Quantum Storms - Aaron Seven

by Dennis Chamberland

  Author’s Endnotes

  I have just turned the last page and finished the final edit to Quantum Storms. I clearly remember writing the first words not so long ago and will always remember my introductory moments spent with Aaron Seven and Serea. It did not take me very long to realize – even before I ended the lead chapter - that Aaron and Serea would become my character-children throughout the rest of my writing career. It is so exciting and satisfying to look forward to more adventures with these two. Indeed, the next adventure, Aaron Seven’s Abyss of Space – the parallel novel to Abyss of Elysium - is already substantially complete as I write this.

  Aaron Seven was just such an amazing protagonist to me that Charlie and I decided we had to protect his rights as a body-less and ephemeral being by a legal move known as a Registered Trademark. And so it has just been announced by the United States Copyright and Trademark Office that Aaron Seven® is now a registered trademark and protected under the full status of law. Now why would that matter? I guess as his father, I needed to hold in my hands a kind of birth certificate to legitimize him and to make me feel better. In many ways, it makes him that much more real… sigh… fathers are like that, I guess. (My attorney advises me that the real reason for the Trademark was for product protection and had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with my fatherly insecurities at all. Objection sustained.)

  Now, my dear reader, let me give you some insight about what is to come, so that the next time you pick up an Aaron Seven novel, you will not toss it aside thinking that you have read it before.

  Every Aaron Seven novel begins on the same rainy night on the muddy, stormy road to the gates of Stonebrooke, Tennessee. Every adventure always begins at the top of the same hill looking down at the end of the road that disappears behind the same dark hill illuminated by the old Suzuki’s dim headlights and an occasional bolt of lighting. It has to. After all, when Aaron Seven shows up, things will never - can never - be the same ever again, so sequels are out of the question! Besides, in this fashion, Aaron and Serea will never age and their love can be reborn despite the unfolding terror all about them again and again – I guess. …okay then, we’ll see…

  I guess I could apologize for killing the earth and most of its inhabitants off in each and every book, but I won’t. The typical (yawn) hero saving everybody every time is just passé. I needed a hero who saved humanity’s seeds to grow a better crop, not keeping the same old bunch around. Sometimes, everybody gets fried and there’s absolutely nothing anyone can do about it. There, I said it. Now readers everywhere can breathe a little easier. It’s okay to go ahead and toast the planet – as frequently as you please. Is there anything worse than this? Yes – a boring and predictable series of plots in which the protagonist always fixes everything by the last page.

  This novel just kept getting bigger and bigger every passing day. With six threads running simultaneously and my sons working all along on pictures of the remarkable hardware embedded in the story, it became evident that I was going to bust my page limit or end up making the type font so small it would be impossible to read. But I fought the temptation to cut it back or even remove a thread or two. The story is just right the way it is and I managed to squeeze it all in together. All their stories are equally important and equally telling of the whole tale of the effects of such a devastating event as a quantum storm. From little Luci hiding out in the Seattle sewers to the Concharty Mountain cave dwellers, the astonishing spectacle of Middlearth to the desperate contingent at Dutch Harbor and, of course, the incredible undersea city of Pacifica. They all had to be included for without even one of them, the story would not be complete.

  The question that is most central to the story, I suspect, will be about the possibility of solar quantum storms arising for real. I am fairly certain that I will be asked that question repeatedly, so allow me a moment to address that in detail up front – using the prefaced example of two related stories.

  I was privileged to become the personal friend of the late Jenny Heinlein just after the unfortunate passing of Robert. During one of my stays at her villa in north Florida, she related a story to me regarding the book, Stranger in a Strange Land, that propelled Robert Heinlein to true legendary status. The book was immediately received with great recognition when it was released and attracted a base of fans that she called the “Strange Groupies”. She told how one day, out of the blue, Robert received a telephone call at their California Estate. It was from one of the “Strange Groupies”. He related to Robert that they had started a church based on Robert’s character in the book and wanted Robert to come and speak to the assembled faithful. Robert told the groupie that while he appreciated their devotion to his novel, it was, after all, only a science fiction tale and nothing more and certainly did not deserve either a religion or his participation.

  In another case, a group of individuals were arrested in California in the 1990’s for attacking a GPS satellite that was being prepared for launch with an axe. They broke into its hangar and just started hacking. When apprehended and questioned, the individuals claimed to be a part of what they called the Sara Conner Brigade. They were, of course, referring to the heroine of Jim Cameron’s movie, The Terminator which they apparently took a little too seriously. I do not know what sentence the judge ultimately handed down, but I do hope it included a revocation of their Blockbuster Movie pass.

  I will take it as a complement that the description of the quantum effect leading to the quantum storms may sound real and scary, but, alas, it is only a frightening tale and nothing more. Like Monatawana, it is but a novelized plot device that drove the story along. I regret that I have to make that admission, because, as plot devices go, it is really a darn good one. But I would be greatly embarrassed of anyone actually started building a quantum storms shelter because of me! Everyone can breathe easier – as far as I can determine, the sun cannot actually spew forth deadly radiation of the kind described in the story unless there is a lot more about stellar interiors than we currently understand. And if it ever does become a possibility, let us just hope there is an Aaron Seven around somewhere to crunch the numbers in the nick of time!

