When he set out on his road to rebellion, Michael Ford only wanted to keep the foxes out of Hannon's Glen. But before he was done, he found himself exchanging rifle fire with the British army, with an unlikely ally in the form of Annabel Love, the squire's daughter. Michael's War tracks the course of revolution and civil war that rended Ireland from 1916 to 1923.It ends with its hero escaping to America--but what sweetheart will he ask to join him in the new world? Mic...

In December 1941, the Japanese Imperial Army came ashore on the British colony of Malaya. In support of that invasion, its air arm soon began to raid neighboring Burma and especially its seaport and capital city of Rangoon, protected by a weak squadron of Royal Air Force Brewster Buffaloes and an untested squadron of P-40s flown by the American Volunteer Group of mercenary pilots in the employ of China. The battle of Rangoon would soon make them famous as the "Flying Tigers." Beginning in ...

"A richly colorful novel," said the New York Times, but in the author's home town, the bookstore manager kept it under the counter and sold it only to those who dared ask for it. Woodstock was still four years in the future, and American students were more concerned about nuclear weapons than a war in Vietnam. But already there was something blowing in the wind, as the young Daniel Ford was among the first to document in his debut novel. "It is impossible ...

The Paladin rallies the Mother's surviving followers to battle against a vengeful deity in this dramatic conclusion to the epic fantasy adventure trilogy."Ford brings the Paladin trilogy to a triumphant conclusion, wrapping up a memorable tale of duplicitous diplomacy, dangerous magic, and stealthy intrigue. . . . Ford's saga of warring faiths draws the reader into a vivid world brimming with fascinating characters: some good, some bad, and some just determ...

Annie Crowley was one of eleven children born in the farmhouse at Kilnahone, outside the village of Ballygarvan in the County Cork. Their father died a few weeks after the youngest was born, and the eldest emigrated to Australia not long after. Annie was six at the time, and a pupil at Ballygarvan National School, where the English language and English history were drilled into Irish children.Then came the First World War, and the oldest girl went off to become a nurse in England. A...

A jaded knight is chosen to be a champion for peace in this epic fantasy adventure trilogy opener from the author of The Warden and the Jack Dixon series."Ford's debut offers compelling characters and sharp dialogue. . . . Allystaire is a believable hero with an interesting past, and a future that promises plenty of action and adventure." — Publishers WeeklyIn a land wit...

This story began as a study of lofting or tossing nuclear weapons, known as"LABs," for Low Altitude Bombing system. I became fascinated with the notion of using the prop-driven Skyraider for this purpose, and the story evolved into an account of what it would have been like to drive this 1940s aircraft to Sevastopol on the first day of the Third World War. "Crazy days," as one pilot called the notion. The article was published in Foundation magazine of the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacol...

"What God abandoned, these defended / And saved the sum of things for pay." In the bleak winter of 1941-1942, no American or British force could stem the tide in Southeast Asia, as the Philippines, Thailand, Malaya, and Singapore fell to the victorious Japanese. Only in Burma was there a ray of hope. There, over beleaguered Rangoon, a few dozen Americans clawed Japanese warplanes from the sky for a cash bounty from the Chinese government. Wearing mismatched unifor...

In this short monograph, Daniel Ford combines a survey of the literature with the memories of his father, one of the Irish Republican Army volunteers who battled British forces during and after the First World War. Though the rebellion was settled by the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, IRA diehards fought the new Irish government for two bloody years.Ford concludes that the rebellion and civil war was in many ways the first modern insurgency, prefiguring some of the same tactics used b...

When young Eddie Gillespie discovers a World War II airplane in the jungle, with a grinning skeleton at the controls, he sets a story in motion. Two American fighter pilots in the Chinese Air Force, with their English and Burmese girlfriends, and a Japanese suicide pilot whose name happens to mean "tree of the sun"--they clash at Rangoon, while the British empire falls about their ears. Here is a story of the Flying Tigers, immortalized by their exploits in Southeast Asia in the opening mo...

John Boyd was arguably the greatest American military theorist since the sea power strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan at the turn of the 20th Century. Best known for his formulation of the OODA Loop as a model for competitive decision making, Colonel Boyd was also an original thinker in developing tactics for air-to-air combat, designing warplanes, and the fluid, mobile warfare known to the Germans as blitzkrieg and to modern armies as "maneuver warfare." As much as anyone, John Boyd was the a...

"12-week guide: Swimming" offers an achievable step-by-step guide to help get an unfit person to a definable goal - a 400 metre swim in 12 weeks. The book outlines how to get started, what's needed and how to make that first step. Then using the week-by-week guide the reader works towards the target goal in very gradual steps with a weekly programme plus basic tips on nutrition, motivation, stretching and so on. The emphasis is on a very gradual approach towards achieving the goal so that ...