Discover Gettysburg Passage, fantasy adventure fiction: Gettysburg Passage ebook

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Sunday, November 21, 2010

Welcome to your altered, alternative or parallel universe

Wormhole corresponding to the maximal analytic...

Travel back into the past, there is a good chance you will at least slightly alter existence. Everything experienced going forward will be in an altered universe. On the other hand, entering an alternative universe, through some kind of tear in the fabric of space and time, means living in a completely new reality without impacting the old existence. And a parellel universe is a part of the theoretical muliverse, where each decision point in a life spins out mulitple, new with the various possibilities spun out like the perspective of the wrap around mirror in a department store's clothing department. An alternative or parallel universe could be the same, depending on how you got there. All of these concepts are frequently used in fiction.

Much of the story conflict in Gettysburg Passage, a thought-provoking action-adventure fantasy novel from Amazon.com, centers around the possibility of how the characters, living in the modern world, uncover an opportunity to travel in time. The remnants of a beleaguered civilization, over-run by violent, barbaric invaders, face total annihilation if they don't get assistance. But if they go back, our contemporary characters may alter today's world. Should they go?

Read a sample chapter today! Go to Amazon.com and search under books. That's Gettysburg Passage, by John Callahan, now just $2.99. It's a fast-paced story that reviewers are saying kept them guessing right up until the final pages.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Just a foot beneath the soil, clear evidence of ancient civilization

Alternative version of image:Wooden hourglass ...

Image via Wikipedia

I strive in my writing to present a lively world of contemporary fantasy that is intelligent, fast-paced, seasoned by historical references and plot points and thought provoking about issues involving religion and society. Except for the occasional wormhole or reference to time travel, the stories are realistic and plausible.

That's why I find it thrilling that nearly every week we see in the news features about discoveries about past civilizations discovered right below our feet. The BBC carries a story about the remains of a Roman village, the main Roman road out of Londinium and still earlier Neolithic artifacts being unearthed as crews prepared ground for a new luxury hotel in west London near Syon Park. Here is the link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-11773202

We call the fiction genre "fantasy" and "science fiction" and "speculative fiction" but the news shows us each day that the world beneath our feet is often richer and more interesting than many of our fantasies.

If you like to sample a chapter or two of my newest action-adventure-fantasy novel, Gettysburg Passage, simple go to Amazon.com and search by book title. There you will find the book, $2.99, reviews, my blog, a biography, and sample chapters of Gettysburg Passage. Enjoy!

Monday, November 8, 2010

Beer Lubricated Civilization's Rise

Edited copy of Image:The Brewer designed and e...

Image via Wikipedia

There is news out that archaeologists are increasingly thinking that brewing beer was an important step in the rise of civilization.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40071314/ns/technology_and_science-science/

For more than 6,000 years, beer has been an essential part of feasting and of gatherings where friendships and alliances are forged. To brew beer, as in making of bread, meant a community needed access to plentiful grain, had more grain than it needed for food purposes, and had the social organization, know how and time to make and enjoy it. Some think brewing goes all the way back to the beginnings of agriculture in the Neolithic Period. And it is well known that ancient Sumerians, Egyptians and Hobbits all loved a tall, cool brew at the end of a hard day.

Which just goes to show that many elements included in Gettysburg Passage, a fantasy action-adventure novel from Amazon, $2.99, are based on historical fact. What makes Gettysburg Passage a fantasy, however, is that its plot is based on the possibility that civilization is based more on beer feasting! What if the spark for our civilization was kept alive at its darkest, most vulnerable moments, by a person or persons who were sent back to save it?

Who went back, who sent them and what did they go to do? And who would do anything to stop civilization from being saved? The answers are in the novel, said by Amazon reviewers to be creative, action-packed and surprising right up to the end. Click here to buy or to find out more: Gettysburg Passage.

Friday, November 5, 2010

3 Critical Elements of Superior Fantasy, Scifi and Action-Adventure Stories

Character Rick Deckard has a hard time resisti...

