Showing posts with label ancient civilizations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ancient civilizations. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Expect the Unexpected

Photo of Postage stamp, 1963 issue, commemorat...Image via Wikipedia
Isn't that how life is?

Did the world expect our eye-watering, global financial panic? Did people in South Korea expect to have a village attacked, houses bombed and burned, residents killed? Did the president of the U.S.expect to experience a huge electoral rout just two years after winning?

The unexpected happens. Freakish weather, deadly mudslides, powerful earthquakes.

On a personal level, the unexpected may seem impossible. Have you ever experienced a doppleganger, a ghostly double, often viewed just at the edge of peripheral vision? Obviously, most people never will. But many serious, sober and famous figures in history have -- including Abraham Lincoln. Told of the vision, his wife predicted that it meant he would not survive a second term.

While most scientists believe doppelganger is simply an out-of-body sensation created within the brain, others have speculated it is a brief glimpse of an alternative universe. Whatever it is, it is, of course, a frequent plot device used in fantasy and adventure fiction.

In Gettysburg Passage, by John Callahan, available from Amazon.com for $2.99, the issue of what is "normal reality" in today's world comes up quickly. A mysterious and ancient artifact turns up nearly simultaneously in Syria and in Washington, D.C. The main characters begin experiencing people and events associated with the Civil War and the battle of Gettysburg which occurred approximately 150 years before. A threatening man appears demanding to see the artifact because it's his. The chase is on. Could it lead, from 2011 right back to the battle of Gettysburg? Or perhaps still further, thousands of years into the past? A maybe to another reality or universe mirroring our own?

Please consider visiting Amazon.com and downloading a sample chapter or buy the book today!





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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I strive in my writing to present a lively world of contemporary fantasy that is intelligent, fast-paced, seasoned by historical references and plot points and thought provoking about issues involving religion and society.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!
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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.

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Wednesday, November 3, 2010

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

The Aegean Sea - satellite imageImage via Wikipedia
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.
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Monday, November 1, 2010

Tree of Life, Tree of Knowledge

"The Garden of Eden" by Thomas Cole ...Image via Wikipedia
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.

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Monday, October 25, 2010

A Fictional Race to the Finish

The Searchers (film)Image via Wikipedia
Fiction often involves a journey or the "race against the clock". As the story opens, a challenge is revealed and a dramatic need must be resolved by accomplishing a task, making a journey or beating the clock. Examples include "The Fugitive," "48 Hours", "The Searchers," and "Saving Private Ryan" in movies and "The Name of the Rose," "The Lord of the Rings," and the "Bourne series" in literature/cinema.

The fictional challenge can be "find the killers" (The Fugitive), "save the child" (The Searchers), "solve the mystery" (The Name of the Rose) and "save the world" (The Lord of the Rings).

In the book, Gettysburg Passage, available from Amazon.com, the fictional challenge is a blend of solve the mystery and save the world!!

Everyday people working in high tech around Washington, D.C. have their very normal lives disrupted by a series of challenges: a mysterious ancient artifact is discovered, famous historical personalities briefly appear, a threatening man begins shadowing them. It slowly emerges that the characters seem to be pushed by some external force to visit a mysterious cave situated near the legendary Gettysburg battlefield north of Washington.

Ordinary people are asked to play a key role in extraordinary events - perhaps even help save modern civilization. Do they step up to the challenge or do they avert their eyes and go on with their normal lives?

Find out by visiting Amazon.com today. The novel is receiving enthusiastic reviews! Gettysburg Passage is available for $2.99.

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Thursday, October 7, 2010

7 Signs Your Boyfriend Is an Alien

BerriesImage via Wikipedia
This 7 tips are not gender specific and may easily apply to boyfriend or girlfriend ;-)

7.  He takes the bear's side of every argument.
6.  She can't explain that mysterious artifact hidden in the drawer next to the porn stash.
5.  Your soul mate has a weakness for weird weapons and can hit an archery target at 200 yards.
4.  She's not worried about money and suggests wild berries are suitable winter provender.
3.  He's on the run, perhaps stalked by a large, shadowy figure with hairy arms who may have wandered away from the Steelers practice squad.
2.  She's not alarmed when people dead for 100 years drop by the house for an urgent chat.
1. ...and here's the smoking gun: He thinks Bon Jovi is a French resaurant in Georgetown.

....many of these issues surface in my action and adventure, history, philosophy and a touch of fantasy novel, Gettysburg Passage, on sale from Amazon at $2.99....enjoy!!

tags: slightly eccentric writer living in the washington suburbs
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Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Gettysburg, the Trojan War and Modern Archaeology

Aeneas, whom the Romans believed Romulus and R...Image via Wikipedia
One of the common threads of my opening action and adventure novel, Gettysburg Passage, and the books that follow, is that commonly held beliefs about our history evolved, and how we got to this spot in the modern world, are too simplistic. My thesis is that civilizations matured earlier than suspected and that we have a lot to learn as we continue to investigate ancient settlement sites and records.

A good example of how modern science is proving me correct is the latest news out of Troy. German archaeologists now find that the area believed to be Troy has been settled at least since the Bronze Age, stretching back more than 3,000 years. The period roughly aligned with when the Trojan War would have occurred matches a sophisticated complex of settlements and defenses that existed on the spot believed to be Troy.

Here is the link that tells more: http://heritage-key.com/blogs/ann/project-troia-bronze-age-troy-just-keeps-growing

I won't do a spoiler but there is a link between the characters in my novel and the migrations of ancient people that would settle the lands through Asia Minor into the ancient Middle East and North Africa. These ancient migrations brought people to the area where Troy was founded. A great battle was fought and a legend and literature born.

