Two New Meridian Novels Scheduled For Fall Release

The Writing Shop has announced that the popular "Meridian" series time travel novels by John Schettler will continue, with a fourth book entitled The Anvil of Fate due out this fall in eBook format, followed soon after by a fifth volume tentatively titled Golem 7.

In the fourth volume, Anvil of Fate, the cryptic ending of Touchstone is clearly explained, and the project team now faces the most significant attack yet from unseen adversaries in the future, an "intervention" at a key moment in the 8th Century that threatens to completely alter the entire  course of Western history in an outcome that is absolutely catastrophic, to say the least. The project team sleuths through the history to identify three key "Pushpoints" or levers on the historical events, and to think of what may have happened here gives one a real shudder.  VIDEO TEASER HERE

The fifth volume Golem 7 begins just days after the conclusion of volume IV and sees the project team finally attempting to reverse the effects of the Palma Event, which was restored to the timeline earlier in the series. But far from just being about 'unfinished business,' it stands on its own as a unique alternate history novel set in the early years of WWII. When Chief Historian Nordhausen puts his hand squarely on the neck of the man he believes is now responsible for the plot, the threads of his research lead the team into the midst of one of the greatest naval sagas of all time. The author has also ended this one with a deep hook that opens the possibility of further series  novels "in the future."  VIDEO TRAILER HERE

The Meridian series explores the successful efforts of a project team at the Berkeley Lawrence Labs to travel in time, and the opening book, Meridian, focuses on the struggle to reverse a modern day terrorist event that makes 9/11 pale by comparison. Building on the award winning success of the series opener, two sequels have already been published, Nexus Point and Touchstone.

In the first sequel, Nexus Point, the team discovers that their technology has been discovered and used by adversaries in the future, and that a "Time War" is now underway where each opposing side is attempting to influence key moments in the meridians of history to alter events and secure a decisive cultural and political advantage in their world of the future. The third volume, Touchstone, sees the Berkeley team drawn further into the complex struggle in a harrowing mission to Egypt at the time of the discovery of the Rosetta Stone during Napoleon's invasion. Here they meet and learn more about the adversaries in this Time War and are slowly entangled in operations aimed at preserving the meridian of history as they know it.

This trilogy of novels will soon be joined by these two new volumes to form a "quintet" of stories, all related to one another in one massive Time travel adventure series. But don't look for chase scenes and gunfire here, and there are no mandatory teenage characters or cute little kids about as in typical run of the mill Hollywood treatments of this genre. These novels are heady, intriguing looks at key crisis points in history where the effects of even minor interventions can cause major consequences.

Ever since H.G. Wells first penned his landmark novel, The Time Machine, the genre has been extremely popular in its ability to blend both science and historical fiction together in one story. All the key elements of the genre are here, a plausible theory of how time travel is possible, incredible plot that has a new twist around every corner, the confounding effects of paradox and, of course, time shifts into key moments of the past where the team seeks to influence the "Pushpoints" of history, the actual triggers that set off and influence the outcomes of major events. Yet the theory here is that the really great events are set in motion by small inconsequential moments in time, little accidents, mishaps, stumbles, loose threads in the weave of time that become the real movers and shakers of history. Sleuthing the history to find these key moments makes up a large part of the fun and enjoyment in these stories.The four key characters are sharply drawn, the dialogue crisp and intelligent, the plot well structured and full of surprises.

Both new novels are now in final review and should be available in the Amazon Kindle store, on Smashwords.com and many other popular eBook outlets this fall.

MERIDIAN SERIES VIDEO TRAILER FEATURING ALL FIVE NOVELS

Doom On Ice

Well... another couple doom dates have passed with no fireworks. There have been so many predictions of doom on the internet that I can't begin to count them. The dates are just picked out of thin air because the current net nonsense scam is to select a date about 45 days in  the future and then hype some kind of imminent catastrophe. This date will pass, then they will move on to one a little farther on. They had a field day of impending doom hype because of the Mayan calendar in 2012, and then when that fateful date of Dec 21 passed uneventfully, they moved on to new dates projected in 2013.

