“War is the happiest we’ll ever be.”
A PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER IN A NEAR-FUTURE WAR
The 12-part near-future epic about the commercialisation of war, the fragility and resilience of human psychology, and power of the tribe. An everyday young woman is thrust into an unthinkable nightmare, leaving no option but to become the nightmare herself just to survive.
-- "I really loved this book and forgot multiple times that it was not a hugely popular/famous book like I usually read." --
-- "The psychology and philosophy is excellent, and told so effectively through the story and characters." —
AVAILABLE IN EBOOK & PRINT
EPISODE 1 - UNTHINKABLE
Little Amberley Joseph is going to war.
The meek twenty-three year old accountant for a fashion label has been drafted, volunteered by her country to the whim of start-up private security corporation Army Pryde. She, and these strangers about her, will be trained in the latest systems, equipped with the latest technology, to defend the noble cause of world peace.
Or so the brochure says. Amberley knows just one thing for sure;
The moment she lands, she is dead fucking meat.
There is nothing they could teach this frail girl in six weeks that would possibly give her a chance.
But she has them. This strange new family she sleeps among now. They eat together, shower together, suffer this together. Everything happens now with her precious new tribe. She has them, they have her, together they stand to face this alone, so she will give them her all.
But that reality ever remains. They are going to Iran, going to a war, and the moment they land, they are dead fucking meat.
EPISODE 2 - JUST OVER THERE
They have arrived, the nightmare is real, and the promise of certain death lies just over there.
The 35th Battalion joins their international kin for the final build up in the UAE. They settle in, meet their officers, acclimatise, and drill, while the coastline of Iran, their final destination, lies ever in view.
Amberley Joseph learns of the strategic situation; of the Chinese backed Federation, their numbers and cyber capabilities, their unorthodox leaders, their fanaticism, and her own crippled Coalition forces barely holding the line. So Army Pryde will hold the line. Amberley and fellow ‘Stop gaps’ are being rushed over to plug that cracking dam before the impending Federation ‘J-Day’ assault.
But a meeting of Tier-1 Special Missions Operators exposes the Pryde efficiency to be merely a commercial facade. The tribe now stand on the eve of war with no capability or support, and their leaders legally bound to upholding the lie.
They must pull together, re-learn, and prepare however they can for that most perilous of journeys lying just over there.
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EPISODE 3 -READY TO EAT
The smoke settles on their first day of war.
The Stop Gaps of Army Pryde sit unnerved upon this peaceful Persian beach, flinching with the apparent normality of this hostile land all about them. Amberley Joseph and her tribe of 35-Alpha watch the unloading and deployment of billions of dollars of military materiel, and begin to wonder what ‘war’ actually is.
They are sent north to plug the cracking Coalition front line, and establish the new forward operating base at Larestan. The Federation they are told lay entrenched just ahead, and an unassuming little drone sits upon the air nearby, ever watching the Coalition’s every move.
The foreign invaders patrol on, train on, live on through this apparent holiday, while deep down knowing too well something is coming. And the tranquility finally breaks.
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EPISODE 4 - COMEDIC DIVINITY
The victorious lay drowning in a pool of mental defeat.
It is the morning after 35-Alpha’s miracle run into Mansurabad. The surprise standout, meek little Amberley Joseph, distances herself from the tribe, trying to come to terms with this stark lesson in loss.
What they achieved was a fluke. They should not have survived. They cannot do it again. All is hopeless, and they really are all dead fucking meat.
But the leaders of Army Pryde are boasting a very different tune, all the more assured now of the superiority of Pryde martial systems. Surely they are the future of warfare. Surely the enemy is fragmenting. Surely this war is already won.
And surely, with this sensational performance, Jesus stands with them. With this promise of ultimate victory in this noble crusade, surely it is time to advance the dreaded assault on the Federation stronghold of Jahrom.
AVAILABLE IN EBOOK & PRINT
AVAILABLE IN EBOOK & PRINT
EPISODE 5 - INFRAGILITY
Broken, battered, torn; Amberley Joseph lies a mere remnant of her former self.
She has lost something, she cannot remember what, but things just no longer function quite as they had.
The tribe returns to Larestan, and Joey is confined to a strict regime of recovery, utilising the technology of psylocibin to regain her grasp upon the world. An indulgent use reveals a window to something more, a glimpse of the very parameters and framework of her situation, of herself, of life.
But Iraq has collapsed, the Western front now lies exposed, and the feared million-man Federation assault of ‘J-Day’ lies imminent, with no resistance the Coalition can muster to prevent being driven back into the sea. The Battalion is granted R&R in the stronghold of Fort Kriss. They surge upon the lawless party strip of Gem Row. Rage, release, sex, sex, sex, more, and more; they take it all. They will never stop; they’re dead anyway.
And Joey continues to observe and analyse this strange world and species bustling around her. Are she and her kin truly just products in a corporate run war? Iran and its people may just be a simple opportunity for profit, in a market of endless returns.
EPISODE 6 - BLOODY LITTLE GIRLS
The Devil’s witches are coming to play.
The renowned 35th Battalion of Army Pryde redeploys to the ruins of Sirjan to repel a preliminary assault. The Federation’s J-Day operation is imminent, and will ultimately bring the Coalition’s doom.
They find a draconian utopia under the thumb of Ikhwan radicals, and dig in alongside their ultra-fundamentalist allies to await the wave of screeching blood-faced witches coming their way. The Pryde girls watch the Ikhwan; the Ikhwan watch them back. Neither want the other on their side, but the true threat comes for both.
