My Work – Page 84 – Joseph Carrabis, Author Blog

The Augmented Man Booksigning at the Salem, NH, Barnes&Noble Saturday, 8 Feb 2020, noonET

I’ll be signing The Augmented Man at the Salem, NH, Barnes&Noble on Saturday, 8 Feb 2020, from noon-2pmET.

“What do you do with a deadly weapon when its no longer needed?” Nicholas Trailer is the last of The Augmented Men, beings created first by society and completed by a political group the public can’t even imagine exists! This is a masterful tale of how greed and power can corrupt the better judgement of man! If you like Enders game this is the book for you!

A bit about The Augmented Man
The US Military concedes that any kind of combat leaves soldiers psychologically damaged and makes reintegration to society difficult.

The solution is to find individuals who are already so psychologically damaged the most horrendous combat experience will seem trivial by comparison. Better, find individuals psychologically damaged who’ve also experienced massive physical insult and trauma. Best, individuals psychologically damaged, physically traumatized, and emotionally vacant.

But where to find such individuals?

Captain James Donaldson suggests using massively abused and traumatized children as the basis, arguing “…they’ve already experienced more at home than they’ll ever experience in the field. All we need to is help their bodies catch up to where their psyches and emotions already are.

Nine individuals are selected for Augmentation and entered into combat.

One survives.

And comes home.

Anecdote
I read the the Surface section and the first Apache helicopter gunship scene (pgs 228-230 in the print version) of The Augmented Man as my text.

I finished and looked up to see the audience staring at me, wide-eyed, deers caught in headlights. One fellow whispered, “Intense.” Everyone else nodded.

YES! Score one for the author!

About me
You can find out more than you need to know at my About page.

Meet Author Joseph Carrabis at the Portsmouth, NH, Barnes&Noble Sunday, 9 Feb 2020, 1pmET

“Bad Ass just got a new poster boy…in The Augmented Man” (and the author’s not bad, either)

I’ll be signing The Augmented Man at the Portsmouth, NH, Barnes&Noble on Sunday, 9 Feb 2020, from 1-3pmET.

FWIW, I received my first royalty check today. THANKEE TO EVERYONE BUYING THIS BOOK! Come on by and I’ll sign your copy for you! Come on by, buy half a dozen copies for your friends, and I’ll sign all of them, too!

A bit about The Augmented Man
The US Military concedes that any kind of combat leaves soldiers psychologically damaged and makes reintegration to society difficult.

But where to find such individuals?

Nine individuals are selected for Augmentation and entered into combat.

One survives.

And comes home.

Anecdote
I read the the Surface section and the first Apache helicopter gunship scene (pgs 228-230 in the print version) of The Augmented Man as my text.

I finished and looked up to see the audience staring at me, wide-eyed, deers caught in headlights. One fellow whispered, “Intense.” Everyone else nodded.

YES! Score one for the author!

About me
You can find out more than you need to know at my About page.

Fantasy Horror Author A.F. Stewart and I talk Deviltry, Noveltry, Shipbuilding, Agony and Ecstasy

Watch, leave a comment, gain a friend!

A.F. Stewart, aka @Scribe77, did me.

Interviewed me, I mean.

We talked about

The differences between writing short stories and novels (not much from a crafting standpoint, me thinks)
Creating sympathetic villains (even the worst person has one humanizing detail)
Genre writing (I don’t believe I write in a genre. My regular readers tell me my genre is “Joseph”)
My incredible anthology, Tales Told ‘Round Celestial Campfires
Being able to do amazing things with words when you’re an author
The link between Satan and Hamilton Burger
Getting kudos from your readers
Ritchie and Phyl, my incredible work in progress
How writing Flash fiction is like building a ship in a bottle
Great Opening Lines
My incredible scifi/military/thriller, The Augmented Man
Writing about characters rather than genre (the story comes first, the genre comes second)
Empty Sky and my standing offer; read the book, leave a review, and I’ll send you an autographed copy of the rewrite when it’s published.
Children growing up
Stories that grew out of my anthropology studies – Mani He and The Goatmen of Aguirra
Getting kudos from editors and publishers
Writing almost fantastic fantasies (okay, the story’s fantastic. It uses almost fantasy elements – The Weight)

So, yeah, we covered a few things.

