Pulitzer-nominated war and national security correspondent Sid Balman, Jr., a writer-in-residence at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, is releasing a harrowing follow-up to his award-winning novels Seventh Flag and Murmuration.
The third and final book in the series, Algorithms, will be published on Aug. 1 with SparkPress. A two-week tour begins in Alpine at Front Street Books with a book-signing on Thursday, July 27, at 5 p.m. Marjie Scott, the chair of the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at SRSU, will moderate, while Kleo Belay, the content editor for the series, will also participate.
The final novel in the acclaimed Seventh Flag Trilogy thrusts readers 30 years into a dystopic future of regional fiefdoms, marauding scavengers and the quest for ultimate power, the algorithms of everything secretly pilfered from an undersea internet cable, stored on hard drives, and implanted in the last surviving blue whale.
The iconic and unlikely heroine of the American West, Ademar Zarkan, now a 70-year-old woman, leads the Free People of West Texas in an alliance with Native Americans and the indigenous people of northern Mexico to retrieve the hard drives and to rescue her clairvoyant granddaughter from the radicalized “Sisterhood” and its merciless leader, Mother.
Haunting and prophetic, Algorithms is a story of violent extremism, resilience, family, and, above all, the interconnectedness of humankind and the natural world.
A Pulitzer-nominated national security correspondent and writer-in-residence at Sul Ross State University, Sid Balman, Jr. has covered wars in the Persian Gulf, Somalia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, and has traveled extensively with two American presidents and four secretaries of state on overseas diplomatic missions.
After leaving daily journalism, he helped found a news syndicate focused on the interests of women and girls, served as the communications chief for the largest consortium of U.S. international development organizations, led two progressive campaigning companies, and launched a new division at a large international development firm centered on violent radicalism and other security issues on behalf of governments.
In addition to his current position at Sul Ross State, Balman remains a working journalist and magazine contributor. A fourth-generation Texan, as well as a climber, surfer, paddler and benefactor to Smith College, Balman lives in Alpine and has two children and a dog. You can find out more about him at https://www.sidbalman.com/.