Best-selling author Richard Paul Evans discusses his new book "Michael Vey 2: Rise of the Elgen"

August 14, 2012

Writer

Today, author Richard Paul Evans released the latest installment of the "Michael Vey" series: Michael Vey 2: Rise of the Elgen. Published by Glenn Beck’s Mercury Ink imprint, Michael Vey 2: Rise of the Elgen is the sequel to the instant #1 New York Times bestselling thriller Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25. Evans joined Glenn on radio this morning to discuss the new Young Adult novel.

“Rise of the Elgen, of course, takes off where the first book ended,” Evans told Glenn.

“Michael's mother was kidnapped and in Rise of the Elgen Michael is going down to save his mother. And it takes them to South America and into the jungles of the Amazon. I've actually spent a lot of time in the jungles. I've done a lot of humanitarian work down there. So it's a ride. That's all I can say. It's fun. It's a little scarier than the first book but I think that's good for especially the young male readers.”

Many fans of the series may not know that the book didn’t have a lot of supporters until Glenn decided to publish it as the first book from Mercury Ink.

“No one believed in the book,” Evans explained.

“The book debuts at number one of the New York Times,” he said, “ By the second day it was in its second printing.”

Back in June, Glenn encouraged viewers to create and interact with art that reflected positive values and lessons. The ‘Michael Vey’ series is just one example of this call being put into action. A story about hope and the power of goodness in an increasingly dark world, Michael Vey is a vehicle to teach kids important lessons and values.It teaches children that if they persist, and do what they know to be right, no matter how much pressure they face to do otherwise, then anything is possible.

You can get your copy of Michael Vey 2: Rise of the Elgin for 50% off TODAY ONLY by clicking HERE.

Read the full interview transcript below:

GLENN: During Restoring Love, we had book signings. David Barton was one of them. Michele Bachmann was one of them. We had ‑‑

PAT: Pat and Stu was one of them.

GLENN: Whatever.

PAT: Hello. It's huge.

STU: Huge.

GLENN: Brad Thor.

PAT: 730,000 people lined up.

GLENN: Brad Thor was there. I mean, we had some really big authors. And then there was Richard Paul Evans. Richard Paul Evans ‑‑

STU: Was that an insult?

GLENN: No.

PAT: Then this guy.

GLENN: Richard Paul Evans ‑‑ let me explain. Richard Paul Evans is one of the reasons why the Department of Homeland Security came to us and said they were worried about crowd control. His line for his book signing for Michael Vey: The Rise of the Elgin which is the Michael Vey, the second in the series, the reason why they said that they were concerned about crowds, his line was a quarter of a mile long. And you just told me, I didn't know this story. You stood in your own line.

EVANS: Yeah, I thought that was the line to get in to the event. I was there two hours early. I waited in line and thought, this line's not going anywhere.

PAT: What a buffoon!

EVANS: Thank you.

GLENN: Brad Thor wouldn't have done that.

PAT: Nope. Nope.

GLENN: (Laughing.)

EVANS: I'm a humble guy, okay? So I walked around.

GLENN: You stood in your own line.

EVANS: Yes. And so then I walked around and went to the front like I'm going to ‑‑ I have to get in there. And when I got to the front, people were wearing these T‑shirts they had made that said Vayniacs, and they started pointing at me and this guy said, this is your line for your book signing. I said, no, no, no.

GLENN: What's so funny is you were standing in your own line. Nobody knew. They're all waiting to meet you, they're all waiting to get your autograph and the people around you had no idea who you were.

EVANS: Well, it's all context.

GLENN: So amazing. The Michael Vey series, I'm just ‑‑ my kids were a little too young to read it last year. Raphe's just about 8 now and I'm reading it to my son and my daughter who is 7, and we love it. Just love it. I've been waiting to be able to share the books with them and I told Raphe last night ‑‑ we're just about finished with the first one and I told Raphe last night, we have to finish this because with new one comes out tomorrow. I told this story earlier. He looked at me like, he is not buying into me. And he was like, what are you selling? And I looked at him and I said, what's the problem? He said, Dad, it comes out tomorrow? And I said, yeah and he said, then how come we've had a copy for about a month?

EVANS: (Laughing.)

GLENN: He discovered Dad's a liar. But so we started. I haven't read it yet because I want to read it with the kids. Tell me about Rise of the Elgin.

EVANS: Rise of the Elgin, of course, takes off where the first book ended. Michael's mother was kidnapped and in Rise of the Elgin Michael is going down to save his mother. And it takes them to South America and into the jungles of the Amazon which I've actually spent a lot of time in the jungles. I've done a lot of humanitarian work down there. So it's a ride. That's all I can say. It's fun. It's a little scarier than the first book but I think that's good for especially the young male readers.

