SKYBIRD: Dale Brown’s Ops Report Copyright © 2005, TDPI

Dale Brown-Act Of War: Direct Action Interview
14 January 2005 00:01
John [JCal] Callaham

Best selling author Dale Brown has written a number of novels in the "techno-thriller" genre for nearly two decades with books like Flight of the Old Dog, Fatal Terrain and Plan Of Attack to his credit. Now Brown is entering into new territory for him as he works with developer Eugen Systems and publisher Atari on their upcoming near future military RTS title Act of War: Direct Action. Brown will also write a novel based on the game for release this year as well. HomeLAN got a chance to chat with Brown about his work on the game.

HomeLAN - For our readers who may not be familiar with your writing career, can you give us a brief summary on how you became a writer and why you are drawn to the "techo-thriller" genre?

Dale Brown - I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I learned as a little kid what pleasure it can give to write something that someone enjoys or relates to. I always dreamt of making it a career but I think I’d still be writing even if I wasn’t making a living at it.

My second love since I was a kid was flying. I took flying lessons as a teenager, received an Air Force commission through ROTC, and flew B-52G Stratofortress and FB-111A supersonic bombers.

Flying for me was never “slipping the surly bonds” or anything romantic or mystical. Military flying is very disciplined, almost robotic. The old saying was “Plan the flight, then fly the plan,” and that’s what we were expected to do. As a bombardier and navigator, you are mostly a systems manager rather than an “aviator.” You practiced basic skills occasionally, but mostly you were expected to program computers and aircraft systems to do the work of delivering bombs on target. The technology was fascinating to me, even the old 1970s and 1980s stuff, and it still is.

When I started writing, I wrote about the technology because that’s what I was most interested in. I don’t believe in doing things the “old” way when we have new technology right around the corner that allows us to do the job quicker, easier, and safer, and so that’s what I write about.

HomeLAN - How did your involvement in the game Act of War: Direct Action come about? Did you approach Atari or did they approach you?

Dale Brown - My visual media agent in Beverly Hills, Alan Nevins of The Firm Entertainment, told me about this opportunity and asked if I was interested. I had participated in another game based on my work called “Megafortress,” published by Three-Sixty Pacific in the early 1990s, and I enjoyed working with the development team very much. The creative energy involved with producing a game is very powerful, and I was happy to get another opportunity to work in that field.

HomeLAN - Can you tell us more about how you worked with Eugen and Atari on the premise behind the game?

Dale Brown - Atari wanted a lot more than a “typical” real-time strategy profile in which you build up bigger and bigger forces and pummel the enemy into the ground. They wanted “Hollywood reality”—a combination of the real-world military nuts-and-bolts stuff, a healthy dose of drama and conflict, and the excitement and imagination that comes in the gamer’s world.

My job was to deliver the nuts-and bolts ingredient and the story line, but mold it into the game’s universe. There are so many instances in a techno-thriller novel where you can’t step too far away from reality because you leave the “real” world and enter a science-fiction world, which my readers wouldn’t like. In the game world, you can step so much closer to other realms. I saw my task as keeping the game rooted in the “real” world but allowing for maximum exposure to other worlds.

HomeLAN - We have seen games and movies and read books about highly organized terrorist groups before. How likely is the senario in Act of War: Direct Action and could something like it come about?

Dale Brown - Obviously after Nine-Eleven the focus is on radical religious groups, but I believe as the supply of oil shrinks, demand rises, and international economic, cultural, and political borders disappear, I think it’s even more likely that we’ll see radical and criminal corporations rise even more than religious ones. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was one such example; recently the Russian government had to step in and destroy a large oil company that threatened to become even more powerful than the central government. I think it’s not only possible that a multi-national “Consortium” could form, but very likely—and possibly exists today.

HomeLAN - Once the premise of the game was created, how have you worked with Eugen and Atari on the actual gameplay of Act of War: Direct Action?

Dale Brown - As I said earlier, my job was to try to make the incredible possibilities of the game mesh with a slightly higher plane of “reality” that exist in my novels and in the real world that will exist 3-5 years from now. Neither Eugen, Atari, or I wanted a science-fiction story, but neither did we want to see what gamers and readers already knew or expected. We wanted it “super-real,” or what Bob Welch called “Hollywood reality.” It’s a balancing act between what we DO, what we CAN do, what we MIGHT do, and what we COULD do.

I wasn’t involved too much in developing the actual gameplay itself. I wasn’t too familiar with real-time strategy games—except for Flight Simulator 2004, Solitaire, and maybe Shrek 2 with my 7 year-old son, I don’t play games on the computer. The Atari folks wanted me to concentrate on the story, the characters, and military hardware, tactics, procedures, and nomenclature.

HomeLAN - Overall are you pleased with the way the game has come together so far?

Dale Brown - Extremely pleased. Games are a completely new and exciting level of storytelling, and “Act of War: Direct Action” is the ultimate example of that.

HomeLAN - Do you play any video or PC games in your spare time and if so which ones have you enjoyed the most?

