Author Steven Clark Bradley's Patriot Acts

Author Steven Clark Bradley has been to or lived in 34 countries, including Pakistan, Iraq and Turkey. He has a master’s degree in liberal studies from Indiana University. He speaks French and Turkish. He has been an assistant to a prosecutor, a university instructor and a freelance journalist. He recently sat down to talk with Book Hookup for this interview:

The political undertones in Patriot Acts reveal a working knowledge of history, government and the military. How did this play a role in your plot development?

It is true that I have had a very diverse career, politics, journalism and world travel. All of those activities in my life have given me a real understanding of what is out there and the dangers we face. I want to write stories that are only scary because they are so very plausible. I can say that the scenario of Patriot Acts and Patriot Acts Two, which is now completed and in editing, are both very real and related to the things and issues and dangers we now face in a world gone mad and gone weak. We have a president who thinks talk is enough and a government that is spending us into oblivion. That is why I have striven so hard to make what I write so real and something that serves as a warning of the future that we face without realizing that freedom is not free.

What idea first ignited you imagination that led you to write this story?

I believe we are losing our freedom, freedoms that were never granted by any government, but by god. There are forces at work today that place all of us in the crosshairs of totalitarian treatment. One of the biggest mistakes we are making today in our seeming delight in playing the part of the Ostrich. We have our heads in the sand and think our enemies cannot see our hinder parts. Patriot Acts goes a long way in showing that going softly and politically with nations like Iran and North Korea only emboldens them and gives them the idea that we will not react to their behavior that endangers the peace of the world. Unfortunately, they may be right.

The dialog and Middle Eastern scenery in your book are authentically vivid. Have you visited the Middle East? Did you serve in the military?

I have lived in the Middle East and in Muslim countries outside of the Middle East. I have lived in Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq, and Senegal, West Africa. All together, I have either lived in or been to 34 different countries, which did give me a real understanding of the culture and the life they live there. In Patriot Acts, many of the events, especially in the first three chapters, are events that I actually lived. I worked there and some things I cannot talk about, but there were things that I have seen and did that show me and hopefully my depiction of the these things in a fictional form will show others that threats are real and present and that without vigilance, we shall not survive as a nation.

The threat of an apocalyptic terrorist threat combined with the unlikely alliance between the Islamic Republic of Iran and radical American militia groups to free your innocent protagonist, Colonel Fisher Harrison, is brilliant. What inspired this unholy alliance?

I have heard from some who felt it was not realistic to think that Americans would gang up with terrorists. All I had to do was to refresh their memories and mention names like Terry Nichols, Timothy McVeigh or the Uni-bomber. All of these are part of a huge underground network that is even now looking for a way to change the world we have built into an anarchist’s paradise.

After I published Patriot Acts, I found so free pictures to use for marketing and one man called me and told me he was one of the people in one of the pictures I had used. He was a really interesting man, but very despising of the world in which we live. I was raised in Northern Indiana. In the country area where I am from, there are literally hundreds of private armies and militias. I know people who have tanks and heavy armaments that could wage a pretty effective revolution. Most of them love America, but they have arsenals that would make your skin crawl. These people are real. They are not interested in peace, because peace would put them out of business.

I have always said that it is impossible for Hamas and Hezbollah to make peace with Israel. If those terror groups make peace, they will have negotiated themselves out of existence, and terror is why they are the scourge of the world today. Those in America are no different. They are paranoid, nervous, often delusional and dangerous.

You've created interesting yet complex characters complete with strengths and flaws. Which character(s) grew beyond the scope of your original concept for them and in what way?

This is a great question. I used to wonder how I could paint a fictitious human in a genuine way. As humans, we have histories of greatness and profound mistakes at times. I came to an understanding that all I had to do was take a realistic look at myself. That provided the good and the bad that all of possess. I would love to write a memoire in the future, but my greatest concern is how I can portray the real me and still have friends, in light of the life I have lived and some of the things I have done, that I cannot speak of. I will not write a biography unless I can tell the good, the bad and the ugly.

Do you see part of yourself in any of your characters?

I would say a lot of Fisher Harrison’s development and personality and actions represent who I am and somewhat who I would have liked to be. Hamilton Smith and Jamie O’Rourke ended up basically who I patterned them to be. But, the character who took on a life of his own was the President figure, Christopher A. Tate.

