Writing

Chapter 14 – Gervald’s Story (updated)

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If you were following my novel “Train Wreck” as part of the AtoZ 2021 Challenge, you will know that, due to other pressures such as my day job, I didn’t get beyond Chapter 14 in my attempt to finish the novel during April. There are a couple of extra paragraphs added to the end of this chapter and then another Chapter follows in the next post…

(Author)

When Stig and Alex returned a while later, they found Jack assisting Katie to prepare a meal by peeling potatoes whilst she made a sauce. There was a comfortable atmosphere between them. Katie moved the saucepan off the heat and took Alex off into another room for a moment saying she had something she really needed to tell him. They were gone a while and Stig and Jack stayed in the kitchen watching over the potatoes which Jack had set to boil.
“Did you find Gervald?” Jack asked.
“We did! And it proved useful, not just about him and his story, but it may have some implications for your story too…”
“Do tell!” said Jack – they were sitting at the kitchen table sipping cans of beer.
“Alex took us to the place he thought the stranger who might be Gervald was and he was right. We snuck up on it – not easy in near desert country, but it was the right approach – Gervald was on the back veranda and he took off inside and locked the doors as soon as we showed. If we hadn’t seen him first, we wouldn’t have known he was inside. He wouldn’t answer so Alex went round the front and I picked the lock.”
“Really Stig? I’ve always wanted to know how to do that! Not that many people lock their doors here but still – maybe you could give me a lesson!”
“Easy Tiger! We’ll find time one day! Anyway, I go inside but no sign of Gervald so I let Alex in and he says that Gervald hasn’t come out so we start looking round for him. I call out to him – tell him who we are and that we mean him no harm. I tell him about you and your connection to Clem and everything I know about his story as Clem told it. I ask him if he is hiding out because he is afraid of someone and I tell him we can help – that if we could find him, then someone else could do so just as easily…”
Stig goes to the fridge and fetches another bottle of beer but Jack declines the offer of one.
“Finally, at this, Gervald emerges from behind a panel in the wall – a hiding place he has constructed. He is very scared, looks out of all the windows to see if we are alone before sitting down and talking to us.”

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

“What Clem said about me is true. I was more interested in the recreational drugs to begin with. I liked hanging out with him in his lab – which he allowed me to do once I knew him well enough. He told me his story and he encouraged me also, to go to college and study pharmacology. Gradually, I became more able to be of help to him and although I was still into getting high, I started to develop an interest in the more medical research Clem was doing.”
Gervald had calmed down a bit since he realised he wasn’t in any immediate danger and had started to tell his tale, but only after going over who Stig was – Stig had just said – “a member of the Rangers…”
“Then one day, I was in a bar one evening, Clem was away for a couple of weeks – I think he may actually have been on a trip to Hawaii 1. He didn’t share everything with me and he certainly didn’t allow me to be at his place and his lab when he wasn’t there.
These guys started talking to me, asking what I did and when I said I worked for this genius chemist, they said ‘Clem? We know all about Clem!’
I was surprised and alarm bells started ringing but they went on affably enough to say they had some business connections with Clem – were disappointed to find he was away as they had hoped to see him whilst they were passing through.
I asked them where they were from and they said Hawaii 1 and I was impressed but also surprised since I had this inkling that was where Clem had gone anyway. They asked what I was working on and said I must be busy with Clem away. I said no to the latter I explained that Clem didn’t allow me to work whilst he was away and we were never really what you’d call busy – not since Clem works at his own pace on his own projects. They seemed quite envious of that – ‘Must be nice! Where we come from, you work as hard and fast as you can because unless you’re one of the very rich, everybody is on the clock…’ Then they changed the subject for a bit.”
Clem jumped up and had another look out through all the windows as if he still wasn’t convinced that his visitors were kosher then he came and sat down and continued his story.
“It wasn’t long before they asked what I did, exactly, for Clem. I told them I was a student now and so I was more useful to Clem – to be honest, I was boasting a bit at that stage, I had downed a few drinks before these guys showed up and they kept buying… They didn’t propose anything that night , but a few weeks later, just before Clem came home, they ‘happened to be passing by’ and we had another evening drinking, I asked them about life on Hawaii 1. They said I should come and see for myself – of course – I told them there was no way I could afford a trip like that. They said I shouldn’t rule it out – they might have some work for a bright guy like me, perhaps I could set up a lab on my own and make something for them. Like a fool I asked what? They told me that they knew Clem had a new drug with no come down but that he wasn’t interested in making it for them – if I could do it, then they would buy and import the equipment needed. Of course, I knew they were talking about Sunset. I said I didn’t have the complete formula but I had done some of the testing on it. ‘But you could get the details if you wanted to…’ I told them I could and asked how much they needed, they asked how much I thought I could make. – I told them I would have to work out some figures and what equipment I would need. They gave me a mail contact to reach them – and that’s how it began.
Once they had my lab set up, they came round regularly and gradually they started to press me for odd bits of information from Clem’s computers – some of it probably wasn’t important – it just got me used to doing stuff for them. They paid generously – mostly into an account they said was ‘waiting for me on Hawaii 1’. They started to push for more information about stuff I knew Clem was more circumspect about – medical stuff – and I started to get cold feet. They didn’t get nasty, not then, in fact, they said they were going to take me to a party! I would get to meet some important people from both Hawaii 1 and 2.”
Stig had been taking notes as Gervald told his story and asking the odd question – could Gervald describe the men, what was the contact number they had given him, could he remember any specific dates he had seen them… Gervald cooperated fully, he seemed relieved to let it all out finally. He went on.
“The party was on an island, we went on the biggest private boat I had ever seen and as well as the guy’s I knew, there were some women – very smartly dressed but I thought later, that they were – you know – professional… We all went ashore and into a side room off the main living space I was introduced to someone from Hawaii 1- a Mr Jensen – who seemed to be quite important – the guys were very deferential to him. He said that ‘they were very pleased with my work, that Sunset was the way forward, a good, clean drug with less side effects – just what they needed to keep the workers happy!’ Then the guys and I went out into the main room where we joined the girls. Later they pointed out the President – you know Widnes! He was talking to Jensen – they seemed to be friendly, but there was some sort of struggle going on – like Jensen was pushing for something – it reminded me of how it was when the guys came to talk to me! But then one of the women started coming on to me and it wasn’t long before we were headed back to the boat because she said we would have it to ourselves. She poured me a drink and we sat on a couch and she kissed me, I know that much, but after that I remember nothing. Next time I woke, I was in bed in one of the cabins – naked, but what else had happened I couldn’t tell you.
I’ve had a lot of time here to think about what happened and I realised I was well played at that party – I saw some luxury, got complimented by someone who could have been anyone, saw the President but never got to talk to him – or anyone else come to that. I got kissed but that was literally the only taste of the high life I had before being whisked back to normality. Smoke and mirrors! After that, the guys started to get really pushy and downright nasty and I started to realise more and more that I was out of my depth – I owed them more for the equipment than I could possibly afford and they could tell Clem what I had done too, not that I thought that likely. I was on the hook so I decided to just disappear and hope they wouldn’t come after me – tell me! Do you think they will, Stig?”
“I really can’t say Gervald, but I think we will get you moved somewhere safer, just in case. After all, you didn’t really take much finding, did you? Said Stig.
“I guess not!” – Gervald looked very uncomfortable again.
“Look! I’ll make a call straight away and get someone to pick you up tonight. We’ll get your camper taken in the opposite direction as a decoy, okay?”
“Okay!”
“I will arrange for someone to take a more formal statement too before you disappear into what we might call a ‘witness protection program’ although that is a bit grand for Hawaii 2 – we certainly don’t have a program as such – you will be the first and only member of it if we did!”
“Thank you Stig, I have been terrified, I won’t lie to you…”
“That’s okay Gervald – you have been foolish not to mention disloyal – but we on Hawaii 2 look after our own.”

