Blog Tour: Jungleland by MT Bass

Title: Jungleland
Author: M.T. Bass
Series: White Hawk Aviation #2

Pages: 221

Date Published: October 22nd, 2020

Publisher: Electronic Alley Publishing

Format: Kindle

Genre: Adventure

Source: Goddess Fish Blog Tours
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Synopsis:

“There are only two types of aircraft:  fighters and targets.”

~Doyle ‘Wahoo’ Nicholson, USMC

Sweating it out in the former Belgian Congo as a civil war mercenary, with Sparks turning wrenches on his T-6 Texan, Hawk splits his time flying combat missions and, back on the ground, sparring with Ella, an attractive young missionary doctor, in the sequel to My Brother’s Keeper.

~What's In A Name?~

How did you name your characters, and how do their names help define their personalities?

Naming characters is one of the most fun things you get to do as an author.

Of course, you spend a lot of time trying to figure out monikers that really fit their
personalities. It’s a bit harder with main characters because you have to carve out some
originality there, too. It took me a while to come up with the Griffith Crowe name in Article 15 .
Not only was he a former Navy SEAL, so his name needed to convey strength and authority,
he was also of Native American heritage. Being of Scottish ancestry, I named the main
character in My Brother’s Keeper , Angus Gavin Byrd. He pretty much ignores his given name
and goes by Gavin. But really everybody calls him “Hawk” from his World War II flying days.
In fact, I don’t think I even mentioned his name in Jungleland.

I used the biblical name of Rebecca for the young high school heroine in Lodging. It means
“to tie firmly” and also "soil, earth,” which definitely fits well with the meaning of lodging: “the
bending of the stalk of a plant (stalk lodging) or the entire plant (root lodging),” and reflects
her sometimes uncomfortable ties to her hometown of Liberal, Kansas. Also, she becomes
romantically involved with a young pilot named David.
.
In the Murder by Munchausen series, I specifically used only first names for all of the main
characters. Given the impersonality of telling a high-tech story about robots being hacked into
becoming hitmen, I wanted the reader to feel very comfortable with Jake, Maddie, EC, and Q.

The most fun I’ve had naming characters was my satire In the Black . First of all, it has more
characters than a Russian novel. Then it was loosely based on Homer’s epic, The Odyssey.
So, to start with, it was no coincidence that the father’s true love was Helen Troyer—whose
beauty might well have “launched a 1000 ships.” And of course, her brother’s name was
Hector. Orley Bovine was a “Mountain William” (i.e., “hillbilly”) from the Ozarks, who was a
world-class spitter and moonshine marketing genius. Melvin Vapors was a mysterious
Harvard law school graduate who appears at the end of the book to work his legal magic.
Vasili Ivanovich Dzhugashili, being a second cousin of Joseph Stalin, escaped his purges in
the Soviet Union and came to the United States after World War II to invent a black box to
help land Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 Lunar Excursion Module get to the moon and land there.
Travis Marbling was an assistant to the CEO of the Cassidy Meat Packing plant. Leon Debs
was a former middleweight boxer (0-32-1) who sought to unionize the workers at Erp
Industries, Inc.

And every once in a while, you get a chance to shine out a nice spotlight. One of my favorite
TV shows is Justified and I got a chance to honor a great and favorite author by naming the
Kentucky lawyer in Article 15 , E.J. Leonard—aka Elmore Leonard—who created the
character Marshal Raylan Givens.

~Try an Excerpt!~

I slid back the canopy. The woman wriggled out from around the mechanic’s blocking move and headed towards me.

Sparks shrugged his shoulders at my hand motion query. He folded his arms over his chest to watch the show.

The woman didn’t even walk around the wing but stooped to cut underneath to take a more direct line towards me. She disappeared under the leading edge and appeared at the aileron, then followed the trailing edge back to the fuselage, looking for the handhold to get herself up on the wing.

 I turned in the cockpit and watched her step up onto the wing and climb the incline up to me. I started to slide myself up to get out, getting my butt up on the back of the seat, but she got to me and blocked my way out. 

“Just who do you think you are, mister?” she barked with the authoritative voice of a medical professional at the very top of the heap. I had heard that tone in my brother’s voice more than a few times.

I just pulled off my helmet but left my mirrored Ray-Bans on. From safely behind the lenses, I carefully surveyed her gorgeously animated face—even in anger, her lips wrinkled in a bit of a smile as if this was half-show, half-genuine indignation. Her red hair was neatly pulled back in a ponytail, showing a freckled, fair complexion that had not yet been weathered and tanned by the sun, so she was new in country. Most of us outsiders knew each other well, but I didn’t recognize who this was. I had heard about a new doctor at the mission, though never imagined it might have been female.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” I asked.

“What?”

“I mean originally—not born and raised.”

She scowled and punched my arm with her fist…hard.

“Ow!” I guessed she had at least one brother.

“Was that you—of course it was. Who else would it have been.”

I unscrewed the plugs from my ears, and the volume level on her voice got louder. Over her shoulder, I saw Sparks shake his head and smile.

“Listen, mister—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa there,” I finally interrupted, holding up my hand, palm out like a cop stopping traffic. 

She stopped talking and stared hard at me. She punched my arm again…

~Meet M.T. Bass!~ 

M.T. Bass is a scribbler of fiction who holds fast to the notion that while victors may get to write history, novelists get to write/right reality. He lives, writes, flies and makes music in Mudcat Falls, USA.

Born in Athens, Ohio, M.T. Bass grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University, majoring in English and Philosophy, then worked in the private sector (where they expect “results”) mainly in the Aerospace & Defense manufacturing market. During those years, Bass continued to write fiction. He is the author of eight novels: My Brother’s Keeper, Crossroads, In the Black, Somethin’ for Nothin’, Murder by Munchausen, The Darknet (Murder by Munchausen Mystery #2), The Invisible Mind (Murder by Munchausen Mystery #3) and Article 15. His writing spans various genres, including Mystery, Adventure, Romance, Black Comedy and TechnoThrillers. A Commercial Pilot and Certified Flight Instructor, airplanes and pilots are featured in many of his stories. Bass currently lives on the shores of Lake Erie near Lorain, Ohio.
 M.T. will be awarding a Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.a Rafflecopter giveaway