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Colonel J. Douglas Beason, USAF
(ret.) is a 1977 graduate of the United States Air Force Academy. He holds a dual B.S. in Physics and Mathematics,
an M.S. in Physics, an M.S. in National Resource Strategy, and Ph.D. in Physics (University of New Mexico). According
to Colonel Beason’s biography, he is “a Fellow of the American Physical Society and Ph.D. physicist, Doug has
over 30 years of R&D experience that spans conducting basic research to directing applied-science programs and formulating
national policy. A retired Air Force Colonel, he served his last active duty assignment as the Commander
of the Phillips Research Site (Kirtland AFB) and Deputy Director for Directed Energy at the Air Force Research Laboratory.” Colonel J. Douglas Beason is the author of
Strike Eagle, Assault on Alpha Base, Return To Honor, and The E-Bomb: How America's New Directed Energy Weapons
Will Change the Way Future Wars Will Be Fought. He the co-author of Ill Wind,
Lethal Exposure, Fallout, Ignition, Virtual Destruction, Assemblers of Infinity, The Trinity Paradox, and Lifeline.
The Library Journal said of Ignition,
“Col. Adam "Iceberg" Friese was scheduled to pilot the next space shuttle, Atlantis, to dock with the Russian
space station, Mir, until a freak accident just before the launch sidelined him. While his former girlfriend, Nicole, supervised
the launch, Iceberg sneaked in a back gate and found his own front-row seat for the event. Meanwhile, Mr. Philips, a homicidal
megalomaniac, and his fellow terrorists attack the launch site, holding hostage the astronauts, Nicole's launch team,
and Atlantis until his demand for a fortune in precious gems is met. When Iceberg realizes that something is wrong, he goes
to investigate, following the dead bodies back to the terrorists and, one by one, eliminating Mr. Philips's savage murderers
while Nicole keeps the ringleader busy. Anderson and Beason have written a nail biter full of details about NASA and the Kennedy
Space Center. This writing team, which admits to changing some details to preserve NASA security, has written several other
high-tech action thrillers.”
Publisher’s Weekly said of The
E-Bomb: How America's New Directed Energy Weapons Will Change the Way Future Wars Will Be Fought, “Dramatic
book title notwithstanding, there is no e-bomb. The military is testing, however, a series of directed energy weapons ranging
from lasers to microwaves. Beason, a physicist and the associate director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, offers a spirited
defense of these new weapons and their likely impact on the battlefield. He traces their development over the past three decades
and notes that they are now on the threshold of deployment. Despite his enthusiasm for technological solutions to military
threats; "The size of the army matters," he writes, "but technology wins wars;" Beason concedes that lasers
and microwaves are not without their critics, including leading scientists and military officers. Nevertheless, he believes
that doubts can be dispelled by addressing people's natural fear of new technology. Beason argues that directed energy
applications are already commonplace; LASIK surgery, DVD players, etc, and explains the science in terms that ordinary people
can grasp, despite the occasional references to Fresnel equations. He also gives the reader a peek at some of the directed
energy weapons that the military is currently testing, including Active Denial, a nonlethal, low-power microwave weapon that
can be mounted on a Humvee. Despite Beason's cheerleading style, this is a solid introduction to directed energy weapons.”
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Publisher’s Weekly said of Virtual
Destruction, “Anderson and Beason have teamed up once again, but this time the results are less inspiring
than their Nebula nominee, Assemblers of Infinity. Perhaps the biggest problem with this near-future thriller is that it doesn't
stick to its authors' strengths. The portrayal of the potential future uses of virtual technology are convincing and intriguing,
but this technology is incidental to the plot. In addition, all the characters seem like recent graduates from junior high
school. If this book is accurate, America's military-industrial complex is and staffed and run by people who wear Spider-Man
T-shirts, cheat on their mistresses and stuff plutonium buttons down each other's pants. Given these problems, it's
hard to take this too seriously as mystery or as science fiction.
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