the Donald Jackass Trump’s inaugurations events, the Muskrat not hiding his obsequious attitude with his ubiquitous Hitlerian salutes. And right there among those fascist oligarchs were the owners of Google whose names, like Voldemort, I’ll avoid saying so their evil will not fall upon you!

So, my personal vendetta against Google is because I know these American versions of Russian oligarchs much better than Putin’s. All of them—that Big Bot Bezos, that slimy Muskrat, the arrogant Sugar-Mountain Zuckerberg, etc., these “made men” in the jackass’s mafia—negatively affect my life and yours (if you’re an American) a lot more than Putin’s. But Google’s SOBs were also affecting me, a writer, every day of my writing life.

Their trackers followed me everywhere I went on the internet. Every search produced pages of unwanted ads, allowing Google’s oligarchs to become even richer by selling everyone’s information and ad space in searches to unscrupulous company CEOs just as abusive and greedy as Google’s masters, as if I’d ever buy anything from the bastards!

How did I strike back? There’s not much an author can do, I’ll admit, but I severed all ties with Google! I use DuckDuckGo now. I never used Gmail for my own fiction writing. (AB Carolan needed an address to register his stories with the Big Bezos Bot’s Amazon, which is generally a waste of time. Since I also hate the latter oligarch, readers can now write to AB by using the “Contact Page” at this website. [wink, wink])

As an FYI and added benefit, DuckDuckGo beats the crap our of Chrome! It has new features I’ll use a lot as an author. (For example, I can make both a “printable version” or a “PDF version”  of a web article, ones that are actually readable. Chrome still depends on MS Edge to do the latter, which often produces a damn mess. What? Is Bill Gates part of this evil oligarchy?)

I haven’t begun to explore all the other options available in DuckDuckGo’s dropdown menu and elsewhere, but it’s straightforward search results without Chrome’s annoying ads by themselves is worth the change! (For example, as an author, I might search for old KGB agent Putin’s favorite Russian poisons. Before, I fully expected that I’d receive offers to buy some samples at least for a few days from suppliers in Moscow if I used Google’s Chrome!) If you’re an author who just wants dependable and factual information without pages of annoying and useless ads, don’t use Chrome!

So, bye-bye greedy Google! I’ve been loyal to you since you were an internet infant in nappies. Now you don’t deserve that loyalty because you’ve become an evil adult supporting corporate fascism and terrorism in America, I want nothing to do with you! I hope everyone joins me to choose more honest and less evil internet service providers so that Google goes the way of the dinosaurs! Or straight to hell where they belong with Donald Jackass Trump!

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Fascism and terrorism. Fascism is a human affliction with symptoms of simple greed and a thirst for power, a mind-destroying illness many psychotic and sociopathic individuals suffer from. Terrorism is its deadliest and most extreme form. Although we are seeing too much of the former in the US and all over the world now (see above), the latter is increasing as well (attacks made by crazed people using cars as weapons, for example). I’ve been fighting the battle against both in my prose from my very first novel, Full Medical, to my last (for now), Fear the Asian Evil, and in most tales in between those two, even those tales geared to young adults (who also need to learn how to fight these deadly social diseases!). All these stories are honest portrayals of the damage fascism and terrorism can do to freedom and peace in the world. Brave people in these stories struggle and fight the good fight, so let them inspire you! (Fascists and terrorists, many of them controlling our own government and companies now, will not enjoy these stories, of course. Their ignorance will return to haunt them because they will pay the price sooner than later!)

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

I’ve written several trilogies. The “Inspector Steve Morgan” trilogy is the most recent; it’s basically a continuation of the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, and “Revenge at Last,” a novella in the free PDF download of the same name, almost made Morgan’s trilogy into a series (and still might, depending on my energy reserves). Three other trilogies,, “The Last Humans,” “The Mary Jo Melendez Mysteries,” and “Clones and Mutants,” are quite different. One difference is that they have strong female protagonists (the last one, several).

I considered “The Last Humans” trilogy in a previous article; it’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi. Another difference then can be found in the type of sci-fi. Mary Jo’s adventures are more thrillers than mysteries; and most of the sci-fi is found in the MECHs, cyborg warriors representing tech that China, Russia, and the US all want to steal and are willing to employ evil agents to do just that. Mary Jo prevents that from happening in three different novels. (Mary Jo is an alias for Maria Jose, by the way) “The Clones and Mutants” trilogy is also a sci-fi thriller where new biological advances replace the robotic ones of the cyborgs.