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Consider of the best fantasy/adventure/scifi stories
that you've most enjoyed. Many share key elements:

1) Immediate deadly peril (Lord of Rings, the Matrix series, Blade Runner, Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep, the Terminator series, the Jason Bourne series.
2) Disbelief and conflict about what is happening, why is there danger, this can't be happening to me? (Die Hard, Nothing Lasts Forever, The Bourne Identity, Gladiator)
3) Journey into certain danger (The Hobbit, Unforgiven, Jurassic Park)

The fantasy, action-adventure novel, Gettysburg Passage, uses all of these elements to tell the story of a group of friends who stumble on a mysterious archaeological find from Washington, D.C. They fall into almost immediate deadly peril (though they don't recognize it). A state of disbelief is present through most of the story. They have to decide if a journey will be made into certain peril.

Of course, all of modern civilization depends on a positive outcome!

Gettysburg Passage, a novel by John Callahan, now available from Amazon.com for $2.99.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Hail Sacred Eliki, Jewel of Aegean, Forever Lost Beneath the Waves of Time

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Eliki, also known as Dodekapolis, was a holy city famous throughout the classical world as the center of worship of the god Poseiden. The prestige of the city was second only to Delphi and its temple center dedicated to the Helikonian Poseidon drew faithful from Achaea and far-flung colonies around the Aegean. Such was the fame of this city state that it was even mentioned in The Illiad of Homer as contributing men to the seige of Troy. Its temples, its monumental buildings, its statues were of such renown that centuries later famous Roman statesmen, generals and philosophers would journey by boat to float over the ruins, admiring what could still be seen deep beneath the waves. It is even speculated that Plato may have had Eliki in mind when he wrote of lost Atlantis, sunk beneath the sea during a sudden cataclysm. My point is if Eliki, of such renown, could disappear without a trace, then other lost civilizations could also have flourished, providing the ethical, philosophical and technical foundations of our recognized "founding civilizations" - such as Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Egypt - that we so admire today. My new book, Gettysburg Passage, is a modern novel that mixes fantasy, a little science fiction, lots of history, and plenty of adventure, and explores how such a lost civilization still reaches out to us today. Will the characters in Gettysburg Passage heed the call from desperate people in this lost civilization? In racing to help those in need from the past, perhaps they may save this modern world we today call our own ;-)

Gettysburg Passage, by John Callahan, available from Amazon.com, $2.99.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Tree of Life, Tree of Knowledge

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Those raised in the culture of the three great Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) are familiar from the Genesis Creation Narrative with references to Eden, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge. These concepts refer back to time in the dim past when Paradise reigned on earth.

We know from ancient narrative traditions that man sampled fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and was cast out paradise, destined to use his intellect and emotional strength to succeed or fail in the world. While the search for knowledge was not always prized, since the the Mesopotamians, the Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans, at least some had the freedom to research and ask questions.

One of the key questions has concerned immortality, expressed through stories like the Tree of Life and even Neolithic burial practices. In the modern world, particularly in advanced consumer-oriented cultures, the search for immortality includes medical research and life-prolonging lifestyles, including diet and exercise strategies.

But what if a tree of life or knowledge surfaced in the modern world? Would people use the fruit simply to prolong life? Or would they use the discovery as an opportunity to ask and perhaps answer key questions that have vexed mankind for tens of thousands of years?

In the action fantasy novel Gettysburg Passage, a man does stumble on a modern-day orchard in an Eden-like setting in the mountains of western Maryland. This man, maybe unwillingly, is being called on to help rescue an ancient civilization. Find out what happens when he tastes the "forbidden fruit" and how people -- even today -- might misuse a chance to sample from the tree of life.

Gettysburg Passage, a novel by John Callahan, $2.99 available from Amazon.com.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Powered by 550 Horses, a Modern Mad Dash from Washington to Gettysburg

NEW YORK - APRIL 28: Plaza Hotel employees To...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The famous American Civil War battle of Gettysburg took place over three days in the beginning of July in 1863. Readers don't often realize that the battle was really a part of a larger military campaign, an invasion of the north by Confederate rebel infantry and cavalry, and the campaign took place over a month, from early June to early July.