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

“It certainly sounds like the same island I was taken to!” said Jack to Stig.
“Indeed! I guess it suggests a possible connection with your abductors but for me, it doesn’t quite add up. If Gervald’s guys were really interested in Clem’s medical drugs – and the whole Sunset production lab was just a front to get Gervald to spy on Clem, then two things occur to me. Firstly, these guys are well connected – they hobnob with the President at a party and they are able to import pharmaceutical manufactur-ing equipment easily enough – and something tells me we don’t find import records for that. Secondly, how does that connect to your train wreck? I mean, if they got the secrets of Clem’s drugs, they wouldn’t be making them here – so easier access to the planet isn’t relevant to them one way or another! Still the connection to the President needs looking at, I am surprised that he should have been in such company, though he may not have known what they were really up to, it will need careful handling…”. Stig said thoughtfully.

At that moment, Alex and Katie came back into the kitchen holding hands. Katie looked as if she had been crying but was smiling now.
“Let’s eat – I’m starving!” said Alex, who also looked, if not happy, then relieved.
“Sure” said Stig, “I must just make a few phone calls while you finish up cooking – I’m afraid we will have to get off first thing in the morning – sorry it’s been such a fly-ing visit but it’s been most productive and we will catch up properly soon!”.

Chapter 15

Roadtrip One – A2Z Challenge 2021

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A brief video through the car windscreen in the Morrocan village of Ifraden…

This is my second year n the A2Z Challenge (2021) and this year I am determined to go on the Road Trip in which participants visit some of the blogs they haven’t managed to see during April – the month of itself. If you want to make your own exploration of this year’s Challenge, here is the Masterlist.
I wanted to start with an image of a road trip that I had taken myself rather than one plucked from the ether – since you can hear my partner and I chatting as she films and I drive, it may amuse…

First up is The Sound of One Hand Typing, where John Holton treated us to Top Ten charts from various US and Canadian radio stations since radio is unique in its ephemeral nature and although there are not many sources of recorded airplay, there are lists of playlists and top tens – great for music buffs and radio aficionados…

More than Words took book reviews as it’s theme for the A2Z and the thing which makes book reviews interesting, is what they tell you about the reviewer as much as the books themselves, both through the selections they make, and the things they write about them. Pooja Jagtiaani is, as far as I can tell from her site, Indian and some of the books she has chosen for the A2Z Challenge are definitely from an India heritage but many are very cosmopolitan – they are well written reviews and if you want to add to your TBR list – try this blog out and see whether you like Pooja’s taste…

hdhstory is a writer’s blog – Harvey Heilbrun is a retired school teacher who the input of ideas from his former charges. He goes to writing groups and generates flash fiction from them and writing at home. I found the pieces I looked at intriguing but reading is such a subjective thing – you must make up your own mind.

W is for Word-count in SciFi…

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   If you have been following this blog’s A2Z Challenge then you will know that I have been trying to finish a novel, “Train Wreck”, and publishing a chapter below each post – at least until day 15 when I ran out of completed chapters – there is another one in progress – but if you have been following the novel and would like to receive the balance of the chapters – let me know in a comment. Meanwhile, this post is for writers and readers alike and more questions than answers…

Whether you are a pithy poster of blog pieces or a verbose vendor of sagas, how much do you think about the length of the pieces you write or if you are a reader, do you have a length which you feel comfortable with and reader or writer, how does that vary with the category of writing?

These days, does anybody formally describe their book as a novella rather than a short novel? There are all sorts of guides, rules and categories but since I am writing a science fiction novel I understand that they are allowed to be longer than the publishing industry standard because of all the descriptions of new worlds that might be expected. Wikipedia has an article about the Hugo Nebula Awards who specify the lengths for competition categories.

From this, you can see that the novel word count begins at 40K which seems quite small went many other authorities suggest 90K for the average fiction novel – up to 120K for SciFi. One of my favourite “SciFi” authors – Kurt Vonnegut, used to give ideas for short stories to a fictional SciFi author who pops up in many of his books – Kilgore Trout – which I always assumed was because he had many ideas for stories that he couldn’t be bothered to flesh out and they demonstrate that you can convey the essence of some stories in no more than a paragraph…

So I have now reached that magical 40K which means that I can stop worrying about the length and just write what I feel I need to include – but if any of read the story so far – do you agree? Do you have a sense of “Train Wreck” being halfway through (or less) or do you think it needs a great deal more?