The sci-fi is all different in these three trilogies, but the general lesson is always the same: There are evil people whose greed and desire for power are willing to make good people suffer to obtain it; so, if no one steps up to stop those villains, they will succeed. That important lesson is one we should all learn in real life during these troubling times when an evil and wannabe fascist dictator has grabbed power in our country and is making many of its good citizens suffer. We need more virtuous heroes and fewer evil fascist villains.

What Penny Castro (protagonist of “The Last Humans” trilogy), Mary Jo Melendez, and the clones and one mutant show in these three trilogies is that ordinary humans can step up and overcome terrible odds to defeat the forces of evil. This of course is a major message in a lot of fiction. My “ordinary humans” are also smart women who are mostly Latinas, and that belies the macho beliefs of ignorant American fascists like our DoD secretary that women can’t fight for what’s right and the far-right opinions in our country that “others” who aren’t extreme far-right WASP zealots like them don’t belong in America.

Of course, this is fiction, storytelling that should entertain anyone who’s not a fascist MAGA supporter. Guess what? I’ve known plenty of women who have exactly the positive characteristics of my fictional heroes. My characters have flaws like everyone does, of course—they’re very human, unlike many zombies in the MAGA hordes, but they also have courage and skills. That’s more than the DoD secretary or any other member of our wannabe fascist dictator’s administration has. If there is a God, He’ll be on these women’s side, not the side of the fascist devils led by the Orange Devil. Fiction must seem real, and fiction about heroes can become real if the real heroes in our society receive our support.

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“The Mary Jo Melendez Mysteries.” In the first novel, Muddlin’ Through, Mary Jo is framed and must struggle to prove she’s innocent. In the second novel, Silicon Slummin’ and Just Gettin’ By, Russia and the US are all after the MECHs (“Mechanically Enhanced Cybernetic Humans”) and she’s pursued by a stalker. In the third, Goin’ the Extra Mile, China goes after the MECHs. Readers will wonder how this all ends. All three novels are available wherever quality ebooks are sold (even on Amazon). These are all “evergreen books,” stories as exciting and prophetic as the day I finished the manuscripts.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

In a previous post, I’ve considered my strong female adult characters, Esther Brookstone, Mary Jo Melendez, and Penny Castro, protagonists from three different series, but what about those strong young ladies from AB Carolan’s novels, the “ABC Sci-fi Mysteries for Young Adults” [wink, wink]. My Irish collaborator from Donegal, Ireland, designed those stories to take place in the same sci-fi universe as my “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy” (which also has a plethora of kick-ass adult heroines who predate Esther, Mary Jo, and Penny). That didn’t limit that old Irish leprechaun that much: My sci-fi universe is huge and allowed my author-buddy to cover a wide span of space and time.

Let’s consider his three young ladies:

Sashibala Garcia. In The Secret Lab, this tween shares the spotlight with the mutant cat Mr. Paws. Shashi and her gang, “The Fearsome Four,” live on the ISS (International Space Station) in the future as Earth below goes through that period on my alternate future-history timeline known as the Chaos. The five uncover a conspiracy that involves the creation of other mutant animals for evil purposes. It’s a lot of danger and intrigue for the cat and gang to handle, but they handle it all well.

Asako Kobayashi. A long time later in that same sci-fi universe, this young protagonist from The Secret of the Urns lives with her parents in a small Human colony of scientists studying the ETs native to the moon of a Jupiter-sized planet. These ETs turn out to have a sad and secret past, but their immediate problem is with the Human miners who want to exploit the moon’s rare earth deposits, a plan that could very well destroy the ETs’ environment. AB makes it tough for Asako and her friends. Do they prevail?

Della Dos Toros. Much later still, in Mind Games, the father who adopted this young girl is murdered. They lived as outcasts on Sanctuary, one of three original Human colonies first mentioned in my novel Sing a Zamba Galactica. The father and daughter share a secret: They are empaths with ESP powers. In trying to use those powers to find her father’s killers, Della must travel from Sanctuary, her home planet, to Earth and New Haven, another of the first three colonies. She and her friends uncover a plan to take over all the planets in near-Earth space under the ITUIP umbrella (Interstellar Trade Union of Independent Planets) as danger lurks in three different worlds.

