This romantic sci-fi thriller is a “bridge book” (see my last post for an expanded definition!). It now leads readers from the “Inspector Steve Morgan” trilogy to the “Clones & Mutants” trilogy. It features some characters from the “Detectives Chen & Castilblanco” series and a few new ones. And like some of my novels, it was inspired by a short story; that tale asked what a future paranoid US government will do when it discovers its aging agents with Top Secret information in their heads start becoming senile. Will they leak that information to US enemies? How can that be avoided?

I wrote this novel long before we had two old senile codgers running for president. Otherwise, the story might have been about them! Of course, their memories aren’t so good now either, at least not good enough to avoid keeping some of those Top Secret SCI documents around to jog their failing memories.

In any case, that’s one theme of this novel and the only one in the short story (which came first). The novel was written, though, to give DHS Ashley Scott a starring role. She’s a secondary character in the “Chen & Castilblanco” tales, albeit often an important one, so I thought it was only fair to give her a leading role in her own thriller. She’d been very patient while awaiting stardom. Of course, I had to put her into some dangerous situations! But my tough female protagonists can handle them!

Ashley is nearing retirement in this novel and feels very alone. That leads to this story becoming a romantic sci-fi thriller in a way like Rogue Planet, but The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan takes place in a much less distant (and therefore scarier?) future: An evil AI is one of the villains, and it makes HAL (the 2001 version, not the 2010 one) look like a wuss. That and other features of the themes and plot make this novel a lot darker compared to Prince Kaushal’s “Games of Thrones”-like adventures as he wins back his planet.

The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan is as dark as the three “Steve Morgan” novels (if not darker) although it’s intended to follow them now on my extended timeline. It’s better as a lead into the very dark “Clones & Mutants” trilogy, which was my intention. All the action takes place in the NJ and NY area while the trilogy hops around a bit (US, Africa, Spain, China, and Korea) as that extended series of novels fills out a timeline covering millennia and heads into the solar system and beyond. Readers shouldn’t ignore this novel for that reason.

But it also treats questions very relevant to today’s politics. No, I’m not a seer who can predict the future, but, as a fiction writer, I’ve studied human nature. It can be very dark! Writing about that darkness can serve as warnings that might create some light. That’s always been one motive for my writing!

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Comments are always welcome. (Please follow the rules listed on the “Join the Conversation” web page.)

The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan. Virginia is a retired FBI agent whose retirement doesn’t quite go as planned. She gets involved in a government conspiracy run by an evil villain and the AI he has created to do his bidding. DHS agent Ashley Scott and a handsome Latino investigative reporter get involved in many ways, including romantically. “Evergreen” in the sense that the plot and themes are even more current than when I finished the manuscript, this novel is full of surprises. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold (even on Amazon).

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

[Note from Steve: On this day of remembrance, it’s difficult for me to post just about anything related to the business of publishing books. NYC is the the book-publishing capital of the world, but it’s also where the worst terrorist attack on complete innocents occurred on this day back in 2001 about when I was thinking seriously of retiring from my day-job to write full-time. We lost a dear family member on that terrible day (his eulogy is found in my first published novel, Full Medical); we also lost several friends and colleagues. Terrorists are sick, subhuman fanatics, but let’s remember all their innocent victims today. Read on, if you think it will help you get through the day. Writing what follows was therapeutic for me, so please bear with me.]

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Every so often, I google “Steven M Moore” to see how well that search engine has kept up with this blog and my publishing efforts. It’s often enlightening. (For example, these blog articles often are listed, but never those from my political blog. Maybe that’s not surprising? Some social media sites claim to be apolitical, which now often means, “Don’t promote anything that appears like a political statement.” Or, it can also mean, “We don’t promote anything that’s progressive because we Silicon Valley VIPs are apolitical fascists!” Take your pick.)

In this process of rediscovering my internet presence, I’ve concluded that when I started my publishing career back in 2006 (with Full Medical)—that was also when I started this website—I should have created a pen name. (You might have realized that I finally got one, but it’s only used for my YA writing.) There are too many Steve Moores around; even too many Steven M. Moores.

