The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Matter of Facts: Franklin Horton, the Purveyor of Nightmare Fuel

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

http://www.mofpodcast.com/www.pbnfamily.comhttps://www.facebook.com/matteroffactspodcast/https://www.facebook.com/groups/mofpodcastgroup/https://rumble.com/user/Mofpodcastwww.youtube.com/user/philrabhttps://www.instagram.com/mofpodcasthttps://twitter.com/themofpodcastSupport the showMerch at: https://southerngalscrafts.myshopify.com/Shop at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ora9riPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/mofpodcastPurchase American Insurgent by Phil Rabalais: https://amzn.to/2FvSLMLShop at MantisX: http://www.mantisx.com/ref?id=173*The views and opinions of guests do not reflect the opinions of Phil Rabalais, Andrew Bobo, or the Matter of Facts Podcast*The MoF boys invite Franklin Horton, purveyor of nightmare fuel and post-apocalyptic author, back to the mic. After The Borrowed World, Locker Nine, and The Mad Mick, what else does Franklin have in store to keep us up at night, and what can the preparedness community take away from this incredible collection of fiction novels?https://franklinhorton.com/Matter of Facts is now live-streaming our podcast on YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Rumble. See the links above, join in the live chat, and see the faces behind the voices. Intro and Outro Music by Phil Rabalais All rights reserved, no commercial or non-commercial use without permission of creator prepper, prep, preparedness, prepared, emergency, survival, survive, self defense, 2nd amendment, 2a, gun rights, constitution, individual rights, train like you fight, firearms training, medical training, matter of facts podcast, mof podcast, reloading, handloading, ammo, ammunition, bullets, magazines, ar-15, ak-47, cz 75, cz, cz scorpion, bugout, bugout bag, get home bag, military, tactical 

Welcome back to the MatterFacts Podcast on the Prepper Broadcasting Network. We talk prepping guns and politics every week on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify. Go check out our content at mwfpodcast.com on Facebook or Instagram. You can support us via Patreon or by checking out our affiliate partners. I'm your host, Phil Rabelais, and my co-host Andrew Bobo is on the other side of the mic, and here's your show. And welcome back to the MatterFacts Podcast. Phil and Andrew are back behind the mic. Franklin Horton's in the house to talk with us, and Franklin, I have a

new title for you. I see that. Up till now, I've always referred to you kind of, you know, in a joking way, not really joking, as like the godfather of post-apocalyptic fiction, and now you are my personal purveyor of nightmare fuel.

I'll take that title. I love it. Well, and just like for background to the, I guess to the people who are listening that haven't been a fan of the show for a couple years, because it's been a while since we've had you on, but like, I don't want to give away the premise of your books, because like... Hey, let's do what's new. Fine. Andrew will keep me on track tonight, so I don't run around like a squirrel on meth well well i mean frankly i mean it's been it's been quite a few years i think i'm trying to remember the last time we had you on three years

but uh has it been three years yeah it feels like that maybe four um but uh i mean but so like i guess just catch us up i mean what, what's, what's new. Like, I mean, last time we talked, you had just quit your full-time job and you were actually writing, you started writing full. He had just, I think he had just released the first in the Mad Mix series. If that helps us put a timeline to this, maybe it was the second book he just put out, but Mad Mix was fairly, fairly new. Yeah.

I just remember you, uh, I just remember you just, I just remember you just quit your job. Basically, writing has been full-time for you now. And you were just pumping out. You started just really wanting to pump out the old books there. So yeah, catch us up. What's been new with you? How's everything been going? How's life?

Things have been going well. You know, it's interesting to think about the Mad Mick series being new then, because Mad Mick has really taken off. I mean, he As a matter of fact, if you go to Audible right now to the military thriller category of the top 30 books, eight of them are Mad Mick. Oh, really? Yeah, he is just doing really well in military thrillers. I think it's a combination of Kevin Pierce's reading and the pace of that story. People just love it. I love the accent Kevin Pierce does for the Mad Men.

Like, I mean, he does. I'm a huge fan. I mean, and I've told you this before. I'm a huge fan of Kevin Pierce. And so, and I'm trying to remember. I can't think of off the top of my head right now. A. American. I just finished his whole line of books just now when I jumped over. Now I'm listening to remember. I can't think of off the top of my head right now. A. American. I just finished his whole line of books just now

when I jumped over. Now I'm listening to your new book. And we'll get into that in a second. The guy who narrates for A. American. Duke Pond Zane. Yeah, yeah. Duke. It's funny because I listen to so many. I mean, I listen to A. American eight books or nine books in the home series.

And I listen to all of those all back to back and got, you know, basically caught up to where he's at. And then like, I'm like, okay, I got yours next in the pipeline.

And I jump over and it's funny. Cause I'm so used to do that. I jumped over to Kevin and I'm like, I was experienced. I was expecting Duke Fontaine. Cause I so used to hearing it. And then all of a sudden Kevin voice, I go,

Oh yeah. I said that this guy said, I remember this guy and just, but yeah, the way he does the accents with Barb, I really like the way he does

the different accents between Mad Mac and Barb. He does such a great job. So I'm glad he's doing that job because he's great. He has really learned those characters. Cause at this point I've got 11 borrowed world books. I've got 10 Mad Mc books and he's done several other projects,

Locker Nine, The Way of Dan. So at this point he's done a lot of books for me and he's kind of, I think he has an ear to the way I write books he kind of understands what parts I intend to be funny and uh so you know I just think he understands my writing and it's made for a good partnership but you know you were asking earlier about you know what I've been doing since then but uh cranking out Mad Mick. When I was working, I was lucky to do two to three books a year, but since I've mostly been doing this, I've done anywhere from five to six books a year, and most of the books are fairly long. In the thriller genre, you know, a lot of

people are writing 60,000 to 70,000 word books word books but you know Mad Mic books and Borrowed World books tend to be up there in the hundred 110 to 140 thousand word links so these are chunky books so you know right now I just write six days a week I try to write from about six in the morning up until about one in the afternoon. And then the rest of the day is business. It's answering emails, answering messages, marketing, all that stuff. So even though I don't have a day job anymore, this has become more of a business. That is a day job. That's two day jobs.