Amberley Joseph is taken from her tribe, thrust into the fight of her life, and is left beaten, broken, and alone. She plunges deeper and deeper into the depths of paranoia and doubt as the world tumbles and crumbles about her into darkness.
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EPISODE 7 - FEARLESS
Amberley Joseph wanders alone within a forest of death.
She drifts however in peace, a new sense of clarity the receding tide of darkness has left in its wake. But the demons are still there, and doubt and mistrust continues to plague her mind. What hope really could there possibly be?
Reassigned to an integral role, Joey is permitted to return to Fort Kriss to rebuild. She hurls herself back into the psychedelic labyrinth in order to deconstruct her mind, trying to recreate and recapture her epiphany of months before.
Taken under the wing of operators of 22SAS and the Combat Applications Group, Joey rebuilds, rearms, plans for redeployment, and prepares for the taking of Shahrbabak, the first operation of Fearless Jo.
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EPISODE 8 - THE VEIL
No longer can Amberley Joseph hide the truth from her family of what their little girl has become. The fight for Shahrbabak rages on, with 35-Alpha now facing the battle hardened regulars of the Federation. The longer the grind, the harder and colder Joey becomes.
In finally taking ‘The Shark’, the Collies also capture a Spider; petite, artistic, exotic, pretty in pigtails, and ever watching Joey through the fence with a cold empty stare. In another life they would be friends, but in this one she wants the invader dead.
The unstoppable threat of J-Day looms ever in the hills beyond, and the Coalition dig in their futile defence and wait. And they wait… and they wait… the tension in turn bringing a need for carnal release once more.
And Amberley Joseph waits, no longer some innocent victim in an unjust war. Fearless Jo is an active participant; she is a murderer, a symbol of the invasion of this innocent land, a defined target now for its liberators, with the Spider ever watching in her mind.
AVAILABLE IN EBOOK & PRINT
AVAILABLE IN EBOOK & PRINT
EPISODE 9 - INSHALLAH
The Spider is loose, and with her Immortals, carves a swathe of fear and sabotage behind Coalition lines.
35-Alpha stalk the ranges, hunting the insurgents down, dodging baits and misdirections, countering her menacing campaign. They return to Fort Kriss for build-up and re-designation, watching the new wave of Pryde draftees land about them for deployment. All they see in these soldiers are the same children they themselves once were.
The waiting for J-Day begins once more, and Amberley Joseph claims for herself one final night; Hair, makeup, femininity, life. A hope to the west seems to be progressively taking hold, but really what hope could there be? No matter how they train and prepare, the Coalition remain the evil of this story. They are the invaders, the profiteers; they are the cruel and the unjust. Joey knows too well how history will write these beautiful friends about her, how they deserve every last ounce of savagery coming their way.
But if one thing lies certain, it is that this victory shall cost the victors dearly. The Federation might bring a million, they might bring the world… but that world will have to contend with Fearless Jo.
EPISODE 10 - WELCOME TO BAM
J-Day. The end has begun.
Fearless Jo stands proud and ready, leading the race for Kerman. They pass column upon column of ruined and dead, marching headlong for the oncoming monsoon.
Linking with the elite Spartan assault brigade, they slam into the Federation spearhead with unrelenting force. Before numbers threaten to overwhelm, they set to a long walk of strategic fighting withdrawal. The Feds keep ever on their flanks and tail while unexpected threats from the north now swoop over their heads.
Soon they can retreat no further, and settle and prep for the final days. Miraculous victories and critical defeats occur all around their own little partition of the world, but their own part in this great narrative is about to be set into play. There will be no surrender, no escape; they know it will end for them there.
This new united Division of the ‘Eastern Vigilant’ stand awaiting the vengeful flood, ready within the sandstone ramparts of the Citadel of Bam.
AVAILABLE IN EBOOK & PRINT
AVAILABLE IN EBOOK & PRINT
EPISODE 11 - THIS
Amberley Joseph lies dead alongside countless many more.
In her place stands something else; lethal, merciless, inhuman. ‘Fearless Jo’ to the Collies; to the Feds she is ‘The Fear’; a demon stalking the rubble of Bam, snatching them into darkness.
The waves of noble Persian liberators tread tepidly into the Devil’s mist to disappear and disappear evermore, while the brutish defenders of the Eastern Vigilant descend, perhaps ascend, into the animal manners of a tribe.
While the Vigilant hold the shell, the Vigilantine run, dash, crawl, search, and risk, stealing ammo and supply to keep their mighty Brutes sustained upon their unified collapse into Hell. Barbarians, Bitches, Bikinis, Bam; bring on the orgy of war, the happiest humanity will ever be.
Peace, instance, life… This. These insatiable invaders release and indulge under the watchful eye of The Fear… while somewhere within these shadows a Spider watches as well.
EPISODE 12 - THE FEAR
God’s wave of just liberators begins its receding sigh, weeping in the loss of their final hope.
The Devil’s sandcastle remains standing in their wake, its elite warrior class of the Eastern Vigilant poised now to deliver their critical blow. But a new noble defender has taken the Persian reins, bringing new uncertainty to the world in turn. The tide withdraws, leaving a rubble playground of death, and a final meeting place for The Spider and The Fear.
The tour of 35-Alpha has long since concluded, and many sit now contemplating what future remains for them, this region, and the world. Perhaps this time may pass, perhaps this war might end, perhaps a new light may finally bloom or they will plunge evermore into the darkness of eternal war.
But Amberley Joseph, that meek fashion accountant, lies dead, never to return, and the demon left in her place stands empty, no longer bearing any grasp of that place called ‘home’.
AVAILABLE IN EBOOK & PRINT