Why I Read/Write Sci-Fi

 

I review most genres on http://cookinwithmisshavana.blogspot.com/, but my personal favorite is and always has been Sci-Fi. People are often surprised by that, so I thought I’d share the reasons.

First is imagination. I am not personally into fairies, vampires, dragons and monsters, but I do enjoy looking through a novel’s pages at other worlds, other cultures that should/could/might exist, and being exposed to new morphology that is decidedly not human. When these elements are brought together skillfully, the creative imagination of the author is the only limit to what can happen. When I wrote the Sci-Fi trilogy consisting of The Judge, Infinity Quest and The Empress of Tridon, I tried to deliver many new concepts of civilizations that had unique social structures and societal goals. Some societies were grown for the sole purpose of war, others for the development of technology, some for the preservation of history and the like. All were critical elements making up the larger plot—the relationship of man to God over the vastness of time.

Second is technology. Good Sci-Fi almost always puts forth new concepts of how to get from place to place over incredible distance. The most well-known are the “warp” drives used in the Star Trek, and the warping of space by the “Guild” in the Dune series. I enjoy new concepts of weaponry and communications as well. When I wrote my own trilogy, I presented a unique view of space and new ways to get around within the vastness of it. In my case, known space was 5.4 trillion light-years across, much bigger than currently defined. There was a reason for the sheer size, and I enjoyed developing it. The most powerful weapon in the series was also the most difficult to control—the mind itself.

Third is believability. Okay, this one could be a little far-fetched, but I like to see some relation to actual science in the Sci-Fi stories I read. For example, it’s not hard to imagine a sulfur-based life form on a world without oxygen, since similar life forms exist on earth near undersea volcano vents. It is also easy to conceptualize Star Trek’s “subspace communications” in light of conjoined particle revelations (although those concepts were not known when Star Trek was originally written). In my trilogy, the story begins on earth, and slowly expands to encompass the entirety of all known universes. I did not complete the fourth book in the series. If I had, unknown universes full of surprises, as well as how to get to them, were on the menu. Maybe I will complete that later. Where but in Sci-Fi novels can a person’s imagination run wild with such freedom?

Fourth is a link to some fundamental understanding of life itself, like Frank Herbert did in his novel Ship. I like books that address the “why” part of living, even though “why” questions are generally relegated to the realm of philosophy. A really good Sci-Fi novel, in my opinion, can even serve to help understand the reasons for our own existence. Many authors link Sci-Fi to an omnipotent and omnipresent being. Those stories are especially fun to read if they bring a new view of God as seen through the eyes of the author. A revealing view of God was vital to my trilogy as well, a view larger, and yet more human, than any I have seen in the past. The conflict between the desires of God and the desires of his subjects is a compelling component of the story line.

So there you have it. I am out of the closet. I enjoy reading Sci-Fi and I enjoy writing it. If any of you have compelling Sci-Fi books that need a solid review, I’m your man. Just let me know. And if any of you want to read Sci-Fi that goes well beyond the norm, my books are all listed at amazon.com/author/jameshatch.

Thanks for reading,

James L. Hatch    

Using Medical Symptoms to Add Depth to a Story

In my Sci-Fi trilogy (The Judge, Infinity Quest, The Empress of Tridon), I developed a new concept of God and His relation to man. The story is extremely complex and, at one point, the heroine, Eve, sets a plot in place to destroy one version of the entity claiming to be God. The plot is twisted and, like a sweet onion, has many layers of delicious deceit. At the time I wrote the story, I was motivated by a TV series called “Rome.” The series fascinated me because the women in it were consistently conniving and vicious. They never said what they meant; they never did what they said. It was better than watching C-SPAN.

As my Sci-Fi story developed, it was clear to me that Eve wouldn’t be able to confront “God” on his terms, or any reasonable terms for that matter. In the context of the story, God used alternate realities as weapons, so Eve could not really know if she were attacking God, or if she was just doing a “dry run” in an alternate reality that God created to gather information. That’s the problem with trying to attack an omniscient foe—He really can know everything, or can trick you into revealing what you intend to do.

As an author, I find situations like the conflict between Eve and God exhilarating. Maybe it’s my own devious nature. I’m not sure. What I know is I love reading material where the solution isn’t obvious, because those situations are more like real life. I also enjoy writing my characters into situations that seem impossible. Relative to God, Eve was in such a situation. Without going into how Eve tricked one version of God, there came a time when that version of God took her bait, and paid the ultimate price with his death. But even then, I didn’t want his death to be obvious, and I wanted the reader to feel sorry for him even though he was the villain.