More of a business than it ever was. Yeah. But at least now it's only one instead of having to do the other job too. That is true. So I guess, I mean, and I know we've talked about, I think I remember talking about this when we last had you on three or four years ago. So when you're writing this, when you're writing, especially being full time and you've got multiple books, it seems like you're really cranking them out. you got multiple books it seems like you're you're really cranking them out um where like are you often do you have an idea of like where you want the book the whole like that book to go um and then do you finally just like okay i need to end it here uh or do you kind of do you have stuff okay you know what that's gonna go in book this book it's gonna go in the next in the next

uh chapter or you know in the next uh series or whatever like you know i mean i guess i'm trying to you know where it's like does he write from a to b and then chop it up or does he just go to the end of this book and then figure out the next book when he gets there yeah you know everybody has a different way for doing that and i am not a big outliner i'm i'm one of these people that the story kind of unveils itself sometimes i'll sit down down and I'll say, you know, I'm going to do a really thorough outline this time. You know, I'm going to impress myself with how detailed I'm going to be. And it never sticks to the outline because what will happen sometimes is this one aspect of the story will kind of rise to become way more important than I saw it in the outline. will kind of rise to become way more important than I saw it in the outline.

Or this one character that I just saw as kind of being a bit character will rise up to become somebody, you know, way more important than I imagined them being. So what I do is I have an idea of where the story will start and then kind of a rough idea of what I want to do. And I just start writing and the story unveils itself as it goes. Uh, and then what happens is when I get to about 80% of the story being done, I go back to the beginning and I write through a second time and I write the ending then, because I want, you know, it may take me two months to write that first 80%,

but then when I write it through to the end, I want it to be just like, you know, I want it all fresh in my mind. I want it all lined out and as close to perfect and finished as I can get it. more true to the beginning of the story because I go back that second time and I just write it all in kind of one big blazing dumpster fire. Yeah, it's just interesting. It would be fun to

sit and watch you write just to see how you do it, how the process is in your mind. In my head, I don't know. Cause there's sometimes Robbie listening to any of the books really. And all of a sudden something will happen. I'm like, I did not see that coming. And I, it's like, I almost wonder if like you're sitting there and all of a sudden you just

like you're writing, you're writing, you're writing. All of a sudden you just write this line and it's almost like, it's as if you know, like you didn't write it, but somebody else did. And you you're like that's not where i want to take this but i guess let's go let's see where it goes not all of my books are like this but the mad mick it's almost like he's standing back here behind my shoulder you know and i'm just typing out what he's telling me because i hear his voice in my head and uh you know he he a lot of times is kind of pushing the story out. You know, he's telling me what parts are funny and he's propelling the action. So I think that makes it move better when I let him tell the story and I don't get in the way of it. But, you know,

one thing that really slows them down and makes them take a lot longer is the research, because in the borrowed world, I don't really have a lot to look up. But in the Mad Meg, you know, I'm always downloading these government manuals and military manuals and helicopter manuals and weapons manuals, all this stuff to make sure that, you know, I know what he's doing and that he's doing it correctly. you know, I know what he's doing and that he's doing it correctly. Well, and the other thing is, is like I know from having read a number of your books, like you have a tendency,

intentional or otherwise, to create characters that are very, very vibrant. I think it's a nice neutral way to put it. Like they have a very definite personality and within a couple hundred pages, the reader or the listener has this really firm idea of who they're dealing with to the point where, like, I guess my point of view is, like, if I reading the pages can kind of anticipate what these characters might do based on what I know of them, then I have to imagine that you as the author are kind of injecting that into the story. I guess what I'm saying is it's almost as if you've thought of the character and now you're just asking yourself, what would Connor do? Well, it's like especially with my bad guys, I don't like it when the bad guy walks in in this one chapter and becomes the bad guy the very first time you meet him.

I want you to meet every character a chapter or two before they become important. I want you to know what their life is like outside of being the bad guy. I want you to know what their home life is like. I want you to know what they're doing during the day. And then they reveal themselves as being the bad guy because it makes them richer because every bad guy is a good guy to somebody. And every good guy is a bad guy to somebody. Totally not going to give it away, but I can't remember if it was the first or the second Locker Nine book. Your quote-unquote bad guy from that starts off from such humble, slacker, douche canoe background. Every human being listening to this podcast or reading your books knows somebody from their childhood that fits that mold. That was like the weird kid that got picked on that nobody took seriously.

The weird kid that got picked on that nobody took seriously, and you could totally interject that person into that position and be like, that's who this person would turn into if the world fell apart. I really try to use that. It's creepy. I have not just my own school yearbooks, but I buy yearbooks at like thrift stores so I have this selection of yearbooks I can pull out and kind of flip through for names and pictures oh that's a good idea it kind of helps me build a character because I can look at this guy you know his picture in the yearbook in 19 who is heaven and I can feel a story just from that one picture you know so I like to have that image in my head that's cool

actually yeah that's actually a good I? So I like to have that image in my head. That's cool. Actually, yeah, that's actually a good, because I know like I've always tried to try to write here and there and I don't have the gift for it as you or Phil, eventually when he gets off his butt and does book two. Probably some slack, man.

My career is killing me. Eh, no slack. But, you know, like you, Franklin, you and like A American and stuff, just like the gift that you guys have for, Franklin, you and, like, A-American and stuff, just, like, the gift that you guys have for doing it. And that's the biggest thing is I remember I sat down one day. I was like, okay, I need some character names. And I'm, like, going through family, friends.

And, like, I'm going through, I'm like, all right, well, that exhausts that. Like, so it's just like, okay, well, then who do I want to kill off? It's very easy to reuse names if you're not careful, because I have some names that I've accidentally used twice. And so, you know, readers point that out to me and I don't even notice it because when I'm done with a book, it's kind of like I purge the memory, you know, it's like, you know, a magnetic tape and I run a magnet over it and I just start over, you know. So I don't even remember the last books real clearly, the details, because I can't keep all that in my head.

