Books, Stories, Essays: My Writing Career
I've been writing since ... well, since before I could write. When I was a toddler, I used to draw squiggly lines on a sheet of paper and insist that I was writing something. Those epics have not been preserved. The desire and need to put words on paper have survived, however.
In spite of which, for a long time I dabbled in writing, fiddled around with it, started stories and didn't finish them. Then I stopped doing even that. Instead, I whined about my desire to be a writer. One day, after listening to me whine, my wife, Leonore, said, "So why don't you write?"
It was as though a light had gone on. Well, yeah, why didn't I write? So I finished some stories and managed to sell a couple of them, and then I finished a novel and sold it to a major publisher. I was a writer. (I'm leaving out the hard parts, but they're rather boring, really.)
The published stuff is listed below. Hover on a title to see a brief description. Click on a titles for more details, as well as the cover and buying links.
Novels
The Arm and Flanagan
Science fiction
A war veteran receives a marvelous futuristic prosthetic to replace the arm he lost in battle. He's delighted.
So is the arm.
Budspy
Alternate history
Nazi Germany forged a peace treaty with Britain and the US under the terms of which Germany controls the continent in return for turning its energies against the Soviet Union. Now, three hundred million strong, the Third Reich dominates the world. With its booming industry, its advanced science and technology, its fearsome war machine, and its colonies on the moon, the Reich is envied and feared by the rest of the world and invites imitation. Chic Western, an American agent, is inserted undercover into the US embassy in Berlin to uncover a leak. He succeeds, but in the process, he is forced to confront the conflict between his conscience, his Jewish ancestry, and the reality that hides behind evil's seductive face.
Business Secrets from the Stars
Satire
A gibbering monkey in the Oval Office, dopey ex-presidents, scary televangelists, sinister old men with long, sharp teeth, and in the middle of it all, Malcolm Erskine, who thought he had such a clever idea. Bookstores are full of New Age woo woo and books about channeled spirits and absurd self-help books, especially business self-help books. Malcolm realizes that he can combine these publishing trends with his ability to invent alien civilizations. The result is Business Secrets from the Stars, in which Malcolm Erskine reveals the business wisdom telepathically imparted to him by the spirit of Lukas of Aldebaran, a business genius and top corporate executive who lived long ago in a galaxy far away. From the astral plane, Lukas want to pass on his knowledge through the mind of the only being on Earth pure and elevated enough to be worthy of serving as his contact. That would be Malcolm. Business Secrets from the Stars is a huge success. Malcolm is rolling in dough. His ex-wife is trying to get back together with him. Beautiful women are flinging themselves into his bed. A certain sinister ex-First Lady is asking for his advice as she plans her own path to political power. Oh, what a wonderful place the world has suddenly become! Then everything gets very complicated.
Cage of Bone
Thriller
Suddenly, a murderer's memories force their way into Max Iverson's mind. Max is horrified and bewildered. Surely this isn't real! Max is a private person by nature, isolated from his fellow humans. Now he is forced to know what the worst of them are thinking, and his nights are filled with nightmares. Even worse, he is drawn into helping the authorities punish the criminals whose thoughts he now knows. He is unaware of the danger this will expose him to. There is a cabal of criminals behind much of the major crime in the city. He didn't know of their existence, but they become aware of his, and now they are determined to eliminate him. Max must change from frightened quarry to pitiless hunter. His hunt leads him to the cabal and also to life–changing discoveries about his own history.
The Cavaradossi Killings
Mystery
Tom Hamilton has a long memory. He remembers the poverty and insults of his childhood in small-town Colorado. He remembers the secrets of the deadly organization he worked for in Chicago. Most of all, he remembers the central tragedy of his boyhood, his mother's disappearance. Now he's back in Colorado, safe from his Chicago associates — and in possession of a large quantity of their money. When a singer is murdered during a local opera performance, Tom decides to try his hand at finding the killer. He doesn't foresee that this will draw him back into the passions and hatreds of earlier years or that it will put his own life in danger.
Central Heat
Science fiction
What would happen if the sun vanished? For a time, at least, there would be survivors — military personnel in buried, self-contained complexes and bases on the moon, for example. This novel tells the story of some of those survivors and the civilization they rebuild.
The Children of Shiny Mountain
Science fiction
My first published novel. In the far future, a human citizen of a far-off world is sent back to the now-primitive Earth and changes everything.