These three novels are a lot more profound than Heinlein’s Podkayne of Mars, but their motivation is the same: AB wanted to introduce young readers to the mystery and thrills of science fiction. What I’ve discovered at book events where I offer and/or talk about Carolan’s stories is that adults who are young-at-heart also like these novels. The fact that the three heroines are different but very special young women doesn’t seem to diminish that enjoyment. Way to go, AB! [wink, wink]

“So…what about Carolan’s Kayla Jones, the kick-ass protagonist in Carolan’s novel Origins?” you ask. She’s a very special character too. I’ll consider her next week.

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AB Carolan’s “ABC Sci-Fi Mysteries for Young Adults.” Each novel in this series will entertain young adults and adults who are young-at-heart alike. They’re ideal for the first group, appropriate to tweens through teens that are more likely to make good book reports if they actually enjoy the books they read. AB Carolan might be an old leprechaun [wink, wink], but he’s young-minded and full of mischief. Like many Irishmen, he can spin a good yarn…as if he were a relative of the famous bard Turlough O’Carolan. (Have no fear. He writes in English, not Gaelic.)

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

It’s a global economy, now more than ever; so crime’s more global as well: International conspiracies; arms, artworks, drugs, and human traffickers; spies and terrorists—they’re all subjects for mystery and thriller novels that allow a reader to become an armchair traveler who accompanies crime fighters and soldiers of fortune on their international journeys. I went on those journeys as a reader of Agatha Christie and H. Rider Haggard’s novels years ago, but I also created a few of those adventures myself for other readers as well, starting years ago with my NYPD detectives Chen and Castilblanco.

I’ve chronicled quite a few of their cases in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco” series. Most start in New York City, but about half of them go international…or start there! The Midas Bomb, the first novel in the series, appropriately takes place in the world’s most famous city (there are international flashbacks and back stories involving Castilblanco, though), but the villains are international in origin. That’s an obvious mix to make because NYC is often called the “crossroads of the world,” a city so diverse that over 800 different languages and dialects are spoken there besides English.

Other novels in the series have an even stronger international flavor: In Angels Need Not Apply, Aristocrats and Assassins, Gaia and the Goliaths, and Defanging the Red Dragon, the city, if it’s a character, plays a minor role.

The most international of these novels, Aristocrats and Assassins, is a tale of international intrigue and terrorism that takes place completely in Europe—much of Europe is visited, in fact. It starts with Castilblanco and his wife Pam beginning a rare vacation they’ve promised themselves for a while—she’s a busy TV news reporter and he’s a cop, so their periods of free time don’t often overlap! A group of terrorists are kidnapping European aristocrats. The motive’s not clear, but Castilblanco gets involved. The action involving Chen begins in China, but the two detectives eventually come together to solve the mystery of the kidnappings.

The other “international novels” in the series take place only partially overseas. Angels Need Not Apply is about a conspiracy where a drug cartel, Muslim terrorists, and an American ultra-right militia team up to create major mayhem. Each group has a different motive to create chaos, so Chen and Castilblanco’s struggles to thwart their plans aren’t easy. A lot of Gaia and the Goliaths takes place in France. In perhaps my most prescient take on things to come, an American energy exec teams up with a Russian petrol-oligarch to try to increase the West’s dependence on fossil fuels.

Defanging the Red Dragon is a crossover novel that connects the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco” series with the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series (it’s novel #8 for the first and #6 for the second). It begins in NYC and continues to DC and London. Castilblanco is present in both the US and UK; Chen holds down the fort in the US. (Esther and her new husband Bastiann van Coevorden had earlier cameos in several “Chen and Castilblanco” novels—Esther in The Collector and Bastiann in Aristocrats and Assassins and Gaia and the Goliaths.)

Unlike what Michael Connolly did with his famous Harry Bosch, I didn’t want to restrict Chen and Castilblanco to one city and turn their cases there into mystery/thriller novels that are little more than police procedurals. There are very few Harry Bosch novels with an international flavor (most take place in LA), but policing these days often has an international flavor, if only for international terrorism. (Even my Family Affairs has this aspect.) I believe authors like Baldacci, Connolly, Child, Deaver, and other old stallions in the Big Five’s stables would appeal to more readers if they went international more often. (In Deaver’s defense, his best book, Garden of Beasts, is completely international, but it’s not in his “Lincoln Rhyme” series!) Maybe foreign readers love stories set in the US, but I bet a lot of American readers like stories with an international flavor. (I certainly do!)

I’ll admit that sometimes my novels might have too much international flavor (e.g., Muddlin’ Through and Goin’ the Extra Mile, the first and third novels in the “Mary Jo Melendez Mysteries”). Perhaps either extreme is bad? If that’s the case, the “Chen and Castilblanco” series is the Goldilocks choice for readers who want some crime stories that are an eclectic mix. (You can leave a comment to this article or use my contact page to tell me what you think of this.)