Yeah, it would be interesting for you to like assemble a list of all of the goof ups or the faux pas that people have caught over the years and almost make it like an Easter egg hunt for your, for your listeners. Cause like, I remember you and I've talked about a couple that they called you out on where it was like, it was a logical inconsistency between two scenes where it was like, this was this way. And then this was this way. And you were very specific, you know, like you,

you missed a step. Oh, one of the big ones was, uh, the boots that a guy was wearing one time. And it's like, only one guy has ever noticed that, but for

him it was a big i missed it like when you pointed out to me that it was the boots he was wearing at the end of the first book those were the ones that stuck in my head i assume that's why he was wearing the whole time yeah it wasn't until you pointed out i was like oh my god i went back and reread the book and lo and behold there it was yeah what's funny is i started that book with the boots that i've been wearing recently and then i bought a new pair of solomon boots and liked them a lot better so he finished the book in those boots yeah and and the boot guy who read the books is like hey i'm a shoe guy i know this i know this in the apocalypse in the apocalypse i'm probably gonna have two couple pairs of boots so i mean that's probably why

the solomon stuck with me because like of all the. That's probably why the Solomons stuck with me, because of all the hiking boots I've ever worn, Solomons were the ones that fit my feet the best. When I read Solomons, it stuck in my head, and I totally breezed over Merrells. What's funny is,

I recommended your books and A American, so I recommended, I recommended your books and a American, uh, the home series to, uh, to a friend of mine, cause he was asking about preparedness and, you know, what's a good way. I don't really know where to start. And I was like, honestly, the good way to start is I used to get into these books and he was like, what are you talking about? They're post-apocalyptic.

It's fiction. I was like, it might be fiction now but I said these books if you want something get your memory going or get your thought process going of what you might need or what's going on just something to kind of like think about and to kind of start writing notes down on what gear people

might be running I'm like I said the Bard World and Mad Mac is a mad Nick rather. Sorry. It's a little bit harder to do that, but the bar road series and the home series locker, not like read these two series or locker locker nine is good. Yeah. Locker nine Julia, the, the home and, um, the bar world that I've read those,

I've listened to those on how many times. So those are the stick with me. But, uh, I, I pointed them to him and I said, listen to these books and then start writing stuff down. And the guy goes, how many times so those are that stick with me but uh i i pointed them to him and i said listen to these books and then start writing stuff down and the guy goes what are you talking about he goes like what do they know about some of this gear i go no you don't understand they like both authors have like this is gear that they've used this is research that they've done this is like the backpack when they name backpacks and hiking boots and a pistol and they name all this stuff down, I said, they have this stuff in their room and they're using this. This is the gear that they know.

So this is the gear that they're using. And I said, so this is great research that you can do right now. And it's entertainment, too, at the same time. And it gets your mind going. So I use these books a lot to get people like, hey, you want to know where to start? Just start here. Start reading these books or listening to them and start taking notes. You know, the analogy I would use is like it's like reading Tom Clancy, knowing his his predilection for having hyper accurate military, particularly Navy and aviation, but hyper-accurate information in those

books that is very accurate to the real world. I mean, yes, it's a very fictitious story, but a lot of the technical details are spot on, which is something that, I mean, you know, Franklin, to your credit, stood out when I read your books. It became very apparent extraordinarily quickly that you either did a crap ton of research or you've done some of this stuff before or at least thought it through because like it just it makes sense. It clicks, especially for people that are already in the preparedness community. Yeah, those first borrowed world books, you know, I only use stuff that I owned. I tried to use places that I'd been, people that I knew. So it was easy to write it in a very authentic way.

By the time I got to Mad Nick, you know, I don't have helicopters and rocket launchers and MRAPs and all that stuff. Well, maybe you should. Yeah, maybe I should. Research purposes. Research. You can probably write it off as research, you know, and stuff. So R&D. I'm pretty sure that neither the IRS nor the ATF are going to let that one slide, but please, please try it and let me know how it works. Well, by this point, I have built a database because I hear from these people who read the books and they're like, hey, I was a mechanic or hey, I drove this or hey, I ran this gun, you know. So I've built this whole spreadsheet of these specialists in all these areas. So now when I want to know, you know, any specific question about, you know,

does this particular helicopter come with a hoist system? And if it does, how do you operate it? And, you know, how do you use it? So I have this whole list of people I can go to now and get that information and make it more authentic. But in the first place, I didn't need that. Put me down as your... I didn't need that. Put me down as your UH-60 Alpha specialist if you need one.

Frequently, I do. I'll tell you the non-classified version. How about that? That's good enough. So let's... One of the... Something I kind of want to jump into is the Mad Mix series.

We've talked a little bit about it here, but just because your new book that just came out it more is the bar world series so so mad mick uh kind of give us uh if you can give us kind of like the elevator pitch of kind of like where this because i mean in the bar world series you do kind of hint at uh uh this the MM carved in the trees that people are seeing. Did you have an idea for the Mad Nick as you were writing, or did he just pop up out of nowhere, and you were like, I'm going to give him a side character, I'm going to be maybe like a side character, or did you always know that you wanted to do this many books for

the Mad Nick? Well, there was a guy years ago when I was doing these preparedness shows who would come up to me and he's like, hey, you should write a book about me called The Mad Mick. And he would tell me these crazy stories from his childhood. And he was not an assassin. But a lot of the backstory for The Mad Mick, a lot of the little details about the Mad Mick's childhood

actually come from this guy's life. And I'm like, you should write a book about this. And he's like, no, I don't want to write a book about this, but, you know, let me tell you this story. So just over the years, I collected these little stories, and, you know, when I started writing

the Mad Mick, that's kind of where the inspiration came from, was pulling these stories together. This guy told me over the years. And, you know, as much as it's a story, an action thriller, it's also the story about a dad who, you know, is trying to raise his daughter. And he has concerns about whether he's done a good job or not. And he's trying to decide if he should retire from the business he's in, you know, which happens to be killing people. And, you know, so it's a relatable story, even though it's just this crazy, absurd level, post-apocalyptic action, you know, that is in no way realistic. It's still relatable because it's a dad and his child,

and he's trying to decide if he's done a good job or not trying to keep her safe and all that and i think people relate to that aspect of it yeah like i said i i just yeah him and barb like they're if you guys if you're listening to this and you have not read the mad mix series uh i'm sorry if you get some spoilers, but you need to do it. I don't care. Speaking of spoilers, before we get too much further,

because I know there's one common linchpin that ties all these worlds together. Can we spoil what the great event is that started all these series or set all of them and not ruin it for the audience because i mean they're going to find out in the first 25 pages of the of the borrow world yeah well for the most part um at the time i started this series i was reading a lot of emp

books and so i didn't want to write an emp story uh i wanted something different and i saw you know we were in the wake of 9-11. We were in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, where we could see how these disasters created these prolonged recovery events. And it made me start thinking about, you know, what if terrorists slipped across the border and all these different places and did a small, small attacks, but a lot of small attacks to the point that it was really difficult to recover from them. And it created, you know, what they call a cascading systems failure to where you slowly lost communication and gas and electricity and everything.

