Book review

The 3rd Option

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Allan Chappel arrives for a job interview primed for a second chance in life. Single, disillusioned, and stuck in a corporate cubicle, he’s an ex-cleric hoping to join an old college friend in a start-up business that, his friend has assured him, will “change the world.” But the moment he opens the door to his new venture, the building explodes.

In the hospital, Chappel is questioned by an aggressive police inspector. Troubled by the policeman’s insinuations, as well as the slow return of haunting images of the disaster, Chappel sneaks out of the hospital. But as soon as he returns home, he’s brutally attacked.  Through desperation and dumb luck, he escapes his mysterious, would-be killer and takes to the streets and alleys of Atlanta. Aided by a scientist on the run, a despondent minister, and a psychic aunt, Allan Chappel must evade his pursuers while trying to discover why someone is determined to kill him.

The pursued quickly becomes both pursuer and sleuth. Chappel discovers the conspirators behind the bombing that killed his friend are powerful and politically connected. The deadly odyssey forced upon this innocent man harkens to such classics as “The Fugitive” and “North by Northwest.”

There’s more to this novel than your typical thriller. In between breathless dashes to hiding places, Chappel’s search for answers leads him into the tangled, emotion-filled conflict over abortion, an explosive issue that seems to have no resolution. As one character observes, “Everyone believes so passionately in their own side that they never seek an alternative, right?” To which Chappel responds, “How can there be an alternative? Either you’re pro-life or pro-choice.”

That’s the core of this intriguing novel. Despite the graphic action and language, this is a humane tale that explores alternatives to the win-lose scenarios we imagine prevent either discussion or compromise. Further, it seeks reconciliation and mutual understanding instead of revenge and the crushing of opponents. Well-written and timely, The 3rd Option is a voyage of hope.

The 3rd Option is available at Amazon.

Detective Fiction, Fantasy Fiction, Science fiction

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Premature Burial”

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It’s Edgar Allan Poe’s 215th birthday! In memory of this great writer of science fiction, fantasy, and mystery, I’m offering my observations about Poe’s creepiest tales, the ones that deal with the ultimate terror of human existence — being buried alive.

My tribute to Poe, “The Premature Burial,” is featured in the latest post at the DMR Books blog.

Fantasy Fiction, Publication day

Due Diligence

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On Spec Magazine has just released its Winter 2023 issue, and I am pleased to announce it includes my short story “Due Diligence.”

Lucille Moon is not your ordinary realtor. Born with the ability to sense the presence of ghosts, she specializes in finding haunted houses for her buyers, mostly rap singers and movie stars looking for the ultimate thrill. However, Grayson and Eve Sterling have their own reasons for moving in with a ghost, which they hide from their realtor. Lucille can’t read the minds of the living, but the ghost haunting the mansion the Sterlings want to buy can. And deceit makes this ghost angry.

A frequent winner of the Aurora Award, On Spec prides itself for being more of a literary magazine than the typical science fiction and fantasy magazine. It is Canada’s longest-running, and, according to Hugo-winning author Robert J. Sawyer, most successful speculative fiction magazine. Since their goal is to highlight mostly Canadian writers, it’s a special honor to have my work appear here.

Two of my beta readers told me this was the saddest tale I’ve ever written. Maybe so, but it ends with a promise of hope and healing. The loss of a loved one is an unending emotional ache, something we cannot conquer or ignore. All we can do is deal with it the best way we can. Writing this story was my way.

Click here to buy On Spec #126 (and support your favorite author).

History, War

Crossing the Line

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One of the more colorful naval traditions Americans inherited from Mother England is the initiation of sailors and passengers the first time they cross the equator. Think of it as a baptism at sea.

My father, Clayton Tuggle, served on the USS Birmingham in World War II. Seriously battered and burned in the Battle of Okinawa, the Birmingham limped to Guam and later to Honolulu for extensive repairs. The sailors enjoyed their shore leave, but knew the ship was being prepared for the final invasion of Japan. However, Japan’s surrender on August 15 changed everything. The Birmingham’s new mission was to sail to Brisbane to serve as the flagship for the Commander of U. S. Naval Forces in Australia.

