Discover Gettysburg Passage, fantasy adventure fiction

A Sense of Time, History and Fictional Possibilities

2011-09-14T19:25:00.000-07:00

According to the definition of fantasy fiction in Wikipedia, "Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common. Fantasy is generally distinguished from science fiction and horror by the expectation that it steers clear of (pseudo-)scientific and macabre themes, respectively, though there is a great deal of overlap between the three, all of which are subgenres of speculative fiction."

The fantasy novel, Gettysburg Passage, uses elements of what could be called magic to draw in main characters living in present day suburban Washington, D.C. The primary "magic" element is the ability of real, historical people from the past to briefly interact with the modern characters, helping them try to understand a mystery involving a recently-discovered ancient artifact and a burning coal mine near the Gettysburg battlefield. Could an ancient civilization be trying to reach out to the present day to get some help in fighting an existential threat? Perhaps!

Much of this is relevant to a recent weekend family wedding trip I made with my wife, Cathy. We drove out of the Washington area going west on I-66 towards Front Royal in western Virginia. It turns out this modern highway is the exact route used by key Union and Confederate forces in the Second Battle of Bull Run. The main army of the United States could have been routed and destroyed by forces massing and marching down this road. This would have been the end of the U.S. as we know it. As I drove along, I gazed up hills and vistas that had not changed in 150 years. Soldiers from then would have easily recognized the way, even with a modern highway in place. Even the railroad from that era exists in the exact spot. As I passed through I had a strong sense of "other-ness". It was if time were interchangeable and that I could step out of the car and exchange places with men from several generations ago.

This is a strong feeling that I hope you get when you read Gettysburg Passage. It is not a Civil War book, per se. But it uses key historical figures and familiar Civil War-era places to move the narrative along at a very fast pace. The goal is finding out more about a mysterious ancient civilization. But to learn more about that civilization, you sort of have to pass through the American Civil War just a bit. I think you will enjoy the ride!

You can sample a chapter of Gettysburg Passage, $1.99, from Amazon, by going here.
More information about the book is available at Amazon here.
Read reviews at Amazon here.
Enjoy!

The universe, the multiverse and fantasy fiction.....

2011-06-13T13:42:00.000-07:00

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A lot of fantasy fiction has taken advantage of the possibility of multiple universes being spun out of everyday existence. The idea is simply that existence, at each decision point, constantly subdivides into multiple existences. The theory is related to quantum mechanics in physics and roughly explained by "if the tree fell in the forest and you didn't hear or see it, did it really fall?" Another thought experiment is described by the late, famous physicist Erwin Schrödinger’s Cat and can be summarized as, is that damn cat really dead until you look in the box? If all outcomes are possible, then was Jesus really handed over to the Romans, did the Norman's successfully invade England, did the Nazis win WWII, etc. etc. in some other universe?

There is a very interesting update on multiple universes in today's Telegraph, from the U.K., in an article by Roger Highfield. He seems to think that multiverses are a done deal. Give it a read and see what you think!

In my novel, Gettysburg Passage, I flirt with the possibility of a parallel universe but do not make it central to the plot, which could involve some kind of time travel. How certain events unfold is left to the imagination of the reader. But I must admit the possibility of multiverses is really cool and the idea that you could jump between them, maybe to a more desirable outcome, is attractive to many.

Gettysburg Passage is a fantasy novel from Amazon which takes place mostly in the present time. But several of the main characters do get sucked into past events in American history, if only for brief slices of time. The challenge they face is, are they willing to give up the very comfortable present to make a great contribution to history and civilization that is occurring in some other time or parallel existence? If they elect to help out, they probably won't make it back "home." Would you do it -- make the jump -- if your reality would become far more exciting somewhere else?

Go to Amazon.com to learn more about Gettysburg Passage, just $2.99!

An Explosion of Energy at Maiden Castle, Dorset, England

2011-06-08T20:09:00.000-07:00

Image by squelch41 via Flickr

Maiden Castle, in the county of Dorset, in England, is the remains of a fortified, hilltop settlement, dating back thousands of years. Until recently, the conventional wisdom was the Maiden site grew slowly from about 2,000 B.C., was painfully enlarged generation after generation, and peaked several centuries before foreign invasion and withered by the time of the Roman occupation. In an amazing turn of events, scientists believe the peak of its importance as a center of an organized community was actually reached far, far earlier, nearly 5,000 years ago., when it became the largest fortress site in all of Europe.

In a facinating article in The Guardian, from the U.K., scientists are able to analyze new archaeological dating evidence far more precise than carbon-14 measurements. The results are that Maiden Castle grew very large as a hilltop settlement around 3,700 B.C., in a rapid explosion of growth. The people living there were able to maximize military, agricultural and civic organizational techniques to far outstrip the power of their neighbors.

Once again, we learn new evidence about the past and realize just how much we don't know. This is a central idea in the novel, Gettysburg Passage, an action-adventure fantasy available from Amazon. Modern people go about their everyday lives. Suddenly, they are confronted with evidence of a reality they didn't think possible. Should they investigate further, and perhaps be called on "to help"? What if that means walking away from your regular daily existence, from your friends and family? Maybe they'll come along!

Here is a link to The Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/jun/06/archaeology-dating-property-boom-3700bc

And here is a link to learn more about Gettysburg Passage, just $2.99 from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Gettysburg-Passage-ebook/dp/B00408AOMW

Horse of Kings Found From Persian Royal Grave 5,000 Years Old

2011-05-04T19:39:00.000-07:00

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The Caspian Horse is a beloved breed whose roots can be traced back to the Iron Age and even deeper in the prehistoric mists of time. This small, fast and graceful steed is easily identified by a pronounced forehead, large eyes and short ears. Although much smaller than modern thoroughbreads, the Caspian Horse is spirited and a strong jumper -- and was a royal favorite for pulling a war chariot, swiftly transporting a courier or majestically carrying a king to a royal hunt.

Now it is being reported that the oldest remains of the Caspian breed have been discovered in an archaeological dig in Iran. Through history horses have played a pivotal role in determining the fate of civilizations in conflict and, a source of envy, have been the cause of livestock raids chronicled in man's earliest poems and ballads.

In the fantasy action novel, Gettysburg Passage, horses are important, too. They play a key role in keeping several of the main characters a few trots ahead of the harm's way.

In short, some friends living in contemporary Washington, D.C. stumble on an ancient artifact which before long has them running for their lives. Lucky for them, several horses -- could they possibly be right out of America's Civil War? -- are conveniently available to speed their escape. Before long, these characters find themselves deep inside a mystery that flips through time and that is somehow linked to a distant, lost civilization. An ancient, advanced society is desperately in need of help only these modern day friends can provide......will they risk their lives to help? Gettysburg Passage, $2.99, from Amazon. Click on the following link to read the rave reviews or sample a free chapter. http://www.amazon.com/Gettysburg-Passage-ebook/dp/B00408AOMW

Iron Age Girl Had to Die by the Roman Sword

2011-05-01T19:17:00.000-07:00

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Beginning in 55 B.C., restive Iron Age Britain was toyed with by list of famous Romans, including Caesar, Augustus and Caligula. But around 43 A.D., nearly 2,000 years ago, Emporer Claudius readied his Roman Legions to mount a large invasion and a permanent occupation of the restive region. Led by the crack Legio II Augusta, commanded by the future emperor Vespasian, some 40,000 troops and auxilaries began a nearly continuous brutal campaign of conquest lasting decades.

Much of this is of course so much dry history. But this weekend the BBC reports that archaeologists in north Kent, UK, have discovered the 2,000 year old grave of a young woman, thought to be 16 to 20 years old. She had been most likely wounded in the head while kneeling, mostly likely executed by Roman soldiers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-13211331

This discovery, the intact skeleton, the obvious visual evidence of violent trauma to the skull, most definitely brings to life that long ago invasion and occupation. Was she a spy, a picket, a bushwhacker, or simply innocent and in the wrong place at the wrong time? What was her name? Did she cry as they killed her or did she face her captors with stoicism?