So, and, you know, at the time I wrote that and I started writing that idea in like 2012. And at the time I'm like, well, I hope this is not dated in 10 years but it actually you know every year that possibility becomes greater and greater so it's yeah remained uh authentic well and and to to your to your point though like without giving the person away I spoke to somebody who literally spent their entire life working for the power company i asked him specifically about this and i'm like how possible is this like is this is this like complete bs fantasy and if it is it's still a great premise or is this like reasonably plausible and he sat there and thought about for a second like yeah that could be done like that that wouldn't even be that hard. You just need enough manpower. And he said, you know, he said, it's not even like you need secret information. I mean, most of these substations are in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a hurricane fence. Like, you can find them by accident.

uh, in the beginning. And, you know, we think of our power grid as being, you know, this massive spider web of wire, but, you know, there are actually a few key places where it interconnects and damaging those interconnections is, is how you would bring it all down. And, and it's interesting too, that I ran across a guy who, ago who read the book, and I met him in kind of a situation that I can't really talk about. But he's like, I know this works because I've done it in another country. But yeah, it's interesting when people validate your idea that it's actually doable. Yeah, and that's what I like about the book series. You have the bar world, which things kind of kick off, and this guy's away from home, and all this stuff is going on, and he's trying to get home to his family. all this stuff is going on and he's trying to get home to his family. And then you have the locker nine series where it's a daughter that's away

from home, but it, it really goes into some detail about the event the kick, how it, how it kicks off and like why the who's behind it and stuff like that. And so, and then it, it really covers like the day that it happens. It really covers it really well. And then you have mad mick series who yeah it's they taught it really it's right in the middle of it but then you really you get a sense of who the mad mick is especially going through uh when i mean i don't want to give too much away but uh light speed when the whole thing with light speed happens and uh you get oh wow this is this is all happening

in the background this is why this is happening and you start thinking back okay now in in the bar world series this was going on and like it's it's really funny because now i'm like it's what's that what's that meme from uh charlie from uh always stunning philadelphia where he's up against the sign and he's like doing the red streams going back and forth like he's connecting all the dots uh that's like that's how it is with reading like these books uh with it and everything because what's going on and i guess uh i mean we can get into it now is your new book which is the endarkin uh that uh it came out not long ago uh that one it uh it's a borrowed world series um and that one like it's funny because i'm listening

as i'm listening to it i'm like do they not know that this just happened like you know they're sitting there talking about like i don't want to again don't want to give too much away on it but there's certain things there's certain events that have happened in the mad mick that you're like okay and they haven't got word of it yet and they're like okay we're, we're hearing these transmissions, this is going on, this, this, and this, and I'm like, have you not heard? Like, what in the heck is going on? Like, what, like, no, just read this book, you know about it. And you know, the thing is, the borrowed world people have much less access to information than the people in the Mad Mic series, and even as I was writing it, I was experiencing the same thing that you're talking about, which is like there is this knot in your gut because you know that there are things looming

over these people that they are going to experience and you're just waiting for the hammer to drop on them. And it was really sad because, you know, I like these characters. I've spent years with them and a lot of them are based on people I know. And I'm just sitting there, man, they're going to be crushed. I can't believe I had to do this to them. But they become real to you. Yeah.

And then, I mean, so you were talking about how some characters were, like you based some characters off of like a uh they're kind of like a some a character that kind of just supports what's going on they're not anything big or they don't make and then they turn into something bigger uh did hugh and the the guy named hugh did you have did you have this whole thing planned out or was he more of like a support character and he kind of blossomed into like this other character that's what i the vibe i get off of that like when you first introduced him and i was like all right this guy's kind of cool and then like every book that you put out not with him in it or every chapter really like he was doing this like it keeps snowballing

i'm like dude this guy's cool yeah and and hugh is cool because when I was 15, I started working at this radio station. And the guy that I based Hugh on worked there also. And he was probably about five or six years older than me. And the way that we bonded is we were both huge fans of Soldier of Fortune magazine. So we were always discussing the latest Soldier of Fortune and what was going on, you know, whether, you know, Rhodesia was going to fall or whatever, you know, because everybody was reading, you know, that was the big thing at the time was Rhodesian War, you know. So he is the guy that I kind of channeled to become this character. And he became cooler as he went on and people asked about him and they wanted to see

more of him and uh he is in real life you know very much like he is he doesn't have the the same background but he's one of those guys that when you talk to him and he tells you a story uh you always wonder you know what the basis of that story is just what does this guy know and what has he done in his life and you never know it's just everything he tells you leaves you with more questions yeah the thing Andrew was talking about a minute ago about how all these books they do weave

together they poke holes into each other like there's not a you would have to read all three of these series twice to see all the places that they do cross over because it's not as if it's – it's not as if this book in this series and then this book in this series and they're like in a nice cohesive timeline. You almost see echoes of the same world. You know, it's not it's not as if they're three alternate timelines. They all started from the same genesis and they could all conceivably be happening parallel to each other.

Yeah. parallel to each other. Yeah. But that's why I bring those kinds of things up, because I think what makes your book stick with the audience, and it's stuck with me, is there's this element of... It sounds weird to call it

an element of realism, when we're talking about an admittedly semi-far-fetched, I think fairly plausible, fiction book, but there's so much realism to it, and there's so much believability. Like, your character's motivations are very very rarely paper thin one-dimensional like you you have

characters who they struggle with the the morality that they once knew in the world and i'm not gonna no spoilers if you haven't already figured this part of you know human psyche out i don't know what to tell you. It's 2024, and we've been through enough stuff together as a host, co-host, and audience. Y'all should have figured this out by now. But like these people struggle with the morality from the world they used to live in that is gone and the brutality of the world that is now facing them. the brutality of the world that is now facing them. And they're asking really personal questions of themselves of like, am I prepared to be this evil, vindictive SOB to survive this world?

