The Faithful - Chapter Two

In Chapter Two of The Faithful, Caroline and Reggie go at at it hot and heavy. Everyone knows about the affair except her fiance Evan. How will they ever keep it from him?

A Journey from Boy to Grunt to Warrior

They say that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. It can also drive you mad with fear. The conditions that the 19-year-old soldier-hero of Kenneth Waymon Baker's Alone in the Valley faces in the steamy jungles of the Central Vietnamese Highlands are so terrifying that it's all he can do from succumbing to chronic terror. From the moment he touches down until he is airborne on his way home from the war, this young hero's senses are on hair-trigger alert. It's what enables him to survive and emerge as a warrior, but at a nightmarish price.

Publisher's Weekly said, "This first novel by a disabled Vietnam veteran compassionately examines a year in the life of a combat infantryman during that conflict. As the protagonist...gains experience in the field, so does the reader, who comes to share his heightened awareness and sense of paranoia...The narrative remains focused on the grunt's life of monotony mixed with fear, so powerfully evoked as to provide a better understanding of why many veterans have never entirely overcome the war's terrors...an absorbing plot unfurled with gripping realism and an evocative sense of time and place will stir memories and convictions."

- Richard Curtis

Carol Severance's Songs of the Sea

Given the fact that Carol Severance is a Hawaii-based writer, it's no surprise that so much of her fantasy fiction focuses on the sea. After narrowly escaping death in a forest fire, the human heroine of Reefsong is equipped with webbed hands and gills by the company that saved her life. Now all she has to do is learn how to breathe underwater.

But she does it, and her skill liberates her to find a secret that could end starvation on our planet. Her corporate sponsors have ideas of their own about exploiting her discovery, and things turn extremely ugly.

Once you've undergone your sea change with Reefsong you'll be ready for Severance's wildly imaginative Island Warrior Trilogy.

- Richard Curtis

The Joy of (Quick) Sex

"Romance on the Run" was not the title we wanted when our agency sold Tara Roth Madden's celebration of quick sex between married couples, but the publisher was nervous about baldly advocating quickies. Though a hasty roll in the sack sounds like the furthest thing from romantic, Madden says it does more to rekindle the flame of romance for a long-married couple than the predictable five pound box of chocolates and bouquet of red roses. Men and women whose spontaneity has been all but squeezed out of their marriage by the routines of work schedules, domestic chores, and childrearing, can not only revive the flame of desire but set their marriages ablaze by snatching two minutes of mad, dangerous lovemaking while the kids are playing in the yard or guests are in the den watching a football game.

The author interviewed many real couples and learned how joyous monogamy can be when given an unscheduled booster shot of lust. Read Romance on the Run but be prepared to expand your definition of "romance".

- Richard Curtis

A Nine Volume Biography of Twentieth Century America

No one has ever accused Robert Vaughan of thinking small. His American Chronicles tell the story of Twentieth Century United States in nine volumes starting 1904 and ending in the 1960s. Though each novel stands on its own, they are related and intertwined in countless ways, making the Chronicles far closer to a tapestry than to a series. For instance, in Flower Children, the ninth book, the rebellious heiress who drops out and tunes into the San Francisco's 1960s Summer of Love is a descendant of the courageous Suffragist heroine of the first book, Dawn of the Century.

Vaughan's saga is a panorama of the explosive economic, political and social forces of the last century that continue to shape us in the current one. Nine wonderful reads for historians and fiction lovers alike.

- Richard Curtis

Oh What a Mighty Falling Off is Here!

The recent scandal that brought down New York Governor Eliot Spitzer awakened memories of another precipitous fall, that of New York State Chief Judge Sol Wachtler. Like Spitzer, Wachtler was a mighty New York personage whose high office and reputation for rectitude stood in glaring contrast to the almost unimaginably bizarre behavior that wrecked a career many said was on a track for Governor of New York or Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

The obvious question is, How can men holding august office lose their wits so thoroughly? Yet, when we look closely at stories like Wachtler's, Spitzer's or Bill Clinton's, we see that the collapse of their careers began with the most trivial of temptations - one drink too many, one coquettish glance, one indulgence of a minor vice. Who of us is so far from yielding to similar temptations that we can honestly say we would never set our feet on the same slippery path to self-destruction?

That's a question that you will certainly ask when you read Wachtler's memoir, After the Madness.

