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The Protectors® Podcast
Welcome to The Protectors® Podcast, where the valor meets the storyteller. Hosted by Jason Piccolo, a seasoned veteran and retired special agent, this series is a must-listen for anyone intrigued by the courage and tales of those who pledge to protect us. Beyond the front-line stories of bravery and dedication, this podcast goes a step further, weaving in the perspectives of those who bolster and narrate the protector's journey—featuring a remarkable lineup including New York Times Best Sellers and acclaimed Hollywood actors.
The Protectors® Podcast offers a diverse array of voices, from those who wear the uniform to the authors and entertainers who amplify their stories. It's a unique blend that highlights not only the raw realities faced by our protectors but also how their sacrifices inspire the narratives we cherish in literature and film. Each episode is a testament to the interconnected worlds of service and support, bringing listeners an unmatched depth of insight.
Dr. Jason Piccolo is a retired federal agent, former U.S. Army Infantry Captain (Iraq 2006), and author.
Past Guests Include:- Sean Patrick Flanery - Andrews & Wilson- Mark Greaney- Stephen Hunter- Remi Adeleke - Florent Groberg - Clint Emerson - Travis Mills
The Protectors® Podcast
#487 | Jeff Wilson & Brian Andrews | Fusing Fiction and Firearm Precision: An Insight into Thriller Writing and Time Travel Dilemmas
Unlock the secrets behind crafting the perfect firearm for a fictional hero as we sit down with renowned thriller authors Brian Andrews and Jeff Wilson. Their alliance with Wilson Combat isn't just about the nuts and bolts of gunsmithing; it's a dynamic fusion of storytelling and precision engineering. This collaboration showcases the extraordinary lengths to which these authors go to ensure their characters' tools are as authentic and formidable as their personalities.
Make sure to check out Jason on IG @drjasonpiccolo
Hey, welcome to the protectors podcast. Brian Andrews and Jeff Wilson are back. They're not only back on the podcast, they're back with a new thriller four minutes, a techno thriller. See, I had to throw the voice in. I always got to do that for you guys. What's going on, guys?
Speaker 2:I love it. I love the voice. Here's the challenge Can you ever do one of these shows? I do that voice for the whole 30 minutes. That would be impressive.
Speaker 1:You, you can try it, jeff brian.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about the first thing on my mind is the wilson combat edc x9 nine millimeter I know, why that's on your mind, my friend it is, it's my.
Speaker 1:Uh, I can't do. You know, if I could do that voice for 30 minutes, I might just have to start doing voiceovers. No, but you and I are huge fans of wilson combat. Um, in fact, you guys have a whole series of weapons developed just for by wilson comic, for your, your books yeah, that was a cool experience, jason.
Speaker 2:I think we I think informally, not not on the show I think we talked about it once before we got to. Um, uh, we connected with them. I think you might even have made the connection and we met Guy Joubert out there and we told him what we were looking for and he said you know, we, can you guys come up with how you would design weapons for the team at at Ember, you know, for the tier one series? And he's like oh yeah, let me think about that. Let me think about that. And the guy completely geeked out. He's a great dude, as you know, and he sends us this email that's got an attachment and it's like seven pages long. Like he fully designed, down to the last detail, the assault rifle and grind sniper rifle and subcompact pistols and a tactical shotgun. He went all out.
Speaker 2:So we get on the phone with him to thank him and we're like, listen, man, I can't think you know this can be so helpful. We're going to use all these specs in the book. He goes well, when you're going to shoot him. And we're like, yeah, wouldn't that be something? He goes no, I'm serious, when are you going to shoot him. They were so fun to do. We built them, so why don't you guys come out here? So we we actually went to Arkansas and spent some time on the range there's all kinds of pictures on our website and shot all of these weapons that they built. And we got to tour the facility and I was blown away by the. You know everyone thinks of Wilson Combat. They're like their custom guns. They're kind of they're pricey, right, they're pricey when?
Speaker 3:does all that money?
Speaker 2:go. Let me tell you where that money goes. It isn't going in the bank, it's going into production and design of those weapons. I have never been more impressed with the process that they have. We can't talk about too much of it because I don't know what they do and do not talk about, but, dude, it was amazing. It was mind blowing to watch from the way they make, you know, a single piece into a gun all the way down to the. We met the guys that are in there polishing every single little part that goes in by hand before they assemble them. I've never been.