And so my family survives. Am I willing to give up things like morality and principles? And what am I willing to compromise? What's really important to me? At what point is destroying the last vestige of who i used to be worth my family living another day and like you see echoes of that in all these characters for someone like the mad mick who let's just say probably didn't have a severe compunction with ending somebody's life for money, principle, almost anything but fun.

I mean, he's not a malicious person. He's just like, you need to die. It's nothing personal. It's business. Then you have some of these characters that you would basically have to stomp a kitten's head in in front of them

before they get angry. But you put them in those situations where they have to say, this is do or die now. And it's gut-wrenching to read and i really enjoy uh exploring people's values in in these books because it's interesting you know everybody's got their own values as to what they'll they'll kill for and what they feel like they have to protect and it's interesting to to look at that in each person because like in this latest book, The Undarkened,

you know, they've caught some guy and they're trying to decide if this guy who has committed this act should be killed. And a person has come forward and said, I think we should put him in jail. We still have a jail. We can go lock them in there. And it raises all these questions of in this situation, what does putting somebody in jail involve? You know, the jail's not heated. There's no food. There's no

water. If you put somebody in jail, who's going to take care of them? Are you going to have a person who devotes their life to caring for this person that you have locked in a cage? So, you know, they explore that. And people have to question, you know, is jail an appropriate punishment or should we just go ahead and kill this person? And then you have other people who, you know, characters in these series who will not blink an eye at shooting a person that they feel needs to die, but at the same time, they'll kill a man for injuring a dog. So the values that people have in real life are what I reflect in these books. Well, not just that, but I think what's important, because Andrew and I,

one of our patrons recently in our page and we have a little closed signal chat just for the patrons and one of them started this thing recently where he literally picks i think he has all the conflicted decks he picks a card at random every morning and just screenshots it into the chat and that is our topic of conversation for the day and it has led to some extremely interesting stratifications like you get some of these cards where you get about 15 people in the room we're all saying the exact same thing or pretty close to it and then you get some weird scenario where you get everything from kill them and eat them this guy over here all the way to kinder gentler mother theresa and

everything in the middle. So I think it's interesting when we talk about things like survival situations or emergency situations, and I think a lot of times we in the preparedness community, we charge into those with this thought process of, I've already decided how this is going to get done, but we made those decisions in a vacuum. And I can tell you that from like my personal experience, I have two people in this household, a wife and an 11 year old daughter. And they're going to be involved in the decision making because I'd like my wife to be able to look at me as a human being after we get done with all this. And I'd like my daughter to not be terrified of me.

get done with all this. And I'd like my daughter to not be terrified of me. So, you know, it's one of those situations where it's like you get into those weird situations about you're talking about a group debating this amongst each other because you're going to have all those different opinions and all those different values and all those different the different amounts of weight placed on those values. And I'm talking about three people in a family unit, and I'm going to have those debates within myself about like, if I do this, what are these two people that live with me, what are they going to see? Well, as you know from reading these books, that is one of the persistent themes with Jim, the main character in The Borrowed World, is he's one of those guys that frequently wished, we need a reset.

We just need a good disaster to clean this country out and separate the tough from the weak. And we hear people every day that say that. But he experiences a good bit of guilt because in some ways he's like, I basically brought this on myself because I wished for it. I wished for it. Yeah.

And so he struggles with that constantly. He's like, you know, I put my family in this situation. And he didn't cause the terror attack. But in his mind, wishing for it, you know, was almost as bad as having created it. Well, I mean, it could almost be argued that by him wishing for it, he didn't fully appreciate the consequences of it and how it was going to impact everybody else. Because, like, I think the three of us and most listeners

would probably agree at least once in your life, you've thought to yourself, it's just time to smash the reset button. Like, we're done with this. It is time for the fall of Rome. It is time for World War III. Push the reset button. Wipe the reset button. Like, we're done with this. It is time for the fall of Rome. It is time for World War III. Push the reset button. Wipe the board clean. Biblical plague.

Flood. Burn the earth. Done. Just once? I said at least once. That left open the possibility that this might be a daily occurrence. But, you know, I've had this discussion with people, and I've always told them, I'm like, I've had this discussion with people, and I've always told them, I'm like, as a person that's into preparedness, I prepare for the worst day of my life, and I pray I never see it.

Not for myself, because I've lived through war, and I've lived through hurricanes twice, and I've done it. It sucks. You'll get over it. It sounds really weird to say about being in a war zone, but you get over it. You know, you make peace with it after a while, but I don't want these people with me to have to live through it. And I,

I can totally see, I can like being that father figure and that husband, I could feel Jim's frustration with himself. Like I wish for this to happen and people are suffering because of it. And the guilt, I mean, it eats at them. You can feel it. Well, at the same time, though, too, is like, I mean, you know what the world, like if something were to happen, you are ready. Your mind is already set to where, okay, if something were to happen, this is what I'd have to do. This is how it's going to have to play out.

This is the struggle that's going to be your daughter. And really from, frankly, I mean, you know, your wife and stuff, they don't necessarily like Gillian might, you know, comprehend a little bit with it. She might know about it and like get this, maybe understand the struggles a little bit. She won't completely comprehend it like what you do, but your daughter being 11 years old, she doesn't,

she will not understand it. And that's where like with her, um, it, with her, it's, it's going to be, you know, Hey, no, you can't go outside or like you got, you got to keep her busy doing something else and trying to do whatever, because there's dangers outside and you got to explain to her. Okay. Why? What's going on? And yeah, the struggles. And so, yeah, the whole, and then you're basically, I mean, you're, you're basically you're taking away that child, that childhood from that,

from that girl. And, and, you know, the fact is you're okay. I wish this would happen, but at the same time, you're like, I really don't want it because I want my child to have a child. I want them to grow up. I want them to have fun, experience life and stuff like that versus, you know, you know, but with everything that's going on in the world, it wouldn't hurt to have a reset. Yeah.

Well, let me put you this way. Can we put a timeline on it? 20 minutes before we punched into the show, I wasn't out there teaching Piper how to put a tourniquet on and, you know, build a foxhole. I was playing switch.

I was playing Mario cart with her. Like I was being dad. We were goofing around, having fun. Like I, I so desperately want the people I care about to have that childhood and maintain that innocence. And I sit here and fret over, if there comes a day when I can't maintain that any longer, then I have to be prepared for what comes next. And, like, I just, I don't know. I see that echoed so many times throughout these books. I'm drawing a blank on Jim's best friend in the borrowed world.