The exposure of a public figure is never pretty, but Wachtler's was particularly humiliating. His arrest, conviction and incarceration for harassing his longtime lover precipitated a media feeding frenzy. And then he had to serve time with men he himself had judged from the highest legal chair in the state.

With unflinching honesty, Wachtler draws upon his unique experience of living life on both sides of the bench to paint a chilling portrait of prison life interwoven with a no-holds-barred analysis of the shortcomings of the American legal justice system.

No less a commentator than Tom Wolfe, author of Bonfire of the Vanities, wrote, "After The Madness is the riveting prison diary of one of the most powerful judges in America, a sure bet to succeed Mario Cuomo as governor of New York in 1995, who fell abruptly into the abyss of the criminal justice system, landing in 'the hole' in two federal prisons, and emerging from the lower depths at last to bring back fascinating observations about crime and punishment, many of them startling, some of them bitterly funny."

- Richard Curtis

Slashing the Axis Underbelly

It is nearly impossible for a visitor to Italy to believe that this nation was an official enemy of the Allied forces in World War II. Of the three legs of the Germany-Japan-Italy Axis stool, Italy was the least belligerent. Its blustery dictator Mussolini was a tool of Adolf Hitler and when the war came to Italy, it was the German army that did the tough fighting.

The war came to Italy because it was clear to the Allied command that the most vulnerable place to launch an offensive against Germany was through Italy - the "soft underbelly" of the Axis in Winston Churchill's famous phrase. A key thrust was the landing on the beaches of Anzio, some 33 miles south of Rome, and the fighting was vicious.

War historian T. R. Fehrenbach's account of the assault, Anzio, brings the four month action to life with searing power. We had to take Anzio and we did, but at a terrible price.

The beautiful port town of Anzio has been awarded a "blue flag" for the quality of its beaches. But in 1943 the sand ran crimson.

- Richard Curtis

Baen Press Release

March 6, 2008—Wake Forest, North Carolina: Baen Books is proud to announce the launch of the inaugural list of E-Reads, now available at www.webscription.net. Titles will be published monthly, and will be available both individually and as part of a separate E-Reads program.

“E-Reads has been publishing topnotch fiction in electronic format for nearly a decade, and we’re delighted to offer them the opportunity to reach out to a whole new audience,” said Toni Weisskopf, Publisher of Baen Books. “With the likes of Greg Bear, Bill Dietz, Jim Gunn, Fritz Leiber and a host of other authors, our webscription readers are going to be thrilled with the titles we’ll be making available every month.”

Richard Curtis, Publisher of E-Reads, added, “We're pleased to be distributing our titles with a fellow pioneer of electronic publishing, and look forward to a long and successful relationship.”

The inaugural list of titles includes:

• Galactic Bounty by William C. Dietz
• The Burning by James E. Gunn
• Byzantium’s Crown by Susan Shwartz

For further information about individual titles, please visit: www.webscription.net

E-Reads is an industry pioneer in the electronic book business. Since 1999, they have published hundreds of predominantly out-of-print works in e-book format. Their list includes popular genres as science fiction, fantasy, romance, thrillers, horror and westerns, as well as general fiction and non-fiction.

Baen Books has been at the forefront of the electronic book business from its earliest inception, offering a wide variety of titles in multiple e-book formats, with innovative marketing programs such as eARCs, multi-title bundling and webscriptions.

Try Talking Your Way Out of This One, Omar!

It's one thing to be a prophet without honor in one's own country. It's quite another to be a prophet without principles. Omar is the greatest storyteller the world has known - make that the greatest self-proclaimed storyteller the world has ever known. When his glib oracles work, he has the city at his feet. When they don't, the city is at his throat.

Reaver Road and Hunter's Haunt, Dave Duncan's witty duo of novels, featuring the picaresque bard Omar are among my favorites of all his books and a good introduction to the first-rate list of Duncan novels carried by E-Reads.

- Richard Curtis

It was All Downhill from There

William Mulholland's vision of an aqueduct to carry water from distant mountains and across trackless desert to the dusty little town of Los Angeles rivaled the visions of Rome's engineers or the architects of China's Great Wall. Indeed, Mulholland's aqueduct was and to my knowledge still is the longest in the Western Hemisphere. Rivers in the Desert, the story of his inspiration and the execution of this amazing construction, is as stirring an adventure as any you will ever read, thanks to scholar Margaret Davis.