The modern adventure novel, Gettysburg Passage, can also be thought of as a brief "campaign" - or maybe better as a mad dash! Several characters, lead by Rick Reynolds, a high tech sales rep living near Washington, are forced to deal with shocking discovery, emerging danger and harrowing pursuit that relentlessly pushes them mysteriously towards Gettysburg. The novel covers a few action-packed days in the lives of Rick and his friends.

The Gettysburg battlefield is very close to America's capital - less than an hour if traffic's light. Nearly 150 years ago, the trip north took rebel forces weeks. But the men and women in Gettysburg Passage need only a few days to cover the very same ground - if they can keep from getting killed!

For several people in the novel, being able to jump into a 2011 Ford Shelby Cobra Mustang GT500, the offspring of a famous racer, might make the trip a little more brief. You see, the sleek, powerful muscle car is powered by 550 horses and doesn't stop for water, or to graze! But life can be perilous at 120 miles per hour and faster, especially when the bad guys are chasing you in a spectacularly fast Dodge Challenger.

To learn more about how some everyday people get sucked into trying to save modern civilization, while dodging a few bullets related to the Gettysburg Campaign, check out Gettysburg Passage by John Callahan, available from Amazon.com for $2.99.

Action, adventure, history, fantasy and a touch of science fiction, all in a fast-paced contemporary novel.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Did Professors Make Up Ancient Greece, Or Was It A Novelist?

Image via Wikipedia

The satirical publication The Onion recently reported that a team of professors working in the 1970s completely made up the idea of ancient Greece, an important contributor to the formation of Western Civilization, to fill in a missing section of the pre-Christian historical record. According to them, Greece didn't amount to much and the historians created it all up in a flurry of hard work. Here is the link: http://onion.com/aOUqJD.

A pretty funny and original idea, huh?

But what if a new novel, a modern action & adventure story, with a touch of history, some fantasy and a small dash of science fiction, offered a slightly different take? What if Gettysburg Passage suggests that Western Civilization is in fact in real danger of dying at birth? What if some of the earliest, prehistorical influencers to Western Civilization, facing total defeat, need to be organized, nurtured and protected by people who are actually living today in the U.S.?

How would that be possible? I guess that's where a bit of the fantasy and scifi comes in. If The Onion can suggest that Greece can be made up, I can top them by having some normal people living right now be given the chance to "ride to the rescue" of an embryonic culture more than 5,000 years ago. And you thought the editors of The Onion were cheeky....

To learn more, go to Amazon.com and check out Gettysburg Passage, a fast paced adventure by John Callahan. Now available for $2.99.

some clever tags: Indo-European, Greek sculpture, Mesopotamia, Egypt

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Infinitely Burning Caves, Time Shifts and a Novel

Image via Wikipedia

Man has used coal for warmth and metalworking for thousands of years. Primitive coal mines
and pits were some of the earlier forms of metal mining. With exposed coal came mine fires. Fires are usually caused by careless trash burning, lightning or forest and brush fires. All over the globe, there are thousands of out-of-control coal mine fires burning right now. There is a well known mine fire in Pennsylvania that continuously burns and even destroyed a town.

This mine was an inspiration for Gettysburg Passage, a new novel available from Amazon. Gettysburg Passage is not about the Civil War, but about a modern "rip in the veil of time" that exists in a burning coal mine in the mountains near the Gettysburg battlefield. Because this abandoned mine contains a mysterious shaft that is in fact a time portal, some unintended time shifts impact characters in the book. How this time portal affects people and where it actually leads is one of the great mysteries that surfaces in Book 1 and that is a central component of Book 2.

The burning passage presents a problem and an opportunity to the main character, Rick Reynolds. Rick may have already experienced the portal once and, if so, doesn't want to do it again. He is quite happy living a life with a good job, friends and modern conveniences. But destiny, fate, or a higher power, has other plans for Rick and his friends.

