💣 Kietzman Show Christmas Special: 💣
The first 10 KKHI listeners to message me and let me know you bought a copy in any format (ebook, audio, etc), I will send a 📗 free autographed paperback. 📕 Use the CONTACT ME feature. Offer good until 2023
It was great time being on the show. Please Listen! If you haven't already.
I’m thrilled to announce the release of the AUDIO BOOK
version of my novel, THE HILLS BE SHAKEN!
The production was narrated by the very talented Eric Baker.
He really brings the story to life.
Available on iTunes or FREE with an Audible membership. And
Audible is free to try for a month!
The Little Apple was shaken by the attack. The FBI needs an
engineer. His name is Mose Haley.
DIE HARD meets MACGYVER
With over a hundred reviews to date, it is Fresh with an
Audience Score of 98% on Goodreads and 4.5 Stars on Amazon.
I'm just an engineer.
I'm not a marketer or a salesmen. I don't have any advertising budget to speak of. And to top it off, I'm an engineer. You won't find this introvert knocking on doors. But despite all of that, my little-novel-that-could has managed to get 48 ratings on Amazon, averaging 4.5 stars and 32 ratings on Goodreads, also averaging 4.5 stars! And more are coming in each day. Thank you, each and every one means so much.
Check out this chart from good reads, 31 out of the 32 ratings are 3/4/5-stars. That means 97% percent of these good people liked or loved my book. Amazing.
Please give it a try. And if you like it, please tell a friend or two.
I'm just an engineer.
Best, Stew
CLICK HERE to buy on Amazon. Ebook only $2.99 Or FREE on Kindle Unlimited
THE HILLS BE SHAKEN is getting great reviews.
4.4-Star Average on GOODREADS!
Click Here to Leave a review on Goodreads
"Though the mountains fall and the HILLS BE SHAKEN" -Isaiah 54:10
F R E E !!!
THE HILLS BE SHAKEN is free this week. Grab a copy, they are flying off the shelves as we speak!
Six weeks after launch and STILL a #1 Best Seller on Amazon and STILL going strong.
"Though the mountains fall away and the hills be shaken, My love shall never fall away" Isaiah 54:10
THE HILLS BE SHAKEN is an Amazon #1 Best Seller
SEVEN meets MACGYVER
The world's first engineering thriller
When the FBI needs an engineer, they call Mose Haley.
Read it today for $0.99 THE HILLS BE SHAKEN
Get a free paperback copy of THE HILLS BE SHAKEN, autographed!
All you need to do is pre-order The Hills Be Shaken e-book for 99 cents and Tweet a screenshot of the 99-cent purchase (be sure to mention me in the tweet, so I know. @humpdayhoopla). That's it! Then the signed novel will be in the mail on launch day, lucky April 13th. You can DM me your address.
The Hills be Shaken is Die Hard meets MacGyver.
The attack caused a dam to collapse, killing thousands. It was only the beginning. The FBI needs help. They need an engineer. They need Mose Haley.
THE HILLS BE SHAKEN is SEVEN meets MACGYVER. Finally a thriller with an engineer as the hero.
“Larry, get the Remington.”
He leaped out of the chair. The dish
and fork bounced on the rug.
“What do I need that for?”
“The dog’s back, she’s popped a cork.” The
sliding glass patio door was like the kitchen window, also a black rectangle on
the wall. It showed only their reflections on a shiny background of blackness. “I
think there might be someone out there with her. Get the Remington.”
“Aw Hell.” Larry stomped across the
room, threw open the sliding patio door. The unoiled steel tracks of the door
let out a brash screech. He marched into the night, ignoring his wife’s
recommendation to grab the 12-guage shotgun. “What is it, Savannah?”
He paced out onto the gravel. His eyes
were adjusting to the low light of the evening.
“Mr. Jones?” a voice said.
Larry spun to the general direction of
the unknown visitor. He shuffled his feet backward, struggling to maintain his balance,
as rocks jabbed his feet through his tube socks.
“I’ve come alone, and I’ve come a long
way to find you.”
Larry reached into the center front
chest pocket on his overalls and grabbed for his pack of cigarettes; his
lighter was inside the pack. His fingers danced around in his pocket. He felt his
own heart pounding against his sweaty hand. Finally clutching the pack, he
dumped the contents into his other hand, the cigarettes and his lighter bounced
off his open palm and rained onto the dusty unpaved driveway. He dropped to his
knees feeling around in the dirt and rocks for his lighter, with his gaze fixed
into the black night, searching.
Finally grasping his lighter he lit the
flame.
“Oh dear God, sweet God.” He backed
away slowly. “Iris, call 911.”
“I’ve found you,” The voice said again.
Larry continued to inch backward.
Just as a breeze blew out his flame,
Larry tripped, fell over the lawn mower, and screamed.