On September 15, 1945, as the Birmingham steamed toward Leyte Gulf, Captain R. H. Cruzen received an urgent request from King Neptune, the monarch of the sea. Neptune was greatly troubled that the ship was infested with Polywogs who had never before crossed the equator. Captain Cruzen graciously accepted the King and his consort, Salacia, the lovely goddess of the sea (in photo above).

The Polywogs were so numerous and so green that King Neptune summoned the Devil to oversee the purification process. The Devil enthusiastically administered the proper cure to the Polywogs, including immersion in seawater, crawling through kitchen refuse, and wearing women’s clothes.

Officers were not spared. Above, a recent Midshipman School graduate (90-day wonder) marches cheerfully to his doom. Sailors who had previously been initiated – Shellbacks – look on approvingly.

Not even the pilot of the Birmingham’s single seaplane was spared from the Devil’s not-so-tender mercies.

With their sins forgiven, their greenness thoroughly washed away, and their worthiness proven, the Polywogs graduated to the rank of experienced Shellbacks and were inducted into the Solemn Mysteries of the Ancient Order of the Deep. Sailors got to let off steam, and King Neptune acquired hundreds of loyal subjects.

Hemingway, Writing

How Writing Makes Us Human

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I was intrigued by this observation from author Walter Stephens:

Writing evolved to perform tasks that were difficult or impossible to accomplish without it; at some level, it is now essential for anything that human societies do, except in certain increasingly threatened cultures of hunter-gatherers. Without writing, modern civilization has amnesia; complex tasks need stable, reliable, long-term memory.

Think about the octopus. It’s a remarkably intelligent creature, but its short life span precludes it from creating an enduring civilization. Imagine a human child that had to discover for itself how to make fire, the wheel, or language. As Stephens puts it, “Writing enabled memory to outlast the human voice and transcend the individual person.” Tradition, our inheritance from countless forbears, is the infrastructure that makes us fully human. Without it, we’d be in the same boat as the octopus. Except we wouldn’t have boats.

As Stephens reminds us in his thought-provoking article, the written word is the most powerful tool — or weapon — we have yet created. No wonder we view language as a “wondrous, mystic art.”

Wondrous indeed. And surely an art. Early on, I was fascinated by stories, and still love reading and writing. Words enable us to connect with the past, the present, and the future, and allow the individual to pass on the things that enchant and delight us. I love describing the joys and terrors of life, from the roar of a storm on Onslow Bay, the smell of a wood campfire at a mountain camp, or the taste of a steamed oyster. And while passing our thoughts and feelings to others is an essential life skill, the art of writing is a life-long pursuit. As Hemingway once put it, “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”

It’s a journey that will never end.

Nature

Quote of the day

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Carolina Beach State Park

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of the birds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the folded bud ready for the spring. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter.”

Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder

Nature, Writing

Happy Equinox!

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The change of seasons means something different at different ages. There comes the point where we recognize the things that endure despite many changes. The pagan Celts, my ancestors, celebrated the autumnal equinox, when the length of night and day are roughly equal, as Mabon. Not only was it a time for hunting and harvesting, but of appreciating the return of balance. Even today, it’s a time for reflecting on what’s gone by and what we hope for.

It’s been a fine year. The grandkids are growing, and I’ve had a little luck writing and publishing. One of my stories will be published before year’s end by a publisher I’ve long admired and aspired to, and I have four submissions looking for love in the slush piles at various venues.

And I’m working on new stories. The coming of fall is a good time to reassess and rededicate. I love getting out into the wild, taking a few chances, letting myself get a little lost. I need more of that. And when I’m not stomping around in the maritime forests or desert. I also love exploring the wild places in my head and heart. There’s no more productive and exciting means of doing that than the craft and discipline of writing. Here’s to a productive and energizing fall.

Lovecraft, Nature, Wendell Berry

Ignorance — or Innocence?

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“The mercy of the world is you don’t know what’s going to happen.” Wendell Berry

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.” H. P. Lovecraft

“Sadness is caused by intelligence, the more you understand certain things, the more you wish you didn’t understand them.” Charles Bukowski

Adventures and mishaps in science fiction, fantasy, and mystery