Suffice it to say that the puny comet Elenin that was lined up with the sun and earth was a big washout for doomers and preppers. It's name was supposed to mean "Extinction Level Event Now Is Near." Well, I'm happy to say it is now long gone as well, a virtual no show in the heavens when it passed, even though the doomers told us that  Elenin was so big that it would literally blot out the sun and there would be three days of darkness. But when the date finally rolled around it was a beautiful, quiet sunny day here in Monterey, CA...No earthquake, no darkness, no Blue Kachina, no Red Kachina, in fact, no Elenin--the darn thing broke up and vanished.

So now doom talk has moved on to comet ISON as the next incarnation of Nibiru. Charlatan hypers appear, post videos on Youtube that pose as scientific observation, make outrageous claims with absolutely no understanding of astrophysics whatsoever, and then they simply select a new doom date...about 45 days in the future. The latest was Oct 1, 2013, and now that passed uneventfully and so it was pushed to Nov 17, that nice 45 day interval. 

Let's face it folks....No, the world elite are not all out heading for their underground bunkers. And NO, these hidden sites have not been nuked lately, and NO there is no massive Brown Dwarf crackling with a super magnetic field and a mini entourage of planets about to toast us all here on Mother Earth.  No, I'm sorry, there is nothing about this on a Swiss Frank either. It's all nonsense--all of it--junk, hokum, hooey and balderdash on the Internet posted by people who don't seem to believe their lives have any viable or meaningful future.

Perhaps it's a shadow of the times, with the economy so dark and gloomy that it inevitably manifests in these predictions of utter doom. And face it, there's more than one shyster out there making money off this, be it giving seminars or selling "insider info" on "what's about to happen." Posts on the popular doom sites all follow a similar template: someone claims their insider friend told them that.... (fill in the blank).  Of course, they always also end with "I can't risk posting more.," as if the men in black are out there hunting them all down. I wish they were!

There is even a TV show now showcasing a company manufacturing doomsday bunkers and featuring "Prepper" parents smiling ear to ear as they teach their 12 year old how to put five or six pistol slugs into the chest of another human being, (presumed poacher come to threaten their steel bunker.) Teaching kids to murder on TV....wow! This is, of course, presented as survivalist "self defense," but let's face it folks--when you point a gun at someone's chest and pull the trigger to protect your stash of crackers and beer, it's murder. You have made the astounding mental calculation that the life of another person is measured as less than the value of those crackers! The steel bunkers also featured flame throwers and iron spikes to toast and skewer the hapless vagrants that come waddling by. So I sat there imagining  someone burning on the spikes outside the steel bunker while mom, dad and little Timmy huddle inside listening to the screams, smelling the charred flesh, and washing down the crackers with beer--yup--this is what the doomsday bunker dudes think like now, and it gets a slot on Comcast posing as "entertainment."

Doomers, it's time to put that doom on ice or reset the doom clock again. All your predictions of chaos and catastrophe have been proven wrong, but I'll make one here that will be proven true every 45 days or so:  all your doom dates will also pass uneventfully by, and you'll just have your ordinary, and apparently hopeless lives in front of you. Just this. Just this, and nothing more. Oh, yes, we'll have earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, typhoons and flood events and rain and all the rest in the years ahead. We've always had them, and we always will.

What we won't have is the earth getting fried by Nibiru, or a hail of comet tail debris pummeling us to death. It would make a great Hollywood blockbuster however. You want doom? There's plenty home cooked to go around without needing a rogue planet to crash the dinner party. Look no further than the Banksters and the Fed, the IMF and Wall Street. There's all the doom you'll need for years to come.

In the meantime, the pumpkins are stacking up outside the grocery stores, the Christmas ornaments are being hung in the big mall anchors. The leaves are turning, fading, falling. It's autumn, and may it be a lovely one this year. And for those of you who cannot see a spring in your lives next year...Believe.