President Tate, in Patriot Acts, was patterned after someone in my past who was a real self-indulged, egotistical and despicable person I worked for politically, in my past. My intent was to paint him as I recalled him, in a very negative light, to say the least. Yet, he emerged as a naïve man, a man with bitter demons that plagued him, but who was courageous enough to face his mistakes and character flaws and to grow into a real leader. I have always said that a great story starts to write itself, and President Tate in Patriot Acts is a prime example of that. He has a supreme role in Patriot Acts Two and his character, I predict, will bring you to tears.

This story is full of suspense and intrigue. It is written with such clarity and realistic fervor that it seems one could click on the TV and see these fictional events played out on the news. What do you hope to accomplish with this story?

As it has accurately been said, fact is often stranger than fiction. I want Americans too actually see that there is no future unless we take the rose-colored glasses off and look at the world around us. In 2002, I was in Israel. I was doing a freelance journalistic endeavor for a newspaper. I was on a bus that was third in line to go to Bethlehem. About ten minutes after I got on my bus, the bus that was first in line and full of children returning back to school after their summer break, blew up and killed eighteen children and several adults. Those kids got up and only wanted to see their friends. Their parents only wanted to make sure their kids got a good education, but by the middle of the morning, they were all dead.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, the mothers and fathers and children of so many loved ones only went to the World Trade Center to do their jobs; to support their families and build their careers. Yet, because of the desire of evil men with evil intents and with evil ideologies, over three thousand of them would never see their kids again. That morning, they kissed their wives, their husbands, their kids, their parents for the very last time. It seems impossible that Americans would ever forget such a massive attack, and it seems logical that we’d want to fight such evil actions regardless of the world’s feelings, in spite of the cost. Yet, we have forgotten.

Now we are negotiating with Iran; our President tells those with the same evil ideas that we are not at war with them, that their evil ideals in the name of some evil concept of a god that they have a good faith and that we are friends. We have blinded our eyes and the forces at work to destroy us and the current political leaders controlling the nation are a combination that places this nation and our children’s futures in peril. That is why I burn the midnight oil to push myself to tell the next generation that there will be no future of freedom, there will be no happy ending unless we give our all to thumb our noses at the peaceniks who would just as soon see us perish than to do what it takes to survive. These are some of the reasons why I write on issues that some may find too realistic to say they enjoy my writing. I am not trying to be enjoyable. I want to stimulate, to resurrect the desire to maintain our free society and to see the threats so we can prepare for them.

Where do you hope to take your writing in the future? Is there a sequel on the horizon?

The sequel is written and I would say, though the characters are the same, the story is just as powerful as and actually more so than Patriot Acts One. I have tentatively called it The Second Republic. It is about domestic biological terrorism and it will make your hair stand up on your arm. I do not know where such ideas come from, but it is a plausible and super-frightening scenario of what evil men and women can do to control the lives of others and to make the world to tremble. I sometimes feel too clear in what I see for the future if we stay on our current path. I fall asleep wondering where we are headed. Perhaps, instead of worrying about some unproven hole in the ozone, perhaps we should worry more about the holes in our security, about the breaches of trust our leaders create, bout those who wish to relegate America to the ash heap of history. I will write it until we are told we cannot longer so, and then I will double my efforts.

What dreams have been realized as a result of your writing? Any special memories that you would like to share?

Of all the books I have written, I have to say that Nimrod Rising shook me to my very core. I came back to America to live in 1995. I felt the changes and I could see where it was headed, and I am sad to see that I was right. In 1996, while writing and researching the novel, I wrote about the Twin Towers falling in that novel and an aircraft slamming into them. I do not claim any special gifts, except that which God has given me, for what have we that has not been given to us? But when it actually happened, I actually began to shake and sweat. I knew I had read it all right. That book eventually took me twelve years to write and I can say that it became a treatise on the future of America. Patriot Acts demonstrates how the border with Mexico is an effective conduit for weapons of mass destruction, and I read just last week how Al-Qaida is trying to smuggle in Anthrax into this country through Mexico. This is not the fault only of Mexico. It is more our wrong policy that refuses to appreciate our sovereignty and the plot of my book seemed so very real. It is time that we speak the truth, and it is a time when, sadly, fiction is more real than all the pipe dreams we have that all will be well without resolve and a will to fight. I am not a negative person. I have tons of bad jokes and am a very happy man. Yet, I am a realist and I know that unless we act to save our nation, those we seek to befriend will use our naivety to kill us. That is why I write.