Speaker 2:And then you shoot them and you're like OK, I see it, now, I get it, I get it. Very, very impressive organization. And we're, you know I don't know if you know this we're sort of partnered up with them. Now, as a result of that relationship, we all fell in love and so now we're sort of brand ambassadors for them, where anybody that's listening to your show that's going to be in dallas, uh, for the nra show, that friday afternoon we'll be in the wilson combat booth, uh, signing books, in fact.
Speaker 1:So we love those folks, love them to death I purchased my own edc x9 and I took it to the range last week first time and now I've shot 1911s before. I haven't really nice 1911 I'm not going to tell you the manufacturer on this one but it's really nice. It's a decent 1911 I've had. I should say it's like I it's decent now that I've shot the edc the edc before you shot the wilson right it was amazing before that, because that was my competition gun.
Speaker 1:I was shooting a 1911 single stack. So I'm like, okay, I kind of want to get into this 2011 realm. I want to shoot 9mm. I want the same feel as a 1911. So I get this EDCX9.
Speaker 1:I custom ordered it. I ordered it a while back, had the design, had the American flag put on it. I actually talked to Guy from Wilson and he walked me through the whole thing. He's like what kind of sights do you want? What kind of trigger do you want? This, this and that? And that's something you don't get from just going and ordering a stock gun. Because I tell you what this gun is everything I needed right off the bat, because I designed it. I had direct input into it. It I had direct input into it.
Speaker 1:Now, every gun I've shot competition with, up until this gun, I've always had to do some sort of modification on it my own, whether that's a trigger, whether it's extended slide releases, whether it's extended mag releases, whether it's this or that sites and this and that. But this one is the first out of the box, well out of the case gun that I'm going to shoot competition with. That I never had to do anything with and, as a matter of fact, I'm going to shoot a competition at nra tonight. Um, idpa, which is also part of wilson combat a lot of people don't realize that international defensive pistol association, and I'm going to shoot this gun for the first time Now. When I go to the range with this thing, the grouping is unbelievable because there's no trigger slapping. For me, it's just, it's such a smooth trigger. I mean everything that 1911 trigger dude.
Speaker 2:I can never shoot another pistol that doesn't have the 1911 trigger once you shoot it, and especially the way Wilson Combat does it Like it's, it's insane. It's like so balanced. There's no, like you said, nothing moves, nothing moves. It's amazing. Yeah, it's a great gun. Oh, hey, by the way.
Speaker 2:I need to. This has nothing to do with the show, so we're boring all of your listeners. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, jason.
Speaker 2:Brian, I think I told you Jason helped put together my son, jack is in high school and he's on a competitive rifle team and Jason helped put together the competition rifle, the .22, that he's using in competition. He got that gun. I told you the whole story. They made him switch to left hand because he's left eye dominant but he's right handed, and he was so upset and you know Jack well enough to know that wasn't pretty. But now he's shooting this thing and in um I think he's had after three practices he already qualified nra distinguished expert and he's, uh, starting the real competitions and his coach is like we're gonna have him in in the jo, like in junior olympics. In no time he said this, but it's, it's part of his jack, because he's jack. But that the way you put that thing together for him, dude. Thank you, thank you, thank you. If I didn't tell you that Jack would be mad at me. So great job, dude.
Speaker 1:What a great little gun and I use my, my. The big thing was using an FFL. That was like really good at getting good prices. So I'll give a shout out to kind sniper. And the shout out to kind sniper and the thing about getting into competition in this sport shooting thing is you guys have you're going to do it. I, I promise you, within the next two years, now that you guys are actually working with wilson, I'm going to come out there and I'm going to train you guys. I'm going to, I'm going to train you. What I'm going to do is I'm going to coach you, because you already know how to shoot. But what I'm going to do is I'm going to coach you and brian and by next year you're going to be doing your. At least before the end of this year, you're going to shoot your first competition. I guarantee it. We're going to do it.
Speaker 2:I don't know who's going to write all the books and screenplays while we're out doing that, but yeah, that'd be great.
Speaker 1:Dude, I would love that. We're going to and Brian don't be looking there.
Speaker 2:You're doing it too. It's going to be fun.
Speaker 1:Okay, wilson, you guys are up Now. I'm talking about Wilson Combat, not Jeff Wilson, wilson Combat. We're going to put together a shooting rig for you guys and we're going to go for it, Brian are you ready, ready? Okay, he's like I'm more used to shooting an intercontinental missile.
Speaker 2:But yeah, no, believe me, he always hits the, the target, as far as you know, because the entire, you know, five mile radius is gone. So that's a whole different kind of competition no, I've got some.
