Fook the Farsis Friday

Good morning, reader(s) of Stroock's Books, and Shabbat Shalom. 

So we had two separate Islamic terrorist attacks yesterday, did we? One at a university, in which cadet students subdued and killed the attacker, and one in which a terrorist rammed his car into a Michigan synagogue and tried to shoot up the joint. The only reason why the synagogue attacker failed is because the synagogue, like many, many synagogues across the country, has armed security.

It's good that one can attack a synagogue after which 50 cops, making for a comical picture of a police cruiser traffic jam, will show up after your armed security has already taken down the terrorist. 

Exit question, how many mosques need armed security? 

Tonight is shabbat across America. Keep your fingers crossed.

Fun fact: most of the grief we get on-line (meaning Substack) comes from annon groyper/Tucker fanbois. We're dealing with one now. Usually we respond with yo-mamma jokes and calling them gay and retarded, which we enjoy immensely. 

Bla-bla Israel, bla-bla Iran...Lots of bellicose and tough talk coming from Washington and Jerusalem. The latter particularly annoys this blog. To reverse things, the more bellicose the Arab's rhetoric, the more impotent is the Arab, as reader(s) well know. Of course whenever Trump talks tough something else in Iran blows up. So we dunno. But we don't like the bellicose rhetoric. We don't like it at all. Exit quote, 'If you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk.' 

We are enjoying the destruction and pain inflicted upon the Iranian regime but we are also eschewing exuberance. 

How's this going to go exactly? 

Bombing campaign.

....

Peace and freedom! 

We've seen this movie before. 

DOGE Report.

Bahhhh!

We just don't like this Ardee chapter, but have no idea how to write it otherwise. 

Sales of World War 1990: Ireland back up yesterday and look to have a strong day today. 

The Thursday Post

A good rainy afternoon to Stroock's Books reader(s) across the globe, not you Canada. The American and Canadian teams will meet tomorrow in the World Baseball Classic. 

The ants have returned. We are getting ready to counterattack, counterattack with extreme prejudice. 

Gaudy explosions and spectacular assassinations have not yet brought victory over Iran and Hezbollah and...Yemen sooner or later. We approach events wearily. Interestingly, the US and Israel are targeting Iranian regime security elements. Soon? [Hey! What happened to no new wars?-Ed] This is an old war.

Pointless nostalgia...2006. Reader(s) of this blog who recall last summer's AC Wars will know that we look to our house's utility room with [Great fear and trepidation?-Ed], great fear and trepidation. But back in 2006 the utility room was a place of great solace. 

Our grandfather gave us his old treadmill, which we kept in the utility room. Almost daily we'd go in there and run a couple of miles while blasting music on our CD player. What were we listening to? A lot of Queen, a lot of Dio, a lot of Bon Jovi. And we were on the verge of rediscovering AC/DC. The Heavy Metal revival was just beginning. Those were the days...

DOGE report.

Ardee....we don't understand why this chapter is messy and we don't understand why we don't like this chapter. We are struggling on. 

We did a lot of articulation and characterization on our Soviet cosmonaut story in the 5th nuke novel. 

Sales of World War 1990: Ireland have peaked and are now falling. Sales should remain strong for another week to ten days and won't settle into backlist territory for at least a month. Hmmmm....so far, sales of Ireland aren't dragging up other books. However, this month's royalties are up nearly 100% over last month's royalties. 

We've made back over half the book production costs. We'll keep Ireland's price at $9.99 for the time being. But soon we'll put it on Kindle Select. Which should lead to another sales/rankings surge. 

Uh oh, in four ratings on good reads, Ireland has a 3 star and a 2 star. 

Twenty on a Wednesday

Good morning reader(s) of Stroock's Books. The daylight time might be saved, but as we write this it's dark outside. We'll have another warm day today. Yay shorts! After that blizzard and prolonged cold snap, the unseasonably warm weather feels good. 

Bla-bla Israel, bla-bla Iran. The lack of protests in the streets of Iran makes one think that the US state department, or whoever, has gotten word out that people should lay low till an appropriate time. Meanwhile the US and Israel bomb police facilities, IRGC bases, etc etc. Extit question: what is the appropriate time?

