The Brawler: A History of the World's Unluckiest Soldier (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781533472038)

Lewis MacLeod is the pen-name of DBNickerson and does honor to his Scots ancestry. Born in 1947, MacLeod has been a resident of the western states all his life. From his beginnings in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, he relocated to Oregon on completing college. He now resides in Salem, Oregon's capital city. He has enjoyed a varied working career, having in his time worked as biologist with the US Forest Service, military intelligence analyst serving in Vietnam, mechanical engineer for heavy-lift logging systems, software development specialist operating his own consulting firm, and teacher of mathematics, chemistry and computer sciences. His writing efforts span more than forty years. MacLeod is retired from teaching now, and devotes much of his energy to his writing endeavors. He saves time for his grandchildren and for his passionate devotion to Celtic tunes -- look him up, bring your fiddle or flute, and he will happily uncase his concertina or pennywhistle and set you up with a Guinness while together you pour out the jigs, reels and hornpipes. MacLeod's first foray into e-publishing -- "Miss Mai" -- is mostly a personal memoir, but with touches of fictionalization to protect the privacy of the characters involved. MacLeod's "Solae" series, a chronological sequence of four novels, is a whole lot more fiction for the epic-adventure fan to chew on! Timespan of centuries, cast of thousands (well...dozens and dozens, anyway!), sweeping global stage, conflicting beliefs and cultures, love, passion, sensuality, hatred, treachery, devotion, conflict, redemption, interesting linguistic twists. In four volumes, the titles are "Twenty-One Forty-Seven", "The Solae", "Solae Inheritor", and "Solae Redeemer." Two other works round out MacLeod's offerings as of summer 2016. These are "Cúc," a short novelette of tragedy and unrelenting affection, and "The Brawler," a wild ride of adventure and danger. Work-in-progress: "Earth Crosser"...guaranteed to flabbergast and amuse! MacLeod has brought to bear his lifelong interest in languages in his writing. Native English-speaker with the slightest trace of Scots burr inherited from his father's lineage, he has a measure of fluency in nine other tongues, including Arabic, Irish Gaelic, Tagalog and Hawaiian. His writings stop short of overwhelming the reader with linguistics, but gently remind one of the magical diversity to be found in human cultures.