Invasions and occupations are disruptive, violent, degrading and life changing. The Romans were ruthless and did their best to wipe out native tribes that continued to resist. Vigilance was a way of life for the occupiers, as the native population was ready to erupt at any time. Perhaps the best visual that illustrates the tension of the occupier versus the subjugated is the Vallum Aelium, known to most as Hadrian's Wall, the defensive fortification in northern England used to keep the dangerous nothern tribes at a safe distance.

Just as the unnamed young woman gave her life in some kind of hostilities involving the invading Romans, the Amazon novel Gettysburg Passage has, deep in its narrative, a thread that involves a lost civilization that is also being overrun, occupied, and in danger of annihilation by the boot of an invading army.

http://www.amazon.com/Gettysburg-Passage-ebook/dp/B00408AOMW

The Romans felt they were on the side of civilization and progress and were opposed by the forces of tribal barbarism. An academic argument could be made either way. But in Gettysburg Passage, there can be no doubt that a superior civilization is in danger of being wiped out by an invading army of savages.

Ironically, a group of friends living in contemporary Washington, D.C. find an ancient artifact that potentially lures them into the conflict. As they explore the possible history of the ancient mace, history comes alive -- in startling ways! To read book reviews or to sample a free chapter, go to Amazon today! Gettysburg Passage, just $2.99!

New Evidence of Ancient Civilizations Is Frequently Uncovered

2011-04-28T18:36:00.000-07:00

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A frequently used plot device in fantasy, action/adventure and science fiction is the discovery of an ancient civilization. Perhaps the most familiar example includes the many fictional adventures of Indiana Jones. A reader might wonder, with humans constantly crawling all over the globe, with 3D satellite mapping going on, and with all the other new scientific tools available, are there any amazing ancient secrets left to be discovered?

The answer is, amazing discoveries are made all the time! Just this week there are news reports that a new, unheard of ancient Sumerian city has been discovered in southern Iraq.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1WrVAB/www.suite101.com/content/a-new-sumerian-city-has-been-discovered-in-southern-iraq-a230390

The ruins are located south of the Sumerian city of Eridu. Isn't it amazing that with the endless warfare in Iraq over the past few decades, the invasions and retreats involving hundreds of thousands of troops, and chaos and looting of ancient ruins, this new discovery has been made. Presumably in the years ahead, work on these ruins will help shed more light on the civilization of Sumer and Akkad some 4,000 years ago.

My fantasy novel, Gettysburg Passage, from Amazon, uses a similar plot devise to drive the fast-paced action of the narrative. Mixed together are: 1) a mysterious, powerful, newly discovered ancient artifact; 2) a strange burning cave portal found near the Gettysburg American Civil War battlefield; 3) odd, real-live sightings of long-dead famous warriors; and 4) through mystics and dreams, an appeal for help from a lost civilization from the ancient past (Sumer, Babylon, Greece, Egypt? I am not saying!).

Read the reviews and check out a free, sample chapter. http://www.amazon.com/Gettysburg-Passage-ebook/dp/B00408AOMW

Gettysburg Passage, only $2.99 from Amazon.

Found Treasure & Ancient Artifacts Are Not Just the Stuff of Fantasy Novels

2011-04-27T20:16:00.000-07:00

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You may have missed this news over the long Easter Weekend....several years ago a man enlarging his backyard garden pond in Austria dug up obviously old artifacts -- jewels and rings and belt buckles and silver plate and the like. He didn't bother to clean them, just placed the dirt encrusted objects in a box. He stored them in the basement and like most of us who store stuff in the basement, he forgot about it. Then he recently decided to move and in his moving preparations he came upon the box again. He cleaned up the artifacts and found....treasure! Ancient treasure! Treasure and artifacts now being called invaluable and something out of a fairy tale. Stuff more than 650 years old. Buried in his back yard. The treasure trove will soon be on display at the Presidential Palace in Vienna.

Here is a link to the story: http://www.pasthorizons.com/index.php/archives/04/2011/significant-mediaeval-treasure-found-in-austria

Who could make this stuff up?

The fantasy novel, Gettysburg Passage, available from Amazon, actually has a similar plot twist.

A group of friends living around Washington, D.C. have their lives changed when one of them finds an ancient artifact. This artifact is not jewelry, but rather an ancient royal staff or mace -- a symbol of authority and power. The artifact still has power, in fact, and begins to affect their lives in amazing ways. Actually, the mace appears to be drawing them to a mysterious cave near the Gettysburg battlefield just north of Washington. The mace and the cave come together to draw the friends into an opportunity -- save an ancient civilization and at the same time perhaps preserve the modern, complex, interconnected world we know today in the 21st Century.

Will the friends take advantage of the opportunity to make history? Find out by reading a free sample chapter of the book at Amazon.com today. Read the reviews, read a sample chapter or buy Gettysburg Passage, only $2.99. Book link: http://www.amazon.com/Gettysburg-Passage-ebook/dp/B00408AOMW

Around 6 million years in Africa human history began

2011-04-27T09:15:00.000-07:00

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That is the central nugget of a wonderful new essay in The Guardian, one of the UK's leading newspapers, a thoughtful media portal better than anything in America today. Basically, you have to go back some 6 million years to find a common chimp-human ancestor. Since then, humans have been on a separate path that has led -- with many branches and dead ends -- to where we are today.

The link to the essay is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/apr/25/evolution-human-history-apes The essay is called The Untold Story of Evolution but of course the story has been told many times and is discussed daily in classrooms. It is well written and honestly addresses they many puzzles and questions still bedeviling scientists. What drove the ancestors out of Africa? What led to upright walking? Why the long legs and large brain? What sparked the creation of human language?

What I like about the topic are the many "holes in the data." Why did humans begin burying the dead? Why did we begin to believe in life after death? Where were the first societies located where complex communities came into being?

In my novel, Gettysburg Passage, I envision a group of five friends -- two couples and a priest -- who are suddenly linked to a complex, ancient society. These friends don't yet realize it, but when they find an artifact in downtown Washington, D.C., they are magnetically drawn, through dreams and other evidence, to a portal that gives them access to our complex past -- if they choose to go.

One of the friends knows all about this ancient history because he's been there before -- but he's not talking about it unless he has to. Unfortunately for him, the past begins to come alive in modern Washington. In a strange twist, the portal exists as a burning cave located near the Gettysburg battlefield. This leads to all kinds of modern mayhem, including several Civil War characters suddenly making appearances in today's modern world. And just in time for helping to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War ;-)

Gettysburg Passage is available from Amazon.com for $2.99 US. It is a thoughtful, fast-paced fantasy novel that has received some very good reviews. Why not sample a free chapter? Go here to check it out. Thank you!

Civil War Commentary and Fantasy Fiction

2011-04-16T09:38:00.000-07:00

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There is interesting commentary in a South Carolina newspaper -- a state known for its defensiveness about its complex and combative history -- that you might wish to check out. His thesis is that many "top of mind" opinions on America's bloodiest war are too simple. Southerners want to talk about anything but slavery. On the other hand, during the time of the hostilities, citizens of the North harbored incredibly racist attitudes that would be considered intolerable today. It was an ugly time. Here is a link to his column. Another story in The Washington Post is a review of Gary Gallagher's new book, The Union War. In that book it is documented that Northern attitudes were also complex -- and generally not so pure. Essesentially, Northern soldiers went to war to preserve the country. Emancipation was secondary. Here is the Post link.

