Free and Almost Free Books -- Load Up Your Kindle

Are you ready for this?

Starting today and all the rest of this week you can download my books for free and almost free.

It's a Christmas giveaway and a chance to load up the Kindle for holiday reading.

Birdman and French Pond Road -- Books One and Two of the Billy Kagan Series absolutely gratis.  And Latitudes - A Story of Coming Home, for the unbeatable price of 99 cents.

Get them now.

A tale of identity theft and madness in the West of Ireland. A madcap caper skirting the borders of the magical and the mundane, Birdman is Billy Kagan, a seeker of refuge and enlightenment. Will he be forced to land, to come to grips with the fallout of his life? Take the first step to finding out and feel the endless freedom of the skies.

Birdman is that rare treat, an indie published story that breaks the bounds of the acceptable, the tried and true formulas of the literary marketplace, the earthbound and empty life you need to escape.

And now, just in time to save you from the Christmas shopping blues. Just one click away and away you go.

Up, up and away with ...  Birdman.

Hey, it's free. And so are you. Or are you?

French Pond Road: Round Two of Billy Kagan versus the monsters. Yes, the monsters...of post-modern angst and obscurity, the inequalities of wealth and quality that have come to define us.

Okay, you're asking why the pen name. It's a long story. Maybe some day I'll write it. But enough about me. It's Billy Kagan we're talking about. Our hero. It's his story, and the story of the road, French Pond Road. Could be your road.

Billy's building a life for himself and his lady friend in the back of the swamp outside of town. Could be your town. Read all about it on French Pond Road. On your Kindle.





Got enough free? Good. Now check out the almost free. No, don't turn away. This is where I need you to pay attention.

Paying attention? All right then. Then slip through the crack and enter the world of Latitudes - A Story of Coming Home. This week only at $0.99,  two dollars off the regular Kindle price.

A nostalgic look back at the late nineteen sixties and early seventies, a world of big hair, big dreams, and big neurosis as seen through the child-like eyes of Will Kogan. Trying to understand his parents is his first lesson in survival.

"Will looks back to their difficult, tumultuous childhood...An engaging story carried forward by well-written prose." KIRKUS REVIEWS

LATITUDES presents the story of a bi-cultural child. Caplan artfully navigates the reader through Will's experiences, who tries to make sense of and understand the world around him as his parents abduct him and his siblings not once but twice.
Maureen Dabbagh, author of "Parental Kidnapping in America: An Historical and Cultural Analysis"

Is it live or is it Memorex? That's a thorny question, so lighten up, friend. I'm all about giving it away, but there is a limit.

"LATITUDES covers a lot of territory both physically and emotionally" Grady Harp

"A great read for people like me who enjoy multi-dimensional characters" Stephen Paul West

So don't take it from me. This is a great read. Bring it home with you.  Latitudes - A Story of Coming Home

And enjoy the holiday the way you like it, with a good box of Kleenex and three great books!

It's almost free but it's priceless, like the best things.

Wood is Good, But I'm Done With Robert Frost

Stacking wood day. Finally got it all in the shed. It's funny,  I'm not about celebrating simplicity or sustainability or any transcendence greater than what is. It 's just a good feeling seeing the wood all in a dry place and knowing the winter can come now. It helps that we aren't stacking the twelve cords the Connors used to go through back in their day. Insulation in a house is a saved labor year after year when you're heating with wood. Five cords will easily see us through the toughest winter. It also helps that we aren't cutting it and hauling it out of the woods ourselves. That would have been a deal breaker. We get a grapple load every two to three years delivered out behind the chicken run. The cost has risen from $800 the first year to about $1000 for the last load, which works out to between about a half to a third of the price it would take in equivalent heat by propane or oil. It is dirty in the house through, and the work involved is not to be undertaken without some effort, but on a beautiful late fall day like today it is nothing but a pure form of pleasure that never gets old. The girls still like to ride in the empty trailer back to the wood pile, and the new dog makes their short journeys extra special this year with his floppy companionship.

What To Do When You Hit A Deer

I hit a deer last Monday on my way to work. It was such a beautiful creature, so strong, and it flew out of the woods over a stone wall in the dark just before dawn. It was a young buck, maybe three points. I noticed the antlers as it kicked on its side in the ditch, trying to stand. It seemed so wrong to have such a strong body unable to get back up, so fatal. The front and driver's side of the car was crumpled in, even though he came out of the woods on my right. A few more inches and he would have missed me, sailed right over me.  I had to push hard against the door to get it opened. The car was a goner also. You could hear the leak of transmission fluid in there somewhere under the mangled metal. I called my wife and then dialed 911, standing in the middle of the road. As I talked, the deer somehow got back into the woods, still unable to stand, and I could hear it rustling loudly through the leaf litter. I wanted to run and hug it, hold it, do what I could, but what could I do? The thing about wild creatures is they are beyond our pity but not our tragic incompetence.
Then later I learned that the police found it in the woods and shot it. They contacted the landowner who hauled it out of there with an ATV. At least he got a good supply of venison, I hope. I got to work in my wife's car and she walked home while the policeman filled out the accident report. It all happened so fast and today we went car shopping and the salesman said unlike in the past people generally know exactly what they want when they come into the showroom thanks to the Internet and the newly transparent nature of information flows. I wish we could do something about our transportation flows to make them less damaging, though. I'll always think of that buck when I drive past that spot on the road now, where the stone wall dips a little and gets lost in the slightly darker shadow of the woods. The rains a couple of days ago washed out the dark streak in the asphalt where the car leaked its fluid. I'll miss that car, too.

Ancient Heart Wisdom for All Soul's Day

Reading is important because our thoughts determine the state of our souls. Be artful and careful and  read books that are good for you and you will guarantee a long life for yourself and your descendants. That is the teaching of the ancients.

