Update
Stories by: gdorion
4 stories
American Jihadists
(Warning: Some mature language) Two young American friends naively travel to Syria to fight with ISIS against the Syrian Regime and quickly decide that they got into something ominous and evil. I encourage all readers to comment, vote, and share. This helps to improve the book's Wattpad rankings. For Beta readers, I would appreciate any suggestions and criticisms of the book so far, and of the plot going forward. Thanks much! Please contact me at [email protected] to become a Beta reader for this book. Author's Note: This version is a 'sneak peek' at where I am at in the novel now. This is a draft only. The novel is expected to be published as a finished book in late 2019 or early 2020. This first section of the novel establishes the relationship between Luke - the narrator - and Gustav, his best friend, who are driven to find adventure and together, their youthful quest lands them in the middle of the Syrian Civil War naively joining the ISIL 'rebels'. Escaping the clutches of the terror group proves much more difficult than joining. In future chapters, I want to explore another theme running abreast of the war, and that is the fate of many refugees who end up as slaves essentially, after their resources dry up and they have no option but to sell their labor and their souls, usually. Thus, the next scenes will be about the boys' escape by ship through the Aegean Sea and their suspicions that a Syrian woman and her young child who are aboard are being exploited for the modern slave market. Luke wants desperately to help possible victims while Gustav is reluctant to get involved because he suspects that the slavers would do anything to protect their "property". He sees the slavers as potentially more lethal than ISIS.
Jack: Book One in the Trilogy, the Battle Begins
In Book 1, Jack conspires with friend Jeremy to undermine their racist, secessionist teacher's efforts to poison his students' minds with his benefits-of-slavery lectures.Will the students buy into it? Not if Jack has any say.The book is dedicated to my brother and to my old friend, Jack, the latter who, at 19, was killed speeding in his too-fast car, alone, in 1971. We met when I was a first grader at a Groton, Massachusetts parochial school. Jack was in second grade, I was in the first grade. One day Jack began teasing on the bus ride home so we got off at his bus stop to fight. I was little - he much bigger. He pinned me to the ground, forced me to quit. That kicked off our friendship that lasted years. Jack was a pitcher on the high school baseball team. He was so fast - somewhat wild. I was afraid to bat against him. He tried out for a professional farm team but didn't make it. He worked in the local factory and had no real career designs other than in sports which were the center of his life. Not long after his failed attempt(s) at major league baseball, he smashed into a tree at high speed on a quiet road early one morning. Jack had a 'hero complex' - needing to be the center of attention. He excelled at sports but wasn't interested in academics. He bet everything on his sports abilities that wowed neighborhood friends growing up.This story also is dedicated to both Jack and my brother, Paul, a friend of Jack's. Paul passed in January, 2016. I finally started Jack's story in 2000 when I began teaching in New York City. It dawned on me one day to transport Jack as a composite character - i.e., a character who has qualities and characteristics that Jack had but who also possessed ones he didn't have - into 1860's America. In the book, Jack becomes the hero - a status that mostly evaded him in real life. I think he would have been proud of the story. Many events are entirely fictional - some are not. All characters are fictional or partially so.
Jack Book Two in the Trilogy: Murder on the High Seas
Jack: Book 2 is a rollicking high-seas adventure. Schoolmaster Jerome Whittemore - a former 'preacher' on slave ships - quits teaching after a devastating classroom humiliation at the hands of Jack and Jeremy, two fun-loving, non-conforming students. Whittemore quits teaching and returns to his former ship - the Helena - on what may be a suicide mission. Ignorant of Whittemore's plan to incite rebellion with his newfound abolitionist teachings - Jack and Jeremy sign to the same ship. Jack and his teacher had hated one another but their antagonistic relationship changes after Jack is finally triumphant in book one. Jack decides to follow him to sea while recruiting his reluctant best friend, Jeremy, who invariably is skeptical of Jack's adventure plans. Both develop a new respect for Whittemore and sign for the same sea voyage - unaware that the Helena is a 'devil slave ship'. Whittemore is appalled to see them on deck that first night after the ship is beyond the northern-flowing Gulf Stream. The self-proclaimed 'preacher of the deep' for 'the Church of the Holy Waters', Whittemore intends to incite rebellion in his first sermon since glorifying the southern white plantation slavery system on the same ship three years past. Jeremy and Jack beg him to scuttle his 'crazy' plan but to no avail.Book 2 opens with master's diatribe against the slave trade and Captain Pendleton and his enablers - the crew of the Helena.Intrigue, espionage, conspiracies, mutiny and hurricane plague the ship's voyage during its several-month cruise through the Caribbean Sea to Jamaica, Cuba and Hispaniola and elsewhere.In Jamaica, Jack and Jeremy meet two free blacks - America and Mauricia - and together they conspire to free 110 African slaves who will board the Helena in Cuba. Jack, Book 2, was published in May, 2016. Please write a brief review. See the last page where you will find instructions. Thanks. - G. L. Dorion.
Jack: Book 3 in the Trilogy
"A rollicking adventure!" The trilogy is now complete. I plan to publish Jack: Book 3, by August 1, 2017 as well as a separate volume with all three parts. Until then enjoy Books 1-3 here on Wattpad. I completed the trilogy on May 30, 2017. The cover (left) is a possible cover for Jack 3. Book 3 opens with Jack and his companions in control of the slave ship, The Helena, renamed The Midnight Raider, having tricked the pirates and slave traders that were chasing them after they stole the ship. Jack has ordered the Helena's captain - kidnapped in Cuba - imprisoned below deck. Despite his friend Jeremy's reluctance to go along with him, Jack invites the captain to help them and the 110 now-freed slaves to sail back to Senegal and Guinea in West Africa to return the ex-slaves home. Captain Pendleton agrees. But will this slave trader - whose dream is to buy the Helena to make enormous profits blockade-running when the American Civil War begins - keep his word? Jack believes he can continue to outsmart the captain. He also believes the captain wants to do the 'right thing'. It's a combination of trust and mistrust but Pendleton may be the only person aboard who has the longtime experience crucial to crossing the middle Atlantic Ocean to Africa. Jack and Jeremy have another problem: Two young Jamaican women are aboard ship and are scheming to make sure that they stay together with Jack and Jeremy who plan on leaving them back at their homes after returning from the African mainland.