NOVELS
Since 1993 I have
completed three novels.
No doubt all writers have their own systems
of creation, but for me Novels are a long conversation in which I control
the dialog, never wishing to have said this or expanded upon that after
the guest has departed and gone home.
And yet there is a point, usually thirty
or so pages into the work, when my characters take off on their own,
surprising me, taking me places I had not expected to go. That's
when joy takes over, when it becomes less a job and more an adventure.
Whether or not I have done it well is
always a question and I suspect this is true of the best as well as the
worst writers. But like conversation, fiction will always find an audience.
Perhaps not best- seller audiences, but someone who cares to listen. And
that after all, is what conversation is all about, why we talk to each
other and hope to expand our community of friendships---to alternately
say something worth while and listen to someone who amuses, entertains
or captures our imagination with an idea.
The first three novels are all quite
different. EVOKE is a socio-political story based upon what
I believe will be a confrontation with virtual reality.
Letters From Ceilia tells
a woman's story of business success and personal frustration.
The Island, a darker tale
of confrontation in southern Illinios duck hunting country and its aftermath,
walks the narrow path between reality and other worlds.
EVOKE (published
9/2000)
From the New York Times, August 11, 1998---"Consider
the work of researchers at British Telecommunications P.L.C. in the area
of implanted chips. One project, somewhat ominously dubbed Soul Catcher,
seeks to develop a computer that can be implanted in the brain to complement
human memory and computational skills. In addition, it would enable the
gathering of extrasensory information -- in this case, data transmitted
by wireless networking.
It is hard to imagine the full consequences of uninterrupted
access to that network through an implanted computer that renders each
of us a node in a global tapestry of information. Without safeguards,
for example, the enhancement of our brains could easily destroy our
minds,
leaving us unable to distinguish reality from virtual reality--- maybe
even self from non-self.
In the end, perhaps the most frightening question
in these futuristic visions of the mind-machine meld is who or what
can be entrusted
to run the system? . . "
 EVOKE
probes these questions in the fictional context of government
control over the source as well as access to a myriad of virtual
experiences---sex, food, travel, knowledge, sports.
At stake, billions in revenue and the Presidency itself.
At risk, family dynasty, civil institutions, human relationships, ambition
and perhaps the very survival of the Republic as we have known
it.
click here to read SAMPLE CHAPTER
from EVOKE
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Letters From Ceilia
(unpublished)
Ceilia Lybrand has it all, a career that's bringing her money and
recognition along with a live-in stockbroker jock boyfriend.
The chance finding of a document on a company copy machine sets her on
a path of self and career assessment that turns her life upside down,
brings her face to face with who she is and tests her willingness to put
it all on the line.
Support is half a world away in a continuing e-mail exchange with someone
she's never met, close as a keyboard, distant as a voice in the night.
click here to read SAMPLE
CHAPTER from Letters From Ceilia
The Island (unpublished)
Hank Edson is a northern man confronted by an old southern outlaw who
craves his property, an isolated 800 acre island duck club of rare beauty
adjoining the Illinois River.
A Chicago area contractor by trade, Hank's money, sweat and love are
tied up in the club to the occasional detriment of his marriage as well
as the family business.
Gart Haggard, an old man with a lifelong local reputation as a poacher,
market hunter and hell-raiser, stalks the island as if it were his own,
a willful challenge to Hank's ownership of the land.
Gart's history is rife with confrontation with game wardens, as well
as anyone else unwise enough to cross him. Congenial over a beer, helpful
to anyone in need, his wife abuse and general lawlessness is tolerated
with a degree of pride by the locals. "Aw, that's just Gart's way,"
they're likely to chuckle.
A local character in the most evil sense of the term, his trademark a
silver and turquoise Indian bracelet that he's worn so long it no longer
slips over his wrist. Dark legends are attached to that bracelet and the
man who wears it.
Coveting Hank's island since his early years and convinced of his destiny
to one day own it, Gart has long tried to intimidate Hank by theft, trespass
and occasional burnings. The law is useless to Hank as an outsider in
Madison County, Gart relentlessly coming and going secretively as he damned
well pleases.
Their ultimate confrontation unleashes powers beyond the ordinary reach
of our understanding, in a tale of irresistible force meeting immovable
object.
click here to read SAMPLE
CHAPTER from The Island
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