Dale Brown - As I said, except for reality-based flight simulators like Microsoft FS 2004 (and I only fly the planes I’ve flown or fly now, not the 747s or Concordes) and card games, I don’t play computer games. However, since working on “Act of War,” I’m a RTS fan. I used to play military simulations like “Harpoon” but RTS games like “Act of War: Direct Action” is much more challenging and exciting.

HomeLAN - You will also be writing a novel based on the game. What can you tell us about that?

Dale Brown - Folks who play the game and then read the book will find two similar but very different worlds. The scope of the computer game is much broader and faster-paced. In the novel, I spend a lot more time with characters and things you can’t see, like emotions, feelings, and thoughts. Both productions have the same elements of story, plot, theme, drama, and character, but the novel emphasizes those elements differently to give the reader a whole new perspective and experience of the story.

I think everyone needs to experience both to really get the full effect. Each production takes the story as the core and then applies and shares the creative forces of myself, Atari, and Eugen into both works. You’ll see the effect of all of our creativity in both works. But because they’re different mediums and different productions, one is not a knock-off or copy of the other—they are separate and distinct productions of the same story.

HomeLAN - More and more we are reading about how video and PC games are being used by the real military to train soldiers. How do you feel about this trend?

Dale Brown - Simulation and gaming has always been a part of military training, and as the sophistication and capabilities of computers increase, the level of realism and the value of the training will increase. But I don’t think it will ever take the place of live training.

In 7 years of flying strategic bombers in the U.S. Air Force, I have “dropped” thousands of “tones”—radio signals picked up by a ground scoring site that predicts where the bomb would have landed had I actually dropped one. We always talked about “pK”—probability of kill, or “DE”—Damage Expectancy. I think I’ve dropped fewer than a dozen real bombs from a bomber, and even those were either practice bombs or “blivets,” or concrete bombs with smoke markers.

But it was only recently that I was able to get close to an actual bomb attack—a B-2A Spirit stealth bomber dropping EIGHT 2,000-pound satellite-guided bombs. I was almost TWO MILES AWAY and I was literally rocked back on my heels—each blast feels like a 2-foot wave hitting you in the chest. Your ears pop and you actually feel as if you have to take a breath because the air was pushed out of your lungs. Then just when you think it’s over, the debris starts falling—from two miles away!

That’s something computers can’t simulate—at least, not yet!—but I think that’s important for soldiers to experience. Combat is not just seeing the enemy, choosing a weapon, aiming, and firing—it’s experiencing and dealing with the confusion, fear, uncertainty, doubt, noise, weariness, and everything else. That’s just as important as the technical aspects that present-day computers simulate so well.

HomeLAN - Finally is there anything else you wish to say about your involvement in Act of War: Direct Action?

Dale Brown - First and foremost—I hope they invite me back to do more!

It was an incredible experience. The creative energy level of everyone at Atari and Eugen is very high, and to them everything is possible and doable. There is nothing outside of Hollywood itself that compares with seeing a live-actor cut-scene with names of guys and girls I thought up, doing things I thought up.

There are many authors and others in the book publishing world that believe that working with game companies isn’t worth the effort or possible loss of market share or “credibility.” Like so much of the military, I think this is outdated twentieth-century thinking. The synergy of the two works is definitely greater than the sum of our parts. I think products like “Act of War: Direct Action” is the wave of the future.

Click here for more on Plan Of Attack! Get Plan Of Attack At Amazon.Com! Plan Of Attack (MAY 2004) The unthinkable is about to happen in this high-flying novel of adventure and suspense. In Air Battle Force, Dale Brown introduced U.S. Air Force aerial warfare expert Major General Patrick McLanahan and his air combat unit of the future. Armed with a force of these robotic planes, the general and a handful of commandos were secretly deployed to the oil-rich nation of Turkmenistan to stop a Taliban invasion. And though the Americans won the battle, the war is far from over.... To punish McLanahan and his fleet of robot warplanes for their audacity, Russian president General Anatoliy Gryzlov decides to do the unthinkable: a sneak attack on America-unlike anything ever believed possible-that devastates her strategic air forces. McLanahan has collected information that not only foretold the Russians' daring plan, but also gave him the data he needs to plan a counterstrike that could stop the Russian war machine dead in its tracks. But Patrick is no longer in charge of Air Battle Force, and the Russian sneak attack has left the embattled U.S. president with few options: retaliate with every weapon in his arsenal, even if it triggers a global thermonuclear war, or to a cease fire on Russia's terms... ...or listen to a disgraced and discredited young bomber commander's long-shot plan of attack.

"The novels of Dale Brown brim with violent action, detailed descriptions of sophisticated weaponry and political intrigue... His ability to bring technical weaponry to life is amazing."
--San Francisco Chronicle

Contact Information:

Rights:
Robert Gottlieb
Trident Media Group
(212) 262-4810

Webmaster:
Parker Information Resources
bparker@parkerinfo.com

Welcome to AirBattleForce.Com Lake Tahoe, Nevada, USA Cyberspace home of: Dale Brown readermail@dalebrown.info