Enjoy!

Man and Boy; Tennessee, 1932 (Revised for a 3 minute Fiction Slam)

I first wrote Man and Boy sometime in the early 1990s, possibly late 1980s. I remember reading publicly and the next reader, a published author, making a derogatory comment about the story’s tone and subject matter.

I’ve kept it on a backburner ever since, sometimes taking it out, sending it out to a few places then putting it back. I’ve always felt there’s something here. Maybe it needs to be longer, a full story and not a flash piece.

Last week’s The Shackled Man had been in my head for a while and I wrote it up for a flash/slam fiction class I took. I decided Man and Boy might also be a good candidate, so dusted it off and revised if from the previous version. You can get an idea of the revisions by comparing the two. Basically I cut out everything that wasn’t “in the moment” of the story, which I originally wrote as an exercise in dialogue (still think it’s a great example of dialogue carrying a story).

So, as always, enjoy and let me know what you think.

Creator and above level members can listen to my test read.

Man and Boy; Tennessee, 1932

“He’s a dead man, Pa. I pulled me up a dead black man.”

“First time we go fishing in a week and you snag your line on a boy’s been dead in the water who knows how long?”

“We going to get in trouble, Pa?”

“Don’t know that until we know who he is. Help me get him in the boat. God, this one’s heavy. Ain’t swelled, though.

“Look at his face, Pa.”

“Somebody didn’t take a liking to it, that’s for sure. And look at them clothes. You ever seen clothes like that, son?”

“Them’s city clothes, Pa.”

“What do you know about city clothes?”

“I seen them in the catalogue at Mr. Howard’s store.”

“What you doing down at Mr. Howard’s store?”

“I run errands for Mr. Howard sometimes and he gives me a penny so I can buy some candy.”

“You think them’s city clothes?”

“I know I’m right.”

“So this here’s a city-boy, huh? Somebody killed themselves a city-boy.”

“What we going to do, Pa?

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The Shackled Man

I’m taking a two-week course in flash fiction writing with the definition of flash fiction being “You can read it in under three minutes.” The Shackled Man is my offering. I’ve got it down to 2m46s.

Let me know what you think, and thanks.

Creator and above level members can listen to my test read.

The Shackled Man

Saturday mornings. That was our time.

Dad tiptoed into my room and knelt beside my bed. I could smell him before my eyes opened. A good smell, a night’s sweat just washed away.

I kept my eyes shut until I felt the bristles of his mustache when he kissed my cheek. I’d open my eyes and see the twinkle in his.

“Want to go for a ride?”

There were four places we’d go. South, Logan Airport. West, French King Bridge. North, Queechee Gorge. East, L.L. Bean.

We always stopped at a Dunkin Donuts. If we started a little late it’d be a Dunkin Donuts half way there, about an hour out, half hour at the least. Or sometimes it’d be at the edge of town, right before we hit the highway.

Dad knew where all the Dunkins were. Nobody had breakfast sandwiches or drivethroughs back then. You had to go inside. He’d get a medium coffee, two sugars, two creams, and I’d get a chocolate milk and a bavarian creme, the first bite and it oozed out and into your mouth.

And then off we’d go, listening to the radio or singing songs. Didn’t matter the weather, every Saturday morning we’d go, always sure to be out of the house by seven, no later.

West and north we’d get to the bridges. There were parking areas and we’d get out and walk around. Dad would stay close to the rails, look over. “How far down do you think that is, son?”

I was too small, I couldn’t see.

“Be a long drop from here.”

East we’d get to L.L. Bean. It was totally different back then. Only locals and hunters knew of it. How my dad knew I’ll never know.

You could talk to guides, men who knew the lakes and rivers and mountains. Dad listened to their stories, about going so far out in the woods it seemed there was no coming back, then he’d check his watch.

“Come on, son. Time to be getting back.”