The Forty-Minute War
by Janet Morris & Chris Morris
Genre: SciFi Time Travel Action, Techno-Thriller, Suspense
On a clear day in April, terrorists in a commandeered Saudi airliner divert from their flight path in a suicide mission to detonate a nuclear device directly over the White House.
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What is something unique/quirky about you?
Together we breed Morgan horses. We
consult with Morgan breeders to help them choose crosses to their stock to
achieve a desired result.
We are also musicians; Janet plays bass
guitar, Chris sings and plays guitar. We have an album on MCA records. Look for
Christopher Crosby Morris on Soundcloud or N1M.com
Can you, for those who don't know you already, tell something
about yourself and how you became an author?
Janet wrote her first novel, High Couch of Silistra in 1975; a friend sent it to an agent who chose to represent her; she had already written the second book in the Silistra Quartet and her agent told her not to disclose that until they finalized the contract for the first one. When the publisher learned of the others, Bantam Books bought the succeeding three. When the fourth book was published, the series already had four million copies in print. Suddenly Janet was a novelist specializing in environmental, gender, historical and political subjects. In the process, Chris started as her editor and ultimately a co-writer. Since then, she and Chris have co-authored many books.
Who is your hero and why?
Heraclitus
of Ephesus, a pre-socratic philosopher, whose Cosmic Fragments
foreshadow our knowledge of reality and how to perceive it. Among his precepts
is the statement that change alone is unchanging. We’ve worked Heraclitus’
fragments in here and there throughout our books.
Which of your novels can you imagine being made into a movie?
All of them.
We write cinematically, our books are vivid adventures we undertake without
knowing the destination. I, the
Sun, The Sacred Band, and Outpassage are
particularly suited to film. The Threshold Series is a feast of
opportunities for today’s special effects creators.
What
inspired you, to write The 40-Minute War?
Growing up under the threat of nuclear annihilation made us long for a solution to such catastrophic challenge. What we wanted was to shorten the time necessary to recover from that horror to a mere 40 minutes. We think we succeeded, but of course the threat still remains.
Who designed your book covers?
The cover of
The 40-Minute War was created for Perseid Press by Roy Mauritsen.
Advice to writers?
As for
advice to writers, here is all we know: write the story you want to read. Start
at the beginning, go to the end, and stop. Seriously. From start to finish you
must inhabit the construct in a manner that makes the reader choose to continue;
if we as writers can’t feel what it’s like being there, our readers can’t
either. Close your eyes, look at your feet where they are standing on the
story’s ground; tell us what you see. Tell us what you hear. Ask at the end of
each paragraph ‘what happens next?’. If you lose touch with it wait until
you’re back inside it. Tell the story that comes to you, and from you, to us.
EXCERPT
Claymore looked around. All of his people were staring at him: the Undersecretary for Agriculture, a pure hayseed with a stain on his chinos he was too terrified to hide; his Press Secretary, a walking mouth without a brain in his head but possessed of an autonomic gift for gab that had been crucial during the campaign; a woman speechwriter who sat quietly, chin up, with tears running down her rouged cheeks like gray worms; a Special Assistant who wasn’t particularly special and now had his knuckles jammed in his mouth; and two Secret Service men who watched everyone else with bleak eyes, ready for any sort of trouble.
But there would be no mutiny aboard Air Force One that spring day and the trouble their President was in wasn’t the sort that a pair of loyal, athletic men with sunglasses and wires in their ears could hope to fix.
If there had been one intelligence specialist, somebody from Defense or State, along to remind Claymore that the Iranian crazies had threatened to “roast the greatest Satan in his lair,” maybe Claymore wouldn’t have gone into the bathroom and blown his brains out.
But no such person was on board that day to avert World War Three by aborting the launch-and-arm sequence within the seven minutes required.
When the shot rang through Air Force One, however, the entire situation changed: the Vice President was informed and a cooler hand took the helm.
Unfortunately, even that wasn’t enough to avert all the consequences of what would be called, forever after, the Forty-Minute War.
“After Washington, D.C. is vaporized by a nuclear surface
blast, Marc Beck, wonder boy of the American foreign service, prevails on
Ashmead, covert action chief, to help him fly two batches of anticancer serum
from Israel to the Houston White House. From the moment they establish their
gritty relationship, life is filled with treachery and terror for Beck (who)
must deal with one cliffhanger after another during the desperate days that
follow. This novel shocks us with a sudden, satisfying ending." - Publishers
Weekly
“Adventure, suspense, high-tech – this book has it all, from
the best new storytellers we have. You have to read this one.” – Dr. Jerry
Pournelle, author of The Mote in God’s Eye and Mercenary
“Headlong and vivid – real characters drawn starkly against
the catastrophe they race to undo.” – David Drake, author of Hammer’s Slammers
**On Sale for
June - only $2.99!!**
Book Links:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Forty-Minute-War-Janet-Morris-ebook/dp/B0DS5MFTZR
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/the-forty-minute-war-by-janet-morris-and-chris-morris
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27251125-the-40-minute-war
About the Authors
Best selling author Janet Morris began writing in 1976 and has since published more than 30 novels, many co-authored with her husband Chris Morris or others. Most of her fiction work has been in the fantasy and science fiction genres, although she has also written historical and other novels. Morris has written, contributed to, or edited several book-length works of non-fiction, as well as papers and articles on nonlethal weapons, developmental military technology and other defense and national security topics.
Christopher Crosby Morris (born 1946) is an American
author of fiction and non-fiction, as well as a lyricist, musical composer, and
singer-songwriter. He is married to author Janet Morris. He is a defense policy
and strategy analyst and a principal in M2 Technologies, Inc. He writes
primarily as Chris Morris, but occasionally uses pseudonyms.
Website
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Author Links
Website: https://theperseidpress.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PerseidPublishing
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Perseid_Press
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/perseid_press
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/janet-morris
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/chris-morris
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Janet-Morris/author/B001HPJJB8
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Chris-Morris/author/B008L41JNO
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/121072.Janet_E_Morris
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/317667.Chris_Morris
Giveaway
Enter to win a choice of print or ebook copy of The
40-Minute War, $10 Amazon giftcard – 1 winner each!
Follow the tour HERE for special
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