No matter how they try to avoid it, the burning mine has a pull on the key characters in Gettysburg Passage. Despite living modern lives, it lures them north from the Washington area towards the area of the historic battle, towards a burning mine and what lies beyond.

To read Gettysburg Passage, go to Amazon.com and look up the book. It can be read on Kindle or as a Kindle app on computers, iPads and smart phones. What are you waiting for?

Tags: ancient civilizations, time travel, Ur, Indo-European, Greece, Rome, Egypt

Friday, September 24, 2010

Emerson said a hero is persistent

Image by Ignis [Ad.G] via Flickr

Much of this blog has fun with archaeology and the discovery of evidence of ancient culture and civilizations, the evolution of language, the historical migration of peoples, and the emergence of spirituality, complex settlements, cities and human organizations, all the elements that make up the raw material for a meaty, three-part series of fictional action & adventure stories! Many of my interests can be boiled down to "how did we all land right here right now?"

Those are all macro issues and a potential reader might rightly say, those topics are too big to wrap my head around and besides, who cares? So in my book I bring it all down to an individual and personal level, and address issues like, what is heroism? In my book, Gettysburg Passage from Amazon, we follow an everyday modern person, Rick Reynolds, who as the story evolves is asked to make choices that might be considered heroic. And he is not the only one. Several of his friends, including an emergency room nurse, and two high tech sales people -- even a priest and a college anthropology professor -- all are asked at different times to take on very hard, thankless tasks.

In our society today we spend a lot of our time avoiding these situations. It is not that we are selfish and uncaring. More likely I think it is that we are all so busy. But no matter how we try to avoid it, at certain points in our lives we are all asked to take on hard, thankless jobs. It could be the care of a loved one or neighbor, the organization of a community activity, the fixing of a problem at work where you will probably not receive appropriate credit. In my experience most of the time people do these things and they don't go looking for glory. They just get it done.

As Emerson predicted, people are persistent in their everyday heroic acts. An admirable thing.

In Gettysburg Passage, Rick Reynolds is pushed, pushed, pushed by forces outside of himself. Improbable, impossible things are glimpsed in the hazy, late evening summer darkness. A stranger rides up on a horse to his bedroom window just before dawn. He is somewhat familiar with the forces behind these actions but he doesn't understand them fully. He is reluctant to face up to what might be going on. Why should he? For the first time in his life he is becoming a professional success. He is making good money. Rick owns a mountain cabin. He enjoys outdoor activities and the company of friends. Why should he threaten this picture by getting involved in something that will likely rip him away from his comfort zone?

Does he take on the responsibilities of becoming a hero? And what of his friends? What choices do they make? Would you put your life at risk to accomplish a great task? Would you take it on with the awareness that no one would ever know what you did?

We read of heroes in the epics from ancient Greece, Egypt, Gilgamesh in Sumer, Rome, in the old Norse stories. But heroes are actually created every day right here around us. And we never learn about most of them. If you would like to see how Rick and his friends do with the choices they need to make, please go to Amazon.com and look up Gettysburg Passage by John Callahan. To read it you need a Kindle or an app for PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone or Android. The apps can be easily and effortlessly downloaded right from the book listing and the whole process only takes a few seconds. I also look forward to hearing from you on Twitter. You can find me @JohnJ_Callahan.

Monday, September 20, 2010

From Uruk, Athens and Rome, to Washington and the Dark Ages Again?

City-states of the Fertile Crescent in the 2nd...

Image via Wikipedia

If you -- yes, you browsing the internet right now! -- were picked out of the crowd to drop what you were doing to "save" an ancient people, at the probable cost of your modern existence, would you consider it? There's no time to say goodbye because what if that ancient society was absolutely dependent right now -- life or death -- on you making an affirmative choice? Now double down....What if today's modern society would cease to exist unless you say yes?

No? Then poof!! In the blink of an eye existence suddenly is undone, changed, rearranged, cities gone without a trace. Innovations left on the workbench or forgotten in the clouded minds of inventors. Poetry never written, canvases left blank, rivers never spanned, endless fields once again thick with swaying grain in a strong afternoon wind, never seeing the passing ancient road to a distant capital.