I have been involved with graphic design for 50 years since I joined the Printing Society at school and learned to set lead type. Later, in my first proper job, I designed forms and booklets for the Greater London Council and everything we sent to the (optical) typesetter, had to be counted up and the size of the type and its line-spacing calculated first – a process known as casting-off and very tedious it was… I have just scanned a page of Iain M Banks “Hydrogen Sonata” with my phone camera, character recognised the image and posted it into a word programme to obtain a word count of 298 words per page and since the novel has 605 pages, then this hefty paperback has a whopping 180,290 words and with the depth of Iain’s imagination and comprehensively developed “Culture” books, one does not tire of his books at any length.

Also, from that period of graphic design is the boilerplate text known as “Lorem ipsum” which is shown at the top of this post. Because it is in Latin, it is used to mock-up a design where you don’t want viewers to be distracted by the meaning of the content. Even in Latin, it is quite meaningless and you can find it on the web if you need to use it.

So should one play by “the Rules” or follow your heart on the length of the book – please give me your feelings, general or specific – go on – hit that comment box…




T is for Terrorism…

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 If you have been following this blog’s A2Z Challenge then you will know that I have been trying to finish a novel, “Train Wreck”, and publishing a chapter below each post – at least until day 15 when I ran out of completed chapters – there is another one in progress – but if you have been following the novel and would like to receive the balance of the chapters – let me know in a comment. Meanwhile, some thoughts on a subject that plays a very small part in “Train Wreck”.

The image above is the nearest I could find to the dream-vision I had that launched the writing of my novel (work-in-progress) “Train Wreck”. Nearest in the sense that it is an explosion on a train in the desert although in my case it takes place on another planet onboard a MagLev train whilst this image is from David Lean’s classic film “Lawrence of Arabia”.

In my book, terrorism is discounted by official sources and the public are told the explosion was due to a gas bottle malfunction. Privately though, government investigators remain mystified by the explosion which they determine to have been a bomb and yet no claim of responsibility has been made and no motive can be imagined…

We do come to learn the motive – not terrorism – but the whodunnit forms the narrative trajectory of the book. Still, I have a few thoughts on the subject of terrorism…

I suppose I first became aware of the phenomena of terrorism during the 60’s and 70’s when the hijacking of airliners – mostly by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)- was a regular occurrence. I remember wondering at the time, why airplanes? If I was a terrorist and wanted to create terror, I would blow up elictricity substations, unguarded and too many to protect, plunging random residential areas into darkness and striking at the heart of a target people rather than some remote group of travellers. (I was not as dangerous a teenager as this may suggest…) The answer to why airpanes was, I suppose, because they guaranteed publicity worldwide. International airflight was still relatively new and glamourous so trains would definitely have been infra dig as a target.

As a result of these activities, the PFLP and later factions such as the PLO, attached the word terrorism to the Palestinian people as if they were the prototypical terrorists – a fiction unceasingly re-enforced by Israeli propaganda. For let us not forget, that if the Palestinians got the idea that terrorism might get you what you wanted, they learned it from the Zionist gangs that commited atrocities such as the bombing of the King David Hotel in which 91 people of various nationalities were killed. The hotel was the headquarters of the British administration and the members of the Irgun right-wing zionist gang infiltrated the hotel dressed as Arab  (Palestinian Arab) workers. If that isn’t ironic I don’t know what is… The attack took place in the run up to the unilateral declaration of the state of Israel which has continued, against its own declared constitution, to steal the land from Palestinian Arabs. 

There is a maxim “One man’s Terrorist is another’s Freedom Fighter!” and although terrorism is the underdog’s tool in the assymetric warfare of liberation, the converse statement must be true of government. “One man’s Legitimate Government is another man’s Illegitimate Occupying Force!”

Terrorism was elevated during the latter part of the 20th and into the 21st Century, by the rise of Islamic suicide bombers, recruited by shadowy manipulators who would never put themselves in harm’s way and promising a quick ticket to Paradise to idealistic (mostly) young Moslems. Suicide bombers are not a new phenomena and have in the past been state sponsored – think Japanese Kamikase pilots but the suicide vest allied with the mechanisms for recruiting and grooming suicide bombers in “support of Islam” has reached new levels. Whilst my adolescent musings were of a terrorism that hurt nobody (directly anyway), the latest form of suicide terrorism are designed to cause maximum carnage indiscriminately. 

Does Terrorism work? In the UK, the toies, led by Margaret Thatcher, despite vowing not to talk to terrorists (the IRA in Northern Ireland), were forced to do so once the bombing campaign reached mainland Britain and in particular, the bombing of The Arndale Shopping Centre, Manchester in 1996. The government then entered into secret negotiations( influenced by Jermy Corbyn’s more nuanced approach to the IRA) which eventually led to the Good Friday Agreement. Presumably insurance companies put their feet down and said enogh is enough – negtiate or we will not insure commercial properties. Commercial Unoin itself, lost all its windows in the Baltic Exchange bombing. So yes – terrorism can achieve results if applied to the right pessure point.

Arguably, bringing war, (so often inflicted by the US on countries around the world), in the form of 9/11 to american soil, did not work to make the US question why such an act might have occured and applied more of the same by launching yet more wars in the Middle East which continue to this day, justifying and feeding the military industrial complex.

Israel continues to mislead and brainwash its children into thinking that Palestinian Arabs are the agressors rather than the Zionist project – “truth is the first casualty in war” and I ask you – in Israel, who are the real terrorists?