Amazon reviewer Michael Chadwick reminds us that "Fans of the movie Chinatown, Roman Polanski's classic detective melodrama, will love this true account of how desperately needed water was brought hundreds of miles to Los Angeles,where growth in the early 20th century was rapidly outracing the city's meager water supply. Like the 1974 movie with John Huston and Jack Nicholson, the real story has villains and heroes worthy of the big screen."

- Richard Curtis

The War to End All Wars -- Except for the War After That

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," said philosopher George Santayana, and never were truer words spoken. It's easy to get good and depressed studying history and its endless cycle of war and devastation, followed by recovery and prosperity, then slipping into dissension, strife, and, once again, war.

Don't expect Fritz Leiber's Gather, Darkness to offer a different, uplifting message. This science fiction classic, set 360 years after a nuclear holocaust has thrown mankind into yet another dark age, tells the story of a common man who rises to become a priest in the service of the Great God. Challenging a fraudulent priesthood that rules through fear and superstition, his rebellion against the power of the priests throws him headlong into the middle of the greatest holy war the world has ever seen.

If this dark story line seems familiar, you need only apply it to any era of human history and it will ring true. Bleak though it may be, Leiber's great novel reminds us that there is no higher value than justice, and there are men and women prepared to go to war in order to see that value prevail.

- Richard Curtis

The Calling of the Three (Californians)

A duke dies and his evil brother usurps his throne. Who do you call?

In master world builder Ru Emerson's spellbinding Night-Threads fantasy series, the rightful heir summons a warrior, a shape-shifter and a sorceress from Earth. But not just anywhere on Earth -- California! And if you don't think this trio has what it takes to harness the power of Night-Threads, you don't know your Marina Del Rey from your Santa Rosa. The problem is, they're afraid to use their powers. Read The Calling of the Three and its sequels, Two in Hiding and One Land, One Duke and discover how they cope with a challenge beyond their formidable powers.

E-Reads carries not only three Night-Threads adventures but three Tales of the Nedao.

- Richard Curtis

What Your Candidate's Body is Telling You

Did you wonder why Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were so cordial to each other when they were positioned side by side during the recent television debates, yet when they returned to the campaign trail they hurled verbal missiles at each other like Cold War enemies?

Julius Fast knows the answer. When you want to challenge people you face them; when you want to disarm them, you position yourself next to them. Today, political television shows feature psychologists specializing in analysis of the body movements, facial indicators and speech patterns of candidates. These specialists may not be aware of the debt they owe to Fast. His groundbreaking Body Language, published in 1980, popularized the concept that our posture and gestures, the angle of our shoulders and the tilt of our head, the unintended smile when one is supposed to be angry, or the faint scowl when one is supposed to be friendly, express truths in a code that belies what we are saying or contradicts the impression we are trying to communicate. In politics body language is particularly important because confidence and other subtle indicators of dominance can win an election, and unconscious submissiveness can lose one. Sincerity is a politician's stock in trade, but whatever he may promise at the podium, he may project hypocrisy if you know what to look for.

This is not just theory. Body Language can help anyone who reads it by making us aware of the signals we're sending out and those that others are sending to us. Next time you book a business lunch, decide what will accomplish your goals more effectively - sitting next to your guests or opposite them.

After reading Fast's book you'll be a better reader of faces, bodies and tones of voice. Indeed, you may even be ready to run for public office!

- Richard Curtis

Down the Stream of Souls

When Roger Zelazny said of Jeffrey Carver's From a Changeling Star, "he leaves you both satisfied and craving another serving of his considerable talent." he may not have known that another and equally satisfying serving was on the way in the form of a triumphant sequel, Down the Stream of Stars. Together they make a breathtakingly grand story of a great interstellar migration down the gateway known as the starstream. But, as in so many of Carver's novels, real matter has a spiritual component. A remnant of the Betelgeuse supernova, the starstream is also a living entity born of the merged souls of the once-living star and other beings who died in its creation. On this living road to settling a new colony, Carver's refugees must grapple with a terrifying race known as the Throgs - shadowy beings that live in the n-space of the starstream.


From a Changeling Star drew raves from the likes of such masters as Zelazny, David Brin ("Starts with a bang and keeps getting better") Craig Shaw Gardner ("I wish all science fiction novels could be this good"), and Spider Robinson ("As audacious and imaginative as the best of John Varley, with characters as memorable as those of Sturgeon or Zelazny, and with one of the most powerful endings in science fiction").

E-Reads also carries three of Carver's Star Rigger novels including the original, Star Rigger's Way.

- Richard Curtis