How can this be? This is the stark choice facing a character, Rick Reynolds, in the new novel, Gettysburg Passage, from Amazon.com. As you might imagine, Rick basically doesn't want to help! Who would? He is reasonably successful, makes a good living, has a circle of good friends, enjoys getting outdoors on weekends and holidays. Like most young, middle class people living in the early 21st century from Mumbai to Shanghai to Denver to Frankfurt, Rick enjoys the fruits of modern existence: low-cost health care, decent pay, plentiful food and abundant recreational opportunities.

But Rick has a choice to make. He is needed. What will he do?

Who needs the help anyway? Is it the inhabitants of the proto city of Eridu in the Fertile Crescent? Or perhaps peasants groaning under the lash of Eannatum of Lagash, the first ruler in history known to have dominated his neighbors in a reign of terror? How about the Hattians, under pressure from the encroaching Indo-European Hittite tribes advancing from the East?

Should you somehow make it back there, five, ten, fifteen thousand years ago, how will you defend this ancient proto civilization? Would you raid an armory? Could you learn the long bow and judge the right size for your arms? How about the sword? If given the choice, could you judge a blade's worth, or the fit of proper armor? Would you choose the spear or the battle ax? The hammer or the javelin?

Or would your principal weapon be your brain, your experience, your heart?

There are a lot of questions raised in this blog and only some of the them are addressed in Book One, Gettysburg Passage. But questions are asked and decisions are made. To learn more, go to Amazon.com and download the novel for your Kindle, or download the free Kindle app for your iPad, iPhone, Android phone, PC or Mac. My readers are enjoying the book using all of these readers. You can download the book in less than 60 seconds. Why not do it now? Action, adventure and fantasy awaits!

Friday, September 17, 2010

Washington, Gettysburg, the Black Sea and the Pontic-Caspian Steppe

The wider area of the Urals, showing the trans...

Image via Wikipedia

Concerning my novel Gettysburg Passage, readers have told me that they quickly begin to get a feeling that the action-adventure story operates on several levels. On the easiest level, people living today around Washington, D.C., in the Northeast and in Paris, get caught up in what is to be done with a discovered historical artifact that my be immeasurably valuable. Obviously one could just bundle it up and go drop it off at the Smithsonian and be done with it. But we are talking adventure here with a dash of fantasy, and that option isn't desirable. So dealing with the artifact becomes a central driver in the plot.

But there are clues sprinkled liberally throughout that other forces are in play. In that spirit, I would like to briefly highlight an area of the world remote from the heavily forested eastern Seaboard of the U.S. I will then tie this discussion back to the completed first novel and other volumes to follow.

The Pontic-Caspian Steppe is a vast grasslands that is actually part of the great Eurasian Steppe. It stretches from Hungary in Europe around the Black Sea and Caspian Sea all the way to Mongolia. Steppes in general have cold winters and hot summers, are mostly flat, support trees only along streams and rivers and are dominated by plentiful grasses. The Pontic-Caspian Steppe resides in Asia closest to Europe and it here that researchers believe that humans used their inate intelligence to develop complex social organizations.

It is on this vast steppe that the seeds of ancient civilizations took root. Here tribesmen and women first cast up their gazes to the great sky God with chanted names strikingly like Deus and Zeus. The tribes first tamed horses (ekwos,equus/equestrian) and trained them for warfare, crafted the wheel for carts and chariots, made weapons like spears, swords, knives, bows and hammers. Livestock was gathered and grazed to form tribal and family wealth. Cereal grain seeds were collected for primitive farming. Most importantly, many modern languages used throughout the West and in India were first formed here. The language is called Proto-Indo-European. Many, many things valuable to us now were first conceived of on the Pontic-Caspian Steppe.