GLENN: You are ‑‑ you and I have one thing in common on when it comes to books, and it sets us apart, I think, from the rest of the publishing world. When you first had this book, you went to publishers and they said ‑‑

EVANS: They weren't interested. Remember how much fun we had last year, Glenn?

GLENN: Oh, yeah.

EVANS: Because no one believed in the book.

GLENN: I know.

EVANS: The book debuts at number one of the New York Times.

GLENN: I know.

EVANS: I just, I don't know if you know this. By the second day it was in its second printing.

GLENN: Holy cow.

EVANS: Yeah. Then basically Simon and Schuster stopped all the other books and just printed Michael Vey to keep up with the demand.

GLENN: The book comes out and all of the publishers kept saying you have to dumb it down, dumb it down. And when I read it, I said, Richard, smarten it up a little bit. It's got to be a little smarter and a little darker for kids. This is our first, as Mercury Ink, this is my first moving into try to get the young adults in a way they understand. Everybody else tries to get ‑‑ everybody else was like, I've got to do a moralistic book now. Golly gee, Wally, mom's going to be so upset when they find out. Leave It to Beaver doesn't connect. It just doesn't connect if the kids are in the filth that's out there. So this is kind of going into their world and dragging them back.

EVANS: Right. If you want to teach about self‑sacrifice, you could put an essay on there or you could do what Zeus does when all of a sudden they are being ‑‑ they are in a hall filled with rats and he ‑‑

GLENN: Don't tell me ‑‑ yeah, don't ‑‑

EVANS: But, you know, they make ‑‑ these kids make sacrifices because their love and their friendship.

GLENN: And it's easy to be able to read it with your kids and have conversations that are real that are not moralistic that are just real conversations. What are the ‑‑ what are you seeing? Did we give this out to advance readers? I know we did some but have you gotten any reviews back or anything from advance readers?

EVANS: Getting it back on my Facebook page and what they're saying is most are saying it's better than the first book. Getting a lot of, well, it's a little bit scarier than the first book, a lot of fun. And what I'm really hearing is the end of the book, the last third, once you start there, you'll be up all night reading it because once it starts rolling, you can't stop.

PAT: How many people are saying it needs more vampires? A lot? Are you getting a lot of that?

EVANS: You know what, people ‑‑

PAT: Shakespearian vampires, though.

EVANS: People are so glad there's no vampires in this and no wizards.

PAT: I bet. Have you seen the bookshelves, especially for young adults. You can't find anything that's not vampire‑related.

GLENN: You know why?

PAT: It's ridiculous.

GLENN: Because nobody is independent. They are all just sheep.

PAT: Yep.

GLENN: They are all sheep.

PAT: Yep.

GLENN: And so somebody comes up with an idea for a good book. Yeah, Stephenie Meyer does the Twilight thing and like, well, the kids love vampires. No, it was a really good story. Can you stop and come up with something original, which is what you did with Michael Vey. Let me ‑‑ I can't help. I hope I don't make you uncomfortable. I can't help because I'm reading it now and Michael keeps talking about his ticks. Michael has Tourette's syndrome. You have Tourette's syndrome.

EVANS: I have Tourette's syndrome.

GLENN: He keeps saying right when he gets into a nervous situation or he's about to be around a girl or whatever, he starts, you know, twitching and his eye starts blinking.

EVANS: Like I am right now.

GLENN: You're not now but when Pat was talking to you, your eye was twitching. You have a crush on him or ‑‑

EVANS: No, it's anxiety.

GLENN: It's anxiety?

EVANS: That's what Michael ‑‑ Taylor can always in the book tell when Michael's nervous because he starts twitching.

GLENN: Twitching. How was that when you were growing up? How much of this ‑‑ how much of Michael is you?

EVANS: Most of it. And I didn't realize it until I ‑‑ after the book was out a year that a friend came and said, you know, this is you, right? You do know you wrote a book about yourself?

GLENN: Except you're not electric.

EVANS: I'm not electric. But the electricity's really a metaphor, the power we have within ourselves. Whether it's our love or our talents. It's just one other different thing we can use. And I had different ‑‑ I didn't have electricity. I had a different way of communicating with other people.

