Rick Brindle

  Coming soon, Charlie Scudsen, An American President, a light hearted story about what might happen if the wrong person ever landed the top job. I'm doing a final read-thorough, following excellent editorial advice from @thewrite_advice and am aiming to publish in July 2026. All artwork credits go to Candescent Press. It’s November 2022, and the American people have chosen their next president. For over two centuries, that immovable four-yearly tradition has held. And because of it, American democracy is lauded around the world as a dependable, balanced and controlled institution.  And with the innate politeness that characterised American politics, even when one side disagreed with the other, everything was done in a civilised way. There was always a peaceful transfer of power, and once the election was done, the whole nation got behind their president. The whole world knew it, and the whole world admired it. Until Charlie Scudsen won The White House, and then everything ch...

  There'd be a  bloody sight less wars, and that would make everyone better off. I mean, yes, Thatcher was a bit of a warlord and loved the old gung ho thing, but in fairness (and I actually couldn’t stand her), she didn’t start the Falklands War, or initiate the Iranian Embassy siege, or plant the bomb in the Grand Hotel. But let’s face it, women have a less testosterone to contend with, no inferiority complexes, don’t have to think with their b*lls, they’re less confrontational, they’re better communicators, they’ve got more empathy, are arguably a lot less selfish and definitely safer drivers. You may accuse me of generalising there, but I’ll take that any day of the week over the blokes. Sister Alex   Cold Steel on the Rocks   We Are Cold Steel   Cold Steel and the Underground Boneyard   It's Not For Everyone

  Sister Alex , my post-apocalyptic novel about a trans-woman surviving the Berkshire wilderness, is free to download from Amazon for a limited time. Berkshire, England, and it’s no longer the promised land. Ever since a species-wide illness wiped out nearly every human being, the home counties have become a gender-based battlefield. The women stick together as a single, cohesive community, but only as long as you’re a woman. And it’s the same for the men, although they haven’t quite got the same group thing going, choosing instead to range as lone threats, taking what they want. Sometimes they team up and run in pairs, but only as long as you’re a man. They’re separate tribes, and they hate each other on sight. Pick your gender, pick your side. And then there’s Alex, born as a man, identifies as a woman, and thanks to a stash of scavenged hormones, she’s stuck somewhere between the two, lost in the middle and hated by them all. But she’s survived, and if what’s left of the world w...

  Potentially. Rhodesia’s military was hampered by a serious lack of resource and manpower. They were the camouflaged epitome of make do and mend, and Fireforce was a direct manifestation of the need to use what they had to create an absolutely badass solution to the tactical realities facing them. After Portugal pulled out of Mozambique in 1974, and with the exception of the short border with South Africa, Rhodesia was literally surrounded on all sides by hostile countries, with insurgents crossing the border almost at will. Outside of any natural obstacles, there simply wasn’t the manpower or money to create an impenetrable barrier. The closest modern parallel would be Israel and maybe, but not quite the same, Ukraine. Insurgent attacks and ambushes could happen across a very wide area, and Fireforce was designed to meet that threat. It was essentially an airborne rapid response unit, tailored to be delivered with the air assets available to Rhodesia, and honed to an exact degree...

Okay, so I’m going to include all of the singers who recorded and released songs with Black Sabbath. Dave Donato, Dave Walker, Ron Keel, Ray Gillen and Rob Halford…well, they’re all excluded, if for no other reason than I never heard what they sounded like as Black Sabbath singers. The first thing I’d like to say before trying to put them into some kind of weird, and actually pretty meaningless scale, is that I’m a huge Black Sabbath fan, and I love all of their line-ups. In number five, it’s Ian Gillan. I loved the Born Again Album, but it was the only one Ian Gillan ever made with Sabbath, and I think that was always his plan, but not necessarily the band’s plan, or at least not Tony Iommi’s plan. Let’s face it, by this point, and probably even earlier, Tony was definitely the boss. Gillan still had the scream, but it was a lot more grainy than it was with Deep Purple ten years earlier. I’d have liked a few more albums from the Gillan era, but I guess you can’t have everything. The f...

  It's Not For Everyone , my very own story of what life was really like in the RAF Regiment, is free to download from Amazon for a limited time. Get your free copy now What do you do when your dream job turns into a nightmare? Rick Brindle was a third generation military child. His father and grandfather served their whole lives in the Army, and all he wanted to do was be a soldier. In 1989 he joined the RAF Regiment. But life in the Regiment was a world away from what he thought it would be, and it quickly became toxic. Facing a culture of bullying, beatings, verbal abuse and sexual harassment, the community he wanted to be a part of became more like a prison. Most people around him went along with the abuse. Some agreed with it, some joined in, while the chain of command routinely looked the other way. Set over thirty years ago, this is a story of surviving abuse that still resonates today. It’s Not For Everyone is essential reading for anyone considering a military career. Some...

  The apocalypse would be a big equaliser. I think that while they’re in their bunkers, and provided they did their jobs and kept them alive through whatever apocalypse happened, they’ll be fine. You’ve got to hope that the bunker builders didn’t rip them off and cut any corners. but that aside, the bunker itself will offer whatever degree of survivability to luxury it’s been built for. Once they step outside? Well, they’ve still got a bolt hole to base from, but life on the outside might be tricky. There’s only so much tinned food etc that can be stored underground, it’ll be a case of surviving, like everyone else. It’ll probably be a good thing to make friends. To begin with, it might not be a good idea to advertise the bunker either, because it’ll likely be valuable for others, maybe bad people, who might want to live there. So if it was me, I’d make friends with as many survivors as possible, then go socialist and share ownership with everyone. After all, sharing is caring, and...