Last week I wrote about my first mystery/thriller novel, The Midas Bomb. That was my third book, so it definitely qualifies as “evergreen,” i.e., an oldie that is as current and fresh as the day I finished it (my opinion, of course—critics’ opinions might differ), but I try to make sure all my stories remain relevant for many years.

My second novel, Soldiers of God, is an “evergreen book” as well, but this sci-fi thriller turned out to be a bridge book between the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy” and the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy.” Like The Midas Bomb, it does an acceptable job of predicting a future when the villain in The Midas Bomb (who has percolated through three other series that eventually followed the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco” series that began with The Midas Bomb) employs religious fanatics to further his evil agenda. (In real life, the corresponding villain who has stuck around far too long is our current US president, as seen in that  huge religious revival show that recently took place in Arizona. I can probably safely assume that no readers of my book heeded the warnings contained in its plot; but that far back, there were no current events like we have now to draw attention to any fiction resembling George Orwell’s 1984 either.)

In Soldiers of God, a female FBI agent (not a female version of our current FBI director, thank God!) who fancies a crusading priest in this story set in the aftermath of a presidential assassination (not at all like the young man the far-right wants to turn into a martyr after two failed and real presidential assassination attempts). This is a complex tale about gullible religious fanatics being exploited by fascist schemers. Sound familiar?

Considering our real world where we now have a Pope from Chicago, I have some ideas for a sequel, featuring some of the same characters, that leads into the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy” a bit better. If course, I have a long list of story ideas for a lot of novels. My problem now is finding the energy to write them. Writing a short story or novella is a dash; writing a novel is a marathon. We’ll see how it goes.

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

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 1st, 2025 at 4:00 am and is filed under Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.