Rod Baker

Rod Baker has both fiction and non-fiction books in his Amazon publication list. His most recent fiction book, published in November 2025, is “The Rune Master Saga III: Beyond Vine Land,” which is his 12th novel. The book is also the fourth book in his Rune Master Saga series and covers the time period when the Vikings are credited by reaching the Americas some 400 years before Columbus, and includes the beginning reign of the early Viking kings of 9th century Norway and the legends of Norse mythology with rune masters honoring Odin and the the other gods. (See RUNE MASTER BOOKS below).

Rod Baker’s most recent non-fiction publication in 2021 is a book he co-edited with Patrick DeLeon entitled "Retirement Experiences of Psychologists." The book collects retirement stories from well-known and lesser-known psychologists to illustrate the wide variety of retirement options chosen by psychologists. Each retirement chapter author is asked to share their retirement aspirations, planning, struggles, and lessons learned in their retirement journey. Baker and DeLeon write their own retirement stories as well as an introduction to the book and include a final chapter describing their observations about the retirement experience for psychologists.

The book groupings below start with Baker's fiction writing in three different genres: science fiction, adult adventure, and historical fiction for young adults. His non-fiction books detail the history of psychology leadership in veteran health care, research, and training in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) are listed after his novels.

[RUNE MASTER BOOKS—HISTORICAL FICTION FOR YOUNG ADULTS, PARENTS, AND THOSE INTERESTED IN THE VIKING AGE AND STORIES ABOUT THE VIKING TRADERS AND NORSE MYTHOLOGY]

All four of the rune master novels published by Rod Baker including "The Rune Master Saga" in 2011 and "The Rune Master Saga II: Beyond Green Land” in 2015, are 9th century historical fiction novels set in Norway. They were recently preceded by a prequel titled “The Rune Masters of Odin” in 2024, with the more recent “The Rune Master Saga III: Beyond Vine Land” of 2025 identifying what is now called “The Rune Master Saga Series.” The prequel introduces rune masters Ingvild and Caryn and the warring kings and trader Vikings exploring Iceland who we meet in the 2011 and 2015 novels. In the first novel in 2011, we meet Glyndr, a 16-year-old girl who rejects the marriage expected of her as a farmer’s wife and seeks instead to become a rune master. She has her life goal met when Caryn, the wise village rune master, agrees to train her in using the rune spells of Odin in controlling the forces of nature and foretelling the future. In the rune master books, Glyndr's skills as a rune master serve her and Torvald, her trader brother, in adventures in Norway and the trading frontiers in the New World of Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland, and Labrador.

[PROFESSOR BLACKMAN BOOKS—ADULT ADVENTURE]

Professor Dan Blackman was introduced in Rod Baker’s first adult adventure novel (“Two Versions of Truth”—2015) and its two sequels ("Twice Met”—2016 and “Second Visit”—2017). In the first of these books, each having three stories, the professor is a faculty member in the English department of a small college in northern Minnesota. He and his favorite student, Larry, get involved in helping the FBI solve an arms smuggling operation across the US/Canadian border. Although he doesn't look for trouble, he continues to find it—or it finds him—and he continues his extracurricular activities in helping the FBI and other federal authorities in all three books with stories involving a range of crime scenarios from a terrorism plot at the Port of Houston to cases of computer espionage and blackmail.

[DR. ROBERTS AND THE REACH FOR THE STARS AND BEYOND THE REACH FOR THE STARS SERIES—SCIENCE FICTION]

The first of the five books in these two science fiction series introduce Samuel R. Roberts, an Earth roboticist whose programming skills promise to revolutionize the role of robots. His chance to test himself and his near-perfect humanoid robots came with the preparation of the androids to serve as crew of Earth's first space mission to reach another star (“Two Identities”—2019). In the second novel (“Second Contact”—2020), they reach the Proxima Centauri star system and receive an invitation and access to technology in the Federation, an organization of star-traveling worlds, that forever changes Earth’s travels among the stars. The androids bring honor to themselves in contributions to the Federation as Earth’s ambassadors. The third book (“Second Assignment”—2021) completes the REACH FOR THE STARS series when the androids are tasked with helping to keep the security and peace of the Federation. The fourth book (“Second Federation—2022) begins the BEYOND THE REACH FOR THE STARS series when the androids have already left the Federation as ambassadors to seek other goals. But during their absence, a few planet members seek more ruling authority that threaten the peace of the Federation. The Federation needs Roberts and his fellow androids again, but no one has seen or heard from them in almost 2,000 years. They now support the Federation keeping peace and sharing knowledge charter without assigned Federation roles or even acknowledging their presence in these roles. In the fifth book (“Second Beginning”—2023) the androids are again needed to prevent proposed changes from destroying the Federation peace of almost 5,000 years.

[HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS (VA)—NON-FICTION]

Rod Baker latest VA psychology history book “Still More Stories from VA Psychology” published in 2020 is fourth in a series that asks past and current psychology leaders in the Veterans Administration/Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to tell their career stories in helping our nation’s veterans. Baker asked Kathleen McNamara to co-edit the fourth book with him and each chapter author was encouraged to write an informal narrative of their careers to include memories of events and people that shaped their careers rather than prepare a more formal professional publication. The first publication in the series in 2007, simply called “Stories from VA Psychology,” featured authors whose career in the VA had been started in the first 30 years of VA psychology service to veterans that began in 1946. "More Stories from VA Psychology" and "Even More Stories from VA Psychology" followed in 2013 and 2017 with the latter co-edited by Robert Goldberg. Baker additionally wrote the "The 40-Year History of AVACP/AVAPL" in 2017 and co-authored the "The History of NOVA-Psi: 1981-1999" with Robert Goldberg and Robert Hutzell in 2018. It can be finally noted that Baker co-authored “Psychology and the Department of Veterans Affairs” with Wade Pickren that was published by the American Psychological Association in 2007, the first comprehensive history of psychology in the VA.

[OTHER WRITING PROJECTS]

Some readers may also be interested in one of Rod Baker's other writing projects. He is especially proud of his editing on four unique books not listed on his author page but can be examined on the Amazon book website: "Fifty Letters from Iraq", "Letters from Iraq", "Stories from Daddy", and "My Daddy is in Iraq". The books include letters or stories by Lt Col Paul "Jager" Schulze to his children while on Air Force deployment. In the first two books, Lt Col Schulze, an Air Force fighter pilot (and Rod Baker's son-in-law) is in Iraq for a year and wrote 241 letters to his two-year old son, Hunter, to help him learn new words and other lessons while he was gone. Every letter also has an illustration of the word, most in color. The letters range from patriotic messages to those of fatherly advice and concerns. The "Fifty Letters from Iraq" book features favorite letters that are scanned in full color, and the second book is a publication of all 241 stories. The third book, "Stories from Daddy", has letters and stories that Lt Col Schulze wrote and illustrated for his son, Hunter, now four years old, and his two-year old daughter, Sarah, when he and the Air Force fighter squadron he commanded were deployed to Korea. The fourth has letters and photos from Hunter to his father while deployed in Iraq with some journal entries of his father at Joint Base Balad in Iraq. All of the books have an introduction "dictated" to Baker by his grandchildren. All are available on the Amazon online bookstore:

"Fifty Letters from Iraq" by Schulze; ISBN: 978-1505366877

"Letters From Iraq" by Schulze; ISBN: 978-1505386929

"Stories From Daddy" by Schulze; ISBN: 978-1505392906

"My Daddy is in Iraq" by Schulze; ISBN: 978-1505393385

(Check out some of the poignant letters included in these books using the LOOK INSIDE! Feature on Amazon.)

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