It is here on this vast steppe that tribes organized concepts of uplifting spirituality and social organization, and violent theories for vast warfare and plunder campaigns. And somehow, influences stretch back and bounce forth, from the spicy bog fires in camps along the Caspian Sea where storytellers chant to rapt listeners heroic poetry somehow influencing and being influenced by those frequenting the affluent and trendy pubs and restaurants of the western suburbs of modern Washington, D.C.

The journey begins in the novel Gettysburg Passage, available from Amazon and instantly downloadable to your Kindle or as a Kindle app on your iPad, iPhone, Android phone, Mac or PC. Please buy it, read it and review it today!

Friday, September 10, 2010

Theban Desert Road Survey

View of Kharga Oasis with the Temple of Hibis ...

Image via Wikipedia

If you follow this blog you understand that nearly every week new evidence surfaces that sheds light on newly discovered lost cities, frontier towns and important remnants of ancient civilizations. The more we look using sophisticated archaelogical tools, the more we find. While modern scholarship is wonderful, perspectives on the past constantly evolve and the stories told in universities, books and in the media are at best a partial view of what really happened -- the million friendships, treaties, visions, dramas, insights, breakthroughs, discoveries, encounters, battles and migrations that led to several billion of us somehow arriving and living in a modern 21st Century world.

The latest example of understanding the past in a new way can be found in The New York Times on September 6, 2010, in an article by John Noble Wilford. The story was also widely reported on many other media outlets. The article said that the Egyptian Government's Supreme Council of Antiquities had announced the discovery of the oldest significant military-administrative city yet found deep in the desert interior. The settlement was located at a caravan crossroads near the Kharga Oasis. The settlement is believed to be about 3,500 years old and located about 100 miles west of Luxor, site of the ancient temple complexes at Thebes.

Thebes, of course, was world famous in antiquity and extolled by Homer in The Iliad: "... in Egyptian Thebes the heaps of precious ingots gleam, the hundred-gated Thebes."

In my new book, Gettysburg Passage, people living today are given an accidental glimpse of a forgotten world where people built a significant proto civilization and struggled to keep it alive. As you read the story, you begin to wonder what some of the characters might do today to help that ancient civilization survive. Can we influence the past? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? One way to find out is to go to Amazon.com and download the action-adventure novel onto your Kindle, PC, Mac, iOS iPad or iPhone, or your Android platform.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Palace of Odysseus Discovered in Ithaca

Ithaca's capital, Vathi, on the south of the i...

Image via Wikipedia

Odysseus was the mythical king of Ithaca from roughly the Eighth Century B.C. and a central player in both the Illiad and the Odyssey. Literary experts have long taught that he never existed but was simply a fictional superhero in the Greek national epics. Isn't it surprising then, as archaeologists dig ever deeper into the past, that a royal palace has been excavated on the island of Ithaca, in the Ionian Sea, just where Homer said it would be and the remains date to....the Eighth Century B.C. There is a facinating story on all this just published in the Telegraph in the U.K. by Nick Squires. (Why do all of my best links come from the U.K.?). The link follows below. As I remind my readers, the world as we know it was built from and is supported by past civilizations. Easily 95% of the knowledge related to ancient civilizations has been lost. But we can use information fragments, such as the work being done by the archaeologists from the University of Ioannina, to expand our imaginations and dream of what came before us. In my new book from Amazon.com, Gettysburg Passage, people find an artifact from a past civilization, as luck would have it, under some bushes not far from the White House. It is an ancient royal mace, or perhaps a cheesy copy. But the artifact reveals a world they had no idea was possible and tests their smug assumptions about what matters. They are quickly confronted with a need to take action -- or possibly perish. Why not download the book and find out what happens?

Friday, August 13, 2010

King Arthur and the Lost Roman City of Caerleon, Wales

[From the southeast, Cardiff Castle, Wales] (LOC)

Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

In an earlier blog, I mentioned how improved archaeological detection technologies are leading to astounding new finds in archaeology, ancient civilizations, history, climatology, etc. Recent news from Wales proves this fact.

The South Wales Argus and other U.K. media are reporting on researchers from Cardiff University who, using geophysical mapping tools, have found the remains of a large walled city that no historians knew existed in an area that was thought to be mostly unoccupied.