Where is Patriot Acts available?

This new exciting novel is easy to find and available all over the net. Here are a few links to help you secure you own copy of Patriot Acts.

Patriot Acts (Print Version) at Amazon,com

Patriot Acts (Print Version) at Cambridge Books

Patriot Acts (Electronic Version) at Ebooks on the net

Patriot Acts (Electronic Version) at Amazon.com

Patriot Acts (Electronic Version) at Fictionwise.com

Patriot Acts (Electronic Version) at Mobipocket.com

I hope everyone who reads this will not just think it is entertainment or the irrational rambling of a scared American. I am not afraid; I am convinced that no one will secure our future except us. That is why I declare the main theme of Patriot Acts in one key phrase: Patriot Acts – No unconditional Talks – Just patriot Acts!

Steven Clark Bradley

New Release - Steel Town by John P. Matsis

Steel Town, a city of proud immigrant men and women awakens to the call of a distant war. Bessemer converters, open hearths, and steel workers gear for the machinery of a war they don’t understand. Night is no longer dark as the horizon glows from the nonstop flow of molten steel; the evenings no longer tranquil as eighteen-wheelers roar, fully loaded with steel to make tanks that spit fire and for destroyers that patrol the Sea of Saigon.

In a place as alien as a far off planet, two boys, the best of friends, come to age and find themselves catapulted into the horror of war—where the enemy, like moles, tunnel beneath the damp earth and into the hillsides, where booby trapped bombs and punjii stakes await the unwary American soldiers as they step through tall grasses and beneath the canopy of dense vegetation in search of the enemy. It is a place where a cunning and determined enemy calls home, a jungle arena where boyhood dreams and bonds of friendship are tested. The motto, “till death do us part,” becomes a sudden reality when a enemy grenade explodes, and the once “pretty boy” must come to grip with a terrible reality—he has only half a face. He is no longer the boy with a face that girls die for, no longer the vision of a Greek god born of proud immigrant parents.

As the war escalates, Steel Town, Gary, Indiana, must come to grip with the changing times. The old ways are strained, tradition no longer to be taken for granted—the war has changed everything. Like the war afar, lives totter and bend in the gust of controversy. A Greek coffeehouse keeper, an ex-middleweight champion of the world, and a young girl face difficult decisions. A priest struggles with his own demons. Parents look at each with apprehension, uncertain of the future of their sons. Two soldiers, their lives forever changed, struggle in a chess match of life and death. Even the enemy must face the inevitable…that life is indeed fragile

Bestial Cravings

Vesta Johns has everything going for her—except her health. Desperate to find the answers to her lethargy and her insatiable desire for raw meat and sex, she seeks out the help of her doctor, but Dr. Cohen can give her no answers.

Or can she?

Torrence Simiene is a medical consultant with a unique specialization. As an alpha werewolf, it’s been his job to aid Dr. Cohen’s distinctive patients through their transition from human to shifter, for years. This time, however, it’s different. Vesta arouses his primal lust, and he’s having a hard time keeping her at a distance.

Will the doctor’s plan of care offer the ultimate cure for Tor and Vesta’s bestial cravings , or further drive them apart?

Note:

Bestial Cravings is a stand alone companion short contained within the Roma Wolf Tales Series. For more information please visit Dayana Knight's website: www.romawolftales.com and don't forget to check outCurse of the Marhime , Book I of the Roma Wolf Tales Series, available now in print and ebook format at The Wild Rose Press and many other fine book retailers

Not of My Making - a Healing Journey

Guest Post by Author Margaret W. Jones, Ph.D.

In an email Donna asked what inspired me to write about bullying and scapegoating in churches. Without hesitation I thought, that’s easy, desperation. My very survival depended on it. I felt as if my adversaries had a pillow over my mouth and nose and I had to push them off to save my life. Writing Not of My Making was a healing journey in which I not only found my voice but came to love who I was.

