Strike Force Behind The Book: strikeforce.mp3 Writers Roundtable Interview With Dale Brown ATARI ACT OF WAR: DIRECT ACTION LINKS Dale Brown Interview With: Peter Anthony Holder When a former pilot turns his hand to thrillers you can take their authenticity for granted. His writing is exceptional and the dialogue, plots and characters are first-class... far too good to be missed.' --Sunday Mirror ‘Dale Brown is a superb storyteller’ --WASHINGTON POST ‘Dale Brown is the best military adventure writer in the country’ --CLIVE CUSSLER

Political-Ish Summer Reads: Dale Brown on Shadow Command
An Interview With Dale Brown, 2008

ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED AT Eric Kuhn / HuffingtonPost.Com, July 1, 2008

Q: What first struck me about your book is there seems to be such high tech and cutting-edge technologies that could lead to the "end of the world." But recently, in London, important confidential documents were just left on the subway. Simple as that. What is your take on this story and specifically how it just took human error to cause potential damage, not a powerful network of satellites and unmanned aircrafts controlled from space (like in your novel)?!

A: A similar incident happened years ago in my B-52 days: a pilot left a bag with all of the B-52 tech orders in it on the roof of his car in the San Francisco International airport parking lot. Sections of the manual -- including step-by-step instructions on how to pre-arm a nuclear weapon -- were soon after published by Herb Caen in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Incidents like this can certainly cause damage but probably won't affect the outcome of a battle or give a government leader the information he needs to make a decision about a particular situation. The USA needs constant, global, detailed intelligence, and the "high ground" of space is the best place to get it.

Q: You do have so much high tech information in your novel. Can you explain one of these technologies and how you created this for the book?

A: I've featured the Black Stallion spaceplane in Shadow Command and previously in Strike Force. My spaceplane is a single-stage-to-orbit vehicle that can take off and land at any conventional airport, but can boost itself into orbit.

The idea came from a Pentagon paper from 1996. The author, Major Chris Daehnick, wrote about a fighter-sized aircraft that used air refueling as its first stage and could blast itself into orbit (the paper can be read at http://www.risacher.org/bh/spacast3.html). Rather than being a large Shuttle-type spacecraft able to carry 50,000 pounds, the Black Stallion can only carry 5,000 pounds, but its ability to go into orbit any time from almost anywhere and deposit small tactical payloads into orbit makes it just as valuable as the Shuttle. It uses regular jet fuel and common hydrogen peroxide as the oxidizer for orbital propulsion.

Q: You are a former U.S. Air Force captain. So how much of this book relates to your experience in the Air Force?

A: When I first started writing novels in 1983, and for the first several books, it ALL related to my years flying bombers in the Air Force. Every first novel is the author's "fantasy autobiography" -- the young B-52 bombardier takes the controls of his stricken high-tech bomber, defeats the bad guys, saves the world, and gets the girl.

But you can only make the "Old Dog" (my high-tech B-52 Megafortress) believable for so long. The technology changes and gets more exciting; the gadgets I used 20 years ago are almost obsolete. I had to change with it.

My perspective has changed as well. I married a retired lieutenant from the Sacramento Police Department who was in charge of narcotics operations, and before her retirement I always worried about her out there on the streets. I knew there was technology out there that could protect her and her fellow officers, but they would never get to use any of it. It became my mission to write about such technology and tell stories about how their jobs would change if they had it.

Q: To escape non-fictional politics this summer, political wonks should read your fictional book because....?

A: Because my stories talk about audacity, courage, bravery, strength, and daring, something that I think is lacking both on Capitol Hill and in the Pentagon;

Because I talk about such things as space not like science fiction or like NASA, but what I think it could be like to really live, work, and fight in space;

Because I study potential adversaries and potential allies and show how we should be dealing with them;

Because I give my readers a glimpse, right or wrong, about how military men and women view their leaders, their enemies, their weapons, and the world at large;

Because when you're burned out from your policy meetings, rallies, poll analyses, blog entries, fundraisers, or debates, you'll really enjoy a break by reading a good piece of military action-adventure fiction written by someone who used to wear the uniform.

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