Navy Seals Embark on a Hellish Literary Adventure

August 31, 2012, 12:53 pm

By DAVE ITZKOFF

Since its announcement last week, the book “No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden,” written by a pseudonymous member of that Navy SEAL team mission, has stirred up unintended controversies over its author's right to disclose the details of the operation; his identity; and any perceived political motives behind its publication.

Meanwhile, a fictional counterpoint to that book is deliberately trying to catch hell.

A new novel by Weston Ochse, called “SEAL Team 666″ and being published by Thomas Dunne Books on Dec. 11, is positioning itself as “SEAL Team Six meets Stephen King,” according to the publisher's catalog copy, in which a cadet named Jack Wal ker is brought into a special-ops squad that fights “demons, possessed humans, mass-murdering cults and evil in its most dark and ancient form.”

Mr. Ochse, whose book “Scarecrow Gods” won a Bram Stoker Award in 2005 for best first novel, said that he was inspired to write “SEAL Team 666″ last May, when he was attending a writers' convention and saw TV news reports about the raid on Bin Laden's compound.

“I'm a dark fiction author,” Mr. Ochse said Friday in a telephone interview. “That's the stuff I like to write and the kind of stuff I like to read, and I just thought to myself, What if there was a special SEAL team â€" an even more special SEAL team â€" that protected America against supernatural attack? And what if this was a secret? And even, what if some of the bad guys out there that we're following aren't really human?”

In his biography for Thomas Dunne Books, Mr. Ochse identifies himself as working for the Defense Intelligence Age ncy. (“Just call me an intelligence officer,” he said. “That's the safest way to put it.”) He said he knows several members of SEAL Team 6, and was surprised to hear about the publication of “No Easy Day.”

“Frankly, I didn't think anything was going to be published because getting stuff cleared is pretty hard,” Mr. Ochse said. “My stuff is easy because it's all purely fiction.”

Mr. Ochse said any extra attention (or blog posts) that “SEAL Team 666″ might enjoy because of “No Easy Day” was coincidental, though he prided himself on the attention to detail in his novel.

“The military parts are absolutely accurate,” he said. “The techniques, the modalities, the weapon systems â€" everything else is accurate. The only thing that's not quite true is who they actually go after, which is the supernatural enemies.”

That hasn't stopped readers from asking Mr. Ochse if Team 666 exists in real life. “I just tell them that if there was, we'd never know,” he said.