Featured Interview With James Lee Nathan III
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I grew up in East Elmhurst Queens NY and currently reside in Maryland. Pugs, good food, beer, Jazz, and a good weekend binge on Netfix are things I do enjoy.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
Around 9 I think.
I started to read books (purely for the joy of it) sometime in 1970. The first book I devoured was Gangsters and Gangs, and no I do not remember the author, it was over 40years ago! (inserting smile right here) But that book launched me into books as a whole. Prior to that, I had only read comic books.
A few years after in intermediate school (back then that’s what they called middle school) my English teacher wanted me to take an additional course in creative writing. That course helped me in HS as I continued writing for my very own comic book characters. That was 1974, I stopped writing altogether in 1980, and resumed in 2010.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Wow, I have a few, LA Banks (RIP), Elmore Leonard (RIP), Walter Mosely, Michael Crichton, Guillermo del Toro, JRR Tolkien, Stephen King, and Timothy Zahn. However, the two with the most influence in my storytelling have been Crichton and Tolkien.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
I have a series I developed called ‘The Next Level of Fiction’.
CRIME-PHYTER is a non-stop scifi trip, that spans three decades in the lives of four different people. All of whom are being manipulated towards one singular purpose, JUSTICE.
Story 1 revolves around the discovery of a mystical plant in south America and the life of one Kieran Church. He loses his wife and son to street violence and when the court system fails to convict, he strikes out on his own. But that is not the end or beginning of Mr. Church’s problems.
Story 2 is No free rides. It begins with the savage assault on a female member of the special forces. But the perps and their protectors, did not count on the involvement of a friend of hers. His justice is swift, but it comes with a cost.
Story 3 – I need an ALIBI, continues the story of Rachel Holt and her protector Paco, as the plant takes a full grip of both of their lives.
The final story is all about regret. It is called Not 4 Nuthin; when a reluctant arms dealer sells access and arms to terrorists that attempt to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993, he seeks not only revenge but redemption.
The mysterious plant is highly involved in the lives of all the main characters and the stories culminate in an unlikely conclusion.
No capes, no masks, only JUSTICE
Ibrahim Unites (print available on Amazon)
“Open your eyes and believe”: ZION RIVERS, an international man of action and the last ALLUNDAE GRANDMASTER, is a member of an ALIEN race that came to earth over 20,000 years ago. He searches for the remnants of his kind, to halt a growing EVIL in the guise of cult leader LANDEN MUELLER (an Allundae of lesser stock known as the SANGANESE). Mueller has developed a cult following numbering in the tens of thousands and seeks to corrupt mankind by replacing established religions with his own perversion. He is allied with an ancient enemy of the Allundae, the FICAR EGO, from the planet MAKUWE in the CYGNUS star system. SWORN ENEMIES of the Allundae who now seek to colonize earth.
Mueller is clever in hiding his crimes and even more devious in assigning dark deeds to underlings. Zion has chased him down for decades and now has this elusive serial killer cornered. But he cannot defeat him alone. Powerful and resourceful in his own right, Zion enlists the help of another. RAHEEM FLOROS a racially ambiguous man, a veteran, capable researcher and single parent suffering from PTSD; who just so happens to be afraid of the dark. An unlikely pairing, but Zion requires his assistance. Raheem is the key to the last battle and does not know it.
Raheem is putting his youngest daughter to bed after reading some of her favorite stories about some fictitious heroic beings called The Dragon Warriors. These stories have been in his family for decades. “Papa, are there no more DRAGON WARRIORS?” she asks, and he smiles and assures her that somewhere somehow there is one. Raheem ponders her thoughts and for the first time in his life, he proceeds to research these stories. The tales of miraculous feats of valor are from the three most current wars, Vietnam, Korea, and World War II.
Hours pass and he eventually falls asleep, the PTSD comes to him in his dreams and leaves him screaming and in a pool of sweat. His daughters know the only way through this is to wake him, and then hold him tight. Tonight, though, there is another reason. The youngest had her first period and needed feminine napkins. So off into the night he goes and to his destiny.
Raheem fears the night because of the pain it brings to his eyes. The pain is normal for others of his kind, but because of his need to resist the transition, his eyes hurt. He takes five more steps before stopping, and then a reassuring touch from a stranger who ironically seems familiar. “Accept it and let the transition occur it will cure your ills.” He says, and then steps into the shadows, revealing his very own eyes. Large orbs befitting a very large bird of prey and not a human look back at Raheem. Raheem feels comfort in the stranger’s eyes. “Come we have much to discuss and work that requires doing.” Zion says.
Over the next 72 hours, Zion explains RAHEEM’s long and complicated lineage as the last pure blood descendant of IBRAHIM, an ALLUNDAE patriarch from the CRUSADES. The skeptical Raheem learns of IBRAHIM and others in his line from the KINGS of KUSH to SPARTA, and many others. ZION refreshes his memory of things taught to him long ago that are fighting techniques and enlightens him on the UNIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS which enables an ALLUNDAE to motivate and inspire others to heroic deeds. Training is not complete, but a plan emerges.
MELVINA The Color of Power
This is a Historical Fiction and the fastest selling ebook I have ever written.
An older woman in her 60s rides in a lonely train car. Her destination is far different today than it was some twenty years previously. She closes her eyes and remembers when she first came to Fargo. Back then in 1881, she shares a car with a very pretentious young woman, dead set on evangelism and ridding the northern territory of the scourge of all mankind. ALCOHOL. The woman is clad in black from head to toe, her beautiful red hair and snow white skin are a perfect contrast to her drab clothing. Juxtaposed to the drab and righteous, sits the opposite in every way. Melvina is 40 but looks at least 20 years younger, and is fashioned in all white to include her bonnet, shoes, and umbrella. She senses an air of contempt about the train compartment before the first words are uttered.
Melvina, Ahhhh yes, Melvina, the mulatto from the east. Her presence takes the air out of the room, so strikingly beautiful that most do not venture to guess her ethnicity. No, they are too preoccupied admiring her beauty to think about anything else so primal as her race. Seduction has a way of doing that to people and Melvina Massey is every inch of seduction.
The two ladies strike up a polite conversation not knowing anything about the other initially but by the time the train pulls into the depot at Fargo, battle lines are drawn and distrust replaces politeness. Children will come, murders, deceit, sickness, political intrigue, statehood, affairs of the heart, will all come to pass, but bitterness will stand between these two until the very end.
Intrigued are you? There is more…come with me as I take you on a journey back in time, to discover a family’s distant relative, and the true color of power… MELVINA.
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