While you are checking out those thoughtful pieces of journalism, please consider also checking out my modern action-fantasy novel, Gettysburg Passage, only $2.99 from Amazon. Gettysburg Passage is a fast-paced modern story of people discovering an ancient artifact with mysterious powers. That artifact turns out to be a "key" that opens a portal to save a lost civilization. The portal happens to be very close to the Gettysburg Civil War battlefield.....all kinds of mayhem ensues!! Check out the great reader reviews here or try a sample chapter from the Amazon book site.

Civil War Intrudes on Modern Day Adventure Novel

2011-04-13T20:34:00.000-07:00

Image by Ken Lund via Flickr

The American media has re-discovered the Civil War. It happens every 25-30 years, especially around major anniversaries like 150th year of the start of the conflict. While the war has always been popular in nonfiction, it's not a typical setting for a lot of mainstream novels today.

It was with some anxiety that I named my fantasy novel Gettysburg Passage. While Gettysburg, PA plays a role in the climax, I was afraid many potential readers would assume the novel was strictly in the genre of war-related historical fiction -- which is actually a secondary influence.

Gettysburg Passage, from Amazon, is really about how a group of modern people living around Washington, D.C., New England and Paris, come to a decision about whether to help out -- or not -- the remnants of a mysterious society about to be overwhelmed by barbarous invaders. That society is potentially reached through a portal found near the Gettysburg battlefield. And the historical battle plays a role in the modern-day decision to help out or not.

So to the extent the Civil War anniversary draws some attention to Gettysburg Passage -- that is a good thing. Just remember that the book, just $2.99, is also a fast-paced, modern-day fantasy, action and adventure e-novel, with a dash of Civil War action thrown in for good measure. Go to Amazon.com and try out a sample chapter today!

Find Gettysburg Passage reader reviews here.

Life Is Stranger Than Fantasy Fiction

2011-03-28T19:01:00.000-07:00

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Some people are relunctant to regularly read fantasy novels -- even books where 98% of the plot is reality-based -- because they find it difficult to accept the "fantastic" element. In this case, fantastic means odd, fanciful or supernatural. In many cases the 2% fantasy is based on science speculation, such as other dimensions, wormholes or alternative universes. In all of these examples, however, respected science predicts they are actually possible.

Current news items re-inforce my point. For example, today it was announced that scientists at the University of York have recovered the remains of an Iron Age man's brain, buried in soil that remarkably preserved critical soft tissue. Most experts would tell you the chances of finding a partially preserved brain that old under those circumstances were highly unlikely. But they did. Here is a link to the news release: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110328101108.htm

In another current example, here in America each spring universities compete in a winner-take-all basketball tournament called March Madness. Sixty eight teams compete until a champion is crowned. We are at the moment down to the last four standing, called The Final Four. Two of them are extreme long shots and the other two were not expected to get this far. Odds makers are quoted on ESPN, the American sports network, as saying the finalists are so improbable that he placed the odds of it happening at 1-in-300 million. But it did happen. Fantastic. Here is a link to the story: http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/28764/so-just-how-unlikely-is-this-final-four

So take a chance and broaden your horizons. The next time you consider reading a really good, fast paced novel, consider a good fantasy novel, instead of the usual detective or political thriller fiction. The odds are, the fantasy plot is believable and the experience will be enjoyable. For example, try Gettysburg Passage, a fantasy novel just $2.99 from Amazon. Read the reviews here.

How We Got Here and "God Had a Wife"

2011-03-23T18:41:00.000-07:00

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Active in the news this week are stories about the ongoing discovery of additional evidence that the ancient Hebrew God, Yahweh --the monotheistic God-the-Father of Judaism and Christianity -- had in fact a female consort named Asherah, also known as Istar. There are several brief references to her in the Hebrew Bible. Modern researchers such as Bible scholar Francesca Stavrakopoulou claim that references to Asherah were mostly deleted from sacred texts to promote a male-centered view of religion. Nearly all ancient religions start with female god figures but over time the concept of God seems to go gender neurtral of lean towards the God-the-Father bias. Clearly male-directed editing has occurred.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8398099/Bibles-Buried-Secrets-Did-God-Have-a-Wife-review.html

http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/03/22/fertility-goddess-asherah-was-gods-wife-edited-out-of-the-bible/

Just more evidence that "how we got here," our prejudices, our viewpoints, our beliefs, are a complex stew handed down over thousands of generations. As we go back into the mists of time, we find dynamic activity in concepts of individuality, personal freedom, moral accountability and our place in the universe. Many of these issues are addressed in my fantasy fiction adventure, Gettysburg Passage, just $2.99. To read reviews, try a sample chapter or just learn more, please go here.

2011-03-16T10:05:00.000-07:00

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In the news this past week has been reports that the lost civilization of Atlantis has possibly been discovered near the ancient and hauntingly beautiful Spanish coastal city of Cadiz. Atlantis, popular in song, poetry, literature and film, is a legendary island civilization first mentioned in Plato's dialogues, Timaeus and Critias.

In Plato's account, Atlantis was a naval power lying "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" -- modern Gibraltar --and Atlantis conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa 9,000 years before the time of Solon, or approximately 9600 BC. After a failed attempt to invade Athens, Atlantis sank into the ocean "in a single day and night of misfortune" -- supposedly a giant tsunami similar to what just battered northern Japan. Without a doubt much of Plato's account is fanciful.

To help solve this ancient riddle, The National Geographic Society funded a discovery search centered around huge marshlands in Dona Ana Park. There, underground, researchers said they believe that they have discovered the ruins of Atlantis deep underground. Scientists used the latest technical tools in their search, including deep-ground radar, digital mapping, and underwater technology to survey the site.

Some experts and commentators are challenging these findings as hype for National Geographic's TV special. Cable TV is notorious for poorly-researched "history" specials promoting marginal science and paranormal phenomena. However, what I find interesting is that SOMETHING is down there beneath the ground. Since Cadiz has been inhabited for more than 3,000 years -- by Phoenicia, Rome and Carthage -- it is entirely possible that some kind of lost civilization resided there that has been totally lost to modern history.

There is so much about our past that we don't know. Which brings me to my fantasy novel, Gettsyburg Passage, from Amazon, an ebook for just $2.99. In the novel, friends living around Washington, D.C. come across an ancient artifact that threatens to totally disrupt their everyday lives. It appears this artifact -- an ancient staff or mace -- is a sort of "key" to a lost civilization that may be in need of immediate assistance. The portal to this ancient civilization may be found near or in a burning, abandoned coal mine very close to the Gettysburg Battlefield just north of Washington. Hmmmm. All kinds of strange and interesting things are about to happen.

Reviewers are loving the book, calling it a quick and interesting read. Read reviews on the Amazon website here. Gettysburg Passage. Sample a few chapters or buy it today. Just $2.99 on your ereader.

Gobekli Tepe and the relentless human march towards establishing civilization

2011-03-06T11:23:00.000-08:00

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Gobekli Tepe is the oldest known temple in the world and possibly a first and most important step towards creating a Western-style civilization. There are some great links below where you can see some amazing photos of this temple town, pillars and monoliths of amazing beauty -- and more than 11,000 years old!

Ninety-nine percent of the human race has never heard of this amazing archaeological site. Take a look:
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/archaelogy/news-gobekli-tepe-worlds-oldest-temple

There are early civilizations that you have never heard of....they don't cover them in your history books. That is the reality behind my fantasy novel, Gettysburg Passage, from Amazon. There is a forgotten, abandoned coal mine very near the Gettysburg battlefield that is burning with deep, underground fires. What is causing this inferno? Weird things are also going on as some friends living around Washington, D.C. find an ancient artifact that may be somehow linked to the mysterious mine. Long-dead famous people begin appearing in ways that don't seem possible. An ancient civilization -- facing ruin -- cries for help.

Read reviews for Gettysburg Passage here. From Amazon, only $2.99.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/gobekli-tepe.html
http://www.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/turkey.html

Escape By Horse! Would 8 Million People Notice?