My villains are never one-dimensional. They have good and bad features, with the bad only slightly outweighing the good. In fact, one could argue that Eve does the Universe a disservice by killing the version of God she manages to terminate. By the way, that is also true of Lucifer when Miss Havana triumphs in The Substitute. Most readers feel sorry for the devil.

But back to the main point of this blog. So, when it came time to kill off Eve’s enemy, I wanted to do it in a way that God himself didn’t know He was dying. After all, if He knew He was dying, He would strike back at Eve. That’s where a little research on medical symptoms came in handy. In this case, I used the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. If God went slowly into the night, He wouldn’t know who to strike back at or why He should … or even that He was dying.

Therefore, I let Him drift in the heavens where He had reigned from trillions of years, gradually becoming more impacted by a slow moving virus … until He just ceases to exist. That was a most interesting chapter to write for a number of reasons. First, the reader gets insight into what God is seeing and feeling, like a real Alzheimer’s patient might. Second, I could give glimpses of distant memories from God’s point of view as his older memories become clearer and his most recent memories fade. I also found it fascinating to attempt to infuse Gods fading memories with the frustration of knowing something isn’t right, but not being able to put your finger on what it is.

While God is dying, Eve twists in the wind, wondering if another version of God will find out about her deceit. Before the story concludes, another version of God does discover what Eve has done, and confronts her directly with her ultimate “sin.” No one will see the end coming; it was a delight to write.

I’ve copied a portion of God’s parting thoughts below (taken from Chapter 23 of The Empress of Tridon, an xoxopublishing.com e-book) As the chapter unfolds, all Alzheimer’s well-known symptoms come into play. I believe the use of real symptomology adds depth to a very difficult question: how indeed does one kill God? Here’s the excerpt:

How many millennia have I watched the stars come and go? I remember clearly the day of my death as man, the day of my introduction to eternity, but there’s a hollowness growing in me I cannot explain. Have I slept? Do I sleep? Events I have set in place have come to pass, I’m certain of that because I can see glimpses of the results in my mind, but I don’t recall the intervening steps. How did those things happen? Have I always been like this?

Before me lies the vastness of space, the beauty of it all, but I don’t remember my exact place in all of creation. I know I am Marid, but where is my home and how do I get there? Do I have a home? I believe I’ve been wandering for some time, but I don’t remember where I was going or how long I’ve been here. Do I continue on this path?

I feel an odd pull on my mind, as if a distant memory is trying to reach out to me. I can’t see it clearly; it’s as if someone close to me is calling out, but there are no others like me, are there? Am I not alone? Haven’t I always been alone? If so, then what can this memory be? Why does it touch the far corner of my mind as if I should know it? Who could it be?

Perhaps there are others, less than me, which I have put in place to help me manage…that which I am to manage, perhaps a vast domain, but I don’t recall now how I reach out to them, to the others. How do I commune with them? Is there a sequence of words I’ve forgotten, perhaps a code of some kind? Where are they? Where did I leave them when I put them in place? Do they still exist?

There might have been something important I was to do soon, something very important…a place to go, perhaps an event? It nags at my mind. Maybe I should stay here until I remember? Will wandering like this help me find my way? Is someone waiting for me ahead? Oh dear, will I disappoint the others if I don’t meet their expectations?

I played a game once. Would that help me now? Numbers! I remember…something about primes? But what are primes and why did I want to know about them? Numbers and…infinity…they’re related, aren’t they? I remember the game, but I can’t recall how to play it. Were the others involved too? Funny, I don’t remember being this forgetful, but I’m really not sure about that either. Have I always been like this? There are no others here, or I would ask them; others? Where are the others?

I remember working on a project, long ago. There were many others then, but they were not like me. They were more like I once was. But where did I put them? They were here a moment ago, they were all here, but where are they now? Perhaps if I focus really hard, I can remember? Where are they; where am I?

Damn! This is so frustrating! The goddamn universe is stacked up against me! I will get you, all of you! In a blinding instant, ring after ring of radiant energy surges from Marid’s body like rings of lightning, dissipating into the emptiness of deep space. You bastards! I will get you all! I hear you in my mind, snickering because I have forgotten some trivial and insignificant thing. You have no value to me! I am who I am, and I always will be so! You are nothing! Show yourselves that I may deal with you NOW!

Isn’t the tranquility of space relaxing and peaceful beyond measure? See the colors of the stars; see what I mean? All the wavelengths together, they light the path ahead and beckon me.