GLENN: There is a great ‑‑ there are several scenes in it that I mean, I think towards the very beginning and I think what people, kids and adults see in it is themselves. You say Michael Vey is you. I don't have Tourette's, but I had kind of the childhood that Michael Vey had, too, where you were just kind of the loser kid and you got beat up and, you know, whatever. And I think a lot of us had that kind of experience. Yeah, no, I know it's crazy. People didn't want to hear about George Washington. But the ‑‑ that you see yourself and your own childhood and we all kind of see ourselves as the ‑‑ as the outsider, being picked on somebody. But there is a really important scene in the first book about when Michael teams up with the guys who have been beating up on him and I just read this part with Raphe about two days ago and it was such a great conversation to have with Raphe where you realize what these kids who are bullies, what's happening to them in their life and it just, I could see lights go on in his head. Have you heard that very often? Have you heard that from anybody else that kids are ‑‑ they're getting ‑‑ they are not only seeing themselves but they're opening up and seeing other things that they never even considered before?

EVANS: You know expressed not quite so articulately.

GLENN: You're being kind.

EVANS: But what kids say is, wow, that's kind of tough being the bully. But also I can see why he does that. And Michael makes that statement. He goes, I probably will be shoving kids in lockers, too, if that happened to me at home. And so in fact, Jack because one of the favorite characters. In fact, my daughter said, she's my writing assistant, she goes, I think Jack's my favorite character now.

GLENN: Is he in 2?

EVANS: He's in 2. He's a big part of 2. And you get to see, one of the things that Michael is, why they love him so much is that Michael brings the Bess out of everybody. So Jack, he knows Jack wants to be a hero. He wants to be like his brother who is a marine and Jack gets to lay that part. And he becomes the best he can be, and all of them do. There's a scene in the jungle between Austin and McKenna, two of the characters that I think is stunning in the second book. It's one of the favorite things I've written of all my novels. I just read it over and over and thought, I love that scene. Because she inspires him to be who he really can be.

GLENN: The name of the book is Michael Vey 2: Rise of the Elgin and it is available everywhere. There's a reason why the line to get the autograph on this book was a quarter of a mile long. Just think of that, a quarter of a mile long for a book that most of America has not heard of really yet. I don't think this book will take off really until Book 3. And that's when this book will start to have momentum because that's kind of the pattern of these twilight and Harry Potter and Percy Jackson and everything else. It starts to build momentum around Book 3. In Book 1 it was already a bigger seller than Book 1 of Harry Potter when it was first released.

EVANS: It's actually Simon and Schuster's largest new series, young adult release in their history.

GLENN: So you've got that going for you now. There's a reason why it's a quarter of a mile long to say hello. Get your kids on the bandwagon and share it with a friend. It is a great way to teach your kids. Great way just to have a great read and it's not just for kids. Really not. It's a great book. Pat read it. You loved it.

PAT: Oh, yeah, loved it.

GLENN: I read it by myself, loved it. And this is one of the reasons why I said smarten it up a bit because you can really make me love it. And Pat, after he read the edits, Pat loved it as well. I mean, you can read it as an adult as well.

EVANS: We ran into a little bit of a problem with the adults were liking it so much, then giving it to the kids, the kids, there's a kind of lag here. Like if adults like it, then maybe we shouldn't be reading this.

GLENN: Yeah, don't let your kids see you like it.

EVANS: But then they caught on and their friends start reading it.

GLENN: And that's one of the reasons that also the first book was prisoner of cell 25. It had kind of a dark cover because I wanted it to not be like, your parents liked it.

EVANS: Well, this one is scary. It has rats all over the second one.

GLENN: It's really good. Who is the artist that did the cover? Do you remember?

EVANS: I forgot his name. He does video games. He's fantastic.

GLENN: Really, really good. Go ahead.

EVANS: You heard about the deal we have on the book today?

GLENN: No.

EVANS: Oh, it's fantastic. It's just for your listeners. Premiere ‑‑ if you go to, of course it's available right now on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. But if you go to Premiere, just actually go to MichaelVey2.com.

GLENN: MichaelVey2.com.

EVANS: 50% off. It's like 9 bucks for the hard cover book.

GLENN: These are first edition copies. And may I make a recommendation. Keep your first edition copy. Buy two. Put one on the shelf. Have you seen, have you seen what a Harry Potter goes for? Buy 2, put one on a shelf. Mark my words. I collect books. Michael Vey, first edition copies. You can get them at MichaelVey2.com only for this audience. 50% off, today only if you go to MichaelVey2.com. But tell all your ‑‑ tell all your ‑‑ what did Michelle Obama call them? Knucklehead friends? Tell all your knucklehead friends that they can ‑‑ that they can get it at Amazon.com. Okay. Richard, we'll talk to you later. Thank you so much.

EVANS: Thank you.

Is Mayor Bass HIDING the real reason behind LA’s riots?