Speaker 1:I've got new lessons learned. I went out to georgia last month I think I told you guys about that to take the the law enforcement instructor handgun course. So I'm gonna be taking those techniques, I'm going to be taking you two to the range and we're going to be going pew pew. I'm not going to say you're going to win, but you're going to, you're going to have fun. Oh, just to do it would be fun, bro.
Speaker 2:Just to do it would be fun. You were at Fletsy, is that where?
Speaker 1:you were. I know it was out in Georgia, but it was put on by the NRA. They put on the law enforcement instructor courses, Cool. But one thing I really do want to talk about today is like I love your books. You know, some of my favorite audibles I've listened to are your books, Because if I could sit down and read them I'd be great. It's like you guys, with time to write them, I don't have time to read them. I have time to listen to them. You're jumping into different spectrums, which is very cool. The first thing I want to talk about is your new thriller coming up Four Minutes. I kind of got the idea. Was that Minority Report a little bit? What do we got going?
Speaker 2:on here. I like that comp. Actually it's not Minority Report, but that's an interesting comp. What do you think, brian, that kind of fits right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean Minority Report. Is this idea that you could, for readers or listeners who haven't that movie's like 20 years old at this point, right, it's good.
Speaker 3:It's this idea that maybe you could anticipate crime. And so I think, when we were trying to think about, you know, having written tier one and the Sons of Valor series, we're always looking at this nexus of intelligence collection and special operations. And so, you know, lots of our scenes are set up with situations where our operators are going into an op and they know that they have imperfect intelligence a lot of the time. And so the opening scene of four minutes is really playing into this idea that, you know, sometimes your information isn't perfect and it's not anybody's fault, it's just the nature of the beast. And so you know what if you could remove that uncertainty? So all of our books usually start off with some sort of what if? Question, and four minutes is you know what if you could remove the uncertainty from counterterrorism? You know how would you do that and what would that look like.
Speaker 1:Now are we looking at like an AI kind of integration to this, or just like some very futuristic type AI thing where it's like you know who's the how does your protagonist work with this, this learning?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So here, I think this is the part you're going to. You're going to like the best, um, as a, as a former Intel guy yourself, right? Um, the? The challenge of Intel is, um, knowing what to analyze and when to analyze it, right, but it's also removing the noise, and so the premise of this is and it's a guy that's been out there in the field too, you'll get this part too, don't you wish you could have a crystal ball that just said those jackasses are actually going to be there and these are the jackasses are actually going to be there and these are the jackasses that actually did this.
Speaker 2:The challenge is to try to vet that intelligence. What if you had a literal crystal ball that you could say look, in 16 days, at this time, these jackasses are going to attack this place, and then you had those 16 days to prevent it. So that's sort of the premise. That was the what if, like Brian and I always talk about on your show. That, what if? That inspires the book? What if there was a technology, that a grounded, scientifically, mathematically plausible technology that would allow you to glimpse up to 28 days into the future? That would be a game changer, right?
Speaker 2:I mean, imagine if, 28 days before 9-11, we knew the tower would be attacked, right, and we had those 28 days to unravel that and put in countermeasures and that sort of thing. So that was sort of where the idea came from. And so what we did was we did a lot of geeked out a little bit and did a lot of deep dives into the math and physics of time and how it could potentially work, and we came up with a grounded idea of time travel. And I always hate to say it, I put it way in the end of my diatribe here, because you say time travel and a lot of people just tune out, right, it's like okay, yeah, they've got a DeLorean and they're going to the Old West or looking at the mountains.
Speaker 2:What we did instead was we said what would really be a plausible way, using river theory, to travel in time, and what would the limitations be? And so, in our universe, DARPA has accidentally and I want Brian to talk about that has accidentally stumbled on time travel capability. But they can only go up to 28 days in the future, and the real rub is they can only stay for four minutes. So is four minutes enough to get the intelligence that you need to come back into the present and prevent an attack? And so that's so. This is very much an Andrews and Wilson novel. It's covert ops, it's character driven, it's relationship driven, with this one thing we ask you to buy, which is that we've equipped these elite warriors with this ability to glimpse into the future, with all the good that comes with it, and then some unexpected downsides that come with it as well.
Speaker 1:I was going to say the unexpected downsides.
