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The Guest Star

The story of the novel "The Guest Star" follows two students of the Great Library of Alexandria in their scientific search for knowledge at the end of the second century AD, portrayed from a slightly different perspective and beyond the commonly accepted clichés in Roman Empire history. The Guest Star is also a historical adventure in which ancient Roman and Chinese cultures intertwined at the start of the Silk Road, several years before the first major civil war erupted after the death of Emperor Commodus. The main character is based on the life of Herodian of Antioch, a Greek historian and author of "History of the Roman Empire since the Death of Marcus Aurelius", in which he describes the reign of Commodus, the Year of the Five Emperors 193 AD, the age of the Severan dynasty, and the Year of the Six Emperors 238 AD.
Herodian had no scholarly pretensions at all and wrote only about the events of his time or those he witnessed. His distance from Rome made him independent, unbiased, and uncritical, and his only book is a volume of vivid information that is very interesting to read.

The following preview of 'The Guest Star' includes the prologue and the first chapter. I sincerely hope you enjoy reading it. "The Guest Star" is featured on Amazon's Kindle after evaluation by several beta readers in months prior to its release.



Read preview on Amazon

PROLOGUE



Alexandria welcomed early December following an unusually warm autumn. The year 938* of the renewed Roman calendar was about to expire, and Hero was anticipating that the next one would be the most challenging in his entire life. He celebrated his birthday today, and within the year he was expected to complete his first master's degree program at the Great Library. A day after reading Ptolemaîos' Almagest, the scroll he was fortunate enough to find in the Antioch atheneum, Hero knew that Alexandria had to be his next destination. He had spent the past five years on campus and now he felt he had reached a turning point. Hero came to the realization earlier today that the weight of his obsession with Imperial history and the tales of the past was becoming heavier by the day, and that he needed to move on. He made his final decision here, lying on a little carpet in front of the southern city walls, gazing up at the starry sky. With his own papyrus and quill, he would set off to explore the world as soon as his course was over. Rome first. All roads lead there anyway.

"Here's our birthday boy!" He could hear Cassius's hulking baritone coming from the dune beside him. Hero waved at him a little embarrassed. He didn't intend to avoid hanging out with his best friend tonight, he simply needed some time to himself to reflect on the last year.

"Did you know there's a new play by the Greeks at the beach theater? Everybody's talking about it." Cassius and Lucia appeared behind him, carrying a bottle of wine and three cups. "What's wrong with the Pharos promenade? I thought you'd be there tonight."

"The fire is too bright. From the beach, I can't see Mars." Hero said and moved to make room for the couple. Cassius was a few years older, but their minds were nearly the same age, with similar interests and aspirations to visit Rome the following year. Lucia was one of the smartest girls in the class, and Hero always envied Cassius a little because of the two of them.

After pouring the wine, Lucia added some hot water and a dash of sea salt. "It's from Cass' grandfather." She gave him a kind look with her beautiful dark eyes. "The best wine you can taste anywhere in Bithynia and all the eastern provinces."

Lifting his cup, Cassius stroked Hero's shoulder and coughed to gain attention. "To Herodian of Antioch, a future citizen of Rome and the youngest public servant in the history of the empire. May the ink he always carries in his left pocket never run dry!"

"Thank you, Cass." Hero said with a boyish grin. "I know I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for your support. I owe you a great deal. To our friendship!" He raised the cup and gulped it down. The wine was sweet and tasty, but he knew what more than one cup of it might do to him. His gaze fell upon Alexandria's southern fortifications. "It will be hard to leave this city. It's amazing that it even exists. When it's all over, I'm going to miss it a lot."

After emptying their cups, they took a seat on Hero's carpet and looked toward the invisible horizon to the south. Though tainted by the faint glow of the city lights and the massive lighthouse fire to the north, the blackness was sufficient to see the entirety of the active sky above their heads.

"So you're here for Mars?" It only took Lucia a moment to locate the bright reddish dot a dozen angles to the left. " What is it about tonight that makes it special, Hero?"

Hero produced a piece of papyrus that showed the complex curve of his observation of the wanderer. Along with each point he drew, he included the date of observation. "For the past two years, I have been coming here once a week in an attempt to understand the movement. It's incredible... Mars appears to be determined to reach the horizon this year. Take a look. This is from two months earlier, before a slight backward motion, and then the wanderer furiously went back on the original course. It's like, I don't know... Although not last year, Mars did the exact same maneuver two years ago. In fact, last December, the path of movement was quite different. I'm trying to figure out what's causing her to..."

"Her?" Cassius cut him off. "You know it is named after the god of war himself?" He laughed in an odd way. "Your bloody wandering star has nothing soft or feminine about it. Only signs of future wars... Mars has never been a good portent. The scrolls are full of it."

"Cassius, you know you're an idiot sometimes?" Lucia looked at him the way many of their astronomy teachers did when they talked about superstitions and tales. "Not even the centurions believe that anymore."

"Yes, they do." He continued to stare at the sky while he replied. Though his scientific intellect was unable to put the riddle behind him, it was evident that he was not fully at ease with religious folktales and legends. "So you are saying that Mars is heading for the horizon? Where precisely?"

Hero glanced at his drawing for a moment before pointing. "Right about the..."

As his finger moved toward the sky, a faint spot on the horizon started to glow quickly. In a matter of moments, it had grown to be twice as big as Venus and much brighter, shimmering and glittering in a variety of colors, but primarily orange and white.