Pointless nostalgia. Twenty years on...aye, 2006. We were a more or less permanent sub at Bernards High.  We were in over a hundred days. Most days we brought our computer and wrote during prep time, or even class time. Very often we'd have nothing to do but show a movie, maybe pass out an assignment. Subs don't do much teaching in high school. 

The kids knew us and we knew the kids. Some of them even signed up for classes with us when we were a history adjunct at Raritan Valley Community College. A real treat, actually. Here's the class of 2006. Most of the names ring a bell. Those kids are now older than we were when we knew them - and approaching 40. Amazing. 

Out of curiosity we looked up a kid whom we liked very much. Smart, friendly, respectful. He had military aspirations and had been accepted to a military school and...son of gun. There's a photograph of that young man as a marine lieutenant in Afghanistan.  

Anyhow we were finishing up A Line through the Desert. Also we were working on a series of articles for Strategy & Tactics Magazine about the Roman Empire. An article we wrote about the Roman general Metellus has never seen the light of day. By the spring of 2006 we'd had four articles in print, but nothing out in over a year. The wait was tough. But we'll have the S&T cover twice that autumn.

DOGE Report. 

After further consideration we're keeping the Ardee chapter, for now. Let's fix it. Or not. We've got an Irish army battalion, a British army battalion, the Garda, and the IRA chasing one another around Ardee...kind of like we had the IRA, RUC, UDA, UVF, and UFF chasing one another around Derry in World War 1990: Ireland. We don't like it. We don't like it one bit. 

Will Sharpens his Axe

A faire Tuesday morn, Stroock's Books fellow travelers. We had highs in the mid-70s yesterday and expect highs in the high 70s today. Shorts abound. 

The war on Iran continues. More interestingly at this point, it seems the Israelis are going to intensify their aerial campaign against Hezbollah - and there's fuckall the Hezbos can do about it. Hezbollah joining the war on Iran's behalf was a terrible mistake. 

This blog awaits Iranian or Iranian inspired terror attacks against a Israeli or Jewish target. 

So beware Victory Disease. 

Did reader(s) know that IRA man Gerry Adams is in court? It seems victims of a trio of prominent IRA bombings have sued him for damages. Heh. 

We decided to have some fun with Grok and asked, 'Is William Stroock Jewish?' here's Grok's reply.

Yes, William Stroock is Jewish.
He frequently uses Jewish greetings and references in his public writing, such as posting "Shabbat Shalom" (a traditional Jewish Sabbath greeting) alongside pro-Israel commentary, like "Good morning Substack and Shabbat Shalom. This is your Friday reminder that Israel is great." He also comments on Jewish community issues, antisemitism, and topics like the "Golden Age of Jews in America" being over, while strongly identifying with and defending Jewish/Israeli perspectives in his Substack notes and posts.His body of work includes multiple pro-Israel military fiction series (e.g., Israel Strikes and Israel at War), and he regularly discusses Jewish-related historical and current events in ways consistent with Jewish identity and advocacy. There's no public indication otherwise, and his online presence aligns clearly with Jewish cultural and religious markers.

Every word is true. Every analyses on point. 

DOGE report.

We went over the Battle of Ardee yesterday and...didn't like what we saw at all. We may just ax the whole chapter and start over. We've ample precedent for this. We cut a 15,000 word opening chapter from World War 1990: The Final Storm. Anyone else remember our blogging about the Battle of the Roki Tunnel? 

The Salyut station cosmonaut story progressed. We still don't know to what the story progresses.  

So we'd been holding off on posting about World War 1990: Ireland on Substack. Till yesterday. Our initial announcement got four clicks. We'll do another post or two today. 

Anyway, Yesterday World War 1990: Ireland climbed to the #9 spot in Amazon's alternate history category.

We are among the best there is at what we do. 

Monday Mid-rank

Good Monday, Stroock's Books stalwarts. 

When one lives with four women, clearing a bathtub drain is just gnarly. 

Temps are in the mid-30s now but will top off in the mid 70s today. 

World War 1990: Ireland is ranked #15 in Amazon alternate history. Ireland has certainly popped. But has it peaked? Uh oh. Some one on good reads gave Ireland a two-star rating. Wanker. 

Sigh...what do we got?

