CONTINUED: M1 Brothers

Book Description

Bill Hancock takes the reader on an adventure that chronicles life in the early fifties. M1 Brothers is a fast paced story that mingles military adventure with history, espionage, courage, honor and humor. The M1 Brothers find fraternity, love and deception, deal with psychological issues and create mischief akin to MASH.

Main character, Charlie Canfield, CC to all, is the reluctant scion of a lineage of warriors. He worries about his ability to emulate these heroic predecessors even though he possesses the means that can make it possible.

Hancock's cruel and cunning North Korean master spy is Bek Man Sue. His goal is to disrupt and overturn the South Korean government, while brutally punishing adversaries. Brian Roberts is the uniquely talented pawn in this masterful tale as it whirls across the treacherous hills behind the DMZ (demilitarized zone).
 

In the Words of Bill Hancock
 
“This book was written because it is a story that I felt a need to tell. It is fiction based on historical fact that chronicles life in the early fifties. Our country had ended a terrible World War just a few years earlier at an enormous cost of life and wealth. The veterans of that war, who were deeply scarred in many ways, were finding their places back in society and now a new threat appears that many of their children are called to repulse. New members are called into the fraternity of the good to combat an ongoing existence of evil.”

 
About Bill Hancock
 
The author has more than 50 years of technical and management experience. Some 44 years were spent working for various corporations and another 8 years running his own consulting company. During all this, he gained recognition as a management and cost model innovator, product developer, inventor, technical author and mentor.

As a consultant, he worked on the Lockheed Martin Federal Systems Merlin Helicopter Training Program in England. Then he returned to create training materials and teach NASA approved classes in Project Management Fundamentals, Parametric Cost Estimating, Work Breakdown Structure and Configuration Management at NASA facilities around the country.

While at IBM for 26 years, he started as an engineer in the Information Records Division and worked on printing equipment for paper products sold by the corporation. To most IBM means International Business Machine Corporation, but to many within the corporation, it means I’ve Been Moved.

After a few years, he moved to the Federal Systems Division to work as a test director and reentry vehicle trajectory analyst. When that assignment was complete, he moved on to the Manassas, Virginia FSD plant to become a software cost engineer, systems and software cost engineering manager, subcontract program manager, deputy program manager and program manager.

Prior to IBM he worked for Ingersoll-Rand as a project engineer and developed the first fluidized hospital bed for burn patients. Before Ingersoll-Rand he held a senior designer position at Curtiss-Wright Electronics Division, a designer job at Bendix Corporation, a junior designer job at Curtiss-Wright, a draftsman position at Trowbridge Conveyor Co., and his first job was as a junior draftsman at Hewitt-Robins Inc. While working for Hewitt-Robins, Bill Hancock was called into service during Korean War in Army to serve as infantry soldier and battalion draftsman in Korea.  All education after high school was at night at Stevens Institute of Technology, Fairleigh Dickinson University and Newark College of Engineering.

Bill is now happily retired and enjoying life in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Link to Amazon page:  http://amzn.to/1fuOIy6

CONTINUED: I Like A Little Bit of The Handsome Americans Myself

They are pursued throughout by Arnold Porkwinder who deals in chrome and wants his $804.04 in back rent.  With him is Mr. Watanabe, a Japanese gentleman with unique insight and an expert baseball card flipper.

In the Words of Richard Lutman

I Like A Little Bit Of The Handsome Americans Myself is a quirky road novella set in the early seventies. There is no deep meaning in this novella which took me a month to write.  A crucial and very funny pseudo love scene occurs in a Laundromat which inspired the cover.  Pacing was important.  Most of the action is dialogue-driven so the chapters had to be short. 

J.R., one of the main characters, is based on a real person.  Many of the scenes in the novella actually occurred.

On the back of a shack door in Rhode Island, three names were scrawled across the rough wooden surface followed by the words ‘The Handsome Americans.’  After a night of drinking several pitchers of beer at a local bar and watching a very bad band perform, one of the beer drinkers said “There they are--The Handsome Americans,” which brought much laughter.  Every time another bad band performed or a conversation got long winded out would come, “I like a little bit of the Handsome Americans myself,” said in the most serious tone possible.  The name seemed appropriate for the band and the title of the novella. 

About Richard Lutman

Richard Lutman lives in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  He has a MFA in Writing from Vermont College.  He currently teaches short story classes as part of Coastal Carolina University's Lifelong Learning program.  His fiction has appeared in: Verdad, Slow Trains, The Green Silk Journal, Dark Sky Magazine, The Bicycle Review, Epiphany Magazine, The Petigru Review, Deep South Magazine, The Newport Review, Dew on the Kudzu, The Corner Cupboard Press, The Green Briar Review, Bethlehem Writers Roundtable and Prick of the Spindle. He has also won local and national awards for his short stories, nonfiction and screenplays.   He was a 2008 Pushcart Nominee. 