I’d like to go there, to see the colors up close, but I’ve forgotten how to do that. Yesterday I could do it, I think, but today I feel different. Something has changed, like I am somehow different within. I don’t feel like I once did. There’s calmness within me now, a lack of urgency to things. Why was I so rushed before?

Please visit my web site at http://cookinwithmisshavana.blogspot.com/ for excerpts and buy links for all my novels.

Thank you, Sweet ‘N Sexy Divas, for having me here today.

James L. Hatch

Important Blogger Trick

When I first started using Blogger, I would write my blog in MS Word, paste the final product into Blogger and then add the associated pictures. The problem is, when pictures are added, that messes up the paragraph breaks in the text. Words are split randomly into two pieces and the entire document is a mess that is hard to fix using the Blogger editor, especially because there is no “Undo” function. After some time, however, I found a much better approach. Here’s my secret.

DO NOT ADD TEXT TO BLOGGER FIRST.

That’s it—the entire secret. You need to add the images first. Simply place them in their relative position one after the other. They are easy to move around as long as there is no text, and if you make a mistake it is easy to add an image back in.

When your images are all in relative positions in Blogger, go to your word document and “Cut” that portion of the text you want to go with the first image. In Blogger, “Paste” the test next to the first image. When you paste, the other images will move down, so you will need to delete some lines until the other images gradually move up to your cursor.

Now, go back to your word document and “Cut” the text that will go with the second image. Go back to Blogger and “Paste” the text adjacent to the second image.

After you paste text adjacent to each image, you are almost finished. As a last step, I generally highlight all the text in the blog, and then select “Large” font size.

By the way, your word document should have a consistent font and font size, and should not have any blank lines between paragraphs. That will make it easier to adjust the text to your images in Blogger.

For those of you who thought it impossible that I could write a short blog, this should prove you wrong. Please visit me at http://cookinwithmisshavana.blogspot.com/ to read blurbs, reviews and excerpts from my books. As always, it’s a delight being here.

Thank you Sweet ‘N Sexy Divas.

James L. Hatch

Author for xoxopublishing.com, Solstice Publishing and Eternal Press.

Suspending Disbelief, Part II

Suspending Disbelief, Part II

In my January 16, 2011 blog, I gave many examples of linking biblical references to the story in The Judge to give the novel credibility. That novel is primarily earth-based, so linking the story to the Bible made sense. It was a way of making Daniel’s discovery plausible, and making the ship itself seem possible. After all, much of the ship was described in detail in the Bible long before the New Testament was written.

I also claimed the remaining novels in the trilogy, Infinity Quest and The Empress of Tridon, would be grounded using other published scientific papers, the Torah, the Qur’an, the Kabala, Hindu writings, and similar philosophies that would enable to reader to accept universes and concepts that are almost beyond imagination.

Let’s begin by grounding the primary “leap of faith” that runs through all three novels, something that’s a current hot topic of world-wide research – the use of brain waves to control things. Much work has been done in this area. Wheelchairs are controlled by thought as well as some computer systems, but there’s more. The military has research programs to read individual thoughts (http://www.bakersfieldnow.com/news/technology/27055299.html), a concept that would be a boon to interrogation. In the future, I believe thoughts will not only be read, but recorded as well. The capability to save recorded thoughts for eternity exists in the trilogy, and simulations can be run within the recorded body of thoughts that enable exploitation of the collective experiences and thinking of all people over all time. That’s what Daniel and Eve find in the spaceship buried in the Negev.

Individual thoughts are recorded in “glyphs”, glyphs are clustered in “matrices” and matrices are networked together in a universal view of something like the Internet. Of course, there are limits to what can and can’t be shared, but there are also controllers called “singularities” who can seek out whatever knowledge is desired from the matrices when needed. Imagine how science would advance if the experiences of the finest minds weren’t lost at the time of death! That’s the culture into which Daniel, Eve and the remainder of the Judges step into when they leave earth.

During simulations within collective matrices of glyphs, Daniel discovers ancient secrets, but even these are grounded by the thinking of Descartes’ "cogito, sum" – "I think, I am." An expansion of that thinking lead the ancients to create matter from thought, and Daniel finds his ship is outfitted with thought-to-matter converters, equipment that works at the atomic level to form food and other voyage necessities from recorded thoughts that describe complete understanding of the objects being produced.