Some prominent people living in the American south about 100 years ago considered their heritage (the losing side of the American Civil War) to be a lost cause, much like poor Troy facing the overwhelming invading forces of King Agamemnon. Many threads.....in any case, my novel mostly takes place in the present day but many of the issues discussed above come into play as the central character, Rick Reynolds, attempts to understand why an ancient artifact appears to be drawing him to fateful cave, a passage in the mountains near a battlefield in Gettsyburg.

For more information on Gettysburg Passage, go to Amazon.com.

tags: Troy, Rome, Egypt, Sumer
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Sunday, October 3, 2010

Infinitely Burning Caves, Time Shifts and a Novel

"Elk Bath" – A wildfire in the Bitte...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
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Thursday, September 30, 2010

1863 Around the World and Just Outside Your Door

Islands of the Cyclops at Dawn Sicily Italy - ...Image by gnuckx via Flickr
1863.

President Lincoln freed African American slaves. King George assumed the throne in Greece. Thomas Crapper invented a new toilet in England. Colombia was formed. Cambodia became a French Protectorate. The Red Cross was organized in Geneva. Rugby was invented. Coastal Holland experienced devastating floods. In America, it was a period of constant war. North versus South. Federal versus Native American.

No matter where you live in the world, how would you react if a little bit of 1863 suddenly visited you one day? Maybe it would be something you spotted just as dusk was settling in. Or maybe it would arrive with a knock at your front door. Or perhaps you were lost and directions given pointed to something from 1863. Perhaps the experience would be fleeting, a few moments at most.

Would you tell someone? Or would you ignore it and hope it wouldn't be repeated? These are questions that characters in Gettysburg Passage face. They are modern men and women, living today,  just like you. Suddenly their world changes just a little bit. What should they do? What would you do? What if your decision could change the fate of the world. Would you act? Even if you faced great danger?

To learn more, go to Amazon.com and look up Gettysburg Passage, by John Callahan. Just $2.99 by download to your Kindle, PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android smart phone. It's easy. Do it!

Tags: ancient civilizations, Sumer, Babylon, Indo-European, Greece, Hittites
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Friday, September 24, 2010

Emerson said a hero is persistent

L1005335Image 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.
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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!
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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!



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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.
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Monday, September 6, 2010

Spectacular advanced ancient civilization

View of Amazon basin forest north of Manaus, B...Image via Wikipedia
A central thread of this blog is that there are a million spectacular, jaw-dropping discoveries that are yet to be made about our very distant past. Some of these discoveries are derivative, like the remnants of a lost Roman city uncovered in the inner reaches of deeply forested, boggy Wales countryside or evidence of an Odysseus-related castle on the wind-swept Isle of Ithaca.

Other finds are totally new. In today's Washington Post, a front-page story describes how previous archaeological dogma is being thrown out the window as scientists realize the Amazon rain forest was home to sophisticated ancient civilizations that sustained relatively large towns and supported effective large-scale agriculture.

The novel Gettysburg Passage, available from amazon.com (the online store, not the rain forest) also throws dogma out the window. The novel hints at an advanced, ancient civilization that existed prior to those (Sumerians, Hittites, Egyptians, etc.) traditionally studied today. The older civilization was in fact the trailblazer and innovator for key technological and religious concepts currently held dear. But the novel's proto civilization faced a grave danger to its very existence. Remarkably, a key to its survival is found today. Can people and decisions made today have an effect on the distant past?  Gettysburg Passage attempts to answer this question in a modern action adventure novel.

What the heck. The only thing at risk is the history of Western Civilization and our very existence. Available as a $5.99 download for Kindle, or as a Kindle app on smartphones, iOS, Mac or PC.

To learn even more, read more of this blog or go to YouTube and type in Gettysburg Passage.
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Sunday, August 29, 2010

Ancient Civilizations Under Our Feet

Fresco from Knossos palaceImage via Wikipedia
As I was bike riding a couple of days ago I passed a woods and, despite my downhill speed, my eyes were drawn deep into the trees lit in pleasing patterns by late afternoon sunlight. As I often do during such moments, I imagined what had occurred in that spot over the years: farming, hunting, fishing, burial grounds perhaps, military skirmishes involving troops from the Civil and Revolutionary wars, interactions between native peoples and settlers, and stretching back tens of thousands of years, maybe activities from lost societies that we have no conception of yet.

As an avid reader of history, conventional wisdom tells us that the first glimmers of organized society are only 12,000 years old or so, with basic settlements, social hierarchy, crude agriculture and the domestication of animals emerging very slowly as the world thawed and the glaciers retreated. This framework works for my book series but I would still be thrilled if evidence appeared of relatively advanced societies -- along the lines of Cretan or Minoan civilization -- were found to exist 20,000 or even 40,000 years ago. Wouldn't that make for some interesting plot lines?

News out of the U.K. this weekend is that the recent dry weather there has caused literally thousands of ancient settlement sites, from Roman ruins to settelments thousands of years earlier, to suddenly become evident because of variations in crop coloring. Soil over some ancient settlement structures, like ditches or holding ponds, may hold moisture somewhat more efficiently and produce a deeper green. An old wall, on the other hand, might rob surface crops of moisure in specific patterns, giving another clue. From the air, faint patterns of old forts, walls, ditches and settlements fairly jump out to an observer or a camera, the English Heritage organization reports.

The more experts look, the more patterns of human exploration and settlement are found. So, to my mind and imagination, rarely is a woods just a woods. If you look and listen closely, the buzz of prior human activity becomes almost a roar. If you'd like to explore how several people from the Washington area reluctantly get involved in often harrowing activities strongly influenced by an obscure ancient civilization, please check out the book Gettysburg Passage now available on amazon.com.
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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?
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