A chapbook of his flash fiction was published in June 2009, a long narrative poem in 2011 and a chapbook of four short stories in 2013 by The Last Automat Press.  A novella entitled "I Like a Little Bit of the Handsome Americans Myself" can be found on Smashwords and Amazon Kindle.  Another novella, "Iron Butterfly" can be found at The WriteDeal Publishers.

Link to Amazon page:  http://amzn.to/1auwyH0

Link to Richard Lutman’s website:  http://www.wordrealm.net

CONTINUED: The Yellow Doll by David Soma

These experiences actually enhanced my reading of The Yellow Doll, as there were times when my parents and I were maneuvering across the miles of western desolation when I could visualize a band of Indians lined up on their horses, positioned all along the top of a looming cliff in the distance. I could almost see them patiently awaiting the arrival of the next wagon train that was rolling across the prairie. They salivated in anticipation of the pending attack on the unsuspecting trespassers from the east. Okay, I know I have always had a vivid imagination.

Back to The Yellow Doll, however. This book contains surprises, and I do love surprises. If you think that its title suggests a sweet story about a favorite toy, lovingly clutched by a child as she and her parents head west, you’ll want to think again. It’s more about an unlikely group, traveling to a western destination called Deadwood.

I won’t be a spoiler by revealing too much information, but this story encompasses a quest for a better life, a little bit of semi-romance, greed, violence, photography as was experienced in the 1870’s (no digital camera efficiency here), prejudice, a blur between upholding the law and breaking it, smuggling, murder, fear, outlaws, rudimentary commerce, illicit activity, deceit and definitely adventure.

This is one of those books that prompted me to pause when I read the final words. I wanted to know more about that place, era, location, history and the facts on which The Yellow Doll is based. This selection made me curious, entertained and intrigued me. It offered me an enhanced vision of the wild west as 19th century inhabitants must have known it.

Book Description

As America celebrates her centennial in the summer of 1876, the gold rush in the Dakota Territory of Deadwood Gulch draws an eclectic crowd of villains and heroes. There are those who want to seek their fortune and those who will do anything to destroy them.

Traveling photographer Niles Dewy sets out with his business partner, Rubee, to photograph the excitement—and do a little business on the side. It doesn’t take long for his new friend and traveling companion Sarah Culbert to discover Mr. Dewy isn’t everything he seems, especially when they have a strange encounter with Sheriff Clay involving the Yellow Doll. But Sarah has a few secrets of her own …

The group arrives in Deadwood, and Niles crosses paths once more with Wild Bill Hickok. But Hickok’s death starts a chain reaction that has explosive results. With the law closing in and a host of unsavory characters just waiting to destroy him, Niles’s run of good luck is about to expire, and only time will tell if he’ll survive.

Amazon page:   http://amzn.to/16ZtRZe

Why Did Soma Write The Yellow Doll?

“For ten years as I performed as James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok  in Deadwood, South Dakota, I was constantly asked, "Why did Jack McCall kill Wild Bill?" The myth of that legend made no historical sense to me, and I began to research the events taking place in the Deadwood Gulch mining camp in 1876.  I found there was a series of killings in the camp on the first three days of August that year, and Hickok was just one of them.  There very likely was a connection between all the murders.  Thus the novel The Yellow Doll, which is my historical theory on why Wild Bill Hickok was assassinated by McCall in Nuttles & Manns Saloon on August 2, 1876 in Deadwood Gulch, Dakota Territory.”

About David Soma

David Soma was born and raised the Badlands of western South Dakota. History has always been his passion, studying history and journalism at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona.  In the 1960s he began to live that history - as a western character actor at Old Tucson Studios, appearing in dozens of motion pictures and television westerns, eventually performing in the Gunfight At The OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona and finally as Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood, South Dakota.  After retiring, his time is divided between the mountains of western Wyoming and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.   While wintering in Myrtle Beach, he teaches American western frontier history through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Coastal Carolina University offering classes in the Myths And Legends Of The American West, Myths Of The Hollywood Westerns and Before During And After Lewis & Clark.  He also performs historical one-man shows as Wild Bill Hickok throughout the country.  The Yellow Doll is his third novel.

 

Closing Thoughts

As previously stated, The Yellow Doll is full of surprises. Prepare for a wild ride to Deadwood and beyond!