The reason I purchased this book to begin with was because the author (real name Stephen Mertz) critiqued one of my short stories and I wanted to thank him for his sensitive and honest service. And I thought, “Well, buying a white-knuckle military thriller, that should let him know I care!” It was worth every penny. Cody’s Army follows the story of John Cody and his three brothers-in-arms as they storm their way through the Arab desert in search of hostages taken from an airline flight to Tel Aviv. John Cody is a Vietnam war veteran who can beat the living piss out of anybody if given an Uzi machinegun, a garrote wire, a knife, grenades, or just his bare knuckles. Richard Caine is an explosives expert who can blow pretty much anything or anybody so high up in the air that they can personally say hello to their deity (feel free to take that any way you want). Rufe Murphy is a helicopter pilot who also happens to be a gigantic monster of a black guy who can snap the necks of smaller men with his thumb and forefinger. Hawkeye Hawkins, well, he’s just a badass Texan with a hair-trigger temper and a switchblade for a tongue. Okay, I may have stolen that last line from a Five Finger Death Punch song, but you get the idea. Individually, these four Vietnam vets are rough, tough motherfuckers who can kill at a moment’s notice. Together? Oh, you’d better bring every last soldier you’ve got and even then it may never be enough. They’re not just toe-to-toe brawlers, they’re intelligent tacticians who can work their way around any opposition. If you’re looking for a fast-paced action thriller, pick up a copy of Cody’s Army. By now you’re probably asking yourself why a peace-loving liberal like me is promoting a military-style novel. I already told you the first reason, because I want to support the guy who critiqued my work and made me a better writer. The other reason is because I know the difference between fantasy and reality. In Cody’s Army, the action is high-octane, brutal, and as dazzling to read as the Rambo movies are to watch. In real life, it would still be brutal, but there would be a lot of PTSD and vomiting in reaction to such horrible violence. Relax and enjoy the thrill ride from a safe distance. Buy Cody’s Army!
***JOKES OF THE DAY***
Q: What’s it called when a female soldier is getting emotional?
A: War-mones.
Q: What does a soldier get after he has sex?
A: War-gasms.
Before I get started with the body of this blog, I just want to take a moment and read to you the synopsis for “Cody’s Army”, which I am currently 72 pages into. It goes like this…
“The sequence was familiar: Another jet hijacked to Lebannon. Once again America held hostage by fanatic rebels. And just to prove they meant business the terrorists dragged two innocent passengers out on the tarmac and shot them in cold blood. That’s when John Cody and his mone got on the scene. Their mission was to free the hostages. But Cody wasn’t going to stop there. This time he had to make sure it didn’t happen again. And there was only one way to do that. The hard way. The bloody way.”
If that doesn’t get you excited about reading a high-octane military thriller, I don’t know what does. Just from that synopsis alone, you can expect John Cody to be a literary version of Rambo. The reason I reposted that text verbatim is to make a point: it may be wrong to judge a book by its cover, but it’s nowhere near immoral to judge one by its synopsis. If you’re a potential author and you want people to be at least vaguely interested in your book, you have to hit them with something hard long before they delve into the first page. It’s called hooking them in and it’s not a new thing. Movies that don’t hook in their audience by the first five minutes are going to lose a lot of patrons. And when you write your synopsis, don’t worry about overselling your product. It’s much more practical to oversell something than to undersell it. If you’re advertising a dog turd to someone dying of hunger, you’re going to want to oversell it as tasting like a Butterfinger candy bar. Otherwise, there won’t be a sale. If you want an example that’s closer to my heart, let’s use a WWE example, particularly one starring Dolph Ziggler. When he gets thrown around the ring, he doesn’t just flop over like most guys do. He spins around and flies like a birdie just to make that hip toss look painful. Dolph Ziggler can wrestle a broomstick and make the broomstick look good. If you’re an author looking to get people excited about your book, be a literary Dolph Ziggler and oversell your product. Talk about the bloody and painful moments early on. People love blood and pain. Now if only I could take my own advice when it came to selling “Red Blood, White Knuckles, Blue Heart”. If you’re wondering why I keep mentioning my self-published book in my posts, it’s because I haven’t sold a single copy as of today. It’s pathetic, I know. One day, I’ll shut up about it forever. I promise.
***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“CM Punk could burn an orphanage to the ground and he would still be popular with the fans.”
-Me-