My former church mates did everything they could to prevent me from telling my story to others including shunning, expulsion from church and threatening legal action against me.

While they were successful within our church community, they couldn’t prevent me from talking to others outside of church nor keep me from writing a book about it. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects my right to report the facts and express my opinion. I developed a deeper appreciation for freedom of speech and a greater awareness that without the First Amendment those with more power would silence those weaker and more vulnerable themselves.

During the conflicts at the churches to which I belonged, I kept a journal. It was my way of trying to figure out what was happening to me and why. I first considered pulling all that material into a book after I read Catherine Fairbanks’ book, Hiding Behind the Collar. I considered the possibility of getting a book published. Pretty slim, I thought. So I didn’t start it. I couldn’t go through the pain of writing my story if no one was ever going to read it. Then on a Thursday night in August, 2003 I discovered I had no therapy clients scheduled. Absent-mindedly I picked up the catalog of the local adult learning center and discovered they were offering a seminar on publishing taught by Dan Poynter. At the time I didn’t know he was a self-publishing guru but I seized the opportunity and went. I am glad I did. I now knew that the only obstacles to getting my book published were hard work and a little money. I was certain I had what it took to get the job done.

I read Poynter’s book, The Self Publishing Manuel, organized a binder for my manuscript and began writing. It wasn’t easy. When I first started writing my book I would type until flooded with anxiety. I would then spend the rest of the time curled up on my couch in a fetal position. Eventually as I wrote and processed the events leading to my dechurchings the anxiety became less crippling. I could use the entire four hours plus any other free moment to work on my book. Writing Not of My Making was hard but necessary work.

As a psychologist I was trained to write dry, data filled research papers. Writing a memoir was a very different creature. I struggled. It was emotionally draining and the first draft was absolutely horrible. I knew something was wrong but didn’t know what. I searched Amazon and ordered Tristine Rainer’s book, Your Life as Story. That helped some. I attended a writing seminar at a local college and met Hannah R Goodman. I hired her to do a content edit on my book and took another year to rewrite the manuscript. The result was well worth it.

The process of writing, publishing and marketing has helped me clarify issues and develop new skills. It gave me a new career. In addition to being a psychologist I am now an author and publisher. I have come full circle. I am now more of myself than I have ever been.

Not of My Making is available from www.pluckpress.com and Amazon.com

Biblical Church by Beresford Job - 4 stars

Every now and then a book comes along that challenges the foundations of accepted Christian practice and offers something completely new. Biblical Church: a Challenge to Unscriptural Tradition and Practice! by Beresford Job does exactly that. It strips away traditions that man has added to the concept of Christian practice and points back to the original blueprint found in Scripture. 

 

Biblical Church: a Challenge to Unscriptural Tradition and Practice!

This book challenged me to reconsider my understanding of the New Testament teaching on church life and practice. It combines meticulously researched scholarship and exegesis with Job's more than thirty years of practical experience pioneering New Testament church life and practice. It's a journey of discovery to regain lost biblical truths and understandings.

This book is an easy read, a little wordy for me, but well worth the read. It pinpoints traditions and practices that are un-scriptural in a thought-provoking way that completely revolutionizes the teaching of Scripture. Questions covered include:

• What was the conflict between Jesus and Israel really about?

• What is ‘the Tradition of the Elders’?

• Why is it that for 1800 years churches have been so completely different to those we see in the New Testament?

• What were the New Testament churches actually like?

• Does the New Testament teach and prescribe a particular way for churches to be?

• Why did the Early Church Fathers reverse the teaching of the New Testament about church life?

• What do leading evangelical scholars have to say concerning these issues?

For three decades Beresford Job, has been involved on both sides of the Atlantic in helping to start and nurture churches which are based purely on the teachings and practices revealed in the New Testament. He argues powerfully that what history has come to refer to as the Reformation is not yet complete, and that the restoration of biblical truth regarding justification by faith needs to now be followed by a similar restoration concerning the way in which church life is experienced.

As this books turns to the New Testament church it argues that there are four simple things that differentiate biblically based churches that align with scripture rather than mere human tradition:

1) Each New Testament church was numerically small and therefore needed nothing other than homes to meet in. The idea was to have as many small churches as possible in any given geographical area rather than fewer numerically large ones.