S is for Scandinavia, Sex and Social Workers…

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If you have been following this blog’s A2Z Challenge then you will know that I have been trying to finish a novel, “Train Wreck”, and publishing a chapter below each post – at least until day 15 when I ran out of completed chapters – there is another one in progress – but if you have been following the novel and would like to receive the balance of the chapters – let me know in a comment. Meanwhile – this post explores some myths about the supposed utopian society of Scandinavia…



When I was a teenager, there was rumour that Scandinavian women were hot! In fact the words Sex and Swedish were almost synonymous, at least as far as women and certainly by contrast to us allegedly uptight British men… 

In recent decades, another myth has done the rounds, that Scandinavian countries were all exemplary utopian societies. Okay so the tax was high but then so were the wages and the social welfare net unprecedented. More recently, this myth has proved to be just that – a myth and newspapers will have to search elsewhere for the next big meme. You can read a quite amusing article on the subject here or an article on why America’s left might be unwise to embrace the idea of Scaninavian utopianism with aspects of Swedish society best forgotten, forced sterilisation of 63,000 people who might have physically or mentally deficient offspring. I will not repeat all the arguments in these two typical articles seeking to revise our view of Finnish, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian society but here are a few random facts:- 

  • Danes claim to be a happy people but are second only to Iceland in consuming anti-depressants
  • In Norway, September 2013, the rightwing, anti-Islamist Progress party – of which the mass shooter Anders Breivik had been an active member for many years – won 16.3% of the vote in the general election
  • Norwegians boast of using only renewable energy sources but their wealth comes from selling fossil fuels to the rest of us. (subject of the excellent Scandi drama “Occupied”)
  • Women in Nordic nations deal with high levels of rape and abuse even as the countries lead in gender equality
I think that two issues are raised here, why did we so want to hear about the supposedly utopian Scandinavians with their Hygge and secondly, why is there a gap between the myth and the reality. One thing is about us and the other is about them…

Taking the point about the Scandinavians first, and reading between the lines of several articles, some things happen because governments devise them in top down programmes such as high tax to pay for high social security and other things come from the grassroots up. In a book called “Made in Sweden: how the Swedes are not nearly so egalitarian, tolerant, hospitable or cozy as they would like to (have you) think”, Elisabeth Åsbrink, an acclaimed Swedish journalist writes “Sweden has a very strong self-image of being a good country,” Asbrink said. “It’s in the tradition of Sweden to put itself forth as a moral role model.” and later in the book, “As soon as welfare is based on all citizens contributing,” Asbrink writes, “those who are not considered contributors become a problem.” Hence the enforced sterilisations and anti-immigrant attitudes. Hygge, it seems is a residue from traditional values that don’t stand up when the people are threatened by new influences from new people.

Before you think I am swinging too far the other way and painting the Scandinavians too noir, (and Scandi noir has given us some great dramas – why are we so fascinated with gruesome crime?) – no! They are just human like the rest of us! It seems that human nature allows us to befriend strangers from other places as individuals whilst simultaneously feeling threatened on a group, welfare or cultural level. To pay high taxes for a great social welfare net but not then be so willing to share it. Margaret Meade, the anthropologist, said that rather than the burying of dead, she saw the beginning of civilisation as being when we see evidence of healed broken-bones – evidence that we not only had time and resources plus the knowledge of how to set bones, but the will to support a fallen comrade. (The story of this quote is told here and here) This would appear to be an issue which is always in the balance in human nature depending perhaps, on the availability of resources…

So why did we want to believe in the myths about Scandinavia? Perhaps it is human nature to think that the grass must be greener somewhere and so all us uptight English boys, lacking as we did, either the, climate or the  surf-culture of Beachboys California, fantasised about embracing the nearly in reach,uninhibited, blonde, Swedish sex-goddesses and later in life we wanted to embrace the supposed values of Hygge as we sat surrounded by our not always soft and cuddly IKEA furniture. There is indeed a post-modern irony in the Swedish “death thrash” band naming itself “Bleeding Utopia” (pictured above).

“Train Wreck” is about a Utopian experiment on a planet where a completely fresh start with a handpicked population are not threatened by mass immigration or poverty and their society has been carefully structured in cantons equating to the earliest tribal size of mankind – a size at which everyone knows everyone else in each community and – so it is thought – policemen are therefore not necessary. But can you root out and socially structure away, the worst aspects of human nature? The private demons of greed, envy, hubris and the things that cause dysfunction such as sexual abuse? Hawaii 2 may or may not need policemen but it may well need Social Workers… Our central character, Jack Gulliver is like someone who accepted at face value, all the myths about Scandinavia of the last decade, and is now travelling through the less palatable circles of existence on Hawaii 2 with his guide Stig. Where will it lead and who planted the bomb on the train and killed Jack’s wife…? 

R is for Rockets, Ram Jets, and Re-usability…

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  If you have been following this blog’s A2Z Challenge then you will know that I have been trying to finish a novel and publishing a chapter below each post – at least until day 15 when I ran out of completed chapters – there is another one in progress – but if you have been following the novel and would like to receive the balance of the chapters – let me know in a comment. Meanwhile – is a little more about an issue that is at the heart of the book…

Hawaii 2 has a very unusual problem in my book “Train Wreck” – you can land on it, but you can’t easily take off again, at least not without some Strar Trek type Sci-Fi Magical technology. Yes! Yes! I hear you repeat Arthur C. Clarke’s famous quote that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” and I accept that science is coming up with some pretty magical things like Quantum entanglement, but I don’t see anti-gravity drives coming along any time soon and I am not going to go along with magical thinking – especially as it would deprive me of my Plot!

The problem I had back in Chapter 2, was that this technological problem with Hawaii 2 is quite complicated and I didn’t want to lose the reader straight away but at the same time, it is a central premise of the book – how to tell it or show it as we authors are supposed to do! Well I broke it up into sections told by different characters and even through in a SEX SCENE – one which was also very pertinent to the plot and in no way gratuitous (don’t you just hate that!).

But here in the blog I can share a few pictures and additional facts…

At the top, is a video of the Apollo 11 moon mission launch – or to describe it another way, three astronauts sitting on top of a massive bomb with their fingers crossed… Before the moon race between the USA and the USSR, the Americans had been experimenting with the Bell X2 Rocket Plane which was launched from a bomber as high as it could carry it and from whence it’s own rocket could carry it to the edge of space. 