Children of the Undead
Horror/comic novel/satire
A social and political satire disguised as a comic novel about zombies and pickles. Or possibly the other way around.
Dawn Crescent
Alternate history
At the beginning of Desert Storm in 1991, things go terribly wrong. A secret organization that has infiltrated many Arab armies and governments emerges from hiding and inflames a broad and bloodily successful anti-Western uprising. American troops at the Battle of Khafji and throughout the Middle East are faced with a much bigger war than the one they had been sent to fight.
The Green God
Comic science fiction
My second book and currently out of print.
Pit Planet
Science fiction
Jacksonite has brought James Benton to Colliery, the only world where the mineral is found, the headquarters of the immensely wealthy Jacksonite Corporation. Colliery is a beautiful planet, a veritable Garden of Eden, but here Benton will be forced to delve below his own surface, to search within, as he penetrates below the serene and lovely surface of Colliery.
Randolph Runner
Science Fiction/Humor/Satire
Butler, warrior, moral philosopher, robot. Randolph is all that and more.
Randolph is the prized product of Superior Domestics, a Silicon Valley firm dedicated to producing robot servants for people who grew up watching British period costume dramas on PBS. The company's motto is "All the gracious living of Upstairs with none of the unseemly drama of Downstairs."
When the novel opens with the assassination of King Donald II of America and a coup d'état, Randolph epitomizes that motto. He is calm, quiet, supremely competent, always in the background, and never interfering. He is a mere witness to great events. He is focused on supervising his staff and properly running the household of General Henry Redgrave, architect of the coup and would–be power behind the throne.
The Seekers
Science fiction
This is a science-fiction novel that examines questions of religious belief. It's anti-religious. It's also out of print.
Slit
Horror
They move among us and prey upon us.
Some are invisible. Some look like us.
Some are inside us.
Time and the Soldier
Science fiction
During World War Two, two men and one woman are selected by a secret organization named Tempus to be time travelers. Tommy Stillwell, Ellen Maxwell, and Frank Anderson will be sent forward to different points in the future. Tempus is sure that one of them will find a futuristic superweapon that, when brought back, will end the ongoing war and prevent any future wars. However, while Tempus can send people forward, it has not been able to reverse the process. In addition to weapons, the time travelers will have to find a way back.
Time for Sherlock Holmes
Science fiction/Mystery
When Sherlock Holmes gives up the adventurous life of a consulting detective and retires to the Sussex countryside to raise bees, little does he or his old friend Dr. John Watson realize that their greatest adventure lies ahead — an adventure spanning centuries and extending across the solar system.
Ursus
Horror
Nature hits us with highly intelligent, dog-sized bears that hunt in packs and love city life.
"Jaws goes inland. ... Lots of gore, a nicely controlled pace." - Kirkus Reviews
"Believably frightening." - Rocky Mountain News
Non-Fiction
At Home with Solar Energy (out of print)
The Dead Hand of Mrs. Stifle
Speculation about the impact of e-books, published in 2011, when e-books seemed to be a revolution in the making.
Dust Net
A prediction about the future of communication and surveillance, when microscopic or nanoscopic devices will cover the earth, destroying secrecy, censorship, and privacy.
Once a Jew, Always a Jew?
Antisemites use the phrase "Once a Jew, always a Jew" as a slur. To Jews who think that there can be such a thing as a secular Jew, the phrase refers to some innate quality, entirely apart from religion, that distinguishes Jews from their non-Jewish neighbors. What is that innate quality? I argue that it doesn't exist.
Self-Publishing Tools, Tips, and Techniques
Since 2009, my wife and I have helped dozens of clients publish their own books. This book distills what I've learned about the process. I hope it will enable you to self-publish your book at little or no cost and not fall prey to scams.
When We Landed on the Moon: A Memoir
From September 1967 to November 1971, I worked on Apollo missions at NASA in Houston. By the time I left, manned lunar flight was winding down. the beautiful future I had imagined had died. This is the story of my small part in the Apollo project.
My only one so far. I have no idea if there will ever be others.
In the early days, some of my short stories were published in men's magazines, and I don't mean Playboy. They were all pretty good stories, in my opinion, with science-fictional or fantasy elements, but that wasn't what attracted the editors. Later, I sold some to more standard genre outlets. The e-book revolution has inspired me to put those and a few unpublished stories together as a collection, published as an e-book.
A short but fitfully growing list. Long enough to deserve