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

Protesters wore Che shirts, waved foreign flags, and chanted Marxist slogans — but corporate media still peddles the ‘spontaneous outrage’ narrative.

I sat in front of the television this weekend, watching the glittering spectacle of corporate media do what it does best: tell me not to believe my lying eyes.

According to the polished news anchors, what I was witnessing in Los Angeles was “mostly peaceful protests.” They said it with all the earnest gravitas of someone reading a bedtime story, while behind them the streets looked like a deleted scene from “Mad Max.” Federal agents dodged concrete slabs as if it were an Olympic sport. A man in a Che Guevara crop top tried to set a police car on fire. Dumpster fires lit the night sky like some sort of postapocalyptic luau.

If you suggest that violent criminals should be deported or imprisoned, you’re painted as the extremist.

But sure, it was peaceful. Tear gas clouds and Molotov cocktails are apparently the incense and candles of this new civic religion.

The media expects us to play along — to nod solemnly while cities burn and to call it “activism.”

Let’s call this what it is: delusion.

Another ‘peaceful’ riot

If the Titanic “mostly floated” and the Hindenburg “mostly flew,” then yes, the latest L.A. riots are “mostly peaceful.” But history tends to care about those tiny details at the end — like icebergs and explosions.

The coverage was full of phrases like “spontaneous,” “grassroots,” and “organic,” as if these protests materialized from thin air. But many of the signs and banners looked like they’d been run off at ComradesKinkos.com — crisp print jobs with slogans promoting socialism, communism, and various anti-American regimes. Palestinian flags waved beside banners from Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba, and El Salvador. It was like someone looted a United Nations souvenir shop and turned it into a revolution starter pack.

And guess who funded it? You did.

According to at least one report, much of this so-called spontaneous rage fest was paid for with your tax dollars. Tens of millions of dollars from the Biden administration ensured your paycheck funded Trotsky cosplayers chucking firebombs at local coffee shops.

The same aging radicals from the 1970s — now armed with tenure, pensions, and book deals — are cheering from the sidelines, waxing poetic about how burning a squad car is “liberation.” These are the same folks who once wore tie-dye and flew to help guerrilla fighters and now applaud chaos under the banner of “progress.”

This is not progress. It is not protest. It’s certainly not justice or peace.

It’s an attempt to dismantle the American system — and if you dare say that out loud, you’re labeled a bigot, a fascist, or, worst of all, someone who notices reality.

And what sparked this taxpayer-funded riot? Enforcement against illegal immigrants — many of whom, according to official arrest records, are repeat violent offenders. These are not the “dreamers” or the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. These are criminals with long, violent rap sheets — allowed to remain free by a broken system that prioritizes ideology over public safety.

Photo by Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg | Getty Images

This is what people are rioting over — not the mistreatment of the innocent, but the arrest of the guilty. And in California, that’s apparently a cause for outrage.

The average American, according to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, is supposed to worry they’ll be next. But unless you’re in the habit of assaulting people, smuggling, or firing guns into people’s homes, you probably don’t have much to fear.

Still, if you suggest that violent criminals should be deported or imprisoned, you’re painted as the extremist.

The left has lost it

This is what happens when a culture loses its grip on reality. We begin to call arson “art,” lawlessness “liberation,” and criminals “community members.” We burn the good and excuse the evil — all while the media insists it’s just “vibes.”

But it’s not just vibes. It’s violence, paid for by you, endorsed by your elected officials, and whitewashed by newsrooms with more concern for hair and lighting than for truth.

This isn’t activism. This is anarchism. And Democratic politicians are fueling the flame.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck's 'No King but Christ' merch: Will faith STOP the chaos?

On Saturday, June 14, 2025 (President Trump's 79th birthday), the "No Kings" protest—a noisy spectacle orchestrated by progressive heavyweights like Randi Weingarten and her union cronies—will take place in Washington, D.C.

Thousands will chant "no thrones, no crowns, no king," claiming to fend off authoritarianism and corruption.

But let’s cut through the noise. The protesters' grievances—rigged courts, deported citizens, slashed services—are a house of cards. Zero Americans have been deported, Federal services are still bloated, and if anyone is rigging the courts, it's the Left. So why rally now, especially with riots already flaring in L.A.?

Chaos isn’t a side effect here—it’s the plan.

This is not about liberty; it's a power grab dressed up as resistance. The "No Kings" crowd wants you to buy their script: government’s the enemy—unless they’re the ones running it. It's the identical script from 2020: same groups, same tactics, same goal, different name.