Speaker 3:Huh, because you know it's almost like that butterfly effect huh, because you know it's almost like that butterfly effect, right? Also, jason, like if you could look and let's say that you're with your team, you're, you're at work, right, you're, you're trying to do your job and counter terrorism, but then you get a glimpse of something that maybe impacts you personally, or something that's unrelated to the mission, right, so we started playing around with this idea and we called it unauthorized intelligence or unauth, so that's sort of a subplot is. Okay, you know, you're sent 28 days in the future to investigate this potential terrorist event. You find out about something that maybe impacts you or a loved one or your family personally, what do you do? You know, or what if you found out who's going to win the world series and you have a gambling problem? Right, like the temptations to maybe potentially personally enrich yourself or change the future because of a negative potential personal consequence would be quite, quite tempting, right, quite tempting now, this is oh so sorry.
Speaker 2:That's one rub, but the other rub is, you know they think they have the perfect intelligence, right? Except time doesn't work that way, does it? So what if you get this information like those guys are going to be here on this day on this street corner. We'll just get them up at like sort of minority report. You use that comp, right? We'll just stop them before they do it. And so you go to that street corner. Only now in this timeline, they don't show up at that street corner because some minor thing that has been changed, or maybe you, you know, you notified the FBI and they somehow tipped their hand, whatever, whatever that complication is, nothing is ever perfect. Nothing in intelligence or in covert operations, you know, is ever going to unfold the way you want it to. And all the hope that this will be the thing that changes, that isn't right. So that's kind of a fun element of the story.
Speaker 1:The brain matter between you two drives me nuts because I'm trying to, like you know, wrapping my head around timelines and all that. That's one thing I like. I do actually like that about like the marvel books and the marvel series and stuff like that is about these different timelines and how things just interrelate and I love time travel. So now you're putting together two really cool things time travel seeing the future because that's basically what it is if being able to see it, some sort of form of time travel and then the special ops category. Now, probably about 30 years ago because I'm really dating myself now there was one book I read and it was about like this infantry platoon goes back in time to the alamo. I'm gonna have to look that up again and that. That, that whole, that whole story, because they were talking about it. They got M60 up there. They're going to do this. They have to police up their brass. There's so many different things. You got the Philadelphia Project. Do you remember the?
Speaker 2:final countdown.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Was it the Enterprise or the Nimitz? Yeah, World. War II. Yeah, it wasn't like Pearl Harbor. Yeah, yeah, it wasn't like the Philadelphia, it's hard to avoid some of that stuff Like that big, that massive I don't want to say trope in a negative way Like those tropes work. They're tropes for a reason. Those were great movies but we really worked hard to try to make it. We didn't want the time travel aspect of it to be the main character. Does that?
Speaker 2:make sense Like we wanted it to be a tool and the characters to be the characters. But yeah, oh, I forgot about that Alamo one dude, that was a. I loved that when it came out.
Speaker 1:I like the idea of just a small snapshot too, because 28 days it's not a lot of time, like when you're thinking about, like trying to stop a catastrophic event or even just a minimal terrorist event. Trying to put all those pieces together, because we know in by the time, intelligence, even if they get to like a team alpha, omega or our team, anything, team, ember, you know from all the things, if they get to one of those teams, they still have to capitalize on it. There's still a time crunch by the time you figure out all the metrics.
Speaker 3:This book was sort of our love letter to the TV show 24,. Right when you have this ticking clock. And so we both love the propulsive energy of that series and how you know every episode.
Speaker 3:It's like a countdown and he would he would make some headway and then he'd get reset, you know, and there'd be another problem, another problem, another problem. And so by limiting it to 28 days, you limit that predictive, that virtual or visual horizon, right, you can only see so far. In these other time travel movies, like Jeff was referencing, everyone's always going back to the past and you're worried about well, if I change something here, do I not exist, or whatever. And we didn't want to do that. We wanted to try to take a little different approach. So that's why, when you jump into the future, you come back to the present. And so that's the world. That could be right, that's the things that should unfold, but now you're in the present.
Speaker 3:So, anything you do, you know for a fact that it's going to change the future. You just don't know how it's going to change the future. So our team is forced to then do validation jumps. So now they got to go, okay is? We know this is going to happen. We come back, we monkey with it in the present, we interdict. Now we jump again to the future and we're going to see if we're going to validate, to see if our actions did what we thought, and, as the book unfolds. What happens to the team is they start to see that wait a like. We thought we shut this down and now it's happening again. But it's happening somewhere else, in a different way.
Speaker 3:So there's always they're always feeling like they're playing catch up when they thought that from the beginning, that that's going to be the opposite right. So we flipped the impact of what they thought the technology would do to them and what they thought they would feel.
