Monthly Archives: August 2011

Dear All: We have just finished revisions on A SEARING WIND, the third book in the CONTACT: BATTLE FOR AMERICA series. With this third book we finish the series on Hernando de Soto’s invasion of North America. Given the mythology that has arisen around this monster and his exploits within what would become the United States, we hope that our readers will have a fuller understanding of pain and suffering he perpetrated upon the native peoples. For those of you who have read COMING OF THE STORM and FIRE THE SKY, does knowing what monster de Soto was, and the sort of crimes he commited against the peoples of the Southeast make any difference? We’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Dear All: Michael just managed to delete the entire recent batch of comments by mistake. Included was a comment by someone who had tried to edit the Wikipedia entry on de Soto. Supposedly they told him that de Soto committed no atrocities, and that the four historical journals on the expedition, those by Rangel, Biedma, Garcilaso de la Vega, the Inca, and The Gentleman from Elvas, reported nothing that could be compared to modern “atrocities.” Perhaps the learned Wikipedia “scholars” should READ the actual journals, since using war dogs to rip unarmed human beings, burning men, women and children, and allowing naked captives to starve to die of exposure in freezing mud apparently do not qualify for atrocities in our modern world. We sincerely urge anyone interested in the subject to peruse THE DE SOTO JOURNALS, Vols I and II, by Clayton, Knight, and Moore, University of Alabama Press, 1993. Interlibrary loan will be happy to procure both volumes if you can’t spring for the used paperbacks on Amazon. Sorry I lost the original comment.