The Judges leave earth for the distant planet Ukkon, but find space isn’t at all what they thought. At one point, Daniel confronts the memories of the long-dead former captain of their ship, Sartan, and is presented with an entirely new concept of space, a vital understanding to address the mind-boggling distance between Earth and Ukkon he sees on a map projected into his mind. New concepts are not only presented to Daniel and the reader, but are linked to everything Daniel knew before his encounter with Sartan, as shown in the following short excerpt:

My mind is still reeling – the distances are so vast. “But, no matter how you slice it, there’s a hell of a distance between those two dots. If the universe I know is just a tiny part of that one ribbon, then, even at the speed of light, it’d take a trillion lifetimes to travel between those dots!”

“Possibly, for the universe you know, Boy, but this isn’t that.”

“Hello, earth to Sartan, there’re Natural Laws here, too; you can’t screw with Mother Nature!”

“Damn, Boy, you sure are green. Question: what’s a Natural Law anyway? Answer: it’s just a repeatable observation. When your scientists can’t explain something, but observe it the same every time, they call it a Natural Law, whatever ‘it’ is at the time, like gravity for example. But those folks only know observations where they exist, next to that little green dot down there in the corner.”

“Okay, okay, let’s say I accept your explanation of Natural Laws, but they’re all I’ve ever known, and they all say it can’t be done. What am I missing? How do we get from point A to point B?”

“Simple, you just need to know it’s what’s between the ribbons that counts.” Captain Sartan is enjoying this far too much. It’s as if he’s been waiting to turn the tables on me, for a time when I need him more than he needs me. What a pain in the ass! A guy could grow to dislike these downloads; another good reason for only taking on on.

Sartan is waiting for me to make a fool of myself, and I make a stab at it, “Dark matter?”

“Nah, not really. Earth science is just coming to grips with that; you need to look at the bigger picture. Inside a ribbon you’ve got your matter on one hand and your energy on the other, and in between you’ve got your dark matter. But what’s outside those ribbons, Boy? Not matter, not energy, and not dark matter, either. Outside those ribbons, the rules you grew up with simply don’t apply. Within a ribbon, light’s constrained to a fixed speed, but outside those ribbons, there’s nothing to hold it back. No gravity, no energy, no ‘dark matter,’ no rules.”

“No speed limitation? No relativity?”

“Simply doesn’t apply.” The Captain’s words drip with sarcasm, as if any idiot should understand.”

“So how long will such a trip take? How fast will we be going?”

“It’ll take as long as it takes, no more, no less. Time has little meaning to us anyway. We’ll accelerate until we reach the halfway point, then we’ll decelerate. A thousand of your light years could pass in one of our light seconds. Only two parts of the trip will go slow; when we’re leaving the ribbon we’re in on this end, and when we enter the ribbon where Ukkon is located.”

The ribbons puzzle me. “What about the ever-expanding universe following the Big Bang?”

“Big Bang? You believe that crap? Look, Boy, these ribbons act a lot like a fluid, like a trickle of water running down an irregular surface. Sometimes they expand, sometimes they contract, and sometimes there’re undulating waves moving along them. The Big Bang, as seen from the neighborhood of earth, is really a ‘big bulb’ traveling along that ribbon, so everything inside the bulb appears to be moving away from everything else, at least at this time.

“Don’t you see it, Boy? The galaxies, everything in the ribbon, slosh around as the ribbon expands and contracts. And, by the way, the edge of the universe, as seen from earth’s neighborhood, is expanding faster than light, exactly as NASA observed it, because the speed of light is not a constraint outside the ribbon!”

Again, the view of space is linked to known facts: NASA observations prove the expansion of space exceeds the speed of light (http://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2009/03/29/can-the-universe-expand-faster-than-light-apparently-yes/), and Daniel’s initial view of the Big Bang reflects current theory. In other words, the new view of space is grounded to current thinking and observation.

In similar fashion, I attempted to connect all aspects of the trilogy to known science. Another example is the “seeding” of intelligent life throughout all universes. New DNA analysis printing methods called Supramolecular Nano-Stamping enables single strands of DNA to self-assemble on a substrate, duplicating a nano-scale pattern made from their complementary DNA strands. That technique was the basis for etching tiny cubes distributed throughout the universes, a type of DNA seeding. That’s the reason similar life forms are found throughout all universes in the trilogy, and there are no monsters in the novels, except for those that exist within the human character.

