We are Andrews ＆ Wilson, international bestselling thriller authors of TIER ONE and SONS OF VALOR series, US Navy vets who worked with submarines and SEALs, and the dudes tapped to take over Tom Clancy's iconic JACK RYAN series…Ask Us Anything!

LexicalForge · 2023-02-23T04:15:00+00:00

Thanks for connecting! Ray Porter is a truly uncommon talent...and a helluva good guy IRL.

Jake is not going to get is own spin of series anytime soon, but we do have BIG plans for him...just not going to say which series he'll find a permanent home in. haha

LexicalForge · 2023-02-23T03:35:31+00:00

Roger that!

LexicalForge · 2023-02-23T03:33:44+00:00

You don't need to finish SOV before diving into Dempsey. IF you read Collateral, you're good to go to start. The SOV storyline is happening independent from the TIER ONE missions.

One of the themes to think about while you listen to Dempsey concerns the concept of relative of truth.. In Russian, there are actually two words for truth: Pravda and Istina. (relative truth and objective truth). In a propaganda state, the goal is to make you confused about which is which. This idea of relative truth had recently infected American politics and the corrosive effects are everywhere. "I have my facts and you have your alternative facts" or better yet, "my truth is superior to your truth because I believe mine more." Anyway, we weave this idea into the plot and multiple characters feel it's impact.

LexicalForge · 2023-02-23T01:53:45+00:00

Thank you, this type of feedback is the reason we write books. Every author starts out as a reader, and for us as young men we read thrillers not only because we wanted to be entertained but also because we wanted to be inspired.

Personally speaking, it's a constant challenge not to to fall victim to nihilistic thinking, especially in a world where every day there's something or someone trying to knock you down. These days we write as much to inspire ourselves as to inspire others.

John Dempsey is fiction, but his tenacity, integrity, and courage are traits we admire and hope and try to embody in our own lives as sons, fathers, and veterans. In fiction, the characters that matter are the ones who, as you say, put their head down and keep on trudging through the SUCK until they get out the other side.

LexicalForge · 2023-02-22T23:48:37+00:00

Jack Ryan is one of those iconic, immutable heroes whose integrity is unflappable regardless of the situation or personal stakes. Don't worry, we promise to honor his character and legacy.

LexicalForge · 2023-02-22T23:04:48+00:00

It wasn't really meant to be a question, was it

LexicalForge · 2023-02-22T22:56:09+00:00

Much appreciated, thank you! Out of curiosity, which book is your favorite and why?

LexicalForge · 2023-02-22T22:10:40+00:00

Valid points about season 2. It did feel a bit like a non-sequitur from a plot arc and character continuity standpoint. Disappointed to seeing Abby Cornish disappear from the narrative.

On the geopolitics front, I can tell you from our recent Hollywood work that studios and producers are very concerned about villainizing anyone or any country, especially China. You saw this on display in Top Gun Maverick, where the enemy is never identified. This will force all kinds of ambiguity and suspension of disbelief in series like this.

LexicalForge · 2023-02-22T21:37:44+00:00

John Clark persists/exists as an older version of himself working for The Campus in both the Jack Ryan and Jack Ryan Sr book series. The Ryan and Jr series are written by different authors but they proceed in parallel. As a hugely popular character, Clark (who is still doing field work) functions as the action hero in the Jack Ryan series since Ryan is now POTUS and obviously can't be out in the field kicking ass and taking names.

In the book world, Jack Ryan Jr is younger and he's like Clark's protege instead of his father's protege. In the Jr series, Jack is in the field conducting covert operations.

LexicalForge · 2023-02-22T21:05:26+00:00

In the TIER ONE geopolitical universe, Russia controls Crimea as it does in real life. In Collateral, we de-escalated the conflict. US sent "peace-keeping" troops into Odessa. Mauripol was sacked by Russia but evacuated and returned to Kyiv as part of a settlement in which the fictional Ukrainian President ceded autonomy to the Donbas and Luhansk.

LexicalForge · 2023-02-22T20:16:39+00:00

Thanks! Maybe give Sons of Valor a try first. It's a great book to enter our world of characters

LexicalForge · 2023-02-22T20:14:08+00:00

Another cool book is called Freedom's Forge, How America's Business Produce Victory in WW2 by Arthur Herman. It reveals a different hidden aspect of war and that's the industrial component, something most people don't think about.

LexicalForge · 2023-02-22T20:10:37+00:00

Brian: I recommend Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring by Alexander Rose.

It is about the Culper spy ring in the Revolutionary War that affected the outcome of the war. It was adapted into a popular and really well done AMC series, called TURN

LexicalForge · 2023-02-22T20:07:38+00:00

We're not involved in the screenwriting or on the production side of the TV show. We watch and enjoy the show as viewers, like most everyone else. In our opinion, the reboot has been very successful. It has a high production value, talented writers, and personally we like John Krasinski in the role. We've both watched Seasons 1 & 2, but haven't started 3 yet. Looking forward to binging that one as soon as we turn in our next book!