2011-03-02T15:24:00.000-08:00

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Washington, D.C. is a big town, with a population density of approximately 10,000 people per square mile and a metropolitan population of more than 8 million people. If a person in the Washington suburbs was being menaced by two murderous thugs, do you think that person could successfully escape using a horse, and not be noticed?

This is Rick Reynolds' quandry. Rick is alive today in the Washington suburbs, an avearge guy, about 30 years old. He is reasonably handsome and strong, has a good job and several interesting and equally sucessful friends. Rick has a good life but a secret in his past is coming back to haunt him. He happens to be carrying an ancient artifact that could be super valuable in the wrong hands. Rick realizes that any potential public drama or violence will cost him his hard-earned job and comfortable life. He wants to escape the pursuers and dump the artifact in a place where it can never be found. To get there, he has to cross the metro area, south to north. There are about 8 million people between Rick and the dump site, a burning abandoned mine near the Gettysburg, PA, battlefield park.

Remember, Rick needs to lose the pursuers and not draw unnecessary attention to himself or his task. Oh yeah, at some point in the chase, he has to travel, on a tight deadline, from Virginia to Maryland to Pennsylvania using a "borrowed" horse. And not be noticed! Is this possible? Actually, this chase is a central scene in the book and is absolutely realistic, based on the capabilities of a good, strong horse, available greenspace, potential places to ford the Potomac River and fortuitous directions and routing.

In other words, today in 2011 you can ride a horse from the southern suburbs of Washington to the northern suburbs all the way into Pennsylvania and not draw a lot of attention. But you have to be saavy and maybe a little bit lucky!

Along the way, you might meet famous Civil War figures, generals and everyday soldiers, world famous Indian fighters, authors and maybe even a future Supreme Court justice. You may even stumble into a Rebel-Yankee skirmish or two! So pack your Colt .44, your cavalry saber and maybe your favorite iPhone GPS app, saddle up and come along for a fast-paced, amazing ride!

Gettysburg Passage, adventure-fantasy fiction, by John Callahan, available from Amazon for just $2.99. Download a sample chapter or read the many positive reviews by readers here.

Concepts discussed in the book: ancient, lost civilizations, Babylon, Indo-Europeans, the Civil War, Gettysburg, Western Civilization, Hittites, time travel, archaeology, ancient and modern weapons, car chases, philosophy, religions, Ark and Dove, Maryland colonization

How Would We Be Perceived to the Iceman?

2011-02-28T17:32:00.000-08:00

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Oetzi the Iceman, the famous middle aged man frozen into a glacier more than 5,000 years ago, and found in the Alps in northern Italy in 1991, stood about 5 feet tall, or about 1.6 meters. Oetzi weighed a little more than 100 pounds, or about 50 kilogrammes, at his death. Experts tell us he was average for his time. Five thousand to 10,000 years ago the earth warmed and civilizations began to form. For the descendants of Indo-European culture, this was the period that our early vocabulary was created, myths were created and repeated around evening fires and the serious rumblings of spirituality and civic organizations began to be conceived.

In fantasy fiction and cinema, adventurers from modern times sometimes find themselves somehow transported back in time to this period. What is not often addressed is that we would be giants to average folks back then. In my fantasy novel, Gettysburg Passage, an Amazon ebook, Rick Reynolds, a key character, is being drawn to action that takes place somewhat earlier than Oetzi the Iceman's time. If Rick could go back in time, given his modern size, intelligence, experience and wisdom, might earlier inhabitants be tempted to worship him as a god among men, or be tempted to at least make him king?

Check out the many positive reviews for Gettysburg Passage from Amazon, sample a few chapters, or download the book, only $2.99. Find the book summary, reviews and other key information at :
http://www.amazon.com/Gettysburg-Passage-ebook/dp/B00408AOMW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1298940804&sr=1-1

The Moment of Decision Shared: Revolution and Fantasy Fiction

2011-02-27T19:00:00.000-08:00

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Across the Middle East and North Africa many have made individual, often painful and always risky decisions to join protests against autocratic regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Iran and Syria. They lost sleep, discussed risks with loved ones, asked opinions of friends and family and then made the decision to act or not.

For hundreds of thousands of people, the decision to march, to demonstrate, "to be counted," has been a positive, affirming decision with few negative consequences. Governments have fallen. But for several thousand brave but unfortunate young men and women, the decision to be counted has carried a painful cost. In Egypt, hundreds died. In Iran, many are detained. In Libya, perhaps thousands of innocent citizens are dying.

The lonely decision of one person, or maybe a few friends, to act, to help, to right a wrong, to make the world a better place, is the central dilemma in my fantasy novel, Gettysburg Passage, by John Callahan, a Kindle ebook from Amazon. The people who stand up for something better, who decide "to be counted" have a name in any society: heroes. They are all ages and come from all walks of life. In Gettysburg Passage they are Rick Reynolds and his friends, about 30 years old, employed, well educated. They are successful, comfortable and content. Why rock the boat?

Because a lost people need their help and it is the right thing to do. Gettysburg Passage, perhaps a civilization will be saved. Just $2.99, from Amazon. Read book reviews here.

Pictures at an Exhibition, or Just Fantasy?

2011-02-23T19:27:00.000-08:00

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Recently a man living near Washington, D.C., experienced an unwelcome and alarming vision. Friends laughed it off and dismissed it as a dream, perhaps a fantasy or an illusion. The vision was clear: good people were in danger and needed his help. He and perhaps his friends were somehow destined to get involved. The appeal came through a discovered artifact -- ancient and very valuable. The artifact created clues and led to glimpses of places lost and people long dead, including war heroes, statesmen and jurists. The main character, and maybe his friends, are compelled to follow unmistakable signs leading to a burning cave situated near the famous Gettysburg battlefield park north of the American capital.

More than 100 years earlier, in Russia, a flawed yet gifted and not quite famous composer grasped a similar vision. He was Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, in poor health and suffering from depression, alcoholism and delirium. Yet in just a few weeks Mussorgsky composed the immortal "Pictures from an Exhibition – A Remembrance of Viktor Hartmann", in memory of a dead artist friend. Most of Hartmann's paintings -- the pictures which inspired the musical composition -- are now lost to history, particularly one mysterious pastel that Mussorgsky was obsessed with to his last days, a work depicting an abandoned cave, raging with suppressed fire, with furious armies clashing at its base. If you looked closely into the cave, it was said you had the illusion of looking into a lost world, perhaps a parallel universe....the painting was last spotted in the black market Istanbul in 1933....and said to be purchased by a fabulously wealthy Syrian collector...

Gettysburg Passage is a fantasy novel by John Callahan, available for Kindle and all e-readers from Amazon for $2.99.

Super Wolf Packs Are Not Just The Stuff Of Fantasy Novels

2011-02-11T13:12:00.000-08:00

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Media stories out of Russia and Europe claim that a super wolf pack numbering nearly 400 animals has recently killed more than 30 horses and is menacing the far north Verkhoyansk district in Russia, where temperatures often drop to more than -100F. Since a typical wolf pack numbers between 6 and 7 animals, naturalists are puzzled, but speculate that the harsh winter has limited natural food supplies, such as rabbits and mice. The ranchers' livestock has become easy prey.

A key action scene in my fantasy novel Gettysburg Passage involves proto wolves in a super pack that menaces a group of Americans visiting a mountain cabin for the weekend. When I wrote the scene I was worried about putting wolves in a bad light. There are many wolf defenders and I sympathize with them -- but clearly wolves are predators and should be treated with healthy respect...and at a distance!

Gettsbury Passage -- a few modern, young professionals are called upon to help save a threatened, lost civilization. Will they act, or choose to stick with their careers and comforts of home and friends. The ebook is a quick, action-packed read and on sale at Amazon for just. $2.99. To learn more, go here.