The Judges become part of the seeding process when they decide to seek their forefathers, the people who seeded the universes in the first place. However, the adage “be careful what you ask for” comes into play. In seeking them, Daniel and Eve search for a bound to infinity, but find incredible pain instead—and a concept of God they can scarce imagine. Relative to grounding Infinity Quest, the monsters from history I used to ground the villain were the most infamous dictators I could find: Hitler and Stalin.

One final note. Even the names of all characters in the trilogy are grounded in meaning. The name, Marid, for example, was taken from the evil genie mentioned

many times in the Qur’an. Similarly, all character names describe the essence of the associated character, when the names are looked up in Hebrew, French, Arabic or English. The names for Daniel and Eve, the hero and heroine, were intentionally selected for their biblical namesakes.

Here is a short blurb for Infinity Quest: Marid, God of all that is, developed intelligent life throughout thousands of universes for his own purposes. His creations don’t know he exists, but are pawns in his galactic plan to become omnipotent, omnipresent, and the final rung on the evolutionary ladder. Daniel and Eve trace Marid’s rise to power through trillions of years of individual lives recorded in glyphs. They find he destroyed his home planet, and then used techniques similar to those employed by Hitler and Stalin to enslave the fleeing population. Attempting to free a fleet of distant relatives, they learn the hard way that Marid uses alternate realities as weapons, so things are never what they seem, and discover first hand Marid can inflict pain and death on a scale they can’t comprehend.

Next month, I’ll provide a few more examples of grounding, but will primarily focus on the socially significant messages embedded in the trilogy.

Thank you again, Sweet and Sexy Divas, for having me today, and a big thank you to all the readers who took the time to read this blog as well.

Sincerely,

James L. Hatch

Suspending Disbelief, Part I

Suspending Disbelief, Part I

I confess, I am an avid Sci-Fi reader. When I take time to read, I almost exclusively read that genre. That doesn’t mean I’ve read every Sci-Fi book that’s ever been written, so don’t be surprised if I haven’t read your favorite. I read what I read, not necessarily what you read. I also enjoy children’s movies, like The Last Mimzy. Why? Because I live in the world of reality, and when I take the time to leave that world through reading and watching, I enjoy the imaginative creations of others.

Even with that premise, however, there are constraints. What I read or watch needs to have some element of truth, or else present itself as pure fantasy. I view Alice in Wonderland, the Wizard of Oz and Harry Potter as pure fantasy, and those works don’t require the suspension of disbelief. You know going in what it is and don’t expect anything except a fun read. Good Sci-Fi, however, ratchets my expectation up a notch. In those works, I expect the plot and characters to have an element of “believability”. Even more, I want them to make a social statement.

I’ll address social statements in writing in a subsequent blog; this one is about believability. To achieve that, many Sci-Fi movies and books link to various religious and philosophical texts. Known works and events ground the fiction, make the story seem plausible by connecting it to something already established. It’s an old approach, and one I intentionally used in my Sci-Fi trilogy recently published by xoxopublishing.com: The Judge, Infinity Quest and The Empress of Tridon.

I knew from the outset the overall story would cover new frontiers of space and time. I believed I could creatively handle the vast distances of space by providing a new view of how everything is put together, but I wanted to ground the story by beginning at the present time with a somewhat flawed child, Daniel, and his father who is totally consumed with biblical study. The first challenge was getting these people off earth.

As with all Sci-Fi and paranormal stories, my main characters had a few “special” talents, otherwise the stories would have been “True Crime” or “Contemporary Fiction”. The three special talents my characters claim are the ability to read and implant thoughts, communicate with pheromones, and learn rapidly. Other than that, they are exactly like everyone else. Of course, anyone with those abilities could also rule the world if they were clever enough, but my characters chose not to, being more concerned with discovering why they were different and staying out of the spotlight.

There are many good reasons for a character not exposing his “differences” in human society, if you’ve got them. The famous red dot experiment most aptly demonstrated one of them. In that experiment, a red dot is placed on one white chicken among many. The other chickens see the red dot and begin pecking at it, eventually killing the chicken with the dot. People can be like that, and history is littered with witch trials, the killing of Jesus, and other atrocities against people deemed “different”.

Because of that, I chose to let my “heroes” remain a secret society, never exposing themselves overtly. I also gave them more than a cultural incentive to do so—a mortal enemy with similar capabilities, but dedicated to the total annihilation of the heroes.

I used the father’s bible study to gradually reveal my heroes’ roots, with specific verses leading to the conclusion that this special group of people, who call themselves Judges (the title of the first book in the trilogy), are descendents of the original Judge, Jesus. The bible is a rich references source to guide one to that conclusion.