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“Detectives Chen and Castilblanco” Series. This seven-book series (eight, if you count Defanging the Red Dragon, a free PDF available on the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page at this website) takes you from Manhattan in the US to Latin America and Europe and beyond as the NYPD detectives battle the criminal elements of humanity. Chen is a Chinese American from Long Island whose beguiling Mona Lisa smile belies her cleverness and strength; Castilblanco is a sarcastic and tough Puerto Rican American from the Bronx. Both are ex-military and suffer no fools. These novels are available wherever quality ebooks are sold. There are many hours of reading entertainment waiting for all armchair detectives out there who are fans of mysteries and thrillers.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

When writing her famous mystery stories, Agatha Christie must have had to decide whether her tale takes place in England or abroad. Death on the Nile, for example, has an international setting; Towards Zero has a national one.

Perhaps my choices about settings have  been easier than Christie’s in the sense that I had more options? I could go with the US, UK, countries in continental Europe, or others…or even outer space. (Many Dr. Carlos stories are sci-fi mysteries, as is part of Survivors of the Chaos and all of A. B. Carolan’s novels.) I have variety within series as well: Some novels in the “Chen and Castilblanco” and “Esther Brookstone” series are mainly national in scope (US and UK respectively), while other novels in those series take their MCs away from their home turf to other lands. (The first three “Esther Brookstone” novels are international in scope while the remainder are local.) Only the spin-off “Inspector Steve Morgan” series is completely local with the Bristol area of England as its setting.

Settings can make or break a novel for some readers, of course. If you dislike the UK, for example, you might not appreciate the “Esther Brookstone” or “Steve Morgan” novels. But Agatha probably created Poirot (a Belgium PI) for that reason, and my Bastiann van Coevorden (a Dutch sleuth) possibly serves the same function to mitigate your distaste: These two detectives (Bastiann even looks like David Suchet, the actor who so often portrayed Poirot) give an international flavor to the tale, even though the settings where most of the action occurs are local.

Carlos Obregon creates some mystery all by himself. He’s a doctor but no Dr. Watson aiding a drugs-addicted Holmes; he’s also clearly Hispanic, a sleuth whom you might think is a first in sci-fi literature. He’s not. Many of my novels have Hispanic main characters. The Midas Bomb in the “Chen and Castilblanco” series was one of the first, and Soldiers of God even features a Hispanic priest who’s an FBI informant!

Even if they have local settings, stories can have unusual ethnic characters. (Again, this might not please the “America first” white supremacist crowd of the MAGA millions, but they can’t even read. Their fuehrer certainly doesn’t! The anti-cultural appropriation crowd might not like my fiction either. To hell with them all!)

But I digress. International settings and characters have nothing to do with politics per se. I use the storytelling devices in the best way I can to make a tale interesting and exciting. My goal is for readers to have fun with a tale, as much fun as I had while writing them. You can armchair-travel with my tales, and you can learn about different ethnic groups of our world as well. And, by doing the research necessary to make my fiction seem real no matter what the settings or characters might be, I continue learning as well.

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“Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series. The first three novels in this series hop around the world a bit. The last six stay in the UK for the most part, although number six, Defanging the Red Dragon, is set half in the US and half in the UK, as a crossover novel also featuring Chen and Castilblanco. (It’s also a free PDF download like the novel Intolerance. See the list of all freebies on the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page.) In any case, that’s nine mystery/thriller novels that will provide you with many hours of reading pleasure!

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

I read most of Tom Clancy’s books until he started writing about a secret, privately financed, vigilante organization…a bit over the top for even this old thriller writer.  Up to that point and independent of his politics, I thought he could spin a good yarn backed by enough techno-babble that it all seemed real (see the Clancy quote running across the banner of this website).  In fact, I’d wager that some higher mucky-mucks in the Pentagon weren’t happy at times with his description of U.S. and Soviet military capabilities.

More importantly, Clancy covered an era from Cold War to counterterrorism.  His first two books, Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising, portrayed anti-Soviet operations featuring the U.S. Navy (the latter is an interesting Tolstoy-length account of what World War III might have been like).  The last books I read focused on terrorism (did the Japanese pilot who flew his aircraft into Congress in Debt of Honor provide ideas for the 9/11 terrorists?).  In between, he even touched on the emergence of China (The Bear and the Dragon), although he didn’t predict the kind of fascist capitalism that has taken over in that country.

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