Fans have been after me for years to write the third tale of the Saucer trilogy, so I finally got after it. Saucer: Savage Planet will be published in the winter of 2013-14 by St Martins Press.
When I was young I lived a great adventure. I joined the United States Navy and went to flight school. Then I got lucky. The naval bureaucracy sent me to NAS Whidbey Island to fly A-6 Intruders.
Writing is a craft, like playing a musical instrument or painting with oils. Every aspiring writer must acquire this craft, just as every musician must learn his or her instrument.
Is military aviation right for you? It is not an easy goal to achieve. To earn a seat in a military cockpit you must be dedicated to that objective and work like a slave to get there. Those who succeed are bright, well-educated, willing to work, willing to obey orders, and have a level of maturity that allows them to function in an adult world.
The trustees of Penn State had former FBI director Louis Freeh investigate how the football coach and college administration turned blind eyes to a pedophile predator in their midst, and did it for many years. All to protect the “good name” of the football program. To hell with Sandusky’s victims. The NCAA will undoubtedly do something–they sure as hell better–and killing the football program at Penn State for a few years certainly seems justified. What were these people thinking?
Yesterday, June 23, we drove up to Cascade, up Rt 24 west of Colorado Springs, for lunch at a little Colorado wine bar and grill. A plume of smoke, from perhaps a house fire, was rising on the ridge to the north. Small. As lunch progressed, it got bigger and bigger. Hot and windy. We drove on up behind Pike’s Peak, an afternoon ride, and found the smoke was pluming to 20 to 25k feet, and the column was thickening ominously. Fire trucks and fire fighters on the way down the canyon. The fire spread, evacuations started. After dark the blaze was visible from our deck, an ominous red monster.
Now that New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has solved all of New York’s problems and has the city ticking like a Swiss watch, he has decided to tackle bigger problems. He recently announced that NYC was banning the sale of soft drinks in cups larger than 12 ounces. Big soft drinks are killing fat people, of whom there are many. Yet the very next day he went before television cameras to promote National Doughnut Day. Only skinny people eat those.
Baseball is America’s game, and my favorite. This past weekend Philadelphia pitcher Cole Hamels plunked a batter. Ho hum. But the guy he hit was Washington Nationals rookie phenom Bryce Harper, who went to first base as usual. Then it got interesting.
The movie FLIGHT OF THE INTRUDER will air on the Military Channel on Saturday, May 5, at 8 pm Eastern. This is part of An Officer and A Movie series, and I will co-host.
People often ask, Who are your favorite living writers? I got lots of favorites, many dead, some above ground, but I’d like to tell you about three still scribbling merrily: Stephen Hunter, Lee Child and Michael Connelly. In my opinion they are the top three pros writing popular fiction today.
Christmas Eve, and once again the newspapers are full of commentary about the “separation of church and state”, which, they say, is enshrined in the United States Constitution.
The Sea Witch is a collection of short fiction by Stephen Coonts which was first published in anthologies from 1999 to 2003.
In The Disciple, my novel published in December, 2009, I had a subplot about the fundamental Muslims’ view of God, set forth by a religious scholar, Dr. Ishar Murad, who writes a manuscript setting forth his vision of God, a large God, one who created all living things.
A recent article in Newsweek magazine by Mark Hosenball stated that the CIA is about to issue a new assessment of Iran’s nuclear program.
Hunter’s Swagger saga continues to amaze. Coming up with new, original plots that have a conflict that the hero can plausibly solve, with plenty of action and suspense, populated with characters the reader finds interesting, and to somehow pace it properly and write it well is an art form.
Flew my first glider solo today… actually two solos, because the instructor was brave enough to send my up twice.
The new book, THE DISCIPLE, seems to be generating some excitement. Apparently, Iran doesn't feel the same.
A newspaper in the Middle East recently reported that an inspection of the recently destroyed Syrian reactor turned up some traces of weapons-grade U-235, suggesting the Syrians are closer to a bomb than recently believed.
Amadinejad and the gang in Tehran continue to make news. Now they want to buy, steal and smuggle into Iran enough stuff to built TEN new centrifuge facilities to process uranium into plutonium.
It seems that being a fiction writer has started to require a lot of traveling to help my stories come alive in unique, new settings.
The Disciple will be published December 8, and we would love to hear from our readers!
Finding and collecting arrowheads at Deer Creek Farm is one of my favorite pastimes. Come with me and visit an arrowhead patch and I'll tell you a little bit about this fascinating aspect of this area of West Virginia.
Visit Cheat Mountain in West Virginia with New York Times Best Selling Author Steve Coonts as he takes you through the "Enchanted Forest".
Standing on top of a civil war mountian top, Steve tells the story of a civil war battle fought in 1862! Could civil war happen again? Find out what Steve has to say.