Pre-order today for only 99 cents
New Novel Coming April 13, 2022. Pre-order the eBook on Amazon today!
The Hills Be Shaken
Sam
hadn’t yet noticed the blonde. The cute blonde. Out for a run with her bare
arms and legs clad in beads of sweat. Although sweat is not the right word for
the sparkling bits of perspiration that adorn this pretty girl, or any girl. It
can be endearing, like the glow of a pregnant woman but more so, sexier. If
it’s the right girl. Like the one across the street growing up. The confident
girl that could always beat the neighborhood boys playing knockout in the
driveway. The one the boys secretly liked.
It was the start of a hot Fourth of
July. Despite the sticky morning, the park was thronged with patriotic
Americans enjoying a day off.
The other joggers had to stop and back
away from the concrete path as the blonde approached. She had a look about her,
gorgeous. She also had a semi-automatic handgun on her belt and an AR-15 rifle
slung over her shoulder.
My “Why”
Why do I write?
I write to find out what happens. It’s as simple as that. I
don’t know where a scene is going until I see the words appear on screen. Sure,
it’s my fingers pounding the Qwerty, but it’s like it’s from a deep recess in
my brain where my conscious mind is not allowed. When I write, it’s as fun as
sitting down to watch a movie with a surprise twist or curling up with a
suspense novel that keeps you turning pages. That’s why I write, to find out
what happens next.
The inception of The Arch Emulator and the Seven Keys:
I once heard that there are seven people on earth with the Stigmata.
No more and no less. I thought, why seven? Perhaps the seven have some unknown
purpose, like shepherding the people of the seven continents through the apocalypse.
And that was it, the small little idea that grew to become The Arch Emulator
and the Seven Keys. An ancient prophecy says that when the seven are spread across
the seven continents, it’s game over. Oh, and I also wanted to do Romeo and
Juliet on Antarctica.
The inception of The Hills Be Shaken:
Engineer becomes cop. Bam, simple idea. As an engineer myself,
I would daydream imaginary scenarios where the cops need help from an engineer
to solve some sort of crime. From there
the story just came together and I wrote a yarn that I would want to watch if
it were a movie. It’s got all the action and suspense of a Die Hard with all
the fun escape room stuff of MacGyver. It’s the story I’ve been waiting for my
whole life.
Click Here to head to my Author Website
“I know I’m just a kid, but I think I found something terrible.”
That’s what I told the 911 operator
when I was 14. I was right, too. Well, maybe I was wrong depending on how you
look at it. Because of me, I’m alive, and so is the president. At least I think
she’s alive, we don’t hear much from her anymore. Is there even an America left
anymore?
Because of me. Because of me.
Because of me, millions of Americans
are dead. If I hadn’t made that call on that day . . . well, things would have
been different. But I got to believe it all happened for a reason, like it was
all part of some grand plan. When I tell myself that, I feel better. Still,
it’s hard living in this bunker, wondering each day as I wake, “will I get to
see the sun today?” Some days I do. Those are good days.
My mom was white. My dad was Hispanic.
My name is Kim Doppler. I’m black.
I’m 23 now, and I never met my
biological parents. I only have memories of my foster parents. I have three
brothers and two sisters, they’re of all ages . . . and races. Some are white
some are black, some are brown. I can’t really keep track of all of them. My
parents just loved adopting kids, I guess. Still, as many of us as there were,
and as hard as my parents worked, there was still enough love to go around,
somehow. Love is like fishes and loaves that way.
I’m the oldest girl. When I’d talk to
my mom, we’d refer to the rest of them as “the kids”, in fact, I used to joke
with my mom, that they were my kids.
I’ve always felt like I needed to be the one to take care of everyone else. Not
sure why, but I guess I was, at least, mature enough to tell my mom was in a
bit over her head. She’s great. I wouldn’t take any other mom. I wish I could
walk past her in the house and smell her perfume. I wish she were still alive.
My dad was never around. There were two
kinds of dads in my neighborhood growing up, both kinds weren’t around. There’s
the one that aint around because he’s not man enough to take on the
responsibility of raising kids. My dad wasn’t that kind. My dad was the one
that wasn’t around because he worked about 80 hours a week. He put food on the
table. And had a table in the first place. As a kid, there were days I wish I
had one less meal if it meant I could see my dad. Most days were that way. I
wish they still were that way. I wish he was still alive.
My mom was a saint.
That’s why she needed my help. Brushing
hair and cooking breakfast and paying the water bill. Yes, I dropped the
monthly payment off at the city building. It’s OK, I needed to walk the other
kids to school anyway, and it’s on the way. My mom would let me lick the
envelope; the taste had a hint of spearmint. First, I’d walk the kids, then I’d
drop the payment at the city building, then I’d walk to my high school. It’s a
straight line, more or less.