That Jesus could teach his elders at age twelve made sense if He had a special ability to learn rapidly. The miracles attributed to Jesus also make sense…if he could implant thoughts in the minds of those who wrote them down. And the ability to communicate using pheromones might be necessary to keep the special abilities within the community of Judges, in the same way pheromones help humans subliminally select mates capable of producing offspring with strong immune systems. Everything was grounded. Everything was linked to some known belief or to some scientific principle.

Of course, Daniel soon reaches his teen years and feels constrained by not being able to be “him”. He throws off the taboos of using his special abilities in secret, and instead uses them to seduce women, to win at gambling, and whatever else will bring him pleasure. He becomes a hedonistic free spirit in an unsuspecting society, but by exposing himself openly, becomes a target for his mortal enemies. His father and other Judges eventually exile Daniel to the Alaskan wilderness, where he is forced to endure severe hardship far from other people until he matures.

Over time, Daniel comes to realize his abilities should be used for the good of society, not for personal gain and pleasure. He is supposed to act in secret to eliminate evil from the world, as all Judges do, and never expose himself or others like him for what they are. Even the words of Jesus help him understand his role, and Matthew 7:1-2 takes on new meaning for him. “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Daniel is forced to consider, Isn’t that EXACTLY how judgment works? Christ HAD to have been a Judge! Okay, fine, but how does that get the Judges off earth?

The arch enemy continues looking for Daniel, and eventually finds and murders his parents. Their deaths brings Daniel back from Alaska, where he is confronted with the disposition of his father’s things—including his unfinished biblical study. And that takes Daniel on a journey to Israel and through many interrelated bible verses that lead him to the inescapable conclusion that Jesus might have been the original Judge, and that He was not from earth. In fact, the verse 2 Peter 3:8 opens his eyes, “…With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day.” and he realizes time might not matter to his distant relatives at all.

A cascade of events and considerable study lead Daniel to understand the genealogy and purpose of his people. The Judges are ancient beyond belief, and they’re purpose is far greater than the elimination of evil from earth’s societies. Unfortunately, as he reaches his conclusions, his enemy is only one step behind him. That’s when he makes his most astounding discovery—a ship buried beneath the Negev desert.

Even that discovery is grounded in verses beginning with Revelations 4:1 and continuing through 10:1; 14:6-9, 14, 15, 17; and 18:1, a multitude of descriptions that could easily have been the Apostle John’s attempt to report encounters with technology ancient man could not put into words. When he finds his way into the ship and finally observes the truth of his distant past, he realizes the ship is accurately described in the book of Ezekiel, a book written to the Jews during their exile in Babylon approximately 600 B.C., and that Ezekiel 1:16 is just another description of an ancient man’s encounter with something that couldn’t be described using language that existed at the time.

Okay, it is probably appropriate I re-state my purpose for writing this blog. It is not to convert anyone to anything, or to say the bible is a good reference for finding a spaceship. No, it is only to say that linking a story to known items makes it more believable, and that is important for me. I’ll be discussing more on this topic in subsequent blogs, the third Sunday of every month, but the links to reality won’t be just the bible. Instead, they will be published scientific papers, the Torah, the Koran, Hindu writings, and other known philosophies that will enable to reader to stay grounded even though the universe being exposed in the trilogy is vast almost beyond imagination.

With the background above, the blurb for the first book of the trilogy, The Judge, should make sense, to wit: While humans see a person’s physical appearance, Judges see a person’s soul, and if evil is found there, they can release it, causing the judged to inflict on themselves whatever they planed for their victims. Judges live secret lives exercising their capabilities for good, but Daniel strays. His hedonistic lifestyle draws the attention of Iblis scouts, the Judge’s ancient enemy. The Judges escape earth in a gigantic ship hidden by their ancient ancestors, and on the distant planet Tridon, find a massive matrix containing trillions of years of recorded lives. Simulations within the matrix lead to surprising encounters with an element of God, and to a technology for generating objects from thought—a technology that prompted the ancients to question their own existence. The question, “Do we exist?” could not be answered, but Daniel finds life was scattered throughout the universes as part of an elaborate experiment to answer a related question the Judges must now consider: "Is infinity real?"

Thanks for reading today, and a special thanks to those sweet and sexy divas who made posting this blog possible.

Sincerely,

James L. Hatch

jhatch6@hot.rr.com

http://mlmrdenter.blogspot.com/

http://www.myspace.com/author_hatch

http://www.xoxopublishing.com/shop-online

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000328752553