ROB SANGSTER
EPIC 2017 WINNER
FOR WRITING DEEP TIME
SUSPENSE/THRILLER
Rob Sangster is both an ancient trusted friend and a fellow graduate in the St. Thomas High School Class of 1956. Once upon a time, we both got started writing on the staff of The St. Thomas Eagle. Then we graduated and went our separate ways, not following the direct path to writing we may once have thought possible – and thus allowing the creative door to be shut by some molding from the fields of law and health science and the utilitarian view of writing as more of a functional goal tool of each broad profession – and not a channel for artistic expression.
This morning I could not be happier for my old friend.
EPIC, the Electronic Publishing Internet Coalition, “the voice of eBook publishing since 1998,” has announced that Rob Sangster’s second novel, DEEP TIME, has just won the EPIC 2017 award as best suspense/thriller of the year.
Way to go, Rob! I read and reviewed Deep Time for a column here a while back. A link to that column and three others we’ve done on Rob Sangster is available at the end of today’s column.
Jack Strider, the protagonist of DEEP TIME, is a Stanford law professor unjustly forced off the faculty because of a nasty scandal involving his father, a judge. In private practice on Pier 9 of the San Francisco waterfront, Jack must confront Petros Barbas, billionaire shipping magnate. Barbas is pursuing a source of unlimited energy in the seabed considered far too hazardous to exploit. If Strider can’t stop him, Barbas’ psychopathic scheme will launch a tsunami that will devastate the west coast of North America. In a subplot, Strider’s partner in law and love, Debra Vanderberg, is suing Travis Air Force base for generating toxins that are killing people on and off the base.
Rob’s first book in the Strider series, GROUND TRUTH, may have been something akin to a double loop ride that had been added to the old Texas Cyclone, but DEEP TIME even surpasses. And these stories generate from the strength and passionate ardor for justice in a better world that emanate relentlessly from the central character, Jack Strider.
If you ask me, I will tell you quickly who this guy Jack Strider really is. At 6’4″ in height and a degree from Stanford Law School, he’s the dead-ringer alter-ego of his originator, Rob Sangster. He’s also an adrenaline junkie who almost seems to relish getting into jams that often require him to be the smartest guy in the room to somehow survive against all odds. Think of a much taller and smarter Tom Cruise, now paired again with an also bright and extremely athletic Katie Holmes as his gal pal true love, Debra Vanderberg. – Now that Tom is taller, Katie no longer has any need to denigrate his character’s action mode as over-compensation for his lack of vertical stature – and to simply accept the fact that they are both behaving naturally. In their own rights, Jack and Debra are both well matched as super-unleaded and premium grade “adrenaline junkies.”
A third book in the Jack Strider series (working title – NO RETURN – promises to be another page turning thriller too, so please stay tuned.
If any of you Jack Strider Series readers want to pass on your own congratulations or questions to Rob, please drop him a personal e-mail – and/or leave a public word in the comment section that always follows these columns in The Pecan Park Eagle. – Words coming back at us are like water to the spirits of all who live to write. Our friend Rob Sangster here is a 21st Century Renaissance Man. He doesn’t write for approval. He writes because he’s a writer. And that’s what writers do. Whether anyone likes them or not. Or whether anyone pays them or not.
Rob Sangster E-Mail Address rob@sangster.com
That being said, it’s still nice to hear from people. No matter what.
Rob writes that the EPIC Award came like a giant shot of adrenaline after long hours of completing the draft of his third and newest Jack Strident adventure. – What was that you heard me say earlier here about the synchronicity streak that bonds Rob Sangster and his Jack Strider character? He also left us with a mild hint about the content course of his next Strider adrenaline fix. (Hint: the evil-doer in the next one is the CEO of a firm remarkably similar to Goldman Sachs.)
“Creating fictional worlds is exhilarating but challenging,” Rob Sangster says, “especially unlearning the didactic writing style favored in law school.”
As a devoted fan of his first two Jack Strider offerings, I have to say that Rob has done a damn good job of wrestling free from the legalese.
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Four Previous Pecan Park Eagle Columns on Rob Sangster, (2012-2016).
Here are the titles and links:
Rob Sangster: Chairman of the Bored No More
https://bill37mccurdy.com/2012/03/18/rob-sangster-chairman-of-the-bored-no-more/
Ground Truth: By Rob Sangster
Deep Time By Rob Sangster is Great Read
Rob Sangster: A Man of Great Passion for Life
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Bill McCurdy
Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher
The Pecan Park Eagle
The Pecan Park Eagle 
June 26, 2017 at 9:01 pm |
I read your column on Rob (aka Bob) down to the point “…Barbas’ psychopathic scheme will launch a tsunami that will devastate the west coast of North America.” and I thought to myself, way to go Barbas !!!
You don’t tell the ending but I would bet I would bet Jack screws up Barbas plan.
Nice work Bill and Rob.
June 27, 2017 at 2:15 am |
Dear Bill Byrne (STHS Class of 1956),
Thank you too for stopping by, old friend and Phi Kap Greek Bro from our days at UH. – Your observations on the marketing problems that come with revealing too much of villainous Mr. Barbas’ evil plans in DEEP TIME to devastate the west coast of North America are duly noted, but, you were also right when you took into account that heroic Jack Strider had a plan to screw that up. – I just also want to note that our Rob Sangster novelist Bro now owns his own place on the Pacific Ocean’s western America coastline. It’s right there in Colorado, where the Rockies now cascade into the Pacific Coast line.