This was only a one-man test device but it points to the better way to get into space which has been resurrected by Virgin in its commercial offering seen below. Virgin aim to take very rich people (who must still be very fit) into low orbit spaceflight and who is to say that this might not inspire the very rich to appreciate and save the planet a little more…

The proposed Virgin Galactic Spaceship and Mother-ship combo

You can that a major difference between the respective mother-ships, is that the later model, is jet-powered and this is why there is a problem with Hawaii 2. You may remember the disruption to air travel “In 2010, an eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland sent clouds of ash and dust into the atmosphere, interrupting air travel between Europe and North America because of concerns the material could damage jet engines. More than 100,000 flights were grounded, stranding millions of passengers.” see the full story here. I happened to be visiting Iceland at the time and there was a distinct possibility that we might have had to be bussed to another airport to avoid the plume of very fine volcanic dust that was capable of banjaxing jet engines. The fine material was produced by volcanoes beneath ice fields melting the ice and explosively rendering the output into unusually fine dust! Hawaii 2 has so many volcanoes in just this special circumstance, that to follow the mother-ship route back to space is impossible. Rockets are uneconomical (and dangerous) so what other possibilities are there?

One route to saving money was to compromise by making the space vehicle re-usable and thus the Space Shuttle was born. An even larger rocket with extra boosters tied on, the Shuttle was a “lifting body” or rather a controlled falling body that could fly back down to earth. The programme ran long enough for flights to become almost commonplace and with familiarity, contempt for safety led to two disasters in which all crew were sadly lost. Spaceflight is dangerous…

The Space Shuttle had a large cargo bay and famously launched the Hubble Telescope (and later repaired it) but the real commercial bread-and-butter of commerce in space, consists of launching much smaller satellites and using a re-usable rocket is making this much more economical too. Elon Musk has eschewed taking rich tourists into space for more lucrative commercial payloads -developing the Space X rocket which you can see not only landing upright but landing on a boat – such precision! Elon Musk’s ultimate goal is to send a mission to Mars…


The last possibility for getting into space is one I dealt with in an earlier post, – the Space Lift (or Elevator if you are American). G-is-for-gravity-well-and-greening the desert and whilst this idea relies on technology or rather – materials we do not yet have, many believe it could be possible…

So there you have it, a concise guide to the challenge of getting into space should you choose to accept it…
I promised you Ramjets but hey! It’s in the book “Train Wreck”!




Q is for Questions – Dear Reader…

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 If you have been following this blog’s A2Z Challenge then you will know that I have been trying to finish a novel and publishing a chapter below each post – at least until day 15 when I ran out of completed chapters. I always planned Q to be an opportunity to question YOU, Dear Reader, so please answer one, all or none of the questions below…

  1. Do you or have you read science fiction?

  2. Who are your favourite Science Fiction Authors?

  3. Have you read any of this author’s book “Train Wreck” here on this blog?

  4. If you have, then what stands out for you?

  5. What do you not like – don’t be shy…

  6. One of the chapters introduced the topic of childhood sexual abuse, given that the book is an examination of a utopian society, were you surprised/shocked to encounter this topic in a science fiction genre and do you think it good or bad to cross boundaries?

  7. Would you like to live on Hawaii 2 and if so why?

  8. If you have been following the book – would you like to receive the rest of the chapters when they are finished? (If so please leave an email address…)

P is for Politics, politics and the Pan Human Federation…

humanist55

 My goal in the 2021 A2Z Challenge was to complete a novel I started a few years ago but which has languished for lack of love (writing!). Each Post, daily in April (Sundays excepted), was to consist of some aspect of the novel plus a chapter from it. I hope that the Alphabetical items will give a bit of extra background, muse on the writing process, but most of all, help me develop certain ideas to improve the novel. I had 12 chapters already written at the beginning of the month but my day job has taken too much time and I have only completed another two. So although I hope to complete some more chapters before the end of April, I will continue with these posts for sure. If you have been following the novel and would like to receive the balance of the book then please leave an email in the comments…


Political party, politician, playing politics, isn’t politic -we all use the word and its adjuncts frequently, but when I came to consider the politics of Hawaii 2 in my book “Train Wreck” – I realised that I didn’t know what the real definition or etymology of the word was. Of course, Wikipedia was there, itself a form of political example since anybody may edit a definition and this has famously led to tussles with some items being repeatedly re-edited. Here then, is the definition from their very excellent article:-

“Politics (from Greek: Πολιτικά, politiká, ‘affairs of the cities’) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations between individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status…”

The  article goes on to refine the understanding of the word “politics” usage – “limited” referring only to the process of governance whilst “extensive” meaning a total view of life as it is lived, as in a feminist view of the power relationships between the sexes as in the statement “The personal is political!”

Another dichotomy over the meaning of Politics is the Moral/Realist schism. Aristotle believed that every societal dispute could be settled by discussion and never by recourse to war – an ethical approach which is strongly exemplified in Utopian ideas. Political Realists like Machiavelli and Hobbes, thought that might is right, although Bernard Crick argues that “politics is the way in which free societies are governed. Politics is politics and other forms of rule are something else.” (My emphasis).

The way I think of politics is this, there are essentially only two positions, those who believe that everyone is born with equal rights (even if differences between people sometimes mean offering them different things to fulfil that equality) and those who believe that some people are intrinsically better than others. For example, the belief of Native Americans that the land could not be owned and the view of immigrant settlers that it could, represents a conflict which was solved by political realists – the settlers ran the Native Americans off the land, and confined their non-ownership of land to small reservations. It is hard to see what kind of alternative, politically equitable settlement could have been reached between two such different peoples with their totally different political philosophies and that would have allowed a peaceful disposition of the land – in any event, power won.

In most societies, where differences in wealth, power and equality exist, my two political positions can be called Left and Right respectively, but in a utopian society, set up to avoid just such differences, there would be no need for Left and Right and true equality should prevail – Hawaii 2 is just such a utopian society.

In Ursula le Guin’s masterpiece, “The Dispossessed” – there is a similarly utopian society but what emerges is that even within a system of political equality, there can emerge a tyranny of the majority. Convention becomes oppressive and gossip, (charitably defined as a force for social cohesion) its enforcer. We do use politics with a small p to describe the machinations and manipulations, pleas and accommodations that occur between individuals and their immediate neighbours and no amount of utopian philosophy can totally eliminate certain aspects of human nature, envy, pettiness, jealousy.

