Books In Progress
I've never been short of ideas, and I've always liked working on several stories at the same time, but now we've arranged them in order of development, so they finally get finished!
One Nation, Under God
All hell breaks loose when mystics seize the White House, and turn unconditional love into national policy in this semi-comic geopolitical thriller of cosmic dimensions.
Texas has seceded. The Secretary of Health is giving mind-altering drugs to the public. The Secretary of State is running a jihadi training camp. The Secretary of Defense is plotting to overthrow the government. The Vice President believes she's on a personal mission from God. The President is on board Air Force One as it plunges out of control. Can internet blogger Dean Galbraith survive an assassin, escape prison, resist brainwashing and cut through the lies in time to reveal the truth and save America?
Is politics really the solution to our problems, or merely a reflection of our problems? Does the news media help us understand what's happening, or just aid and abet the insanity? Are deadlocked international relations forever doomed to stay as they are?
Can love conquer all, or is that just a greeting card sentiment?
Read the progress first report.
Sapo
A hapless tourist has seen too much and is marked for death, but a shaman presents him with some highly psychedelic fruit, and sets him on a course which will completely change his life. But a much bigger game is in motion, which could change the entire nation and perhaps the world.
After filming a massacre, Richard must escape through dangerous jungle in a seemingly impossible effort to avoid a murderous dictator's hellish apparatus of informers, police and soldiers. Could an irridescent purple fruit be the solution to Richard's problems? Could it be the solution to the whole world's problems?
What does it mean to be a person? Why are we so blind to who we are? Why do we get trapped in patterns of emotions, desires and behaviors we hate, but can't change? Is there a life of extraordinary joy and beauty beyond the lives we all live?
The Angel Of Ipixuna
A 30 foot tall, very male angel suddenly arrives at a logging camp, and proves impervious to destruction by military force. Is he an angel or an alien? Is he friendly or hostile? Is he a religious outcast or does he possess technologies which could transform mankind?
An angel arrives at the Brazilian rainforest logging camp where Bernardo works as manager. The new American owners want the angel gone so they can turn a profit, but the Brazilian government has decided the angel is really an alien being, and their ticket to world superpower status. They send in their best scientists to learn the secrets of his technologies, but he won't talk to anyone except an elderly native who comes in from the jungle, and Bernardo - and what he says to Bernardo seems completely cryptic. The scientists analyze the alien's words and train Bernardo what to say, but between the presence of the angel and the mind-bending discoveries of modern physics, Bernardo's understanding of the universe and his own place in it becomes completely unhinged. Then one day the angel speaks his message, and Bernardo's view of the world falls apart completely. Can it be replaced by a better one?
What's really important in life? A good education, marriage, a family, a job, a house, and a new car? Bernardo thought he knew, but then his marriage and his family fell apart and he found himself working at a remote logging camp. Then an angel arrives and throws his life into further chaos, as the angel makes him question everything he thought mattered, and as Brazil's best scientists open him to a world in which the human species itself is just a very recent and insignificant blip in an uncaring universe which is unimaginably large and old. The local catholic priest and a south asian telecommunications engineer give Bernardo their insights from Christianity and Hinduism. Does life have any meaning at all? Why did the angel intervene in human affairs? Will Bernardo cope when the angel finally reveals his message?