Will iconic images recorded in the grooves of an ancient vase unite the Holy Land or rip it further apart?

THE VASE

A novel by Mark M. DeRobertis

Muhsin Muhabi is a Palestinian potter, descended from a long line of potters. His business is run from the same shop owned by his ancestors since the day his forebears moved to Nazareth. The region's conflict saw the death of his oldest son, and rogue terrorists are in the process of recruiting his youngest in their plot to assassinate the Pope and Israeli prime minister.

Professor Hiram Weiss is an art historian at Nazareth’s Bethel University. He is also a Shin Bet operative on special assignment. With the help of fellow agent, Captain Benny Mathias, he plans to destroy the gang responsible for the death of his wife and only child. He puts a bomb in the ancient vase he takes on loan from Muhsin’s Pottery Shop.

Mary Levin, the charming assistant to the director of Shin Bet, has lost a husband and most of her extended family to recurring wars and never-ending terrorism. She dedicates her life to the preservation of Israel, but to whom will she dedicate her heart? The brilliant professor from Bethel University? Or the gallant captain who now leads Kidon?

Harvey Holmes, the Sherlock of Haunted Houses, is a Hollywood TV host whose reality show just flopped. When a Lebanese restaurant owner requests his ghost-hunting services, he believes the opportunity will resurrect his career. All he has to do is exorcise the ghosts that are haunting the restaurant. It happens to be located right across the street from Muhsin’s Pottery Shop.




Friday, March 4, 2016

Article about Space Travel

I believe in coincidence. Yesterday I blogged about my favorite all time Sci Fi movies, and then today, USA Today puts up an article about Space Travel, or more specifically, about humans being able to travel fast enough to reach other stars in a single lifetime. It cited several different methods of space travel that are possible today. Here's the link.

One thing I thought was cool was that they mentioned "warp drive" as the holy grail of space travel. As any Sci Fi fan knows, "warp drive" is the method used in the Star Trek universe. It's a theory, only, at this point, not something that is physically possible. The article I linked to only explained the methods that are physically possible at this point in human history. And seeing as how the fastest method possible today would take more than a lifetime to get to the nearest star, well, that makes interstellar space travel for humans, anyway, not too feasible.

The article didn't mention the Star War method, which I believe they called "Hyper Drive." And it didn't mention other Sci Fi methods, like traveling through "worm holes" and/or "portals" which would breach vast distances in an instant. The TV show Farscape used the worm hole method.

With this renewed discussion, I've found myself more interested in revisiting Sci Fi stories. I read a Sci Fi book recently, and it was cool to get back into the genre. I had been out of it for so long that I was thinking I didn't really like it anymore. Even blogged about that recently, too. So maybe after my current WIPs are finished--Inside the Outhouse and Killer on the Payroll--I might just go back to that Sci Fi story I started writing when I was a kid. We'll see.
Posted by at
Labels: ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)