This weekend marks the turning point in the calendar that our ancestors recognized as a special time, the time when the boundary between the world of reality and the world of spirit can be seen and traversed by those with trained eyes. And indeed, with the leaves off the trees the earth has a skeletal, spare look that reveals the essence of the landscape around us. In Mexico, the remembrance of this special season from the still living past carries on in the ceremonies of the Day of the Dead, when the ancestors walk among us; the friendly ghosts of the past are invited into our homes to be with us once again. In America, the belief has devolved into the horribly commercialized pursuit of candy and forgetfulness that is Halloween, neither fish nor fowl, just a vestige of what was once a proud link to our ancestral birthright. We, who have sold it for a mess of junk, prefer not to think about what we have done. Instead of honoring the past we have relegated the spirits of our ancestors to the dustbin of our minds, much like we relegate our young and old to the dustbins of public schools and nursing homes. When the bottom line is all that counts and we reject notions of communal responsibility, then we get what we deserve, a horror story.

So the practice of Dia de los Muertos can be a healthy corrective for what in the West amounts to the cult of the material world that gives us the Miley Cyrus's of our popular culture and the overt sexualization of our children. But what if the need for correction becomes a hatred of the living world? Such an over-reaction gets explored in my book Savior, which will be published in the spring by Harvard Square Editions. You can read more about the cult of death at the heart of the book, and share in the launch by going here. Spread the word and take action in the name of life.

What I Learned as a Self-Publicizing Author About Reality and Irreality

Sometimes you have to make stuff up as an author. And sometimes you can't make it up.

I'm in the throes of bringing out a new book. Entitled Savior, it's about a father and son battling the forces of evil. My bad guys are not your garden variety thugs. They don't just want to plunder and loot. They want to take over the entire world. I've given them an ideology, a veneer of thoughtfulness all the more creepy for its plausibility and basis on a real world cult. 

Called the Santos Muertos, or Dead Saints, the bad guys in Savior are more than just a super successful illegal drug manufacturing and distributing cartel. They believe that they herald the second coming of Mictecacihuatl, the ancient death goddess of the MesoAmerican people. The Santos Muertos organization is seeking an ancient Mayan tablet called the Chocomal. This tablet contains a code which they believe will allow them to build a doomsday machine and end the reign of Quetzalcoatl, which they identify with Western civilization. Now of course the Santos Muertos don't really exist. But the Santa Muerte cult does. This is a religious practice, condemned by the Catholic church, which has gained increasing numbers of adherents among residents of northern Mexico and the border regions of the United States. Adherents of the Santa Muerte build altars to a saint who does not exist in the Christian panoply. This saint, the Santa Muerte, or Lady Death, promises healing and favors in return for her veneration. 

I recently received an email from my editor questioning whether I might be in line for reprisals from the Santos Muertos for my depiction of their activities in Savior. I had to explain to her that they were not real, and that no, I didn't think any followers of the Santa Muerte cult would be Googling my address and moving me to the top of their most wanted lists. But you never know. With Halloween fast approaching, and my favorite holiday, Dia de los Muertos on its heels, I thought I would put it out there in a blog post. To anybody taking offense from my depiction of the Santa Muerte in Savior - it's just a book. I made it up. It's not real. But for anyone looking for a unique Halloween costume idea or themed event for Dia de los Muertos, check it out. And check out my book on Indiegogo. I'm looking for a boost. And I don't plan on building any altars to the Santa Muerte. Not just yet. But you never know. Ayudame santita.

Indiegogo -- How I, the Writer, Access the Rubles

I just launched a crowdfunding campaign for Savior, my new dystopian thriller, on Indiegogo, the crowdfunding platform. Unlike Kickstarter, it allows people from countries other than the United States to participate in supporting projects, so I'm hoping to win thousands of dollars from all those Russian millionaires who read my blog. I know you're out there because I've got Google Analytics, conneras.

I feel proud to be part of this brave new world of alternative financing. It's kind of ironic, because I finally got a publishing contract from Harvard Square Editions for Savior, but their marketing campaign consisted of sendng me a PDF of possible book reviewers to send the manuscript out to. Brave New World. Good luck if you're just setting out to be a writer. The way ahead is swampy and insecure.

But you, dear reader, can be the key by supporting creation at the outset. Be a part of a creative team that gives light to new work. Get into it. Here's the link to the Savior page on Indiegogo:

http://igg.me/p/552243/x/4945689

Click and rock on. Check out the top prizes where you can actually get in on production of book trailer videos and scripting of the sequel.

Shut Down The Tea Party Now

The Republican party has reached new heights of lunacy that exceed even my outsized estimation of where their base is coming from. The sheer madness of their hatred of Obama and our Affordable Care Act is akin to the days of the Berlin Wall coming down. This is what we are witnessing in the GOP today with the government shutdown - the end of the two party system as we have come to know it for at least a century. Unbelievable as it might seem, I think we are reliving the period that led to the breakup of the Union over slavery and the rights of the slaveholding states. But the far right's opposition to Obamacare seems even more misguided then the secession of the slave states did in Lincoln's day. Clearly affordable health care for millions of Americans does not goad anybody's ox outright the way, say the liberation of black slaves did to the property rights of plantation owners. It remains to be seen how far these people are willing to go, but it seems pretty obvious that their respect for the democratic process and the good of the USA is outweighed by their ideological commitments to. . . what? no new taxes? No, the Tea Partying fringe's rationale for the shutdown is that Obama and everything he touches, including Obamacare, represents the end of America. It's a right wing, millenarian, reptilian, shock radio view of America as seen through a lens of racism and ignorance that's driving the Republican agenda, and the only sane response is to get ready to put the heel down on the snake's head come 2014 elections.