The canton system of local government that exists on Hawaii 2 is described in Chapter 10 and representatives are sent to a planetwide government body and they in turn send representatives to the Pan Human Federation that is a forum, but not a government of the three worlds which humans have colonised Hawaii 1, Arctane, and Hawaii 2. But at the canton level, every member of the locality must attend at least three out of every six meetings and so the people govern themselves rather than being governed by elected representatives – something which can give rise to a class of self-interested politicians whose motives can diverge from those who they represent…

Without giving too much of a spoiler, I may hint that the solution to the mystery of “Train Wreck”, involves politics, but whether with a capital P or a small p remains to be seen…

O is for Oil in Science Fiction…

humanist55

  My goal in the 2021 A2Z Challenge was to complete a novel I started a few years ago but which has languished for lack of love (writing!). Each Post, daily in April (Sundays excepted), was to consist of some aspect of the novel plus a chapter from it. I hope that the Alphabetical items will give a bit of extra background, muse on the writing process, but most of all, help me develop certain ideas to improve the novel. I had 12 chapters already written at the beginning of the month but my day job has taken too much time and I have only completed another two. So although I hope to complete some more chapters before the end of April, I will continue with these posts for sure. If you have been following the novel and would  like to receive the balance of the book then please leave an email in the comments…

Oil refinery at night looking very futuristic…

This post considers the oil industry and whether it would exist in any future setting.

If we had the chance to start over on some pristine planet (such as Hawaii 2 in my book “Train Wreck”) would we have an oil industry.

Firstly – this begs the question, would there be oil on other planets?
There is, in geology, a Principle of Uniformitarianism which says, in a nutshell, that processes that can occur in one place and time, can occur anywhere. So that means that all planets can evolve according to the same rules and whilst they might be different due to their size, composition, and distance from their star, all things being equal, a planet like Earth could very well exist and support carbon-based life forms including those that lead to the formation of oil deposits. If there are tree-like forms, there will be coal, if there are plants, algae and bacteria equivalents (and there almost certainly will be – at least bacteria) in seas, then there will be oil. In the course of Earth’s geological history, there have been many different ages – long periods of stability then sudden changes to quite different climate and conditions. Certain ages favoured the creation of coal (the Carboniferous period) and others that of oil as that organic material sank to the bottom of the oceans and was eventually buried and transformed into oil.

Secondly and more importantly, would we want or need to use that oil if we found it?
Crude oil is a thick, sticky substance – it can be seen at the surface at the La Brea tar-pits where it has trapped and preserved many hapless animals over time. When refined, broken down into it’s constituent parts (fractionated), crude oil yields a plethora of chemicals, from the lightest, most liquid such as petroleum and kerosene, it yields lubricants (oils), through the substances used to make plastics, to the bitumen we use to make tarmac roads. Which was handy for the evolution of the age of the motor vehicle – crude oil gave us the fuel, plastic for components as well as the material that binds the roads vehicles run on.

When I was a boy, oil reserves were synonymous with “energy” reserves, but now that we understand the consequences (unintended), of burning all those fossil fuels, we are having to regard oil as “stores of locked up carbon” – the burning of which, release carbon, as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, back into the atmosphere. This is not new – humans have been contributing to climate change for millennia by cutting down trees either to burn for fuel, or to clear land for agriculture since trees remove CO2 from the atmosphere and lock it up.


In “Train Wreck”, the Earth, original home to the human race, now scattered across three planets, was destroyed as a habitat by a combination of climate change and other forms of pollution. The colonists are painfully aware of what human activities are capable of doing to something as large as a planetary ecosystem and ecological sciences are some of the most advanced that they carry with them to their new homes. Hence the greening of the deserts on Hawaii 2 by using tree planting and irrigation to produce a self-sustaining climate change of a positive kind!

So back to the question – if they found oil deposits on a new planet, would the use them? Well the plethora of chemicals found in oils have so many applications beyond simply using them as fuel that it is hard to resist the idea of using them. Other things besides internal combustion engines need lubricating and plant oils do not always meet the specifications. Burning fossil fuels to a limited, could be off-set by planting trees. Plastics are not he devil, but some of the uses of plastic are! The phrase “Unnecessary Plastic Objects” has never had greater resonance as we start to see micro-plastics turning up in the oceanic food chain (of which we partake) and even in the deep oceans.

If motor vehicles had not been invented at the beginning of the 20th Century, then our cities would not have sprawled such that, for those living in the suburbs, life without a car is difficult. on a new planet, planning could obviate the need for cars which besides their polluting fuels, are a huge waste of resources and more energy just to produce. But we have always had vehicles and I hardly think the new ecology of future planets would involve a return to donkeys and horse-drawn carts! What are the alternatives? Motor cars began around the same time as universal electrification, but electric cars were not a missed turning on the road to the present. In fact even in the present, electric cars are still at the expensive new tech stage and the pressure to create better batteries is intensifying – eventually they will become better and cheaper through greater mass production. But just as control of, or access to, the best oil resources has led to wars and defined the political geography of Earth in the 20th Century, so access or control of the Rare Earths needed for the new tech may occupy a similar place in the 21st Century. China recognised the possibilities of the deposits within its territories and developed the industry so that it now supplies 55% of the world’s current demand. It turns out that these “rare” earths are actually quite common at the bottom of the deep oceans but you can imagine the environmentalist alarm at the suggestion that mining those would obviate dependence on China…

So there you go, the skinny on oil in science fiction because I cannot remember any science fiction book which referred to oil production (please correct me if I am wrong) – generally speaking, science fiction writers prefer futuristic magical thinking – flying cars, for example, that defy the laws of physics as we currently understand them. It has given me peculiar pleasure to use “Principle of Uniformitarianism” as a tag…



N is for Naming of Parts…

humanist55

 My goal in the 2021 A2Z Challenge is to complete a novel I started a few years ago but which has languished for lack of love (writing!). Each Post, daily in April (Sundays excepted), will consist of some aspect of the novel plus a chapter from it. I hope that the Alphabetical items will give a bit of extra background, muse on the writing process, but most of all, help me develop certain ideas to improve the novel. Some 12 chapters are already written so I have a bit of a head start…

Please comment with any opinions good or bad – you have no idea how much I need feedback at this stage…


Names are important! Names mean something or several things and when a person or object has several names, meanings multiply and that’s before you take metaphorical meanings into account…

The poem Naming of Parts sticks in the mind because of that several times repeated line but also because whilst ostensibly a lecture by a sergeant, one of a series preparing soldiers to go to war, the soldier whose thoughts we are privy to, allows his attention to wander to neighbouring gardens and to the bees (and birds) – “ Japonica – Glistens like coral in all of the neighbouring gardens,” and in verse four, the symbolism is quite sexual – 

“And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.”