People often quote Smith as the most common surname (Jack Smith is now a notable one!), but Moore is right up there. So’s the first name Steve or Steven (compared to Stephen). So you’ll find Steven Moores who are critics, economists, felons, pediatricians, politicians, and fiction and non-fiction writers. On the internet, I compete with all of them. As far as book promotion goes, that means you can sometimes peruse ten pages of Google output and still find references to me and my oeuvre (more blog posts now than books, unfortunately).

After publishing forty-plus books, it’s a bit too late for me to change! In fact, the time to choose a pen name was before I published the sci-fi thriller Full Medical. Maybe that mistake is the main cause of my anemic sales figures? I don’t believe so. I think it’s more because people won’t find any of my stories by googling “sci-fi,” “thrillers,” or “mysteries.” Google probably also pays more attention to books published by the old mares and stallions in the Big Five’s stables (i.e., by those old, formulaic authors writing for the big publishing conglomerates, what those publishers consider “sure bets” in the publishing horse race).

No, I can’t blame the lack of a pen name for my low sales figures. That lack may contribute, but there are many other factors, including competition, of course. Now, with more books being published than ever before—self-published, small press, and Big Five conglomerates’ books—and fewer people reading books—computer games, streaming video, and social media numbing the minds of people and pacifying them–publishing has become even more competitive. For readers, that’s a win: Many more books at lower prices (at least from self-publishers and small presses). For writers? Too many of us have to be satisfied with authoring books only because we love storytelling. Lack of a pen name is only a small hurdle out of many an author must jump over, to be honest.

Yet a catchy pen name like Mark Twain might have helped me. Has any MFA student written a thesis about whether it helped Samuel Clemens? (I sort of did that in the eighth grade, but it was just a year-ending writing assignment in civics…and my information came from our public library, not Google!)

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[No ad today. See my note above.]

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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Comments are always welcome. (Please follow the rules spelled out on the “Join the Conversation” web page.)

“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!

Let’s support the Ukrainian freedom fighters!

There’s a real possibility that Putin’s stormtroopers will overrun Ukraine. Whether that occurs or not, all people of good faith, especially Americans who pretend to be for freedom, despite Trump and his minions’ efforts, to be defenders of the free world, should make a solemn vow to support Ukraine’s freedom fighters. We know Ukrainians can fight. They ousted a Putin puppet, and they’re better prepared now than when Putin took Crimea.

Yes, Ukraine isn’t a NATO country yet, but so what? We must support the battle against Russia. If it comes to supporting resistance against Russian occupiers, though, that should still occur! We can turn Ukraine into another Chechnya for the Russians, only this time making Ukraine Putin’s Afghanistan.

If we don’t stop Putin now, he will move on to realize his dream of reconstituting the Soviet Union. The way Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland rejected the Soviet hegemony in the nineties still eats at Putin. He’s out for revenge, that’s clear, and he’s willing to ruin Mother Russia to get it. Let’s make sure he pays that price.

Sure, worldwide sanctions against Putin and his oligarchs and their finances are good—I proposed that to @POTUS and @SecretaryBlinken in a tweet—but they’re probably not enough. Putin laughs at them, although his inner circle might not. We must also stand up to all attacks on democratic countries and freedom everywhere they occur.

Let’s all take a solemn oath to do just that! We’re at a tipping point in world history not seen since the second world war, where we can either be smart and halt the march of fascism in the world, or we can surrender to it.

The Saudi Arabian prince isn’t just another Arab strongman consolidating his dictatorial power; he’s also creating his own Hitler-like genocide against the Houthis in Yemen. His secretive and despotic government supports Sunnis in Yemen.  Because Iran supports the Houthi Shi’ites there, Saudi Arabia is using starvation and cholera as weapons to murder the Houthis. These include women and children, innocent victims of an evil regime.

The NY Times in a rather misleading article called the prince’s actions another manifestation of the Arab Spring. Far from it. I guess the Times’s writers went into a trance with things like allowing women to drive, as if cosmetic changes in this dark and closed society could turn Saudi devils into angels! This is all just spin conjured up to distract the West, and the NY Times swallowed it and extolled the virtues of the “new regime” in a piece of irresponsible journalism at best and unpaid Saudi propaganda at worst.