Here are wolf pack story links:

http://bit.ly/gzPSgt
http://bit.ly/hG7L26
http://bit.ly/i8ncQN

Tokens Link Us Deep Into the Mists of the Ancient Past

2011-02-10T18:33:00.000-08:00

Image by Swedish National Heritage Board via Flickr

For tens of thousands of years, humans have buried the dead with precious objects: jewels, weapons, musical instruments, amulets -- even pets. Vikings carried around Stone Age objects as good luck charms and were buried with them -- linking themselves to the dim and mysterious past of their ancestors. The custom was mentioned as being active even in Shakespeare's time and was described in Ophelia’s burial scene. In our modern age people still find lucky charms and keep them close. We act in similar ways to our ancestors from long, long ago.

In the fantasy novel, Gettysburg Passage, an ancient, precious -- possibly miraculous -- object upends the everyday existence of a group of friends. See what happens when Civil War people and places suddenly become too real, and an ancient civilization beckons for acknowledgement and assistance.

To learn more about Gettysburg Passage, go here.

Fantasy fiction, or do grande civilizations simply disappear?

2011-02-09T14:12:00.000-08:00

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The Grande Hotel da Beira in Mozambique in the 1950s and 1960s was considered the most glamorous hotel in all of Africa. A sun-burned, gleaming jewel on the Arabian Sea. Then Portugal, after 400 years, recognized the right of home rule, and left. A civil war ensued and the region experienced long-term war and anarchy. Today, the hotel is home to several thousand people living a life of subsistence. Trees grow out of the roof. All windows, wiring and pipes have been ripped out and sold. Only forlorn and fragmentary evidence hints of a "grande" past.

A current image of the former hotel can be found here.

A foundation of the fantasy novel, Gettysburg Passage, is that in the distant past, a "grande" civilization flourished after the great glaciers receeded. This civilization had independently worked out many of the underpinnings of Western Civilization -- before it was beset by plagues, infighting and invasion. Somehow, this lost civilization -- through the discovery of a mysterious royal staff or mace -- extends a link through space and time to modern-day America. People are given the opportunity to get involved. Perhaps, to play a role in seeing that this ancient civilization isn't completely destroyed. Improbably, America's most sacred battlefield park, Gettsyburg, and maybe the battle itself, becomes part of the action.

Civilizations rise, like Egypt, like Babylon, like Rome, like the U.S., they are tested, and most fall. Not all are remembered. The forgotten may reach out to us -- even today. Gettysburg Passage, available on Amazon.com. To learn more, visit here.

2011-01-19T18:42:00.000-08:00

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As noted previously, adventurous and fun-loving humans have made a priority out of making and consuming wine and beer for at least 10,000 years. The National Geographic News highlighted this bit of history this month with a report on the world earliest known winery complex -- in a cave in ancient Armenia. Here's a link to the cave discovery: http://bit.ly/gD7tRV

And here's a link for news on the search for the oldest cultivated grapes going back to the Stone Age: http://bit.ly/9anTbU

Wine and beer have lubricated family get togethers, social ceremonies and religious observances going back to the earliest human societies. In the fantasy novel Gettysburg Passage, one key character, Father Matt, shows a deep appreciation for wine's religious and social powers. The priest also has a special appreciation for a mysterious and ancient artifact that shows up at his door on day. This discovery draws in a wider circle of friends, acquaintances and threatening characters and leads them all on a wild chase from the Washington area to the hills overlooking Gettysburg, America's most sacred battlefield.

Gettysburg Passage is receiving positive attention as a fast-paced action-adventure fantasy novel available on Amazon.com. Check out the reviews on Amazon or in the media and see if you might want to explore for yourself the mystery linking a sacked and over-run ancient society desperately in need of outside help, a Biblical-like prophesy reaching out to the 21st Century and a burning cave in the hills overlooking modern-day Gettysburg.

Here is a link to Gettysburg Passage on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Gettysburg-Passage-ebook/dp/B00408AOMW

Christmas Lunacy and the Challenge to "Act Now"!

2010-12-07T10:12:00.000-08:00

Image by mharrsch via Flickr

This time of year consumers are overwhelmed with appeals to buy this, buy that. During a period of financial instability in the West, it may often seem like civic duty to spend-spend-spend so that the economy will improve for all. So we are often asked to "act now!"

In Gettysburg Passage, an Amazon.com action-fantasy novel by John Callahan, the main character, Rick Reynolds, is given a strange artifact from the ancient past. This relic, found on the streets of Washington, D.C., appears to have possibly supernatural powers and may have been an important icon or symbol for past Patriarchs. The artifact appears to have will of its own. It's influence seems to be driving him to "act now!" and to disrupt his modern, daily, comfortable routine.

Should Rick and his friends heed this "call to action"? Can something we do today really change the world, the past or the future? Would it be wrong to change the past, or to at least shape it in a certain direction? Go to Amazon and check out the many reader reviews for yourself. Gettysburg Passage, only $2.99. As for "act now," that's your call! ;-)

Key related terms: Civil War, Ur, Indo-European, Washington, D.C., religious patriarchs

World History Can Turn in a Footstep, Or With an Assassin's Bullet

2010-12-03T18:02:00.000-08:00

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In 1931 Winston Churchill was hit by a car in New York and nearly killed. Fast forward to early May, 1940. Facing the German military machine, the UK Prime Minister is set to quit. Now suppose Churchill is dead, killed in the accident nine years before. There is no politician of any stature left who can stand up to the Germans. In less than two weeks, British, French and Belgian forces would be defeated and fleeing to certain destruction at Dunkirk. In London, there is talk of conditional surrender to the Germans...

In 1791 Robert Carter of Virginia in his will freed nearly 500 slaves. Many Revolutionary War veterans were becoming uncomfortable with bondage and struggled to reconcile the practice with the principles of Liberty that they fought for. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were disillusioned with slavery. In addition, with a shift in American agriculture methods, slavery was losing its economic attractiveness. What if, in the 1790s, those trends had accelerated, and slavery became insignificant to the U.S. economy?

In 1963, President Kennedy drove past a building that offered a clear sniper's view to a loser named Oswald, who had once tried to kill himself because the Soviet Union didn't want him as an American defector. Oswald was revived in a Russian hospital and would later return to the U.S., where he would later take out his frustrations on a passing political motorcade...

Strong currents of world history often turn on the step of man into the path of a passing car, the swirls of revolutionary politics and economics or the fateful path of a Dallas motorcade. So it can also be said of friends happily living their lives near Washington in my contemporary fantasy novel, Gettysburg Passage, available from Amazon.

In the book, the life of Rick Reynolds and his friends turns on a chance discovery of a mysterious ancient artifact found in downtown Washington. The artifact soon influences their lives in ways that are disruptive, interesting, dangerous -- and seemingly impossible. And ultimately leads them to a burning cave near the Gettysburg battlefield, where soldiers from 150 years ago gather to fight in one of history's most decisive battles. At this cave decisions must be made that could effect modern history -- and civilization's development 10,000 years ago.

To learn more go to Amazon.com where many readers have positively reviewed this literate, action novel. Gettysburg Passage, by John Callahan. Just $2.99.

Expect the Unexpected

2010-11-24T10:03:00.000-08:00

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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!

Welcome to your altered, alternative or parallel universe

2010-11-21T20:17:00.000-08:00

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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.

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

2010-11-19T19:45:00.000-08:00

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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!

Discovered Ancient Relic Tied to American Mystery Near Historic Gettysburg

2010-11-14T19:35:00.000-08:00

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People are asking how the discovery of an ancient mace in one of the world's oldest cities -- Aleppo, on the Syrian-Turkey border -- could be related to one of the strangest geological mysteries on the American East Coast. First, as reported in a recent global newswire article:

"Syrian authorities are moving to limit tourist visas related to visits to the ancient town of Aleppo, known in Arabic as Halab, after growing throngs of pilgrims, surging approximately six months ago, began to swell and eventually overwhelm that nation’s second largest city. Believers representing the three Abrahamic religions, and others including Buddhists and Hindus, have visited and adopted an ancient ceremonial mace as a sacred relic capable of curing disease and cleansing sin."