  This is the most ambitions book project I have ever undertaken as it enlisted the full time service and heart of my beautiful wife, Charlie (Claudia). I cannot tell you how many hundreds of hours she poured over a nearly endless pile of manuscripts and spent her already fragile lower back while hunkered down over several computers to make it all come together. I very much appreciate her patience with me as she actually took the time to remember, classify and fix all the errors of time, place, measurement and other inconsistencies too numerous to name. And on top of all that, she had the patience of Job when it came to enlisting my cooperation in this process even while I was working three other book manuscripts to completion while this edit was ongoing. Charlie, my dear, you are amazing!

  I also want to thank my faithful editors: Martha Smith, Susan Austin and Jamie Pritchett who poured over its pages looking for the occasional error, inconsistency and misspelled word. And I extend my appreciation to Joseph M. Bishop, my lifelong friend who looks and acts so remarkably like the Commander it is just scary.

  Concharty Mountain is a real place and up there somewhere on its eastern flank is a real cave, much like the one in the story - sans the deep interior vestibule. And, sitting atop that cave is the television tower that blinked its friendly red lights in the clear view of my bedroom window as I grew up on the Oklahoma prairie. Although they or their likenesses were not featured as any part of this story, my friends Loren Spotts, Ronnie Philpot and Jack Friend accompanied me for several overnight and weekend adventures living in that cave and sleeping on its sandy floor. Likewise, the Oklahoma Geophysical Observatory is also a real place located in the story exactly as it really is on Leonard Mountain less than five miles from the cave beneath the television tower. I very much appreciate the detailed tour of the observatory given to us by its lifetime manager, caretaker and champion, Dr. Jim
Lawson, whose character or likeness was, also, not included as a part of this story.

  Stonebrooke is also a real place. It’s stunningly beautiful positioning in the deep Appalachians, embedded as it is in the timeless embrace of the forest, is not at all fiction, and much of this story – including these pages - was written from there. Even the description of the road leading to Stonebrooke is very accurate. Does that in any way make me the model for Raylond Desmond? No way. You can find your author more a model for bits and pieces of Aaron Seven, but I am not about to reveal which parts. You’ll have to deduce that for yourself!

  However, it would be totally unfair not to mention that Marbles, the Cocker Spaniel, is a real dog – my dog. And as far as likenesses go, the Marbles of this story was painted exactly as he really is. If Marbles could read he would probably retain legal counsel for certain character insinuations described herein. But, alas, my dear puppy cannot read and shows no predilection to do so anytime in the near future. So we will continue to love him as he is in all his furry, black, Gumpish simplicity.

  The artwork found on and between these covers was all accomplished by my wonderfully – even incredibly talented sons. The cover was done by Christopher Chamberland and the interior illustrations in all their magnificent complexity were accomplished by Brett English and Peter Chamberland. Thanks, guys, for putting up with your father’s endless telephone calls and nit-picking. It turned out awesome, just like you!

  It is difficult to believe that this first Aaron Seven® adventure is actually over. But, sitting atop my stack of open manuscripts is the next one. I can promise you that Aaron is, once again, in the thick of saving some nice people from a very bad catastrophe, as is his talent. In the next story, our hero starts off again on the same muddy road, but about the time he shows up in the professor’s study at Stonebrooke, things start radically changing and, alas, the world is again about to have a big problem. If you ever see Aaron Seven show up at the party, trust me on this, it’s time to go home and hunker down!

  Please write and let me know if you enjoyed this and other books that have emerged from under my pen. You, my readers, are most important to Charlie and me and we consider all of you our friends. Introduce yourself sometime! Godspeed and God bless…

  Dennis Chamberland

  Stonebrooke , Tennessee

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Dennis Chamberland has been involved in the research, development and design of Advanced Space Life Support Systems and related processes considered for moon and Mars bases. He is the designer of the Scott Carpenter Space Analog Station, serving as its Mission Commander for seven missions on the ocean floor off Key Largo, Florida. Chamberland was the Principal Investigator for the first crop of edible food planted and harvested on the ocean floor inside a manned habitat.

  Dennis is a former United States Naval Officer, serving as a Navigator and Main Propulsion Assistant Engineer onboard a US Navy Frigate while stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He also served the Navy as a civilian Nuclear Engineer at Mare Island and Charleston Naval shipyards. Chamberland is a double alumnus of Oklahoma State University where he received his M.S. in Bioenvironmental engineering and has been an instructor in life sciences at Charleston’s Trident Technical College .

  He is an active writer and speaker, having written over 100 articles and four books spanning the last two decades. Some of Chamberland’s many works have been translated from English into Chinese and Braille as well as having been selected for various college and university textbooks and over a dozen reference works. Dennis has been named a Fellow of the New York Explorers Club and has shared his adventures with audiences in such diverse places as high schools and various community social organizations, as well as the Harvard Club of New York and Princeton’s Space Studies Institute.

  Dennis is married to the former Claudia Schealer of Cocoa, Florida. They have six children and divide their time between Florida and their beloved Stonebrooke in the Tennessee mountains.

  Readers are encouraged to visit and write the author at:

  http://www.chamberland.org

  http://DennisBooks.com

  QUANTUM EDITIONS

  ANNOUNCES

  THE NEXT EXCITING

  AARON SEVEN ® ADVENTURE :

  In this, the parallel novel to ABYSS OF ELYSIUM – MARS WARS, Aaron Seven takes on the task of saving a handful of humans trapped on the earth by a nuclear war. The war was far worse than anyone had imagined and the closest haven of safety is on Mars to save a remnant of humanity. Aaron Seven must now commandeer an antique rocket, somehow rendezvous with the United States space station then steal it’s interplanetary spacecraft and make a perilous trip to Mars before time and supplies run out. Available from www.QuantumEditions.com.