Lloyd. Because he encountered, huh? Lloyd the barber. No, it wasn't Lloyd. It was Gary. It was Gary. Yeah. And I'm not going to spoil it. Gary encounters some personal tragedy relatively early on in the series.

But I see the juxtaposition between Jim and Gary, and I think to myself, I'm like, there are going to be so many Garys in the world who have to have their teeth kicked in by the world before they finally realize, oh, it's ugly out here. It's mean. This world isn't playing. It's not being here. It's mean. This world isn't playing. It's not being nice. It's not playing by the rules.

My sense of morality doesn't apply to these people. And having been in a war zone before, that's a very jarring experience for most people. Again, I don't want to spoil it. I don't want to drag it out. But these are all the things that come out of your books that it's the entire emotional, psychological relationship aspect of these books that got its hooks deep into me. I think that's the value because when you were talking earlier, Andrew, about people using these books as kind of an introduction to preparedness, people using these books as kind of an introduction to preparedness.

I tell people that it's not about, these books are not about training you on techniques and survival and weaponry. It's teaching you about scenarios and mindset and adaptability and resourcefulness. And that's the value. And, you know, it's funny, I get a lot of email and messages from people reaching out about the books. And it's funny because I've received enough at this point that I have a pretty good breakdown on who I hear from.

And it's two major groups. It's women and law enforcement officers. Those are the two biggest groups that reach out. And with law enforcement officers, it's people who are in situations where they understand how close we are to the world of the books. And the women who reach out are generally saying, I like the way that this story breaks things down because it makes it seem very logical the way you go from the state of normalcy to the state of chaos.

And in a lot of movies, it happens so quickly that it just doesn't seem reasonable. But in the books, the way that you follow this decline and at every step you see, OK, well, they've lost this. OK, well, they've lost this and they've lost this. And it changes the entire world around them. And I think that's the value to people reading books like this, whether it's my series or any of these type of post-apocalyptic series, is that it teaches you about scenarios and about preparing your mindset to be ready for whatever, whether it's societal collapse or weather or rioting or whatever can happen to you out there.

But that's also why I really like the Locker 9 series, or I mean even the Borough of Worlds, because the first few chapters or so is building up to, okay, yeah, this is all going to happen. But it's just an everyday, just a normal day. I mean, like in Locker 9, Grace, she was at college and her and her friend were like, they were walking through the food court. And they were looking at, okay, hey, I'm going to go get this food. And, you know, the guy's, hey guys hey we're closed and something's going on and all of a sudden all hell breaks loose like out of nowhere in the middle and just in the middle of just a random day uh a normal day in college and so uh and so yeah so that's why like and that's the thing is people don't i'd like to people can take something. It's just the fact that violence can happen or a situation can happen no matter where you are at, no matter what time of day it is.

If you're black, white, yellow, man, woman, whatever, something could just happen to you and you could be in the middle of something. And you could be in the middle of something. And that's where, as I guess preppers in a way, that's where we try to train for, okay, I'm going out. I'm going down the road today. What do I need? Well, it's not going to be very long, but I have a med bag that's always in my truck in case I come across an accident. I carry tourniquets. I carry a tourniquet on my ankle every single day. I carry stuff that I carry something that can put holes in somebody.

And I carry something I can I carry stuff that i i carry something that can put holes in somebody and i carry something i can i carry stuff that patches those holes as well you know just in case if something were to happen uh and it's not that i'm scared that something's gonna happen i hope nothing does but in the case that i need to use it it's something that i'm prepared to use and i'm prepared for that and i get you know and so that's the thing is because again you never know and i mean this goes to the whole saying you never know when you're going to be your own first responder or in general a first responder in general. I mean, as far as a rollover, an accident, whatever, you could be walking through the store. Somebody drops a jar of pickles, slips and falls and slices their arm open.

Who knows? I mean, that's a bad day. When I wrote the opening chapters of both of those series, Locker Nine and The Borrowed World, it was over a decade out from 9-11. But the thing I kept thinking was, for those that lived through 9-11, it was a normal day. I remember the first things we were hearing,

there's been a plane crash in New York City, you know, and it was normal and gradually became less normal as the day went on. And that was exactly the vibe I wanted to create in the first chapters of those books, that it was a normal day and became less normal with each passing moment, you know, as they began to figure out what was going on. moments, you know, as they began to figure out what was going on. So I guess, I mean, what's next? I mean, what's next with the series, with the barbed world, with Matt Mick? I mean, like with, I would love, I wish you would do more Locker 9. I really do. But no, I mean, so what's next?

What do you got coming down the plate? Can you talk about it? Yeah. This will be a scoop because I haven't talked about this anywhere else. But I've, you know, I plan things out way in advance because I have to get covers made and I have to schedule audio and all that stuff. So I usually know what I'm going to do for the entire year by January. So I'm working on Mad Mic 11 now, which will come out in May. I don't have any immediate plans to write another Borrowed World this year,

but I am going to start a new series in the Borrowed World universe. It's going to be a new Borrowed World spinoff that's going to be much more in the vein of Locker 9 and Borrowed World. And I'm going to start writing that probably in June. So my goal is to have at least one or two books out in that series by the end of the year. But I'm excited about that because it's going to go back to those beginning days of the disaster and pick up with another group, just like all the other series in that universe do. You're going to find a group of people and you're going to pick up from day one what

they experienced as they were learning what was happening, how they experienced those early days. And this is actually going to be a way less prepared group of people. That's going to be interesting because you had a pretty good stratification even in the first couple of Borrowed World books. You had, not going to spoil it, but you had, how can I say, there is no perfect situation for the kind of event you're describing? Like there is, no one is going to start at 10.