Closer to home, an abandoned mine near the historic Gettysburg battlefield is burning deep underground and the fire can't be extinguished. While on its own, a mine fire in a rural area should not cause great concern, this particular geologic phenomenon has caught the attention of several people in the Washington area who have been experiencing a recurring dream that involves a mysterious mine fire. It seems that one of them recently stumbled on a strange object, possibly a replica of an ancient ceremonial mace that was in the international news. Since the artifact was discovered, several members of the group have been threatened.....

Does this sound like the plot of an action-adventure novel, or maybe some kind of fantasy involving a threatened lost civilization? Or maybe a fictional page-turner that includes a bit of Civil War history, a touch of romance and a high-speed chase through the rural roads of western Maryland? Perhaps all of these things could be true. But to find out, please go to Amazon.com and look up Gettysburg Passage, by John Callahan, a new novel getting rave reviews and priced at $2.99.

Beer Lubricated Civilization's Rise

2010-11-08T13:54:00.000-08:00

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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.

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

2010-11-05T15:41:00.000-07:00

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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.

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

2010-11-03T19:37:00.000-07:00

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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.

Character matters in a fantasy and adventure novel

2010-11-02T11:49:00.000-07:00

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Today is voting day in the U.S. But every day is voting day when you decide to read fiction such as fantasy, mystery, science fiction or action & adventure. May I suggest that when considering these categories, that you vote for fictional characters who do the right thing even though they may never be rewarded or never become famous. Their actions are so important that one or two of them might actually save the world. But they need to risk their lives knowing that even if they succeed, no one may even learn their name. They act because it is the right thing to do -- and fun to read!

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

Tree of Life, Tree of Knowledge

2010-11-01T12:14:00.000-07:00

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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.

A Fictional Race to the Finish

2010-10-25T08:18:00.000-07:00

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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.

Bronze Age Stonehenge Found in Russia

2010-10-18T08:28:00.000-07:00

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Archaeologists have found remains of an advanced community, from about 4,000 years ago, that was of similar size to a vibrant city state in Mycenaean Greece. The civilization was located near today's Siberian-Kazahk border in southern Russia. Some 200 settlements within the community have been uncovered. The latest discovery is in the area of the North Caucasus mountains and includes a monumental ring of large stones that is probably related to keeping a calendar and spiritual activities. It reminds researchers of Stonhenge in the U.K.

This is the area, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, that I consider "ground zero" for the development of advanced, ancient civilizations. If you scan down to my earlier posts, you will see many points concerning the migrations of ancient Indo-European peoples who eventually formed advanced civilizations in Mesopotamia, Persia, Greece and beyond.

This area is the mother-lode. Here is a link to the story:
http://www.antiquitylives.com/2010/10/bronze-age-stonehenge-found-in-russia.html

My book, Gettysburg Passage, available for $2.99 from Amazon, deals with modern people who uncover mysterious clues from a civilization that may have originated in this area. The central question of this first book is, would people of today stop their busy lives to engage with and possibly be enriched by such an ancient civilization? Or would they just move on with the busy, materialistic lives, giving barely a thought of who they are and how they go here?

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

2010-10-15T15:39:00.000-07:00

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.

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

2010-10-13T19:28:00.000-07:00

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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

Can You House Train a Wormhole?

2010-10-11T18:30:00.000-07:00

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Wormholes are theoretical. Physicists describe wormholes as shortcuts in spacetime, a virtual tunnel that connects today to some point in the past or future.

Wormholes are deeply ingrained in popular culture (think Stargate SGI and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) and even a new TV series on the Discovery Channel starring Morgan Freeman. Stephen Hawking loves wormholes.

Wormholes can be scary, like that visual sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The question is, can they be house trained? That is, can a wormhole be trained to work for you? If it won't listen to your suggestions, can you at least trust it before you jump down the galactic-firehose- quantum-water-slide?

That is the essential question in Gettysburg Passage, my novel, the first of a trilogy.

This modern adventure story involves a mysterious ancient artifact, people living today around Washington, D.C., some famous dead Americans, a homeless shelter, a historic American battlefield named Gettysburg and mildly philosophical questions relating to the current lust for a materialist at-all-costs consumption culture, an open yearning for contemporary immortality and the optimal speeds for street-legal muscle cars.

At about 90,000 words it is a fast read and available now for $2.99 at Amazon.com.

7 Signs Your Boyfriend Is an Alien

2010-10-07T07:24:00.000-07:00

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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

Gettysburg, the Trojan War and Modern Archaeology

2010-10-05T19:31:00.000-07:00

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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

What if Gen. Custer Wrote You a Traffic Citation?

2010-10-05T10:16:00.000-07:00

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One of the ongoing challenges of writing a novel is making it entertaining while at the same time keeping it real. Consumers are more than willing to suspend disbelief if the entertainment value and fit with the plot outweighs a hurdle of believability. Gettysburg Passage, my novel available at Amazon.com, uses elements of fantasy, fast action & adventure, history, and a touch of science fiction to keep the plot moving forward.

Fairly early in the novel, several prominent figures out of American history make brief appearances in the present. "Guest" appearances are made by George Custer, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and John Reynolds.

Of course, George Custer is the famous general and later Indian fighter. What readers probably don't know is that he got his early war fighting experience in northern Virginia and in particular in Washington suburbs. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. is a world famous American Supreme Court Justice. But as a young man he was wounded in one of the very first battles of the Civil War, Balls Bluff, again in the Washington suburbs. John Reynolds is famous as one of the most admired Federal Civil War generals. He was very active in and around Washington.

In my novel, all of the actions of these famous historical figures fit closely into the plot, based on actions in their lives, helping to move the book relentlessly forward. Like I said, make it entertaining while keeping it as "real" as possible ;-)

Check out Gettysburg Passage on Amazon.com.

tags: ancient civilizations, Rome, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Indo-European

Infinitely Burning Caves, Time Shifts and a Novel

2010-10-03T13:33:00.000-07:00

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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

1863 Around the World and Just Outside Your Door

2010-09-30T19:09:00.000-07:00

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

Does Character Define Destiny?

2010-09-29T18:50:00.000-07:00

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In my action and adventure book, Gettysburg Passage, from Amazon, the main character struggles with a challenge that some might call his destiny. The action in this story takes place today and involves successful young professionals living in the Washington area in the U.S. These young people work hard and play hard and question whether they really have time for an adventure that might change their lives.

The main character, Rick Reynolds, is actually called upon to risk his life for something he is not sure is worth it -- a recently discovered sacred object from an ancient civilization. He is called upon to act, to preserve this ancient symbol -- and he is unsure if he should get involved. His friends have lots of opinions but at crunch time, at least early in the story, they aren't much help. This quandry calls to mind this quote on destiny:

"Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny"

For Rick, his character is clearly his destiny in this novel. If you would like to learn more, look up Gettysburg Passage by John Callahan under the book section of Amazon. com. Readers have posted some amazing reviews.

Key terms: archaeology; lost civilizations; Crete; Egypt; Mesopotamia

Emerson said a hero is persistent

2010-09-24T06:18:00.000-07:00

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.

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

2010-09-20T19:16:00.000-07:00

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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!

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

2010-09-17T15:00:00.000-07:00

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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!

Theban Desert Road Survey

2010-09-10T14:35:00.000-07:00

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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.

Spectacular advanced ancient civilization

2010-09-06T19:43:00.000-07:00

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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.

