My 2019

I had a good 2019, all things considered, and had several major accomplishments.

1. Completing the CMO manual. This was the biggest task and it’s my proudest accomplishment this year. In 2013, I was just someone watching a stream of Command: Modern/Air Naval Operations. In 2019, I’d completed three official DLCs and had the honor of writing the manual for the sequel, Command: Modern Operations.
2. Getting my first Sea Lion Press book published. The Smithtown Unit, an alternate history homage to “men’s adventure” novels, was written in the summer of 2019 and published in late September.
3. Revving up Fuldapocalypse. Now, I read incredibly fast, so I didn’t lack for books to review. Still, Fuldapocalypse really got going this year. I ditched the clunky format meant for differentiating very similar books and made all my reviews “unstructured”, enabling me to write a lot of of them very quickly.

Reviewing Two Books With The Same Title

It’s finally happened and it’s a little (but not too) surprising that I’ve finally reviewed two books with the same title on Fuldapocalypse.

The two “Hard Targets” are the more recent OPSIG Team Black: Hard Target   and the earlier The Zone: Hard Target.

 

The World War III Blog On Red Dawn

The World War III 1987 Blog has been doing a series on Red Dawn, the classic 1980s invasion movie.

The three entries (to date) are available here (part 1), here (part 2), and here (part 3).

Naturally, it’s making me want to do a Fuldapocalypse piece on the movie specifically and/or “invasion fiction” in general.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

I’m thankful for this blog. I’m thankful for…

• The fun I’ve had writing on this blog.
• The books and posts I’ve enjoyed reading, and the authors I’ve found.
• The ever-expanding scope of Fuldapocalypse, going even more into a place to review even more types of fiction (and for me to experience that).
• The release of Command: Modern Operations, which I wrote the manual for.
• And so much more.

The Most Strangely Prominent Book

David Alexander’s Marine Force One is not prominent or popular by any standard. The best you can say is that it led to a few more book in its series. It has its quirks, but it’s a very middling novel. That’s the reason why I cite it so much in later Fuldapocalypse reviews.

Like the elusive “replacement-level player” in sports analysis, the “51% book” is a term I use a lot, used to describe something that’s merely adequate in all forms. And this was one of the most 51% books imaginable. It’s so middling it somehow stands out as something that is the perfect example of a decent book.

Fuldapocalypse Presents: A Thousand Words

So I’ve decided to expand Fuldapocalypse into occasional reviews of visual media (movies, games, etc..) So what better topic for the first installment than Dr. Strangelove?

How Many World War IIIs?

My latest Fuldapocalypse post asks the question of how many “World War III” novels there even are. This has been a tricky question, but the answer is “not really that many”. Having to move past that original narrow genre has even affected the Creative Corner, causing a reduction in posts, post length, and, more importantly, my focus.

It’s gone like this: Fuldapocalypse is conceived of as a place to slide in the World War III reviews. Fuldapocalypse quickly (and rightfully) shifts to fiction in general, which takes up a giant chunk of this blog’s “jurisdiction” and a lot of my posting energy. What started as a niche side project to avoid clogging the general blog turned into something bigger and more involved.  But there’s trade offs, and, especially when busy elsewhere, I’ve been prioritizing the book reviews over the “miscellaneous miscellany”.

Reading SEAL Team Seven

The SEAL Team Seven series, two installments of which I’ve reviewed on Fuldapocalypse, is interesting. It took two declining genres-the military technothriller and the pulp action written by multiple authors under one house name-and managed to last quite a while.

For such a giant series, I’m following my rules of thumb for any series that isn’t in strict chronological order. When in doubt, pick something with either the most interesting blurb/premise, or one where there was a key change. First I read the initial installment. Then I read a book that had both an interesting blurb and was the first book not written by the original author, William Keith.

So far I’ve been quite entertained by the adventures of Blake Murdock (how’s that for a main character name) and his team.

Fuldapocalypse Anniversary-Out Of The Ashes

Fuldapocalypse’s first anniversary is this month. The planned reviews to celebrate that include the promised The Sum Of All Fears, plus some more actual World War III (imagine that) novels. However, I also felt that the best and most fitting place to start was at the very bottom.

So I thus reviewed William W. Johnstone’s Out Of The Ashes, the inaugural installment in what could quite possibly be the worst sustained series made by a mainstream author/publisher.

Skeleton Coast reviewed on Fuldapocalypse

So, I’ve finally reviewed Clive Cussler’s Skeleton Coast on Fuldapocalypse.

Cussler was one of my favorite authors growing up, and the first real cheap thriller author I read in bulk. I read lots of Cussler’s (even if, by this point in his career, most of the actual work was done by other people), and a book review is long overdue. So why not choose one of the most memorable?