Buy Unleashing Colter's Hell, Lost Cause, and Need To Know three of Amazon's top selling national park thrillers today!

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Contest: Want to be a character in the next Grayson Cole thriller?

Ever wanted to be a character in a thriller?  Here's your chance. The Lost Cause manuscript, the follow up thriller to Unleashing Colter's Hell, is nearly complete. I'm in need of a limited number of proof readers to give the draft one final look over.

Those willing to review the novel for spelling, grammar, and plot holes will receive:
  1. written acknowledgement in the final version of Lost Cause;
  2. a signed copy of the thriller;
  3. and entry into a contest to be a character in Need to Know, the next Grayson Cole thriller.

All edits must be made using track changes in Microsoft word and are due September 28th, 2014.

If interested in entering the contest, please shoot me an email at seanwrites@yahoo.com


Odds of winning depend on the number of entries.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Book Signing October 10th

Aunties Bookstore Spokane
Hey Spokane! Just lined up a book signing at Aunties! I'll be talking about and signing copies of Unleashing Colter's Hell and my new thriller Lost Cause! Join me October 10th at 7pm!


402 W Main Ave, Spokane, WA 99201

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Unleashing Colter's Hell: The word is spreading


World recognition of Unleashing Colter's Hell is spreading.  Here is a list of countries discovering the fast-paced, action in the top selling Park Ranger thriller.

United States
Japan
Canada
Germany
Australia
United Kingdom
Taiwan
Belgium
France
Norway
Iceland
Czech Republic
Malaysia
Denmark
Brazil
New Zealand





Why not find out what the rest of the world is learning? www.tinyurl.com/coltershell




Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Is America vulnerable to environmental warfare?

Teton Dam Failure, Wyoming ~ www.waterarchives.org
Slate magazine is running a story on the potential threat environmental warfare poses to infrastructure like dams and power plants.  The story highlights the battle over the Mosul dam in Northern Iraq and the damage it could do to thousands of people downstream if it were to fail or be destroyed.

The author highlights a few dramatic and horrifying acts of environmental warfare. Paul Mutter in his article Dam Warfare, calls Iraq's hydro infrastructure the country's soft underbelly. Water as a weapon has the potential to do great damage in Iraq, given the country's reliance on the Tigress and Euphrates. Mutter expands on the historic record showing that nearly every major modern conflict has targeted or considered dams as targets.  Using water as soldiers is the mindset driving these actions. 

What Mutter and Slate's Keating don't do is consider America's vulnerability to environmental warfare.  Unfortunately, our exposure is huge.  America has an extensive hydro power system that includes upwards of 75,000 dams.  These run the gamut from small several acre facilities to world class facilities like Hoover and Grand Coulee Dams. 

Security and maintenance at these facilities also varies. Some are very well maintained and extremely well secure.  Others like Washington's Wanapum Dam are teetering on failure. Like Iraq, this hydro power infrastructure is also America's soft underbelly.

Environmental Warfare, or the modification and destruction of the environment as a weapon of war, is the central focus of Unleashing Colter's Hell.  The story centers on a plot to ignite an atomic bomb in Yellowstone  and trigger an eruption of the park's super volcano. A Yellowstone eruption would bury much of the eastern two thirds of America in tens of feet of ash. The eruption would destroy much of America's transportation, agriculture, water, power, and housing infrastructure. It would also likely cast the entire world into a new ice age. The devastation would kill millions and likely deal America a blow from which it could not recover.

Seems far fetched? Not so to defense experts and military officials. For example, the British Defense ministry predicts by 2045 that environmental warfare will become a major threat.

America's agriculture, forests, water supplies are also vulnerable to these types of unconventional attacks and much will have to be done to harden and fortify these assets.  But in the end, all our efforts can't stop every committed terrorist. 

We will have to be vigilant.

What are your thoughts? Is America vulnerable to environmental warfare?

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Friday, August 1, 2014

The source of my inspiration keeps me up at night

George Hodan
I’m often asked where I get the inspiration for my novels.  The quick answer is it often comes from worries that keep me up at night. I’ve found plumbing the depths of ones deepest fears is a rich environment within which to find themes and setting for my thrillers.

The more irrational and unlikely the fear, the better story it makes.
Humanity likes to think it’s in control of its destiny.  We tell ourselves we are smart and capable enough to handle any crisis.  And why shouldn’t we believe this?  We’ve dodged every threat so far be it the plague or nuclear war.
But this is a false sense of optimism, for there are threats to humanity that no amount of human ingenuity can prevent.  Things like extinction events. 

In my first novel, Unleashing Colter's Hell the plot hangs on one such natural disaster that if it humanity may not survive.  The story is set in Yellowstone national park, where I had the honor of working as a park ranger.  Most visitors to the park know about its geysers and bears.  But few appreciate the fact that Yellowstone is the world’s largest super volcano. If it were to erupt as it has in the recent past the northwest corner of Wyoming would be unlivable for centuries. The Eastern half the United States would be buried under tens of feet of ash, and the world’s temperature would drop to levels not seen in tens of thousands of year. Much of the world’s agriculture, transportation, and water supplies would be destroyed, millions if not billions of people would die.

Scientists tell us it’s not a matter of if Yellowstone will erupt but when.  Even more terrifying, if Yellowstone were to begin waking up today, there is nothing we can do to stop it.
That’s the backdrop for Unleashing Colter’s Hell, where a mad man has acquired an atomic bomb, with the plan to detonate it in Yellowstone, triggering a cataclysmic eruption. Park Ranger Grayson Cole is all that stands between the world and Armageddon.

World destruction isn’t the central fear of my second novel, Lost Cause. No, this time it’s revolution, or more precisely the start of a second Civil War which serves as the organizing fear. America has enjoyed more than 150 years of domestic peace since the Civil War. People have come to expect that civil war is impossible in modern society and the American ideals of democracy and freedom will continue forever.  But are we justified in this assumption? Lost Cause, presents a story, where some don’t except that end of the civil war. It’s merely half time, is their motto. Seems far-fetched?  Not really, for there are organizations and politicians that exposes the dismantling of America.  It appears our politics is more divided than ever. Fertile grounds for civil war.

My third novel focuses on invasion. Not invasion from a foreign army, rather invasion that’s more alien in nature. I didn’t say these fears have to be rationale; they just have to evoke a deep emotional response. Look for Need to Know in 2016.

So what keeps you up at night?