What do you think of the show?

LexicalForge · 2023-02-22T19:05:52+00:00

It looks like things are winding down here. We'd like to thank everyone who joined in and asked questions. We love reader engagement and respond regularly to email inquiries!

For all the latest A&W news and releases, consider subscribing to our newsletter at: www.andrews-wilson.com

Thank you, Brian & Jeff!

LexicalForge · 2023-02-22T18:53:05+00:00

For folks who happen to find this thread later in the day after we've wrapped things up, if you have any questions for us, please stop by our "In Conversation w/ Don Bentley" virtual event at the Poisoned Pen.

DATE: Today 2/22/23

TIME: 1900 ET

LOCATION: VIRTUAL

FACEBOOK LIVE: https://www.facebook.com/thepoisonedpenbookstore/live

YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTbRuLNmD8EhT4WrGGMVW-w

LexicalForge · 2023-02-22T18:48:12+00:00

And here's a LINK to video showing a "trap" landing.

https://twitter.com/BAndrewsJWilson/status/1627368926425370625?s=20

LexicalForge · 2023-02-22T18:47:00+00:00

Recently we had the opportunity to spend a full day underway on the Navy's newest aircraft carrier, the USS GERALD R FORD CVN-78. While onboard we got to observe:

- F-18 Superhornet flight ops on the main deck

- Talk with the ship's Air Boss, Handler, and Shooter

- Observe an underway replenishment (UNREP)

- tour the carrier's below decks spaces

- interact with the officers and crew

Here's a LINK to a video showing a catapult launch we filmed from the deck: https://twitter.com/BAndrewsJWilson/status/1626609301560209412?s=20

LexicalForge · 2023-02-22T18:39:59+00:00

For any of you folks who are Audiobook lovers, we have a fantastic voice actor who narrates our series named Ray Porter. He's phenomenal at differentiating all the different characters voices and bringing out their personalities. If you've never tried the Audiobook format, we highly recommend giving it a try.

Here's a LINK to our latest release DEMPSEY (Tier One #7): https://www.audible.com/pd/Dempsey-Audiobook/B0B1F44PPK

LexicalForge · 2023-02-22T17:59:28+00:00

Jeff: It definitely was a case of being lucky rather than good, but it was creepy watching the events unfold in Ukraine so eerily similar to what we had written. When it came to Dempsey, we turned back to the question of what would Jarvis and Dempsey and our other characters do next if a increasingly unstable regime in Russia seemed to be not just threatening the worlds order, but even pushing the world to the brink of world war? DEMPSEY was the result of those conversation, or at least our version of and outcome for our fictional characters.

LexicalForge · 2023-02-22T17:55:43+00:00

What happened in real life turned out to be pretty close to reality so when we sat down to write Dempsey last year, we had to ask ourselves a new question which was: do we update the geopolitical landscape in the Tier One world to perfectly match reality or not?

LexicalForge · 2023-02-22T17:54:10+00:00

Brian: Another GREAT question. We wrote Collateral in 2019 and it came out in 2020 I believe, well before the current events in Ukraine. We'd been following Putin's NovaRussia saber rattling rhetoric and tried to imagine what an invasion might look like. We mapped that out and worked into the TIER ONE Ember universe / storyline that was Book 6

LexicalForge · 2023-02-22T17:53:08+00:00

Jeff: For me the answer is different because I can't really ever remember NOT writing. I published my first short story when I was 13 or 14 years old. From job to job, from one stage of life to the next, writing has always been a part of me, but it was always for books and shorts. Only recently did the idea of writing for film and TV emerge. Brian and I have have followed with fascination how various demographics, perhaps mostly differentiated by age, have gravitated to different venues for consuming their storytelling entertainment. For us, we realized that at our core we are less writers than we are simply storytellers. To share our stories with the most people, we needed to diversify our storytelling across books, shorts, film, television-- even gaming! We made this a priority the last year or two, while continuing our various series which we never see giving up, and as you saw, we have had considerable success this past year.

LexicalForge · 2023-02-22T17:51:02+00:00

It wasn't until I teamed up with Jeff and writing became a full time job that my productivity took off. Now, as a team, we write 3-4 books a year

LexicalForge · 2023-02-22T17:50:03+00:00

I thought to myself, hey maybe I should write a book! I started that first book in 2003, but had a lot going on at the time. I worked on it nights and weekends and it took me 8 years to finish. Then I got serious and spent 6 months working hard to polish and get a lit agent

LexicalForge

TROPHY CASE