Nobody. Everybody's going to be behind the eight ball. Anybody that doesn't think you're going to be behind the eight ball, you should sit down and have a talk with me. I thought I'd been prepared for stuff in the past and I still got snuck up on. It just, it's inevitable. But within the borrowed world, you,

you had a pretty good stratification of people who like definitely had some, some aces in the hole for preparedness. And some people that, um, whether it be physical preps or mentality, they did not. And that's the nicest thing I could think to say about them, bearing in mind how tragically some of those characters met their end,

but you know, and what happened to them along the way. So, like, you're saying that you're going to start off with a group that's less prepared than that. Yeah, but this is going to be, you know, in the borrowed world in particular, the less prepared people often got the short end of the stick. They became the example of why you should be prepared. But there are people out there who are resilient and hardcore and are going to survive no matter what happens to them. And this is going to be a story about those people, those people who don't have the resources that everybody else has,

but they are survivors and they are, and they have gotten by with nothing for their entire lives, and they're not going to die just because things are going crazy. You know, it's a story that I've heard, and I have that personality that when I look at modern problems, I look back at the past and I say, you know, history tends to echo. So if I look back in the past, I could probably find the solution for this modern problem. But whenever we talk about like some of the subjects we've been talking about recently, like with the hyperinflation and devaluing the currency and yada, yada, yada, yada, yada.

Stop me if all that sounds familiar. But I look back at the Great Depression and some of the stories I've heard and the accounts I've read were that like poor ass farmers that were just barely scratching a living out of the out of the earth with the exception of the ones in the dust bowl they came through the other end of the great depression and really didn't notice anything was happening because they were dirt they were literally dirt poor before the depression they were dirt poor after the depression nothing changed all the poor people that I know here and you know I live in central Appalachia all the poor people I I know here in, you know, I live in central Appalachia. All the poor people I knew here growing up who lived through the Depression did not know it was a Depression at the time because they were always poor. They lived the same life through the Depression that they lived before the Depression.

And it was only later that they kind of learned what the rest of the country was doing. It was only later that they kind of learned what the rest of the country was doing. Yeah, well, I mean, you even look at how that echoes into, like, current day with some of the nonsense we're dealing with with the economy. Like, it's the middle class that's getting absolutely butchered in the current situation, but your ultra-wealthy aren't really noticing the pinch much, and your poor are – I mean, how many more degrees of poor are there? Yeah. So it's it's interesting historical footnotes but yeah i mean i definitely think that that's going to be an interesting look at a person who almost has like the survivalist mentality but doesn't fit the classical mold of being a survivalist because like they did not prepare because they could not prepare but they might have that emotional mental ace in the hole that a lot of people don't,

which is something that Andrew and I have talked about in the past, about how you can have all the gear and all the stuff and all the crap piled up in your house, but if you don't have the mentality that I'm going to survive no matter what, you're going to have a really, really rough day. And I don't know how to tell a person how to build that, except throw them in a frying pan and see if they jump. There's no other way. Yeah, when people shoot me, and this happens at least once a week,

somebody sends me a message. They're like, I've been reading these books, and what should I prepare for? I just don't know. And I always tell people, prepare for weather. That's where you start. Prepare for weather, and where you start prepare for weather and you can branch out from there if you're prepared for weather you know you've got a good you know good stable base because almost all of us are going to experience weather events you know i

i know you've been through it uh here we get ice storms snow storms whatever lose power you know from wind uh that's gonna be something that you're gonna experience and that's gonna be you know a test of it so uh you know that's where i always tell people to start no that's yeah that's that's a good uh that's really good actually i mean just because people look at the preparedness as a whole and they're like, and we, I mean, again, we did a show on it before. It was where do we start? Where do we begin?

And that's a good spot is, hey, what's your weather that you get? Snow storms? Okay. What do you think you need? You need some loose water, something that's not going to freeze. You need a way to get water in case if you're on a well or anything like that. Or even if you've got, I mean, you know, you're on city water. Yeah, as long as the pressure holds out but Okay. Well, I need to get I need water. How do you cook food? You already you already got shelter is if you have a house, but then it's like, okay

Well, how do you have some heat you need extra blankets? water food and then a way to if you want to try to bathe you can but basically just have those set up for a week for a weather event and then just branch out from there yeah but the hardest part about giving that advice and you two have to have had this experience before

is when you have that ice storm that blizzard, that hurricane and I'm pointing at the three of us because I know where the three of us because like i know where the three of us live and i know the kind of weather we get and we all have to eat the poop sandwich every now and then it's just the nature of where we live yeah but tell me is it isn't frustrating as hell that you can watch a person go through the exact same weather events you did suck it real hard because they did they weren't prepared for it and then five five minutes after the power comes back on, they get amnesia,

and they totally forget about all the lessons they should have learned. And you watch them charge headfirst into the next emergency in exactly the state they were in to begin with. And it was the government's fault. Oh, no, listen. I groused about this with Andrew, and Andrew pretty much told me, well, dude, just pull a couple hundred bucks out of savings and go load up. Like two weeks after Hurricane Ida, our power was out for eight days where I'm at, which is better than they had down in New Orleans and especially further south where whole communities got wiped off the map.

We got hit, but we didn't get hit as bad as some people did. But like eight days without power, right? Less than a week after the power came back on, I saw chainsaws and generators on Facebook Marketplace. And I was so angry I could have thrown stuff. Because I have a 5K and a brand new chainsaw, you know, in the shed at this point. And I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, all of you idiots just lived through the exact same situation I did. Why are you selling this stuff? Put it in your shed.

It's already paid for. Yeah. I mean, it is what it is. I mean, it's just like, I mean, here with snowstorms, ice storms, you know, our weather will sit there and it's a doom and gloom. And we're going to get 15 feet of snow and seven inches of ice. And I mean, obviously, it's never that bad. The Grand River flooded this year. Yeah. Hey, yeah. The Grand River grand river flooded which is it floods every year uh it it's and it's not

surprising to me um but uh but no you go to the store it sure seems to seems to shock all your neighbors though because at least every other year andrew comes on the show and is like people are complaining about the grand river flooding again like it doesn't flood like this every year well people complain that it snows out every november december they are complaining about the Grand River flooding again like it doesn't flood like this every year. Well, people complain that it snows out every November or December. They are complaining about how it snows. And I'm like, it's December. What do you expect? But no, it's right up there with when the storm comes in and I go to the store and I'm looking for whiskey and I'm looking for Coke.