I considered the use of made-up languages in Science Fiction the other day, and came down – at least in my book “Train Wreck” – against the idea. But names are a different matter. They evoke things, they indicate certain things – whether consciously or unconsciously.

In “Train Wreck” our hapless hero is called Jack – an everyman sort of name – but his surname – Gulliver – is a nod to Gulliver’s Travels. Stig Johannson is a Scandinavian name – the surname indicating his father’s name which he can trace back to the bold explorer who first took a chance by landing on Hawaii 2 without the possibility of taking off again. I hope that Stig’s name reflects his pioneering ancestor. Robert Widnes – though President, has a rather bland name – appropriate to a politician, I hope.

But there are not just names for people, but places too and they also have significance. The capital – New Orleans – we are told in Chapter 4, is so called because of its similar location to the original New Orleans back on Earth, at the mouth of a vast continental river. On the long journey to the stars, the planners of Hawaii 2 had plenty of time to choose names and locations for the network of towns and cities that would make up the colonised planet. Bringing old names from “home” gives people some sense of continuity, but also says something about the new world, you wouldn’t,t call a rainforest New Sahara…

Erehwon is also a nod to the 1872 novel “Erewhon” by Samuel Butler, but in that older book, the name, though thought to be a reference to Nowhere, spelt backwards – has the h and w transposed. The people of Hawaii 2 who gave this town its more direct reversal of Nowhere, were not referencing a – to them – obscure 19th-century book, no – they made up that “joke” all by themselves! It is only you, as the reader, who may get the allusion. The Erehwon of Hawaii 2 really is the back of beyond, the place you go to disappear – Nowhere spelt backwards…

Here’s a thought though, when we name something or someone, with a name loaded with meaning, is that thing, or person ( in real life as well as in fiction), likely to be moulded by and gradually live up to the name they have been given? Take New Orleans for example. Those planners not only referenced the location of the city on its river, but they had a lot of pictures and words about the original city, a city which had long ago drowned, one of the early casualties of rising sea levels and extreme weather events – hurricanes and the sea eventually obliterated the levees and the city itself. But the fragments of the internet taken by man to the stars, had a lot of references to old New Orleans, because it was a holiday destination! Like porn and cat videos, the internet was riddled with holiday ads and promotions – so much so, that the photographs and text were almost guaranteed to survive. It’s like those 2D barcodes, they look too complex for us to spot the patterns and repetitions, but they carry their message several times, so that if the barcode is smudged or torn, the degree of redundancy means they can still be read. The pictures of Earth’s New Orleans were so pretty, the verandahed houses so appropriate to the climate of Hawaii 2 at that location, that these styles crept into the architecture of the new world as well as the name.

The tourist destinations play another important part in developing Hawaii 2. Pictures of Iceland showed the eponymous Geysir which gave its name to all other geysers and having spotted these volcanic features on Hawaii 2, another tourist image – “The Blue Lagoon” and its origin as a cooling pond for a geothermal power station, gave the planners the idea of developing such “green” facilities on Hawaii 2. Unfortunately, the parts of the internet that gave the method for constructing these power stations, was lost – only the tourist literature remained. However, the engineers figured it out – you drill two holes down to a volcanic hot spot, pump water down one and steam emerges from the other to generate power – no carbon footprint and no ongoing cost!

Thank you for your patience as I work out these little details which may make it into the book! The chapter today, is as far as I have got with the book so far and mainly due to pressure of work from my day job, I know I will not get the book finished in the month. There may be some more chapters to come though, however, what I would like to do, if you have read along so far, is to gather email addresses of anyone who would like to receive the rest of the book as and when I finish it. Please let me know in the comments along with what you think of the story so far… 
I shall continue to do these A2Z posts as well as any new chapters I do complete so don’t go away – watch this space please…

Chapter 14

Gervald’s Story.

 

When Stig and Alex returned a while later, they found Jack assisting Katie to prepare a meal by peeling potatoes whilst she made a sauce. There was a comfortable atmosphere between them. Katie moved the saucepan off the heat and took Alex off into another room for a moment saying she had something she really needed to tell him. They were gone a while and Stig and Jack stayed in the kitchen watching over the potatoes which Jack had set to boil.
“Did you find Gervald?” Jack asked.
“We did! And it proved useful, not just about him and his story, but it may have some implications for your story too…”
“Do tell!” said Jack – they were sitting at the kitchen table sipping cans of beer.
“Alex took us to the place he thought the stranger who might be Gervald was and he was right. We snuck up on it – not easy in near desert country, but it was the right approach – Gervald was on the back veranda and he took off inside and locked the doors as soon as we showed. If we hadn’t seen him first we wouldn’t have known he was inside. He wouldn’t answer so Alex went round the front and I picked the lock.”
“Really Stig? I’ve always wanted to know how to do that! Not that many people lock their doors here but still – maybe you could give me a lesson!”
“Easy Tiger! We’ll find time one day! Anyway, I go inside but no sign of Gervald so I let Alex in and he says that Gervald hasn’t come out so we start looking round for him. I call out to him – tell him who we are and that we mean him no harm. I tell him about you and your connection to Clem and everything I know about his story as Clem told it. I ask him if he is hiding out because he is afraid of someone and I tell him we can help – that if we could find him, then someone else could do so just as easily…”
Stig goes to the fridge and fetches another bottle of beer but Jack declines the offer of one.
“Finally, at this, Gervald emerges from behind a panel in the wall – a hiding place he has constructed. He is very scared, looks out of all the windows to see if we are alone before sitting down and talking to us.”