I guess all that responsibility had
given me strength and allowed me to grow beyond my then 14 years of age,
because school was easy peasy. Straight A’s were nothing. School had been a
joke to me for those last few years. I could hardly bear it. I stopped most
days at the public library after school to grab a new book for the evening. The
library is on the way home from school, more or less.
I know everything there is to know
about planetary motion, spacecraft transfer orbits, solar system escape
trajectories. Everything. For my 8th grade science fair project, I
successfully, physically simulated Voyager 2’s double gravity assist slingshot
off of Jupiter and Mars. Think about that. How did that not win?
I’ll tell you how it did not win: Jerk
Dexter. Oops, did I say Jerk, I mean Jack. He made a stupid volcano that won
the science fair. A volcano! Come on Jerk, volcanoes were old news in 1973 when
Peter Brady made one for his science fair.
Jerk!
To be fair, it was pretty cool. Jerk
made two different models, one was a simulated Mount St. Helens, with working
tectonic plates to simulate Northwestern Pacific Convergent Boundary. His
second model simulated a hot-spot style volcano like you’d see in Hawaii.
Nothing too impressive here, but he did add phosphorescent liquid to his magma
and covered the entire model with a black sheet to get the lighting as minimal
as possible so that the magma glowed bright orange for the stupid judges.
His parents gave him a blank check to
buy supplies. Meanwhile my supplies consisted of old pickle jars and empty ajax
bottles.
I was so mad. I told myself I would
stop at nothing to get that trophy the next year. Jack Dexter would not repeat
as champion. So, I spent most nights on the roof, swatting mosquitos and
looking through my $80 telescope, trying to prove evidence of a ninth planet in
our solar system. I figured that should win me the Nobel Prize, easy peasy.
Then if that happened, the dumb judges at the Shawnee County Science Fair would
surely give me first prize. It was then that I made the discovery. Not the
ninth planet. Something far greater, far worse. It’s funny how your world can
change in one instant. Then your life is totally different from that moment on.
In an infinitesimal fraction of a second, you can go from deputy mom to full-fledged
grownup. I was a kid, pretending to be an adult, but I was still a kid, until
that moment.
That whole day is like a vivid film
strip in my brain. On the way to school, my mom was backing out of the
driveway. It was one of the rare days she actually drove me to school. It was
snowing, that was her exception, she’d drive us if it were snowing. I was
riding shotgun because, of course I was. I remember rubbing my hands together
and warming them in the air vents on the dashboard. As we approached the
street, I saw the two Metter kids playing in the street. They’re neighbor kids,
“always on the loose” my mom would say. Today was no different. They were
running and sliding on the packed white snow-ice in the street. I warned my
mom.
“We got Metters, at four o’clock,” I
had said. My breath like a fog.
“Thanks,” Mom said. “I see them. Buggers.”
She eyeballed them as she continued in
reverse. Maybe if I hadn’t warned her, she would have seen what was coming from
the other direction. But she didn’t. She didn’t see the bulldozer coming from
the other direction. Yes, that’s right, a bulldozer was driving down our
street. I’m not sure why, heading to a construction site, I guess. We never saw
it coming. Luckily it wasn’t going fast, and no one was hurt. Still, a machine
designed for pure destruction is still going to do what it does best, even when
slowed down. It totaled our minivan.
My mom was pissed.
She said she was mad at herself, but I
could tell she was mad at me. Mad for distracting her.
I was mad at me too.
Later that night was when I found it in
the sky. I had been shivering on the roof for hours that night leading up to
the discovery. It was my way of coping with the guilt of the accident.
Regardless, I had found it. A little speck of light that was no brighter than
any of the other stars, but I could tell within a few moments it was not a
star. It was moving in a slightly different direction than the other stars in
the night sky. This object was much closer. I took some initial measurements
that evening and did some rough preliminary calculations. As I told you
earlier, I know planetary physics, and when I say “I know” something, trust me
I KNOW it. Planetary physics or Kepler Mechanics as we call it, was one of my
passions.
After two simple measurements of the
object’s position, spaced ten minutes apart, along with looking up on NASA’s
website to find earth’s current position in the solar system at the time of the
measurements, I was able to get a rough trajectory of the object plotted. At
the time I couldn’t be sure of what I had found. I would need to follow up the
measurements with days’ worth of data to fine tune the trajectory and plot a
more accurate course.
But all that extra measurement only did
one thing. It confirmed my initial fear on that night was correct.
In 46 days, the object, an asteroid, would come from the direction of the constellation Aries and impact earth.
An excerpt from the novel, The Arch Emulator and the Seven Keys.
Download a copy of the Arch Emulator and the Seven Keys while it's free (through Thursday).
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