Thoughts, 5 Minutes or Less

Art of Darkness podcast hosts Kevin Kautzman and Brady Kelly were so good as to host me just two days after Yukio Mishima's 99th birthday. The subject: November 25, 1970... the day Mishima finished his masterwork "The Sea of Fertility," wrote the words "Human life is limited but I would like to live forever" ... and then staged an insane coup which ended up with his committing ritual suicide, seppuku. We talked about the masterwork, his insanity or lack thereof, and much more.

Kirkus Reviews sets a high bar for their recommendations. Thrilled to say that they say unequivocally to "get it" when it comes to Lama with a Gun. They called my second novel a "exhaustively researched, bloody, and compelling work of historical fiction," and summed it up thus: "Ja Lama’s reimagined life is a gripping saga that spans his abuse as a monk in training, his burgeoning mental gifts, an act of extreme violence that shaped him, military failures and successes, stints in Russia as a political prisoner, a years-long hermit’s retreat, torture both borne and inflicted, a final betrayal, and the chilling nemesis who haunts his life (be warned: The book contains numerous graphic descriptions of brutality and bloodshed, based on history and historical rumor)." The novel is indeed graphically violent, owing to the time and place in which it is set. All the more reason to read something that is of another world entirely... Read the full review here!

I am truly excited to be able to roll out this new presentation of all my written works. It is a work in progress, of course. But it is shiny and new, and will be the place to find all my exploits, verbal and otherwise. All thanks are due to my wife, Amy, who also just helped me with THE NEW BOOK TRAILER FOR LAMA WITH A GUN: