F.X. Holden's Blog

Trailer image from the Chinese govt sponsored Top Gun style movie - Born to Fly, about the development of the Chinese J-20 stealth fighter.




I meticulously research every one of my novels, and that includes understanding the countries in which they are set. This one is set in China and Taiwan and though I have been to both places many times, I had not been to China since COVID-19. So before pushing the button on BEACHHEAD, I wanted to go to China again and speak with my friends there, to travel around and get a feeling for the cultural and political landscape today.

I just got back from three weeks there, and it has changed.

It was fascinating, not least the conversations with Chinese friends who previously very pro regime, but had their faith tested by the crackdown and oppression of 'ordinary chinese' (ie not religious groups, political agitators) under COVID. Xi apparently lost a lot of goodwill, and people were quite open about this, at least to me.

On the other hand patriotism/nationalism has flourished with isolation. There is a real sense of 'us against the west, alone' and a belief the world wants to keep China down - but then again, isn't it easy to see why they think so? They are also quick to repeat government speaking points - that the West is inherently anti Asian and racist, that China's rise as a superpower will benefit everyone, that China is not a 'warmongering nation like USA' ... 'we haven't been involved in a war since 1979, USA has been involved in 28!' is something I heard several times.

No one I know in Beijing really thinks much about Taiwan, so they don't really 'get' why the West would be so exercised about it, and why it isn't obvious to everyone it is a part of China like Hong Kong. My belief is that nationalism thrives with isolation and the regime is fanning it with movies like the just released Top Gun style blockbuster 'Born to Fly' (see it if you can), so the 'us against the world' narrative is only going to get stronger and stronger, which is going to make avoiding conflict hard.

Regarding BEACHHEAD in particular, it continues the same thought experiment that began with Aggressor. There will be many novels written about a conventional Chinese invasion of Taiwan, and while that may yet come in this series (no spoilers), I did not want it to be the centerpiece because I want to keep exploring the idea that a Chinese landing on Taiwan does not have to be inevitable, or perhaps even necessary, for China to achieve its reunification goal. It will have other means at its disposal than sending waves of troops across the Taiwan Strait into a meat grinder, like Russia is so unsuccessfully doing in Ukraine.

China is watching events in Ukraine, and it will learn.

Several reviewers of ‘Aggressor’ have written “but it wouldn’t happen that way. China wouldn’t do this, or the US wouldn’t do that.” They could be right, but they miss the point a little. My approach in this series is to look at alternatives to conventional wisdom because in 2038 the conventional wisdom of today won't be relevant, we don’t want to be fighting the last war, we want to fight the next one.

And I do find it mono-dimensional to think China would be allowed to build an invasion force and launch an invasion of Taiwan without any intervention from the US and its allies in advance. So in BEACHHEAD, I have imagined a planned and proactive US intervention in the South China Sea, intended to draw Chinese forces away from the Taiwan theatre. If you are looking for an analogy, think Operation Torch in World War II, when American forces went ashore in North Africa to open a new front against Nazi Germany.

This is very much a 'what if' series. What if China didn't need to physically invade Taiwan to conquer it? What if the US and its allies aren't incompetent bumblers idly watching from the sidelines? What if all the discussions we are having today about AI, all the fears people express about how it could be misused by bad actors, came true?

What if the isolationist and nationalist trends of the major powers today continue to intensify?

One answer to these questions, is BEACHHEAD!

Price will go to $8 after launch so preorder for 2.99 now!!

.

PREORDER NOW AND LOCK IN THE LOW LAUNCH PRICE!

https://www.amazon.com/Aggressor-page...

It is April 1 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.

The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced, it can disrupt the balance of power in the region.

But what pilot would be crazy enough to run the Chinese blockade to deliver it?

AGGRESSOR is the first novel in a new series that looks at the conflict that could spark the next World War, through the eyes of soldiers, sailors, civilians and aviators on all sides. Featuring technologies that are on the drawing board today and could be fielded in the near future, AGGRESSOR is the page turning military technothriller you have been waiting for!

Praise for FX Holden thrillers

"If you've never read FX Holden, strap in and hold on for the ride of your life." Readers' Favorite.
"Tom Clancy fans will be pleased" Publishers Weekly (Starred review)
"A heart-pounding adventure series...FX Holden has definitely become one to watch in the thriller world" Book Excellence

Paperback available MARCH 1 to APRIL 1 for cost of production and postage!

.

PREORDER NOW AND LOCK IN THE LOW LAUNCH PRICE!

https://www.amazon.com/Aggressor-page...

It is April 1 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.

The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced, it can disrupt the balance of power in the region.

But what pilot would be crazy enough to run the Chinese blockade to deliver it?

AGGRESSOR is the first novel in a new series that looks at the conflict that could spark the next World War, through the eyes of soldiers, sailors, civilians and aviators on all sides. Featuring technologies that are on the drawing board today and could be fielded in the near future, AGGRESSOR is the page turning military technothriller you have been waiting for!

Praise for FX Holden thrillers

"If you've never read FX Holden, strap in and hold on for the ride of your life." Readers' Favorite.
"Tom Clancy fans will be pleased" Publishers Weekly (Starred review)
"A heart-pounding adventure series...FX Holden has definitely become one to watch in the thriller world" Book Excellence

Paperback available MARCH 1 to APRIL 1 for cost of production and postage!

Oooh, this is a tough one I get asked occasionally. Usually it's right after "Do you ever go back and re-read your own novels?"



To answer the second question first. No. Once the novel is published, I don't usually read it again. Is that weird or normal, I don't know. I usually don't have time! I'm too busy writing the next one!

But if I am making an audiobook of course I revisit the novel. I love listening to a narrator bring it to life, and really enjoy immersing myself in their interpretation. Both of the Future War narrators, Lyssa and Gary, bring their own flavor to the books!

There are seven novels in the Future War series and I do have a favorite, but it might not be the one you think.

The best selling novel so far has been GOLAN. Although it came out later, it has sold more copies than any other novel in the Future War series, including the first novel published, BERING STRAIT, which came out two years before it.

My suspicion is that the scenario - Israel/US vs Iran/Syria/Russia - is so real, so almost now, that people are drawn to it and like the spin I give it. It could also be the way it is written. With GOLAN I deliberately screwed the action up to 10, made the reader think it was all done, and then pushed the dial up to 11.

I love the royalties, but that doesn't make GOLAN my favorite.

Alright, my favorite? Perhaps not suprisingly, the first I wrote is my favorite. BERING STRAIT was a novel I wrote out of frustration. I had just won a publishing contract with Harper Collins for my novel 'Taking Tom Murray Home' and the publishing process was going glacially slowly. As it does in the traditional publishing world. I would get comments on my manuscript from an editor, send in a new draft, and then I would wait weeks for a response.

It took two years from when my manuscript was accepted to when it was finally published. In that time, I wrote and published Bering Strait. It was a book I'd always wanted to write and I didn't even try to find a traditional publisher for it because I was too impatient to see it out in the world, being read!

So I started from the ground up, taught myself how to publish on Amazon, built a team of amazing expert beta readers to advise me on all the technical elements, found a cover designer and editor, and put BERING STRAIT out into the world.

People loved it. Thankyou if you were one!

I'd sold 10,000 copies of BERING STRAIT before my traditionally published novel was even in the bookstores. Though traditional publishing was a wonderful experience - the book tour, the signings, the media coverage - I still have a soft place in my heart for BERING STRAIT because it was the novel that made me realize I could actually make a living out of writing fiction.

A lot of people don't realize this, but the avergage income of fiction writers is about $20,000 a year because the publishing houses keep 90% of sales. Yes, 90%. Amazon, on the other hand, takes only 30%. There is a lot more do-it-yourself with Amazon as your publisher, but if you are successful, the Amazon model works much more for the author, than it does for the publisher.

Thanks to BERING STRAIT I was excited to write more, and more, and more. Now I am at the point I can make a good living from my writing and yes, this Christmas, I went back and re-read BERING STRAIT again. It took me right back to the start of this adventure and I loved every page.

Of course, I found a dozen things that could be written differently, but I'll save those for future novels...

All FX Holden Future War titles are just 0.99c on Amazon USA this week!





And many more!

The Future War series has wound up - oh, woe, shall we ever see another FX Holden novel?!

Of course, but if you haven't read all seven Future War novels you had better get a wriggle on because the new AGGRESSOR series will be launched at Easter 2023.



"It is day 60 of China's operation to retake Taiwan. The US Government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can change the tide of the war.

Only one pilot is crazy enough to run the Chinese blockade to deliver it."

Unlike the Future War series which ranged across conflicts from the Middle East to the Arctic, the AGGRESSOR series of novels will focus on an imminent - and some say inevitable - conflict between China and the West over Taiwan. The novels will roll out at six monthly intervals from Easter 2023.

AND WHAT ELSE?

A new spinoff from the FX Holden Coruscant series will start in 2023, which fans of Future War novels should enjoy.

Set in the Coruscant universe, it will feature conflict at an interplanetary scale, while using the Future War novel's technique of looking at a story from multiple opposing points of view.

IS THAT IT?!

For now, but for FX Holden, the sky has never been the limit...

The Future War series takes on one of the most likely superpower confrontations of coming years. As a nuclear weapon is detonated over South Korean territory in the Sea of Japan, six protagonists hold the fate of the Korean Peninsula in their hands. Their decisions could see North and South Korea reunited at last, or send the world spiraling into nuclear armageddon.

"From the very first page, we are thrown into action that puts us shoulder to shoulder with the characters in trying to discern who is friend or foe. And when the roles shift, we’re all trying to stay alive until we sort it out... The stakes feel genuine, and no victory comes without our heroes making enormous sacrifices...This is the series for readers who enjoy intelligent fiction that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Very highly recommended. A rock shock of a ride and I loved being here for every page of it!"

USA Readers' Favorite.

Get the eBook or Paperback here

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B...

Core Melt is out now and after I hit publish I realised 'I forgot to include my traditional Note From the Author!' (Oops, so here it is.)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09...

Core Melt began with an autumn walk. I was listening to a BBC podcast about the challenges of programming an AI.

"What would happen ..." the podcaster asked "If you gave an AI the job of ensuring the safety of say, elephants in a wildlife park. You program it with a set of rules like 'you have to protect the elephants but you can't hurt any other animals including humans' and then you get all amazed as it comes up with fantastic new ways to protect the elephants without hurting humans or other threatening animals. But you can't predict everything that it might regard as a threat to the elephants, and it decides that tick-borne diseases are a threat to elephants so it wipes out all the ticks (they're insects, not animals) which sets up a chain reaction in the ecosystem leading to food chain collapse which kills not just the elephants but just about every other animal in the game park."

Right, I thought. So how about ,,, if you gave an AI the job of protecting mankind. And it created hybrid humans (cybernetic humans) to help it do that, which works wonderfully. And then it decides that cybernetic humans are actually humans too and it should be trying to protect them as well...

And what if the humans weren't actually treating the cybernetic humans all that well because they didn't really regard them as human. (Let's face it, we have a hard enough time treating other humans as humans, so it isn't a stretch to imagine we might not be so kind and gentle to cybers.)

What would the AI do? It has to protect all humans, but it has humans in its care hurting other humans in its care.

Enter: Amin Wei. Wei is a Hunter. A one of a kind cyber lawfully created with the single purpose of hunting down a suspected terrorist, Kristen Newgard. First, he has to find her, then he has to determine if she is guilty, and if guilty, deliver justice.

But the terrorist organisation she is linked to are freedom fighters, fighting for the liberation of cyberkind. Their ranks are made up of both human and cybernetic members who support cyber liberation. Their sole aim is the emancipation of cybernetic humans and though the cybers in their ranks have protocols that prevent them directly harming humans, the organisation's human members are willing to employ violence for the cause.

Mass murder, to be precise.

Core Melt is a story of love, revolution and betrayal and the question at the heart of it all is ... on whose side would the AI come down?

Strange title for a post! Sometimes it's important to say what a book isn't, especially for fans of FX Holden action thrillers who might be expecting the same thing from the Coruscant series.

The Coruscant novels are 'suspense thrillers' ie more intrigue, less action, but the same twisty plots. Think Blade Runner and Asimov, plenty of plot, character, world-building, not so many action scenes.



https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XQZSC8T

About the Coruscant series: Three hundred years ago humans terraformed and colonized the moons of the planet Coruscant. To help them manage the many challenges of life in the Coruscant system, they created an AI, The Core. The prime directive of The Core is the preservation and promotion of all life on the Moons of Coruscant. To assist in the execution of its mandate, The Core has created bioware A.I.s, colloquially known as cybers; artificially grown biological bodies with cybernetically enhanced brains able to interface directly with The Core. Through its cybers, The Core can learn first hand how Coruscant's citizens live, survive and thrive, and optimize the social, environmental and economic environment to benefit them.

Not all colonies in the Commonwealth have connected their cybers to the Core. New Syberia is a hold-out, not willing to sign on to the sort of freedoms for its cybers that Core membership demands.

The Core takes its role as protector of all of the citizens of Coruscant very, very seriously.

"Great for fans of: Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis’s 2034: A Novel of the Next World War."

https://www.amazon.com/FX-Holden/e/B0...

Holden is back with another dynamic novel in his accomplished Future War series. This high-flying political thriller paints a grim future where, as China and the U.S. teeter on the brink of war in the 2030s, China discovers that the US plans to send resources and weapons to the small island of Pagasa—to fortify it against the threat of a Chinese takeover. Provoked, China quickly moves to attack Pagasa, in hopes that a victory will solidify its control of the South China Sea as well as the Pagasa territory and its fishing industry. Enter the U.S. military and a merchant marine vessel racing to Pagasa’s aid. Who will come out on top—and at what cost?

Densely packed with the innovative tech and high-stakes cliffhangers the genre demands,Pagasa approaches its international conflict from every possible side, with a large ensemble ranging from U.S. Navy officers and Chinese military to two young children who must quickly adapt when their island becomes a military flashpoint. That interest in the humanity of all parties sets Holdens work apart. Pilot Karen “Bunny” O’Hare’s no-nonsense attitude and ability to react quickly under pressure make her a standout in the sea of characters, and while many of the main players find themselves thrust onto the front lines of this battle, a handful of politicians navigate the war safely behind closed doors, leaving readers with a chilling realization of who is really pulling the strings.

To achieve that, Holden’s narrative must dart rapidly between viewpoints, mimicking the chaos of war and the quick wit needed to survive it. To help orient readers, Holden supplies a comprehensive cast list as well as a detailed map of the island area for reference. Although Pagasa is part of a larger series, it can be read as an inviting standalone. Readers looking to sink into a war saga rich with differing perspective–and gape at the possibilities of next-gen tech–will enjoy this thriller.

Takeaway: This accomplished high-tech, near-future military thriller admirably examines all sides of its vivid international conflict.