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤


“What Clem said about me is true. I was more interested in the recreational drugs to begin with. I liked hanging out with him in his lab – which he allowed me to do once I knew him well enough. He told me his story and he encouraged me also, to go to college and study pharmacology. Gradually, I became more able to be of help to him and although I was still into getting high, I started to develop an interest in the more medical research Clem was doing.”
Gervald had calmed down a bit since he realised he wasn’t in any immediate danger and had started to tell his tale, but only after going over who Stig was – Stig had just said – “a member of the Rangers…”
“Then one day, I was in a bar one evening, Clem was away for a couple of weeks – I think he may actually have been on a trip to Hawaii 1. He didn’t share everything with me and he certainly didn’t allow me to be at his place and his lab when he wasn’t there.
These guys started talking to me, asking what I did and when I said I worked for this genius chemist, they said ‘Clem? We know all about Clem!’
I was surprised and alarm bells started ringing but they went on affably enough to say they had some business connections with Clem – were disappointed to find he was away as they had hoped to see him whilst they were passing through.
I asked them where they were from and they said Hawaii 1 and I was impressed but also surprised since I had this inkling that was where Clem had gone anyway. They asked what I was working on and said I must be busy with Clem away. I said no to the latter I explained that Clem didn’t allow me to work whilst he was away and we were never really what you’d call busy – not since Clem works at his own pace on his own projects. They seemed quite envious of that – ‘Must be nice! Where we come from, you work as hard and fast as you can because unless you’re one of the very rich, everybody is on the clock…’ Then they changed the subject for a bit.”
Clem jumped up and had another look out through all the windows as if he still wasn’t convinced that his visitors were kosher then he came and sat down and continued his story.
“It wasn’t long before they asked what I did, exactly, for Clem. I told them I was a student now and so I was more useful to Clem – to be honest, I was boasting a bit at that stage, I had downed a few drinks before these guys showed up and they kept buying… They didn’t propose anything that night , but a few weeks later, just before Clem came home, they ‘happened to be passing by’ and we had another evening drinking, I asked them about life on Hawaii 1. They said I should come and see for myself – of course – I told them there was no way I could afford a trip like that. They said I shouldn’t rule it out – they might have some work for a bright guy like me, perhaps I could set up a lab on my own and make something for them. Like a fool I asked what? They told me that they knew Clem had a new drug with no come down but that he wasn’t interested in making it for them – if I could do it, then they would buy and import the equipment needed. Of course, I knew they were talking about Sunset. I said I didn’t have the complete formula but I had done some of the testing on it. ‘But you could get the details if you wanted to…’ I told them I could and asked how much they needed, they asked how much I thought I could make. – I told them I would have to work out some figures and what equipment I would need. They gave me a mail contact to reach them – and that’s how it began.

Once they had my lab set up, they came round regularly and gradually they started to press me for odd bits of information from Clem’s computers – some of it probably wasn’t important – it just got me used to doing stuff for them. They paid generously – mostly into an account they said was ‘waiting for me on Hawaii 1’. They started to push for more information about stuff I knew Clem was more circumspect about – medical stuff – and I started to get cold feet. They didn’t get nasty, not then, in fact, they said they were going to take me to a party! I would get to meet some important people from both Hawaii 1 and 2.”

Stig had been taking notes as Gervald told his story and asking the odd question – could Gervald describe the men, what was the contact number they had given him, could he remember any specific dates he had seen them… Gervald cooperated fully, he seemed relieved to let it all out finally. He went on.
“The party was on an island, we went on the biggest private boat I had ever seen and as well as the guy’s I knew, there were some women – very smartly dressed but I thought later, that they were – you know – professional… We all went ashore and into a side room off the main living space I was introduced to someone from Hawaii 1- a Mr Jensen – who seemed to be quite important – the guys were very deferential to him. He said that ‘they were very pleased with my work, that Sunset was the way forward, a good, clean drug with less side effects – just what they needed to keep the workers happy!’ Then the guys and I went out into the main room where we joined the girls. They pointed out the President – you know Widnes! He was talking to the guy that I had the meeting with – they seemed to be friendly, but there was some sort of struggle going on – like Jensen was pushing for something – it reminded me of how it was when the guys came to talk to me! But then one of the women started coming on to me and it wasn’t long before we were headed back to the boat because she said we would have it to ourselves. She poured me a drink and we sat on a couch and she kissed me, I know that much, but after that I remember nothing. Next time I woke, I was in bed in one of the cabins – naked, but what else had happened I couldn’t tell you.
I’ve had a lot of time here to think about what happened and I realised I was well played at that party – I saw some luxury, got complimented by someone who could have been anyone, saw the President but never got to talk to him – or anyone else come to that. I got kissed but that was literally the only taste of the high life I had before being whisked back to normality. Smoke and mirrors! After that, the guys started to get really pushy and downright nasty and I started to realise more and more that I was out of my depth – I owed them more for the equipment than I could possibly afford and they could tell Clem what I had done too, not that I thought that likely. I was on the hook so I decided to just disappear and hope they wouldn’t come after me – tell me! Do you think they will, Stig?”
“I really can’t say Gervald, but I think we will get you moved somewhere safer, just in case. After all, you didn’t really take much finding did you? Said Stig.
“I guess not!” Gervald looked very uncomfortable again.
“Look! I’ll make a call straight away and get someone to pick you up tonight. We’ll get your camper taken in the opposite direction as a decoy, okay?”
“Okay!”
“I will arrange for someone to take a more formal statement too before you disappear into what we might call a ‘witness protection program’ although that is a bit grand for Hawaii 2 – we certainly don’t have a program as such – you would be the first and only member of it if we did!”
“Thank you Stig, I have been terrified, I won’t lie to you…”
“That’s okay Gervald – you have been foolish not to mention disloyal – but we on Hawaii 2 look after our own.”