Speaker 2:We flipped it on its head and of course, in a typical andrews and wilson style, there's a a for real antagonist that brings something else to the to the table. That's unexpected.
Speaker 1:So I keep thinking, you know they're this like is one of my favorite genres of like anything with time and how. But knowing the time and how it changes, I was thinking about a movie I saw, probably about two months ago. Like I refreshed my memory of it, it was Deja Vu with Denzel Washington.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:They could go look back in time for certain areas, but they weren't really looking. I mean, obviously at the end of the movie, denzel Washington jumps back in time for certain areas, but they weren't really looking. I mean, obviously at the end of the movie, denzel Washington jumps back in time, but then his doppelgangers are there. There's like, oh, there's so many different things. It's like I love this aspect of the time. And how do you guys I mean and this is the other thing too like when you're working on a thriller, you have a lot of the same type of you know, how are you bumping these? This is like a completely different genre for you guys. How are you bumping your ideas back and forth?
Speaker 2:I don't think it changed that much how we did it there were. The nature of those conversations were different, right Like I don't think in any of the tier one or sons of valor books we did a deep dive for an hour and a half about river theory or or quantum mechanics, but, um, and we did this, did on this book but honestly that made it kind of fresh and fun for us, I think because we're kind of geeks about, you know, technology and science and you know we both have that background. We got a nuclear engineer, we got a guy who was a vascular surgeon and we're interested in science. So that made it a little bit fresh for us. You know, we were able to spend conversations talking about how to match real math and science with the needs of the thriller. Right Like, as you said, if it was just a book that made you really think about time travel, that'd be fun but it wouldn't be compelling.
Speaker 2:So we really needed it to be a Andrews and Wilson thriller, like our readers expect a certain type of book, and so using that as more of the backdrop for that story was a bit of a challenge that we didn't want to spend the whole time teaching all the cool stuff that we were able to learn. So that was different, I guess, having those conversations. But you know, all our books are the same. We have to spend a half a dozen phone calls a day in the middle of a project, you know, de-conflicting what we're writing and making sure we're on the same page. No pun intended in terms of characters and arcs and plot lines.
Speaker 1:Well, that brings me up into another, another big event Tom Clancy. When did we first talk? First start talking about that. It's been a while.
Speaker 3:We've known about it for at least a year, right, I think.
Speaker 2:But it went by fast. It seems like yesterday we signed that contract and started writing that book and now it's coming out in May, may 21st, active Defiance on the 40th anniversary for the Hunt for the Red October, by the way oh, wow, contract and started writing that book and now it's coming out in may, may 21st active defiance on the 40th anniversary for the hunt for the red october, by the way wow, so that's kind of kind of fun for my, for my submarine geek partner and best friend. So, um, yeah, but that's the coolest thing. Like what an honor to write in the clancy universe at all, but to be able to write that book that celebrates the 40th anniversary and to have been given permission to write I don Clancy universe at all, but to be able to write that book that celebrates the 40th anniversary and to have been given permission to write I don't want to call it a sequel, but to almost write an homage to the original.
Speaker 2:What does submarine warfare look like 40 years later and what are brilliant sailors and soldiers doing in modern warfare against a Russian adversary? So another rogue submarine. No one knows what it's going to do or where, and it has to be stopped. But I think people that loved Hunt for the Red October and I don't know anyone that doesn't are going to enjoy the book, because there's just enough of that nostalgia, I hope, with a whole fresh new twist and, uh, a modernization for the, for the new era. It was a. It was a blast to write jason dude.
Speaker 1:It was so much fun to write that book well, you guys got in the field too, and that's one thing I wanted to really hit up brian about is like hey, you're you, you're out and you've been for a while now. Hey, but you were at the tip of the, the submariner world, and now, now you're jumping into this genre. This must be the. I mean seriously, this would be like me, I don't even know, but like with you, it's like this must be the coolest thing in the world. And Clancy, come on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, that's incredible. I mean, I got to. You know, here I am a submarine officer reading Hunt for Red October on a fast attack submarine and then if somebody had told me that I'd be writing the sequel to hunt for red October, you know, all these years later I would have said they were crazy, right. But what's interesting about this opportunity? And from the research that we got to do and I think we deserve to give the U S Navy a huge shout out, because when we found out that we were going do and I think we deserve to give the US Navy a huge shout out, because when we found out that we were going to write this book, we reached out to the Navy and they totally embraced hey, you know, we'll give you guys access to whatever you need, like come out to the fleet.