The First People

2010-09-02T19:22:00.000-07:00

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Have you ever thought about how the human race got its act together, how the first people emerged? You know, people who cared about their appearance, maybe with a bit of jewelry or makeup, who might laugh at a joke or sway to the pleasing rhythm of a song? People that you could relate with and maybe laugh together at a Geico commerical. It's a given that from a physical and brain development point of view, humans in the form of modern homo sapiens have been ready for prime time for about 200,000 years.

But from 200,000 BCE to say, 15,000 or 10,000 B.C., there is the big gap of prehistory where man presumably developed the ability to communicate in familiar and complex ways. Did it happen all at once about 50,000 years ago or evolve over time? Presumably, a certain advanced language ability allowed the articulation of abstract thought and perhaps helped formulate the first manifestations of spirituality and religion as seen in cave paintings and burial rituals. Interestingly, crude funeral rituals may go back at least 60,000 to 70,000 years.

Along the way, social activities blossomed, such as communal feasting, gaming, story telling, gossiping, flirting and joking and ultimately fishing and farming and bitching about the weather. Once folks had put the key cultural concepts together in small communities, they were ready for the next step, building a civilization. It is in these earliest efforts, where communities continued to grow and evolve that we see the emergence of the earliest towns in the Cradle of Civilization from Sumer to Early Dynastic Egypt. Some communities stood out and were able to leave a record and set an example that has be documented and survived down to our present age.

But some group of people, some community, did it first. Before the history writers were around. They didn't necessarily leave records. Somehow, at least for now, evidence of them has been lost. Fortunately, for those of us today curious about the past, we have Gettysburg Passage, an Amazon book, by John Callahan. The key characters of Gettysburg Passage are modern, normal people, alive today. But somewhat against their wishes, people in the book are given the responsibility to influence the formation of a critical-mass community back in the most ancient times. Before Memphis in ancient Egypt, before Jericho, before Eridu in Sumer. Members of this ancient, forgotten community are oppressed, scattered and disheartened. Their lands have been overwhelmed, defenses defeated and homes occupied. But no matter how dire their plight, they must follow divine prophecy. They have the job of carrying the precious seeds of a young civilization to a land where they can be planted, sprout and flourish. Our current existence depends on it.

These concepts are explored in Books I, II and III of the Gettysburg Passage series. The first book is available today for $5.99. Why not visit Amazon today?

Ancient Civilizations Under Our Feet

2010-08-29T20:28:00.000-07:00

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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.

Launch of Gettysburg Passage Novel from Amazon Featured in Leading Media

2010-08-25T20:33:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note that Gettysburg Passage, a contemporary action adventure novel, was launched Wednesday with a national announcement carried by PR Newswire that was picked up by AOL, Yahoo, CNBC, Reuters, Dow Jones and more than 200 other leading wires and media portals. While I would like to think the media was excited about the story, realistically what was newsworthy to them was the fact that Gettysburg Passage is one of the first fiction e-books published to be optimized for e-reader platforms like Kindle, iPad and Kindle apps on PC, Mac and smartphones. The novel has video links, hypertext and encourages the reader to explore issues developed in the narrative. Some experts, like Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, think the reader should have an uninterrupted immersion in the fiction experience. That is not how I see people around me reading today, however. They comment, the talk back, they share, the Tweet. One of my daughters can be quiet for hours as she reads, but she is also capable of providing nearly a running commentary, too. So visit Amazon.com, read a review of the book, perhaps watch one of my videos on YouTube (keywords: Gettysburg Passage) and then consider downloading the novel to your Kindle, iPad, iPhone, Android phone, or download the Amazon Kindle reader application for your PC or Mac. It takes just a moment and you can be reading within 5 minutes. I promise!

Palace of Odysseus Discovered in Ithaca

2010-08-24T20:00:00.000-07:00

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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?

Gettysburg Passage "Video Trailers" Now Available on YouTube

2010-08-17T06:30:00.000-07:00

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Gettysburg Passage, a new action-thriller novel available this week from Amazon, is the subject of two brief video trailers on YouTube. Just enter the title as keywords and Part 1 and Part 2 should pop up. Production values are definitely internet quality but I hope you enjoy the brief book promos. We shot at an antebellum farmhouse and at a battlefield site in Fairfax County, VA, just outside the Washington D.C. beltway. This area is intensely suburban today but some special spots are not much changed from 150, 200 years ago. Please let me know what you think!

King Arthur and the Lost Roman City of Caerleon, Wales

2010-08-13T07:23:00.000-07:00

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.....

Archaeologists Discover Oldest House in Britain

2010-08-12T19:56:00.000-07:00

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The latest news from the U.K. is that university archaeologists from the University of York and Manchester University have uncovered remains of the oldest home-like structure ever discovered, dating back at least 11,000 years to the Stone Age. In an article in The Independent by David Keys, the paper's archaeology correspondent (isn't that cool?), researchers said the dwelling was found in North Yorkshire near Scarborough. The dwelling could be up to 1,000 years older than previously discovered Stone Age buildings. Here is a link to the article:

http://bit.ly/cn3e1p

My point is that the more archaeologists explore, the more they find and the earlier evidence of civilization stretches back into the deep past. Who knows if evidence of surprisingly advanced civilizations may be found with the continued progress in detection technologies (more on this tomorrow in my discussion of huge new Roman archaeological finds detected using the latest equipment). No, I am not an Atlantis nut, these issues are tied into the plot of my new novel, Gettysburg Passage, available soon from Amazon.

John the Baptist and the Power of Ancient Pilgrimage

2010-08-09T12:54:00.000-07:00

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Media in Eastern Europe are agog with the announcement in early August that remains believed to be of John the Baptist have been dug up on ancient St. Ivan (John) Island, off the Black Sea coast of Sozopol, Bulgaria.

Inhabitants of the island began following Christianity around 300 A.D. and a monastery was built there over the ruins of an ancient Roman temple. Early buildings included the Basilica of the Mother of God. Over the centuries the church and surrounding monastery were abandoned and reoccupied. The Monastery of John the Forerunner and the Baptist was an important center of Christianity. Archaeological research has occurred sporadically since the 1980s and was recently funded by the Norwegian government. A royal residence, a library, part of the fortified wall with the gate and several monastic cells have been unearthed. The relics, which include part of an arm bone, a skull bone, and a tooth, were found in a sealed marble reliquary in the St. John the Forerunner Church in July by the team of archaeologists led by Prof. Kazimir Popkonstantinov. A Greek inscription was found quoting a man named Thomas, “God’s servant brought a particle of St. John on the 24th,” a traditional feast day for the Baptizer.
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=118869
http://bit.ly/dBv7sm

Thousands of pilgrims are streaming to the site from Russia and Europe. How did the relics get to the Black Sea? Why do pilgrims feel the need to visit? What is the significance of being in the presence of something possibly sacred? These and other issues are relevant to the find on this ancient Black Sea island and also relevant to my soon-to-be-published novel, Gettysburg Passage. Look for it soon!

Hammurabi and new novel Gettysburg Passage

2010-07-27T19:28:00.000-07:00

Image by carmen_seaby via Flickr

What does one of history's greatest law givers and a new action and adventure novel, Gettysburg Passage, have in common? Well, I'll get to that in a moment. First, the news.

News out of Haaretz.com in Israel: A small clay tablet has been discovered by archaeologists in Israel while escavating a site called Tel Hazor. The tablet is approximately 3,700 to 3,800 years old and has key words that remind experts of Hammurabi's famous law codex. The tablet uses Akkadian cuneiform, the international language of diplomacy during that ancient time. Here is a link to the Haaretz wire story:

http://bit.ly/94sYgv

Hammurabi was the sixth king of Babylon, considered the first king of the Babylonian Empire and the ruler of all of Mesopotamia. He is famous as the first law giver and his Hammurabian Code. Many experts believe that key laws and moral principles found in the Jewish Bible were strongly influenced by Hammurabi.

