Biography
As of 2023, Larry Bond is 71 and lives with his wife Jeanne in Virginia, outside Washington DC. After co-authoring Red Storm Rising with Tom Clancy, he wrote five novels with Pat Larkin: Red Phoenix, Vortex, Cauldron, The Enemy Within, and Day of Wrath. He then teamed with Chris Carlson to write the six books of the Jerry Mitchell series: Dangerous Ground, Cold Choices, Exit Plan, Shattered Trident, Fatal Thunder, and Arctic Gambit. He and Chris Carlson also wrote the novel Lash-Up.
All three authors, Larry, Chris, and Pat teamed to write a sequel to Red Phoenix, titled Red Phoenix Burning.
He has also co-designed the Admiralty Trilogy series games, which include Harpoon, Command at Sea, Fear God & Dreadnought, and Dawn of the Battleship.
Larry's writing career started by collaborating with Tom Clancy on Red Storm Rising, a runaway New York Times bestseller that has was one of the biggest-selling books of the 1980s. It depicted a hypothetical conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, drawing heavily on expert analysis of what such a conflict would be like. It has been used as a text at the Naval War College and similar institutions.
Since then, Larry's books have depicted military and political crises, emphasizing accuracy and fast-paced action. Red Phoenix, Vortex, and Cauldron were all New York Times bestsellers.
Red Phoenix was set in South Korea and depicted an invasion of the south by a decaying North Korean government. Vortex told the story of a reactionary Afrikaner government trying to roll back the clock in South Africa. Cauldron showed a financial crisis in Europe that grew out of control, leading to a military confrontation between France and the United States. The Enemy Within depicted a terror campaign launched against the United States. Day of Wrath followed the same characters as The Enemy Within. They faced a large-scale nuclear weapons conspiracy led by a millionaire Saudi terrorist.
Dangerous Ground was set aboard a US nuclear attack sub, and was the first book of Jerry Mitchell series, following the career of a naval submarine officer. In the second book, Cold Choices, Jerry's sub was involved in a collision with a Russian nuclear submarine, which became trapped on the seabed. In Exit Plan, Jerry's sub was involved in extracting two defectors from Iran, but the operation goes disastrously awry. In Shattered Trident, now captain of his own sub, he is caught between two sides in a war in the South China Sea. Jerry helps discover and the stop a conspiracy involving rogue nuclear weapons in Fatal Thunder. As a squadron commander in Arctic Gambit, he leads a mission to stop a Russian nuclear attack.
Lash-Up was first published as a novella in Steve Coonts' anthology Combat in 2003. In 2015, Larry and Chris teamed up to update and expand the story into a full-length novel. It showed a Chinese campaign to shoot down US GPS satellites.
Red Phoenix Burning, with some of the characters from the first book as well as many new ones, showed the military and humanitarian effects of an attempted coup, and then the collapse of the North Korean authoritarian regime.
Larry also worked with photographer F-stop Fitzgerald on his only non-fiction title, The Mighty Fallen, a photographic survey of war memorials as art and history.
Larry's game design career began with Harpoon, first published in 1980. A general-purpose air, surface, and submarine naval simulation, it combines playability with a wealth of information on modern naval weapons systems. Designed for the entry-level player, it found acceptance in both the commercial market and the professional naval community. Now in its fifth edition, Harpoon has won the H.G. Wells Award, a trade association honor, in 1981, 1987, and 1997 as the best miniatures game of the year. It is the only game to win the award more than once. The computer version of the game first appeared in 1990, and won the 1990 Wargame of the Year award from Computer Gaming World, an industry journal.
Command at Sea expanded the game system to World War II. Like Harpoon, it emphasizes both playability and historical accuracy, drawing on many contemporary sources.
Fear God & Dreadnought covered World War I. Emphasizing playability as well as scrupulous historical accuracy, research for the game has involved many of the best naval historians in the world.
Dawn of the Battleship reached back even further, to the 1890s, covering conflicts like the Sin-Japanese and the Spanish-American wars.
All four games use a common damage system, turn sequence, and similar rules, although adapted to the era. Players familiar with one set of rules can easily learn and play any of the others. They are supported by dozens of scenario supplements and data annexes.
In June of 2004, because of his many award-winning game designs, as well as over 20 years' experience in gaming and writing, Larry was inducted into the International Hall of Fame by the Game Manufacturers Association.
Graduating from St. Thomas College, St. Paul, Minnesota in 1973 with a degree in Quantitative Methods, Larry worked first as a computer programmer for two years before being selected for Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island. He was sworn into the Navy in 1975 and graduated from OCS the following year.
Larry was in the active Navy for six years, serving four on a destroyer and two on shore duty in the Washington DC area. He served in the reserves for two years with the Naval Reserve Intelligence Program. After leaving the Navy, he worked as a naval analyst for defense consulting firms in the Washington, DC area. He now writes and designs games full-time.
Larry is an avid wargamer and modeler.
You can contact Larry Bond by email at AuthorBond@aol.com