Speaker 3:So we did and we came. We went out to Norfolk. We met with Admiral Houston, who's sub land at the time. He's since promoted to naval reactors, so he's pinned on his fourth star, but you know I'm sitting in the three stars office. He's like what do you guys want to see? What do you guys want to?
Speaker 3:do and so, you know, we went down to the Blackfish, which is a Virginia class submarine, fast attack they were in port got to, you know, tour the boat, sit down with the crew, talk the xo and and do fantastic q? A and then, uh, you know we leveled it up. Another step we went to see on the indiana, which is another virginia class submarine. And you know, when I was a submarine officer, we had a periscope, you know, real periscope, with handles and an eyepiece, and you're, you're looking through this thing, turning around and and you know that's virginia class submarine, it's, it's the next level, it's gone. You know they have what they call photonics mast and and your periscope is a, is a television screen, your controller is an xbox video game controller that they're using to, you know, rotate and and control the scope.
Speaker 3:So you know there's a lot of improvements, a lot of changes, changes that you know we got to see firsthand. So we could, you know, if I could, write a scene on a 688, I got that thing down. But you know there's procedural changes and equipment changes, technology changes on this new class of submarine, but the one thing that hasn't changed are the people, the submarine, but the one thing that hasn't changed are the people, you know. So the people are, uh, just as motivated, just as sharp, just as patriotic as when, when Jeff and I served all those years ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've got some amazing people. They flew us out Uh, brian got to make his first uh arrested landing on a carrier. They flew us out to the uh, to the Ford, which is also uh, that's the newest class of uh nuclear aircraft carrier, and they flew us out there and we get to feature that and the amazing crew there on in this uh in this book as well. Um, we had, we had a great time, but we had to put it on a virginia class because otherwise it would have been too easy for brian. Right, he was on a 688 class boat like no, no, no, you get, you got to work just as hard as me. We got to put some unknowns there for you. So I wanted him to work no, 688 for you.
Speaker 1:Well, guys, let's recap this conversation here. Wilson Combat we're going to be doing some shooting. I'm shooting my first competition tonight with Wilson Combat. You guys are shooting your first competition within the end of this year. I'm going to be going online. I'm finding you guys just a regular Tier 1. And by Tier 1, this is a little bit different Level 1 or whatever. It's not like Tier 1. You guys aren't going to be operating. I'm just going to get you a nice little one here and we're going to be like boom, it's going to be good. I'll be doing a little online coaching and I'll come out there and teach you guys a little bit of basics. The other thing, too, is that Wilson Combat and you guys are partnered up. See you all at the NRA. We have four minutes coming out, which is just an incredible genre. I mean this is going to be cool.
Speaker 3:Who's doing?
Speaker 1:the audio on that.
Speaker 2:Your boy.
Speaker 1:Don't tell me, yeah, I love it, ray Porter. Audio on that your boy. Don't tell me, yeah, I love ray porter. Oh, geez, I'll be uh, ray porter, and uh, who's the other one? I just found the other day is really good.
Speaker 2:Ray porter is the best. He's awesome and in fact, he sent us uh, he sent us a message after he recorded it, telling him I'm not saying this to promote the book, but just because we love ray porter, so it's so fun when ray says wow, that was so much fun to read for you guys. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Ray does not have to say that to us, obviously, so that was really flattering. He enjoyed the book a lot, so I love it guys.
Speaker 1:And then we have clancy. Tell us about the clancy. What's the name and when's its 40th anniversary? This is incredible act of defiance.
Speaker 3:It's number 24 in the jack ryan series. It comes out on may 21st and we're going to be doing a great tour. So, uh, we're kicking things off in tampa. So anybody in florida, please join us at the oxford exchange on the 20th, 20th, then the 21st we'll be at norfolk at the Nauticus. It's open to the public. We're going to have actual submariners who are active duty. We're going to have support from the submarine community, so they're going to be there participating in a Q&A. So it's going to be super fun at the Nauticus. And then Kansas City on Wednesday at Rainy Day Books, and then I think we're heading to Poison Pen. Right, jeff? On?
Speaker 2:Thursday, poison Pen in Phoenix and kicking it all off the weekend before the Friday before at the NRA, we'll have some copies of the book there to sign if you're attending that conference, so it's going to be a lot of fun. Of course, you can always find all of this. Don't write it down. It's all on the website and we'll be posting about it as it gets a little closer, so all the details will be out there.
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