Arisen, Book Six - The Horizon (37 page)

Come back and live through the beginning of the end of the world in
ARISEN : GENESIS
, the pulse-pounding and bestselling ARISEN prequel.

Thanks and Acknowledgements

Michael

This author wishes to thank Anna Kathleen Brooksbank, Sara Natalie Fuchs, Richard S. Fuchs, Virginia Ann Sayers-King, Valerie Sayers, Alexander Montgomery Heublein, Matthew David Grabowy, e, Slayer 155, and Michael and Jayne Barnard, for their indispensable support. Critically, my thanks to
Amanda Jo Moore
(“Ugh!”) and
Mark George Pitely
(“My advice? Cleansing fire.”) for making this work stronger and making me a better writer (and a better human being). Thanks to Bruce, Wanda, Alec, and Brendan MacDonald Fyfe, for their amazing examples of lives directed by purpose, compassion, and service. Finally, my warm thanks to Jane and David Brooksbank for the N. Yorkshire writer’s garret, and all the veg – and for Isobel and Ben.

My sincere thanks to Glynn, for hanging in with me. I don’t always make it easy. (Where’s the counseling and therapy for writing partners?! Definitely money to be made there.) As I put it during one of our marital spats: “We’re absolutely in this together, and together is the only way we’re going to make it all the way.”

Finally, as always, very many thanks indeed to our kick-ass readers – for your reviews, posts, personal messages, word-of-mouth, and generally amazing feedback and support. You are the Zulu Alpha.

Several incomparably awesome lines (pretty much all of them Fick’s) were borrowed from the
Funniest thing your Drill Sergeant/Instructor said that you almost laughed at but didn't because you didn’t want him to kill you
thread on
The Most Infantry Man in the World
on Facebook. Thanks to all those hilarious DSes and DIs, and the recruits who resisted laughing at them.

The lines “Keep moving and thinking. Countless millions have spent their last moments on Earth paralyzed by confusion. Don’t be counted among them.” are – again, just like they were in Book Five; but they bear repeating – from
Mark Miller in SOFREP
, though he was paraphrasing Tony Blauer.

The line “If I should wake before I die” is from Icon for Hire – who put out my favorite
two
albums of last year, and provided the soundtrack to writing a lot of this book. (Not least inspirational was
this one
. While I’m at it,
this didn’t hurt
my motivation levels, either. Nor did
this
.) And
Celldweller
’s Soundtrack(s) for the Voices in my Head, volumes 1-3, ended up being my go-to music for writing much of (my bits of) this book.

The description of German Shepherds was borrowed (almost, but not quite, wholesale) from Don DeLillo’s
White Noise
.

The bit about how “only a freak chain of improbable accidents produced the bubble of conditions that was necessary for the rise of life” (and much of the material around it) was stolen from
evolutionary psychologist John Tooby on Edge.org
.

Good ole Cracked.com provided the reality check on
getting knocked out
.

The writers of
The West Wing
(
Aaron Freaking Sorkin
…) did much work in showing me (or at least trying to show me) how to do long-form serial drama that is at once unapologetically intellectual and willing to hash out serious ideas to any depth; yet still uncompromisingly dramatic and captivating.

Thanks to the M■■ (C■ M■■) - especially S/■■ A.M. - for reminding me never to quit.

Here are some books that were either helpful or inspirational in producing (my bits of) this one:

• My Share of the Task: A Memoir
  , by General Stanley McChrystal
  
• Service: A Navy SEAL at War
  , by Marcus Luttrell, with James D. Hornfischer
  
• Plague Time: The New Germ Theory of Disease
  , by Paul Ewald (from which I took much or most of the material on microbes and disease)
  
• Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown
  , by Eric Blehm
  
• Lest We Forget: A Ranger Medic’s Story
  , by Leo Jenkins (from which I borrowed the lines “get in my back pocket” and “welcome to the I Just Got Blown Up Club”, as well as the description of the effects of adrenaline and the sympathetic nervous system on the limbs and body under stress)
  
• Apache: Inside the Cockpit of the World's Most Deadly Fighting Machine
  , by Ed Macy (which provided most of the info about, obviously, Apaches, and also the direct quote about what flying one is like)
  
• Dressed to Kill: The Remarkable True Story of a Female Apache Pilot on the Frontline
  , by Charlotte Madison (which, equally obviously, provided the inspiration for a certain female pilot character)
  
• Chosen Soldier: The Making of a Special Forces Warrior
  , by Dick Couch
  
• Redeployment
  , by Phil Klay (perhaps the best Iraq War fiction yet, and the source of “Lalafallujah” and “the music festival from hell”)
  
• The Parachute Infantry: An American Paratrooper’s Memoir of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich
  , by David Kenyon Webster (the single best WWII memoir I’ve ever read – it reads like a novel; an excellent one – and has many more personal and beautiful details than Stephen Ambrose’s (also wonderful)
  Band of Brothers
  )
  

Over 2.3 million Americans have served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Studies indicate that at least 20% of them (nearly half a million) suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or depression – half of whom do not seek treatment. Untreated PTSD can result in destroyed marriages, lost jobs, homelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, and suicide. Additionally, more than 260,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have been diagnosed with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), usually caused by close proximity to explosions such as roadside bombs. TBI can result in memory and mood problems, headaches, and difficulty sleeping. To learn more, check out
Military Minds
. If you’d like to help, you can raise awareness by liking the
Military Minds page on Facebook
; if you want to make a donation, one great place is the
Brendan MacDonald Fyfe Fund and the Campaign to Bring Our Veterans All the Way Home
.

Glynn

Thanks to all of the Jameses – Julia, for your patience and encouragement, and my pipsqueaks, for just being you (mini me).

To my parents and my brother for not being too surprised that I write crazy fiction, and for telling me it’s cool.

To Bill, Sara, Billy, Jim & Jean for taking me seriously and never doubting that I could actually do this, and for demanding signed copies when I thought that whole idea was daft.

To Jacqui, for patience and editing expertise beyond the call.

To Michael, for going along with this daft and crazy idea, and turning it into something much more awesome than I originally conceived. From this point on we’re into new territory that is beyond the original plan.

A world fallen – under a plague of 7 billion walking dead
A tiny island nation – the last refuge of the living
One team – of history’s most elite special operators
The dead, these heroes, humanity’s last hope, all have...