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Author: Adam

Adam Bender is an award-winning journalist and author of speculative fiction that explores modern-day societal fears with a mix of action, romance and humor.

Bender's latest novel is Utopia PR, a speculative satire about a public-relations specialist who struggles to find work-life balance while managing crisis after crisis for a dystopian American president. It won the 2021 IndieReader Discovery Award for Humor.

Previously, Bender wrote The Wanderer and the New West, a near-future western about a rogue vigilante who seeks redemption in a lawless America that fully protects the rights of armed citizens to stand their ground. Named to Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2018, the novel also won gold for Dystopia in the 2018 Readers’ Favorite Awards and best Western Fiction in the 2018 National Indie Excellence Awards.

Bender authored We, The Watched and Divided We Fall in a dystopian series about an amnesiac who struggles to conform in a surveillance society where the government keeps a Watched list of its own citizens. Also, Bender has published several short stories.

In his day job as a journalist, Bender covers telecom and internet regulation for Communications Daily. He has won awards for his reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Specialized Information Publishers Association, and the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing.

Bender lives in Philadelphia with his wife Mallika and son Rishi. He’s usually a rather modest and amiable fellow.

Learn more about the author at WatchAdam.blog and join The Underground email newsletter for news and info on Adam Bender's latest projects. Follow him on Facebook (wethewatched) and @WatchAdam on Instagram.

Inauguration in Washington

My view of the inauguration.
My view of the inauguration.

I made it to the inauguration of President Barack Obama earlier this week.  I’m a Washington, DC resident, so this wasn’t an expensive decision on my part, though I ended up doing a fair amount of walking.

I think "throngs" would be the right word.
I think "throngs" would be the right word.

My girlfriend and I got silver-section tickets, but that didn’t mean it was easy getting into the mall. We walked miles to find the silver line, and then another mile or two to find the end of that line.  The queue, as they call it in England, stretched and snaked around block after block, eventually looping back to a spot quite close to the entrance of the silver section.  But then — in an inauguration miracle — an official told us a new gate had been opened, and we entered a mob near the entrance.  To make a long story short, we made it, and though we couldn’t see Obama per se, we had a nice view of the Capitol.

George W. Bush leaves the capital
George W. Bush leaves the capital.

Leaving turned out to be nearly as difficult a proposition as getting in. No one bothered to take down any barricades after the event was over, so things ended up looking a lot like an ant farm. Throngs of people pushed their way into dead ends, climbed over fences where possible, and cried out to soldiers for freedom. Good thing we all had hope. Yes we can!

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Fish & Video Games

Hey, it’s 2009. That’s pretty cool.

I vacationed to St. Michael’s, MD last week and ate fish. I also took a bunch of photos. You can see parts of these pics displayed prominently at the top of every page of this website. Oh, and yes, I did some writing on what hopefully will turn out to be my next novel. Made a lot of good progress; it’s all really starting to come together.

I picked up a couple new video games: Fallout 3 for Xbox 360 and Boom Blox for the Wii. I was intrigued by Fallout 3 because you get to explore a post-apocalyptic Washington, DC. Also, there were ads for the game were plastered all over  Metro Center station here in the capital. After a few hours of play, I found the game itself to be just as cool as the premise, though I admit I was a trifle overwhelmed initially. Fallout presents the player with an astonishing amount of choice.  And I’m not talking about choosing to beat up a bad guy rather than sneaking around him.  I mean, like, choosing to help, rob blind and/or blow up an entire settlement. Usually when I play an adventure game like this, I like to try and do as much as possible — do all the optional side-quests, read all the dialog, etc. But I think I’ve come to terms that there’s no way in hell I can  do that in this game.

Boom Blox isn’t nearly as open-ended an experience, as it’s a puzzle game. But its use of the Wii’s motion controls makes it a blast, no pun intended. The game — which was developed by Steven Spielberg — is kind of like a virtual Jenga, except the goal is generally to knock the blocks down, and you can do more than pull blocks (baseball, anyone?).  And there’s like 300 challenges, too.

So yeah, if you’re of the gaming set, check them out. If not, well, I’ll try to write about something else next time.

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The New Faded Wave

Hey everyone. Welcome to the newly redesigned Faded Wave. The new look is all about accessibility, and as such, I’ve streamlined quite a bit. I hope you like the new look, and I appreciate any and all  feedback you might have. Just leave me a comment on this fancy new blog!

If I haven’t made it clear enough already, I’ve written a novel. It’s called We, The Watched, and you can download all 22 chapters of it for free at WeAreWatched.com. It’s been in the works for a long time, and I encourage you to register on the official Underground forum over there and leave me a review.

Work at Communications Daily has kept me quite busy lately, but I am finding time here and there to work on my next big fiction project. I’m not ready to give details on what that is yet, because it’s still in the early going. But I’m excited with what I have so far, and can’t wait to show it to you all.

Talk to you soon,

Adam

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Adam Bender | adambenderwrites.com | watchadam.blog