The rotting core below the tip of this reformist iceberg is dangerous and depressing.  The images of starving and sick children on the November 19^th segment of CBS’s Sixty Minutes should make anyone who isn’t a neo-Nazi cringe and grimace. Conservatives in the U.S. generally don’t watch Sixty Minutes, but they should have watched this episode, especially considering the NY Times blatant bias. Starvation and cholera aren’t pretty wherever they occur, but weaponizing them is a new invention. Leave it to the duplicitous Saudis to turn them into weapons in their campaign for political and religious domination in the region.

The Saudis didn’t just settle with creating modern terrorism. Most of the 9/11 murderers were Saudis. Bin Laden was a Saudi. And the Saudi government funds religious schools that brainwash young men so they become violent terrorists—Saudi terrorists. ISIS never became a 16^th-century-style caliphate; Saudi Arabia already was long before ISIS! If Iran is a rogue nation, so is Saudi Arabia. They both destabilize the region via their radical brands of Islam. Their only commonality is their hatred for Israel. Neither nation is any friend of the U.S. or the West, yet the very military equipment we’ve sold to the Saudis is now used to murder Houthis in Yemen.

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Too many of us interpret the Second Amendment incorrectly.  It states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms should not be infringed.” Let’s ignore the incorrect English—the Constitution is full of illiteracy, at least in modern terms, which often gives rise to misinterpretation. But please note the emphasis on militias—the word is even capitalized. Gun fanatics focus on the last clause and take it out of context, thinking it says everyone has a right to have a gun, “keep…arms,” as well as carry them, “bear arms.” That’s crock, of course, but maybe understandable because gun fanatics often don’t know anything about American history.

The American Revolution was started by militias. Those ragtag groups of men armed themselves and fought the British. Let’s forget the point that they were terrorists terrorizing the Brits by any modern interpretation, and they were primarily driven by greed: Why should the Brits make all the money from trade? The writers of the Constitution are recognizing militias and their importance in “winning our freedoms” (they’d be aghast at the taxes we have to pay now, of course—they’d probably have fought the Brits even sooner).

In other words, my interpretation of that badly written Second Amendment is that men in t\]militias have a right to arm themselves and carry their weapons. Duh! But considering that our militias are now institutionalized as the states’ National Guards, which the federal government can send to fight and die overseas, no one else has the right to own and carry guns. Like driving a car, it’s a privilege, not a right. We can regulate drivers’ licenses so DUI assassins and incapacitated people, physical or mentally, can’t wreak havoc on our nation’s streets and highways. Because gun ownership is a privilege, why can’t we do the same with guns?

Moreover, we regulate the condition and type of vehicles people drive, in particular, keeping them from being killing machines—none of those James Bond cars where the hubcaps become claws, for example. Why can’t we regulate the types of guns people own and how they use them?

The answer to the last questions seems to be that the NRA and all the gun addicts are binary thinkers, but so are those who want to do away with guns entirely. Gun ownership isn’t a binary issue like many people think it is. It’s not 0 = no one can own a gun, versus 1 = anyone can own a gun. There are many shades of gray between 0 and 1 here, and people have to become smart about gun control. Idiots’ solutions don’t work! Moreover, the Constitution isn’t much help here and just leads to confusion.

What are some reasonable gun control options that the NRA and gun fanatics refuse to accept? Banning of all military-style weapons is one. Assault weapons, even semi-automatic ones, and, of course, all automatic weapons must be banned. You don’t need one of those for sport or hunting, and you don’t need one to protect your home either. Gun manufacturers should be allowed to sell them only to the military and law enforcement agencies. And those gizmos (“bump stocks” are the current words in vogue) that convert semi-automatic weapons into ones of mass destruction should also be outlawed, period. When you can buy such gizmos at Walmart, you know something is terribly wrong with America.