Operation Epic Fury continues. We're out of the spectacular phase with the fancy regime assassinations and down to the scut work of locating launchers, missile bunkers, bombing infrastructure, etc etc. Iran still manages to slip a missile or two past Israel's formidable air defenses. How? 

We haven't heard much, we think, about Iranian drones hitting Israel. What's Iron Beam doing? Grok says Iron Beam is deployed. 

The Trump administration is talking a lot, boasting a lot. We don't like it. We don't like it at all. We watched General Colin Powell during our formative years, who said bluntly of the Iraqi army, 'We're going to cut off its head. Then we're going to kill it.' We like that. 

We dread driving past a gas station today. Wish us luck. People may support the war (for now) but they're gonna see and feel those gas prices, and they ain't gonna like them. Not one bit. 

DOGE report.

This week is all about fixing the Battle of Ardee. Right now the battle ping-pongs between the British and Irish commander. We're gonna ax the limey, we think. 

We will continue working on our nuke novel cosmonaut story, comrades. We've got it set up pretty good. But we don't actually know where it's going. 

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 3/8/26

What the ef, daylight savings time? What the ef?

Okay, wow. Temps to be in the 70s most of the week. We may just wear shorts today. Why not?

Happy International Women's Day - Insert bad joke here -.

We bought a bottle of Japanese whisky last night, The Matsui. It was...decent enough. Later that night we received a warning from the Irish Whisky Police that we'd be interviewed under caution. 

This blog is not entirely certain bombing Iranian oil depots is a good idea. We'll see. 

So the United States and Israel have kicked the ever-living crap out of Iran. No surprise there. Lately the US and Israel are hitting Iranian police and IRGC assets. This blog wonders what's next. More protests? Exit question: does the lack of protests in the Iranian streets mean the protestors are coordinating with the US and waiting for the right time?

Related...gas around here is up 35 cents per gallon this week. 

As of this morning World War 1990: Ireland is #15 in Amazon alternate history. So far sales look like....the Normandy invasion, including the Krauts, + the Aussies. Ireland looks poised to have a big sales day. 

Meh, we're bored with Substack. We looked and see we hit 1,500 subscribers this week. And 41 of them are from Nigeria...Is posting at Substack even worth while? [It's nice to have a place to vent, no?-Ed]. We guess. 

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 3/8/26.

So what we got? World War 1990: Thatcher's War is at 45,000 words. World War 1990: The Managua Campaign is at 32,000 words. The 5th nuke novel is at 20,000 words and 3.5 stories. 

The Grognard really wants us to do World War 1990: Battle of the GIUK Gap, keeping with our old one forward/one back juju. GIUK may be the last novel we write about the war. We got tons of post-war juju and we're going to use it. 

We shall see where things stand on Memorial Day. 

But one way or another, 2026 is the year of the three novels. 

Saturday Updates

Good morning, Stroock's Book aficionados, and happy Saturday. As we write this the temp is 38 degrees, American, and will push on up to the high 40s today. Clock's springing forward tomorrow. Thank the Lords of Kobol and the Many Face God. 

Four days in a row at the gym. Yay. 

One week of war. The war on Iran...continues. There will be no American boots on the ground, Trump says. But what if they drop the 82nd Airborne Division on Tehran? Cool, no? But probably unnecessary. 

Hezbollah is impotent. Hamas is quiet. The Houthis are scared. 

Trump is calling Iran 'a loser' and demanding 'unconditional surrender'. 

Beware victory disease. 

Exit question: at what point does Epic Fury/Roaring Lion reach diminishing returns? Soon, no?

The Things.

World War 1990: Ireland has popped. It's ranked Number 17 in Amazon Alternate History as of this morning. Our strategy of not yet making Ireland available on Kindle Select is working. Two ratings, one review. We know that guy...

The rough draft of the recon force chapter in World War 1990: Thatcher's War is complete. We are mildly pleased. We go from farce to tragedy to, 'Taoiseach, a mob has gathered at the British embassy in London. What do you want me to do?' Do note that Irish protestors overran the British embassy in...1972, we think, after Bloody Sunday. 

We had a breakthrough of sorts yesterday on our nuke novel cosmonaut story. We intend to work on said story today.