Was Hammurabi the first law giver? The first in recorded history to this date, yes. But what if there were earlier law givers? Maybe not kings, but influential "law clerks", sojourners -- perhaps people on a quest to save a future Western civilization that had yet to significantly develop. What if these people "planted the seeds" that eventually influenced those who helped create Hammurabi's famous Code? And what if those influencers somehow had an insight into today's modern American society?

Well, I've given enough hints! The new novel, Gettysburg Passage, ISBN 978-0-615-39102-1 by John Callahan, will be published by Amazon in mid August. The plot deals with Americans who confront a series of mysterious events that may have some powerful relation to earlier civilizations, even pre-dating good old Hammurabi.

Gettysburg Passage by John Callahan

2010-07-26T10:58:00.000-07:00

The novel Gettysburg Passage by John Callahan will be available soon from Amazon. The book cover design, ISBN and final edits are nearing completion. This post also includes a short verification for linking to the Technorati blog site,

Please put the following short code HV37RTTNEVBJ within the post and publish it.

Thank You!

The Mysterious Ancient Civilization You've Never Heard Of

2010-07-25T12:13:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

The Voice of America recently posted a brief yet interesting update on Mohenjodaro (also spelled Moenjodaro, Mohenjo-Daro), the mysterious, ancient Indus Valley civilization that existed roughly parallel to Egypt and Mesopotamia. Mohenjodaro, the city, is a UNESCO-recognized World Heritage Site.

But because of its location in dirt poor, arid southern Pakistan northeast of Karachi, the remains of this Indus Valley civilization faces a Rodney Dangerfield reality. The country experiences widespread poverty, is administratively mismanaged, confronts an enervating insurgency and the culture places little value on the past that is not related to Islam.

As the article points out, this is a recipe for neglect. Less than 10% of Moenjodaro and its sister city of Harappa have been excavated. Almost nothing is known of this mysterious civilization except that at its peak it may have contained the most modern capital city and administrative in the world, with advanced housing for 30,000 to 40,000 residents, a perfectly engineered street grid, sophisticated water distribution and waste-water removal, public pools, a vast granary to collect the harvest from the surrounding agricultural areas.

Little art work has of yet surfaced from this mysterious civilization that stretched from northern India to Iran. Intriguingly, the artifact above, often called The Dancing Girl, was found there and is considered by art experts to be one of the most sophisticated and evocative sculptures ever made (the artifact that speaks to the ages") . It depicts a young woman of perhaps 15 caught in the moment of song and dance.

With the global economy weak and archaeological funds short, what other undiscovered evidence of surprisingly advanced and evocative past civilizations exist for us to find under the baked dirt and sands of our world?

My new novel, Gettysburg Passage, from Amazon, deals with issues of unknown yet hard-to-supress civilizations and how they can messily erupt in our midst today. When they show up, they impact ordinary people attempting to go about their lives as they are pulled and tugged reluctantly into events that often seem well above their experience to handle. For a review of the book, check out one of my earlier posts or contact me directly via email or Twitter. As of this writing, the publication date is anticipated to be in the first week of August, 2010. I look forward to hearing from you.

Here is the Voice of America link:

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/asia/Mystery-Shrouds-Ancient-Civilization-in-Pakistan--98967839.html

The Civil War Ghosts of Blenheim House in Fairfax, VA

2010-07-17T15:38:00.000-07:00

Fairfax, VA, just outside the Washington Beltway, was a bustling crossroads during the Civil War. Fairfax Courthouse, as it was called, was anchored by its stately courthouse, built in the early 1800s. About a mile northeast of this building was the Willcoxon family farm, 367 acres of rolling hills, streams, woods and prime agricultural land. Albert Willcoxon was a prominent northern Virginian and slave holder, but did not possess a great sense of timing. In the late 1850s he built a beautiful Greek Revival brick home on a hill with panaramic views from gently sloping hills. It was and is an impressive structure on impressive grounds, with twin fireplaces at each end, center doors front and rear for cross ventilation, sturdy pine floors and plenty of windows for ample interior light. Just after completion, Virginia seceded from the Union. Located less than 15 miles from the federal capital, his exposed position must have been obvious. As early as July, 1861, Federal troops swarmed the area and the residents either fled or settled in for a nasty period of uncertainty and incivility. As it turned out, the Willcoxon farm, later called Blenheim House, because of its prime location became a centralized officers' quarters, hospital and camping ground for Federal forces and thousands of soldiers lived, visited or just passed through on the way to other postings and titanic battles both north and south of the area. Nearly every major "star" of the war in the eastern theater was familiar with these grounds. Today, the home is part of a Civil War Interpretive Center located at 3610 Old Lee Highway, Fairfax, VA, 22030, and is extremely close to my home and place of work. Did you know that local legend has it that many of those Yankee soldiers can still be found prowling the area on warm summer nights even now? The farmhouse must have made quite an impression on them if they would return today to play a game of chess or checkers, pick an apple, sniff a daisy blossom, brew some campfire coffee or just rest and hang out under one of the majestic oak trees. One of the plot elements of my new book, Gettysburg Passage, involves the unlikely sighting of such soldiers (starting further south, near Brandy Station, VA) by young professionals who don't have any particular interest in history or the Civil War. How would you react if you saw something like that while returning from Starbucks or the mall? Would you share it with your family and friends, or just store it away as something weird, embarrassing and unexplanable? Please let me know.

Huge hoard of Roman coins found on Somerset, UK farm

2010-07-11T20:40:00.000-07:00

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

10,000-Year-Old Hunting Weapon

2010-07-05T08:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.physorg.com/news197039147.html

A University of Colorado researcher recently found a 10,000 year old dart that had been frozen in the ice sheet at Yellowstone National Park. As glaciers continued to recede around the world, exciting new achaeological finds will become the norm. Who knows what will be found next, perhaps evidence of lost, advanced civilizations? In The Lord of the Rings, it was understood that kingdoms rose and fell, civilizations soared and crashed and always something new came along to replace what stood. It has been a familiar theme in literature. In my new ebook, Gettysburg Passage, by John Callahan, a link to a mighty past civilization is found on the grounds of a Washington, D.C. homeless shelter. Details on the novel's availability will be found on this blog soon.

photo courtesy of http://www.freefoto.com/

Time Travel and Physics

2010-07-03T20:32:00.000-07:00

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

The Origin of Western Civilization

2010-07-02T12:17:00.000-07:00

I think the point of a news story linked to below is that as archaeologists continue to excavate, the origins of Western civilization continues to be pushed back and back into the murky, shadowy past. According to article, much of our civilization did not originate in the "cradle of civilization" in the Fertile Crescent around Babylon, but instead is the result from cultural and technological advances which originated east of modern day Turkey, in Armenia.

Of course, one of the important plot points in my new ebook from Amazon, Gettysburg Passage, is that our civilization was conceived far earlier than even this, from an area to the west where EurAsia comes together as the last Ice Age slowly recedes...

Here is the link details:

Mesopotamia’s civilization originated in Armenia
Published July 2, 2010 by
GMTPanARMENIAN.Net

The article states that excavations at Shengavit (4000-3000 B.C.) in Turkey confirm that Armenia is the innovation source for metallurgy, wine-making and horse breeding.
In the article, Mitchell S. Rothman, a Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology and founder of the Anthropology Department at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania, is quoted as claiming that Mesopotamian culture borrowed very heavily from the earlier Shengavit culture.

2010-07-02T07:51:00.000-07:00

When you think of a royal mace in my ebook, Gettysburg Passage, you may think of an image of an ancient and mysterious small staff or club that a king or royal functionary might wield as a symbol of authority. During the Viet Nam War the fighter jet above was a member of an attack squadron called the Royal Maces. You can clearly read the words on the side of the plane!

But then, a royal mace also looked something like the more royal and sedate image above. :-)

Do Eternal Cave Fires Really Exist?

2010-07-01T10:37:00.000-07:00

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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