But Glenn is flipping the script. He's dropping a new "No Kings but Christ" merch line, just in time for the protest. Merch that proclaims one truth: no earthly ruler owns us; only Christ does. It’s a bold, faith-rooted rejection of this secular circus.

Why should you care? Because this won’t just be a rally—it’ll be a symptom. Distrust in institutions is sky-high, and rightly so, but the "No Kings" answer is a hollow shout into the void. Glenn’s merch begs the question: if you’re ditching kings, who’s really in charge? Get yours and wear the answer proudly.

Truth unleashed: 95% say media’s excuses for anti-Semitism are a LIE

ELI IMADALI / Contributor | Getty Images

Glenn asked for YOUR take on the rising tide of anti-Semitism, and you delivered. After the Boulder attack, you made it clear: this isn’t just a news story—it’s a crisis the elites are dodging.

Your verdict is unmistakable: 96% of you see anti-Semitism as a growing threat in the U.S., brushing aside the establishment’s weak excuses. The spin does not fool you—95% say the media is deliberately downplaying the issue, hiding a cultural rot that’s all too real. And the government’s response? A whopping 95% of you call it a disgraceful failure, leaving communities exposed.

Your voices shatter the silence. Why should we trust narratives that dismiss your concerns? With 97% of you warning that anti-Semitism will surge in the years ahead, you’re demanding action and accountability. This is your stand for truth.

You spoke, and Glenn listened. Your bold response sends a message to those who’d rather ignore the problem. Keep raising your voice at Glennbeck.com—your input drives the fight for justice. Take part in the next poll and continue shaping the conversation.

Want to make your voice heard? Check out more polls HERE.

JPMorgan Chase CEO issues dire warning about America's prosperity

Win McNamee / Staff | Getty Images

Jamie Dimon has a grim forecast for America — and it’s not a recession. He sees a fragile nation drifting into crisis while its leaders fight over TikTok.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase — one of the most powerful financial institutions on earth — issued a warning the other day. But it wasn’t about interest rates, crypto, or monetary policy.

Speaking at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California, Dimon pivoted from economic talking points to something far more urgent: the fragile state of America’s physical preparedness.

We are living in a moment of stunning fragility — culturally, economically, and militarily. It means we can no longer afford to confuse digital distractions with real resilience.

“We shouldn’t be stockpiling Bitcoin,” Dimon said. “We should be stockpiling guns, tanks, planes, drones, and rare earths. We know we need to do it. It’s not a mystery.”

He cited internal Pentagon assessments showing that if war were to break out in the South China Sea, the United States has only enough precision-guided missiles for seven days of sustained conflict.

Seven days — that’s the gap between deterrence and desperation.

This wasn’t a forecast about inflation or a hedge against market volatility. It was a blunt assessment from a man whose words typically move markets.

“America is the global hegemon,” Dimon continued, “and the free world wants us to be strong.” But he warned that Americans have been lulled into “a false sense of security,” made complacent by years of peacetime prosperity, outsourcing, and digital convenience:

We need to build a permanent, long-term, realistic strategy for the future of America — economic growth, fiscal policy, industrial policy, foreign policy. We need to educate our citizens. We need to take control of our economic destiny.

This isn’t a partisan appeal — it’s a sobering wake-up call. Because our economy and military readiness are not separate issues. They are deeply intertwined.

Dimon isn’t alone in raising concerns. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has warned that China has already overtaken the U.S. in key defense technologies — hypersonic missiles, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence to mention a few. Retired military leaders continue to highlight our shrinking shipyards and dwindling defense manufacturing base.

Even the dollar, once assumed untouchable, is under pressure as BRICS nations work to undermine its global dominance. Dimon, notably, has said this effort could succeed if the U.S. continues down its current path.

So what does this all mean?

Christopher Furlong / Staff | Getty Images

It means we are living in a moment of stunning fragility — culturally, economically, and militarily. It means we can no longer afford to confuse digital distractions with real resilience.

It means the future belongs to nations that understand something we’ve forgotten: Strength isn’t built on slogans or algorithms. It’s built on steel, energy, sovereignty, and trust.

And at the core of that trust is you, the citizen. Not the influencer. Not the bureaucrat. Not the lobbyist. At the core is the ordinary man or woman who understands that freedom, safety, and prosperity require more than passive consumption. They require courage, clarity, and conviction.

We need to stop assuming someone else will fix it. The next crisis — whether military, economic, or cyber — will not politely pause for our political dysfunction to sort itself out. It will demand leadership, unity, and grit.

And that begins with looking reality in the eye. We need to stop talking about things that don’t matter and cut to the chase: The U.S. is in a dangerously fragile position, and it’s time to rebuild and refortify — from the inside out.