Many people who bow their heads to honor gun victims as Trump et al did after Las Vegas, and then go on to do nothing about reasonable gun control, are hypocrites. Bowing heads is a stupid PR moment—“See America, we care!”—and of no real comfort for the dead and wounded and their families and friends. That’s why survivors and others outraged by incidents of gun violence fervently protest for more gun control. America is doing nothing.

Or, should I say, politicos are doing nothing, because a majority of American voters want reasonable gun control but can’t seem to vote out the jerks in government who feed off the campaign funds provided the NRA and similar groups. Hypocritical devils, all of them. People bowed their heads for the victims of Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, the Orlando nightclub shooting, and the Las Vegas massacre; people bowed their heads for many other incidents too numerous to name here. The NRA and the gun fanatics bow their heads too, but they’re hoping concerned people forget all about Las Vegas until the next time…and the next…and the next. By doing so, they and we encourage domestic terrorism. The NRA is the largest and richest organization that supports terrorism. They are at least as bad as Sinn Fein and probably  ISIS because they’re American terrorism’s lobbyist and political wing.

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People are addicted to their smart phones, so much so that they walk into fountains, kill pedestrians and other drivers, and expose themselves to scam artists, muggers, and perverts.  Beyond that, or bloviating about trivial matters, or being a narcissistic showoff on social media, what can a smart phone do for you?  Depends on who you are, of course.  I’ll turn the question around and discuss what your smart phone CANNOT do.

ID a song.  I heard an oldie the other day.  I could hum the melody.  Loved the piano riffs.  But if I hadn’t been able to remember the name of the performer, I could have never answered the question: Who’s that performer and what became of him?  (It was Richard Marx, by the way.  He’s going on tour and has a new album.)  Song recognition isn’t covered by voice recognition.

Make par in golf, or catch a fish.  It might know what those things are, but it can’t do them.  And it can’t help you do them either.  Smart phones are just limited little computers, apps are just limited little programs, and neither of them are really smart.

Write a novel.  Beyond mentioning the obvious that your smart phone can’t create any of the elements necessary to spin a good yarn, try writing a novel with your thumbs!  Voice recognition technology, you say?  Try it.  You’ll be spending so much time editing that you’ll scream for your laptop.  Or join Jack in the Cuckoo’s Nest.  But maybe all those badly edited ebooks are written this way?

Help you find God or inner peace.  It might hook you up with the latest online quack who calls her- or himself a preacher, but God doesn’t answer a smart phone call and the internet offers no inner peace, just a bunch of random stuff that obeys Sturgeon’s Law, not God’s.  You can obtain more peace by putting your phone on a tile floor and stomping it into pieces.

Make popcorn.  Tres important, mes amis!

Offer a substitute for a loved one’s hug or kiss.  You might find a dating site or attract a pervert on Facebook (is that what the new “love” emoticon on FB is for?), but your smart phone is not much of a companion, in spite of your obsession with it.  Moreover, anyone who kisses her or his iPhone or Galaxy screen is just asking for a major bout with the flu, unless s/he puts hand sanitizer on that screen often enough.  That would have the advantage of making it slippery so thieves couldn’t grab it as easily…or make it drop to that tile floor and shatter into pieces!
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Given that the Donald and the other GOP candidates have made the rest of the world and many in the U.S. wonder what’s happening in America, the Land of the Free, it seems appropriate to list the things that we’re doing or might do to let ISIS win and return this world to the Dark Ages.  The GOP candidates own a lot of the hateful rhetoric described below—I refuse to believe all GOP voters do.  Here’s the list:

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Discriminate and persecute Muslims.  Trump and his supporters seem to forget that there’s freedom of religion in this country.  The Founding Fathers thought that this right was so important, it’s the first sentence in the Bill of Rights: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….”  Trump, of course, is using hate and paranoia to pander to his base, which seems to represent about a third of GOP voters—that in itself is frightening—but he’s also proposing something he could never deliver without amending the U.S. Constitution.