That's it i walk out of the store people are stocking up on bread milk water uh whatever you know whatever they got their stuff piled high and then normally if it's back-to-back storms sometimes i'll go back to get something different and something random um maybe more coke or more whiskey depending on how long the last storm was but i'll see a lot of times i'll recommend some or i'll recognize some people getting the exact same stuff. And it's just like, what the heck? But the part of this that drives me the craziest is if someone in Michigan that's about to deal with a blizzard goes and buys a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread, I understand that because if the power goes out, you take the milk and you stick it outside and it's not going to go bad. It's a

refrigerator outside. That is nice. But the part that drives me absolutely bat crap crazy is when people down here in South Louisiana in August buy milk and bread right before our power gets knocked out for a couple of days. I have asked every southerner I can find why. And nobody knows the answer answer everybody just knows you're supposed to and everybody admits it makes no sense but they do it anyway it's a biological drive well i don't know if it's biological psychosomatic or anything else i just know it makes absolutely no freaking sense to me and it will be my life's mission to find a reasonable explanation for it

because there's no way there's that many generators running down here after a hurricane i've heard them but i digress andrew why do you always let me get a good ran out and you don't put up the blood pressure warning beforehand i made that i made that video like for exactly these moments no because your blood pressure is not really that high we gotta wait till i see the vein pop. Just count it as cardio. Yeah. How many calories do you burn screaming and yelling at your co-host? It's a good bit. Yeah.

It counts. Yeah, right. So, well, Franklin, won't keep it too much longer. Thank you for coming on. I mean, so I guess, so people, if you haven't heard of Franklin, look him up. Look up his books. Start with the Borrowed World series. And I think if you start with the Borrowed World series and then branch into the Mad Mech or Locker 9, I mean, you won't be, even the way of Dan, I mean, all of your books.

And honestly, like, the ones that you kind of went off that you kind of went off like the tie stone yeah um like that series i'm okay i guess really quick are you gonna do another tie stone you know i wanted to push that story further but that series doesn't do as good as the mad mick so the the thing from a business standpoint is it takes me just as long to write a Ty Stone book as a Mad Mick book. But a Mad Mick book will hang up in the charts for a long time. So it makes more business sense for me to write Mad Mick books. So I don't know if I'll come back to it or not. That's a good character. I do like the character and I do like the story that you have for that guy.

Just because it's struggles that you actually hear of real people going through. As far as military bat and all that stuff. It was inspired by a friend of mine who went in for inpatient treatment for PTSD. And when he came out and admitted that he was going inpatient, people were really surprised. And, you know, good for him because better to go impatient and admit you have a problem than to become the statistic that we don't want to read about, you know. So that just really, really motivated me.

And I wrote that book kind of inspired by his bravery in coming forward. kind of inspired by his bravery in coming forward. No, that's, that's, it's interesting when you can find inspiration from, you know, somebody who's just, and to me it gives them kind of like, if you get inspired by them some way, it kind of, I kind of hope that they gives them like, Oh, Hey, maybe I do, you know, something to live for. I have, you know, I do inspire somebody. Oh yeah. I told him offline that, uh, you know, that, that he was the reason I

wrote those books. Yeah. Well, having been in that position of like being very open with your own mental health struggles with other combat vets and like trying, trying to help them learn from your experience that they don't have to go down some of the same roads you did, like watching a person get better is worth all the pain and all the embarrassment of having to relive all that. It makes it 100% worth it because you can at least say, at least me talking about this and rehashing this, it helped him not have to deal with two. That's one person's perspective at least.

Yeah. But that being said, if you don't know who Franklin Horton is, get on the ball, look up his books. Franklin, where can they find you? They can check out my website at franklinhorton.com. My books are on Amazon.

They're on Audible. The audio does really well. People enjoy the audio. So if you don't like to read, check out the audio. And if you really't like to read, check out the audio. And if you really like my characters, I also have a merch store now, so you can go to

resetroadhouse.com and buy t-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, all that stuff. Coffee mugs, all inspired by the books. And if you suck at spelling Franklin Horton, I'll have it in the show notes.

I'll make it as simple to find as possible. But if you can't spell Franklin Horton and you can't click a link, I don't know what to do with you. Yeah, and I mean, if you guys, if you are caught up, if you did not know about The Undarkened, which is book 11 in the Bar Road series,

go check it out. It has not been out very long, I think. No, two months maybe, a month or two. Yeah. So, yeah, check it out. But, yeah, Franklin, we need to get you on more often than three, four years. Well, I enjoy it. It's always a good time.

I am going to put this out there that, uh, I'll give you, I'll give you a couple months to get some more work done on the books. And then, uh, we'll have you back on, um, discuss kind of, uh,

what you're doing. And honestly, it can be just a BS session. We don't have to, you know, but no, I would love to have you on again soon. Yeah.

I'd be glad to. I always enjoy it. And I assume you're not going to proper camp. No, it overlaps with another event. I do. That to. I always enjoy it. And I assume you're not going to proper camp. No, it overlaps with another event I do. That's what I remember. I am going to go to Mountain Readiness, which comes up, I think it's the end of this month. And it's in Harmony, North Carolina. But it looks like an interesting show.

I enjoyed Prepper Camp. I had a great time at Prepper Camp. I enjoyed Prepper Camp. I had a great time at Prepper Camp, but it just overlaps with a conference that has just been really helpful for learning how to market my books. Good. I think that's helping you a lot.

Unfortunately, one of these days, we're going to cross paths in person. I can tell you that. If you drive to Prepper Camp, you probably come close to here. We both do. I'll put it out there to you drive to Prepper Camp, you probably come close to here. So, you know. Hey, you know what?

I'll put it out there to you. When it gets closer, I'll put a word out to you because I'm going down two days early, three days early. I'm going down to Prepper Camp early. So I'll hit you up. Yeah, let's communicate that because we'll catch up. Go on or come in, one or the other. Yep. Yeah, for sure. So, awesome.

Well, hey, Franklin, thanks again for coming on. Thank you guys for having me. Yeah, we'll go ahead and punt this one out the door. Franklin Horton, Borrowed World, Mad Mick, Locker 9, and about 13 other series I haven't heard of yet because Franklin writes like he owes his publisher money, for God's sakes. And it's always entertaining. If you can't tell by now, we're fans.

And I mean, Franklin, anything you write is worth a read. And if it's not a little bit thought provoking, I think that's kind of an indictment of the reader, not the author. I appreciate that. But matter of fact, going out the door, good night, everybody. Take care of each other. We'll talk to you another week. Bye.

See ya. other we'll talk to you another week bye see ya Thank you. We'll see you next time.