2) When a church met for its weekly Sunday gathering the format was strictly that everyone was free to take part as the Spirit led them. All present were used by the Lord in different ways to edify their brothers and sisters and each person was seen to have a unique contribution to make. Unbelievable though it may seem to the vast majority of Christians there is no such thing in the New Testament as a church ‘service.’ Further, because of this format and design passed on by the Lord to the Apostles, there was also no need for anyone to lead the proceedings from the front. Indeed, in a lounge or living room in someone’s home there is no ‘front’ to lead from. Equally unbelievable is that neither is there any such thing in the New Testament as ‘the Minister’ of a church.

3) The other aspect of their weekly Sunday gatherings was that the Lord’s Supper was an actual meal which those present ate together, the loaf and cup being shared together as part of it. Basically a church was seen as an extended family of the Lord’s people, and the New Testament format for church gatherings was such that those present could actually function as such. Here believers experienced spiritual intimacy, close, genuine and significant fellowship, and the freedom to truly gather together around the Lord to celebrate his presence in their midst.

4) When it came to church government the New Testament clearly shows that decisions were made collectively by all in the church with leaders, referred to as elders, shepherds or overseers, being merely part of the decision-making process rather than the process itself. Further, this function of local church leadership was undertaken by brothers raised up from within, and recognized by, the church of which they were a part. Itinerant ministries from outside of each church augmented such local leaders church.

However strange the above description of church life may appear no serious Biblical scholar would disagree with the simple proposition that it is simply, and quite unarguably, what churches in New Testament times were like while the teachings of the Apostles of Jesus held sway. Quote after quote from top evangelical scholars confirm that the burden of the book is fully aligned with Scripture, and all necessary textual, cultural and historical relevancy are dealt with in detail in its pages.

The only thing I didn't enjoy about this book is, like I said, it is a bit wordy. For this reason I gave it 4 stars. I recommend this book to Christians who enjoy church history, for people who love the Lord but have walked away from church (for various reasons), and for those who seek to walk in the Light of truth. I think people will be amazed at what they discover.

* * *

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Order through www.house-church.org

The Book Connection Presents The Man Overboard

Learn more about Darryl Hagar and his inspiring story of recovery at The Book Connection http://thebookconnectionccm.blogspot.com/2009/04/darryl-hagar-and-man-overboard.html. Darryl's book The Man Overboard memoir chronicles his life as an alcoholic oil tanker officer with alcoholism and drug addiction problems while navigating 900 foot supertankers, and then offers his readers the hope as he shares his journey to recovery.

When you top by, take a moment to watch his video and be sure to leave a comment. Each commenter will be entered for a chance to win a copy of his book, The Man Overboard http://www.themanoverboard.com/book.html. For more chances to win, follow Darryl on his tour and leave comments along the way. You'll also be entered in a weekly drawing for a chance to win one of Darryl's graphic novels http://www.themanoverboard.com/programs.

Darryl is fervent about his recovery and committed to helping others find the strength and support needed to reclaim their lives from addiction. He will check in throughout the day to answer questions.

For the most up to date information about his tour, visit http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/2009/03/man-overboard-by-darryl-hagar-virtual.html

Books and Authors Reviews The Man Overboard by Darryl Hagar

Books and Authors http://joyce-anthony.blogspot.com/2009/04/man-overboard-by-darryl-hagar-review.html reviews The Man Overboard by Darryl Hagar. Reviewer Joyce Anthony says, "This is one book I will continue to recommend for years to come. Parents, high school and college students, counselors, and addicts themselves will all benefit from the words within the covers of The Man Overboard."

Stop by to read the entire review and take time to leave a comment as Darryl will stop by to answer questions. When you leave a comment you'll also be entered for a chance to win a copy of his book, The Man Overboard http://www.themanoverboard.com/book.html.

For more chances to win, follow Darryl on his tour and leave comments along the way. You'll also be entered in a weekly drawing for a chance to win one of Darryl's graphic novels http://www.themanoverboard.co/programs.

Darryl is fervent about his recovery and committed to helping others find the strength and support needed to reclaim their lives from addiction. He will check in throughout the day to answer questions.

For the most up to date information about his tour, visit http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/2009/03/man-overboard-by-darryl-hagar-virtual.html