Think about that. A very large military settlement of immense importance to Rome, completely lost to history without a trace, then thousands of years later, discovered. It was not some obscure outpost garrisoned by second stringers. There were only 30 Roman legions across the whole empire at the point in history and the Caerleon "lost city" was the base of one of them.

The sprawling complex of Roman ruins looks to have possibly included warehouses, temples, markets, town halls, etc.

Tours of the excavation sites will run Tuesday to Sunday at 11am and 2.30pm between now and September 17, or can be viewed online at www.britarch.ac.uk/caf

Archaeologists from Cardiff University, and staff and students of University College, London, will begin a six-week dig to help determine how far below the ground the remains are hidden.

Here is the link to the article in The Argus:

http://bit.ly/bMvpCn

More things to think about....does Caerleon, Wales ring a bell? It is believed to be the home of King Arthur's Camelot. Were the legends of The Knights of the Round Table, Uther Pendragon, Merlin,
Guinevere, the sword Excalibur, Tintagel, the final battle against Mordred at Camlann and final rest in Avalon, were these people and events somehow fueled by the Roman presence in Caerleon? Or do the stories stretch further back into the ever shifting and also obscure and mysterious Anglo-Celtic mists?

In my novel, Gettysburg Passage, available soon from Amazon, a group of friends living in and around Washington, D.C. are reluctantly pulled into shocking events powered by just such a "lost" city as Caerleon, once completely lost to modern histories but nevertheless still powerful and reaching out, tugging, pulling and pushing people and events today...

Watch for the news release announcing book availability very soon.....

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Huge hoard of Roman coins found on Somerset, UK farm

As you may have seen recently on several news portals, a hobbyist in England found a huge cache of ancient Roman coins buried in a farmer's field. The find is valued at a $1 million and probably represented the life savings of an entire Roman-era town. Why was the treasure buried? Scientists really don't know. Recent engineering studies have shown that most evidence of our current civilization would almost completely disappear within a few centuries if we faced some sort of catastrophic societal failure. Yet as we dig, we continue to find tantalizing, surprising and amazing clues of how people lived long, long ago. Could there be lost, yet advanced civilizations from our past that are yet to be discovered? Why not? As time goes on, we learn more and more about our amazing ancestors and how they surmounted incredible obstacles to advance their way of life. A link to the news story about the coin find follows, from the Guardian, UK. The image is from Freefoto.com.

This is John Callahan, and many of these issues are addressed in my new novel, Gettysburg Passage, soon to be published by Amazon. A brief summary of this modern, action and adventure book can be found further down on this blog. I invite your interest and dialog.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jul/08/hoard-roman-coins-somerset

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Time Travel and Physics

In the new book, Gettysburg Passage, several shifts in time are crucial to development of the plot and an evolution of the characters. In the story linked to below from Physics Today from 2006, a professor predicts time travel within the decade. Interestingly, he believes each instance of time travel will create a parallel universe so that you do not confront "The Grandfather Paradox" which was the basis for The Terminator movies.

http://www.physorg.com/news63371210.html

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Do Eternal Cave Fires Really Exist?

Sacred fires, blazes that erupt eternally from mysterious caves plummeting deep, deep into the earth, are a central plot point to my ebook novel, Gettysburg Passage. People have asked, can such a thing really exist? Are you basing your imaginative fiction on something that is not credible? In reality there are documented fires erupting from deep underground that burn indefinitely, perhaps forever. For instance, there are many stories on the web about a fire that burns underground in Centralia, PA. I have attempted to include a few photos of that cave fire but the blogger image loaded is not cooperating. What causes the initial combustion? A fuel source is necessary, like a seam of coal that is exposed near the earth's surface. Ignition may come from many causes, including naturally occurring brush fires from a passing lightning and thunder storm, for example. But not all cave fires are so easily explained and some believe certain fires linked to sacred grounds are a signal from the Creator and maybe an amazing yet risky portal to the unknown.....

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