While Islam faces the same problems as Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and their offshoots and alternatives—how to maintain an ancient faith in a world that’s increasing secular and expecting spirituality and beliefs to be more of a private choice, not a public demonstration that infringes on others’ rights—its members, as do all religious members, need to eschew discrimination and violence and convince its members to control and ostracize those members who turn to them.  Every religion has a bloody past.  The world must move on.  Religious strife does NOT belong in the 21^st century.

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This ramp-up to 2016 elections has been noted for outrageous statements from the wannabe presidential candidates, most notably from the GOP side.  Just recently Ted Cruz opined publicly that all the criminals are Democrats.  He went on to say that’s why liberals or progressives are so easy on crime and want to reform prisons and reduce sentences.  This buffoon’s bombastic and bloviating blathering (I can alliterate with the best) might have its genesis in the Canadian’s desire to out-trump Trump, but it’s an insult to most of the voting public: does he actually believe any sane person will buy into the sewage effluent springing forth from his mouth?  (Note that I said “sane person”; there are rabid elements in our society who will believe anything—Trump depends on that.)

Only two states allow felons to vote while in prison.  I assume a corollary to that factoid is that only two states allow felons to register as a member of a political party while in prison, but maybe that corollary is wrong.  Some people argue that disenfranchising felons isn’t a good idea—I’m not one of them (if they want their civil rights, they can stay out of prison, except when it comes down to wrongful convictions)—but the current state of affairs implies that the prison population isn’t comprised of registered Democrats.  So, the brilliant senator who should be a terrible embarrassment to the state of Texas (they have to own up to many embarrassments, of course) must be saying that there are criminal elements who haven’t been caught yet…and they’re all Democrats?

I won’t dwell on the absurdities Cruz has said and is saying more than this.  Instead, let me turn the question around: why doesn’t the GOP own up to the criminal label?  Let’s start with the NRA (there are many other examples, including the pro-life rhetoric—the GOP has no commitment to protecting lives AFTER birth!–but the slavish pandering to the NRA is the most deadly one).  Every NRA member is a criminal because s/he enables murderous elements to commit atrocities against innocent victims.  This lobbying group pushes back on every reasonable move to limit arsenals like the one the recent California shooters possessed.  It’s become so bad that the NY Times decided to put an editorial about this on the front page last Saturday (the first one since 1920 and not strong enough in my opinion—I don’t have to coddle readers, but the Times still does).

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Ideological truth is an oxymoron.  We spent the last two centuries debunking ideologies—all the different –isms, like Marxism, Nazism, Zionism, Socialism, Communism, and so forth.  We are still fighting some of those.  They’re like shingles—dormant viruses that awaken from time to time to attack the body politic.

This century we are increasing our understanding of how the human brain works.  It has a marvelous capacity for reason and logic, often creating great thoughts, inventing new technologies, and making works of artistic splendor.  It also has a nasty way of getting its wires crossed, short-circuited, and contradictory to common sense and logic.  The latter problems can often be described as brainwashing when it comes to ideologies.  Brainwashing can be inflicted by others, or it can be self-inflicted.  Ideologies are often the tools for doing both.

Small-minded people become easily addicted to ideologies.  The latter provide a closed system of minutia that’s attractive to such people, easy solutions for problems perceive in their lives, real or imagined, simple solutions that ignore complexities and conflicting relationships to other problems.  An ideology is a one-size-fits-all approach to a small life of parochial thought that allows people to get on with their mundane and sometimes suffering lives.  Ideologies encompass religion; they’re all the opium of the masses.

We can’t be too vocal in our condemnation of power-hungry demagogues who exploit these weaknesses of simple-minded people.  A radical iman preaching jihad is the scum of the earth.  But a Marxist preaching about how wonderful the world will be when workers rule, or a priest telling impoverished peasants their reward will be in the hereafter, these are in the same class and deserve condemnation too.

But those who swallow this malarkey also deserve condemnation.  They are negating their human potential to do and create great things; they are living a life of lazy intellect by accepting ideological truths as fact.  There are no seven virgins awaiting the suicide bomber; there is no worker’s paradise awaiting the Marxists’ followers, only a brutal dictatorship of the proletariat; and there is no place among the angels awaiting the pious and exploited peasant.

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