Lucia screamed.

They slowly stood up and were frozen in time for a long while. In the absence of Luna that night, the night sky was surreal. The newcomer appeared to have taken the sky from the other stars and was waiting ominously at the edge of the horizon.

Apparently with Mars quietly moving towards it.

Out of nowhere, a gentle breeze swept over the dune, causing a slight chill in the air. It was Cassius who reacted first.

"You still don't believe in bad omens?"




DEPARTURE
Alexandria, 8 months later


Lucia picked up an excerpt of a scroll from the floor, one of several that surrounded Hero, and read it aloud: "There is always a divine omen that might foretell times of crisis. Sometimes the star remains visible during the entire day and night, encapsulated in rainbow colors, or another one comes extended to an enormous length and seems to be hanging in the middle of the sky." She gave him a confused look before taking another. "Before the war of the deserters the heavens were ablaze." She gracefully hopped over a stack of papyri fragments, multiple open scrolls, and what appeared to be ancient, reddish-colored clay tablets, and kneeled to confront Hero. He appeared to be completely unaware of her presence as he gazed at the piece of papyrus he was holding in his hands. Taking it away from him, she exposed a text that appeared to be rather old. The text was written in Greek and Latin, and a significant section of it was inscribed in pictographs.


"You become obsessed with that portent. Hero, you must let it go." She sat down and gave him a friendly nudge on the shoulder. "It disappeared four weeks ago. Whatever it was, it's gone now. Perhaps it was simply one of those jokes that the gods play on us. We may be too insignificant to understand..."

"It was not a portent."

"What else could it be?"

Hero snapped out of his thoughts and looked around. He became aware of the scattered books and documents and began to collect them. "It was there for eight months, fading in and out, like a fire." He gave her a direct look. "It was far too detailed and long-lasting for a simple explanation, such as portent. They are usually... I don't know. They make their appearance, and then... well, they disappear not long after that. Like shooting stars. Or bloody Luna."

"Come on..." She tried to sound positive. "You discovered it on your own in the scrolls. The heavens above always appear as a warning to the people below. That's how we've always been taught." She paused in the middle of a thought. "I mean..." Lucia averted her gaze to hide a tear. "When my father went to that war... that morning, at the door, when I saw him for the last time, I knew I would never see him again." She turned her attention back to him. "I just... knew. I don't know why. Or how."

"That was different." He gently wiped a tear from her face. "I know how much you loved your father. You just... You just didn't want him to go away. That's all."

She got to her feet and wiped her dress, more out of habit than to remove the dust from the marble stairway, the place she knew she'd find Hero. He was always there when he was doing research or reading books from the library. While the public reading room was always packed with students, its main purpose was to facilitate debate and discussion rather than to provide a quiet place for reading.

"You're probably right. We need to pay more attention to the reason. We can be blinded by our emotions." Lucia helped him pick up the books and documents that were lying on the floor, then handed the papyrus with the pictographs back to him. "Where did you find it, anyway?"

"It was in the Ptolemy's 'Geographia'. In his Greek manuscript. This is his handwriting. It was not part of the book, but most likely inserted at a later point in time."

"Did you manage to find out what it means?"

He picked up the note and gave it a quick look for a few moments.

"It means I have to go to Naissus."

"What?" Lucia watched, confused, as Hero had already disappeared around the corner. "Wait! Hero!" She ran after him. "But we're leaving for Rome the day after tomorrow! We made an agreement with Cassius' grandfather. You know that! He made all of the arrangements."

"There's a road to Rome from Naissus, too." Hero's voice could be heard echoing down the hall. "I just need to find somebody. I need some answers."

She knew better than to follow him any further and came to a stop at the gate as she saw him enter the scroll room. She stood there for a while, unsure of what to do.

"Where in the name of the gods is Naissus?"


* * *


Cassius was not happy to leave Alexandria. He loved it here. The last three years were the best period of his life. He enjoyed listening to all the history lessons and engaging in philosophical conversations with the students and teachers.

True, he often argued with old-school historians who believed history was nothing more than a collection of factual stories and that future generations should not study and learn from their forefathers' mistakes and triumphs. He was aware that he could be stubborn in defending his position at times, but understanding historical events is not always easy. Particularly if they occurred centuries ago.

Occasionally, he would spend long hours with his closest friends discussing a specific war or trial that took place in a distant province or in Rome itself. Such as those that occurred in Dacia or Iudaea during the previous century, or all the events that occurred during the hazy period following the death of Marcus Aurelius.

If he had been born during those times, he knew exactly what he would have done. Most other students, on the other hand, did not give more than a few second thoughts when the primary subject was the history of the Roman empire, whether it was recent or distant. When he attempted to participate in a more in-depth debate with others, they ignored him, usually with deceptive excuses.

Even Lucia told him that he was overly biased in his interpretation of historical accounts. Maybe she was right, maybe he was too emotional on occasion. Nevertheless, the Alexandrian period in their lives was coming to an end, and the new chapter would begin in Rome as soon as next week, which he was very excited about.

Cassius stared at his baggage, wondering if he had packed everything, when Lucia burst through his room's basic wooden door.

"Hero is not coming." She failed to hide a sort of 'I told you so' expression on her face. "I've just talked to him. He is going after the clues from the scrolls."

"Where?"

"I'm not sure, he was vague when I asked him." There were so many bundles and travel bags, and Lucia had a hard time finding a spot on the bed to sit. "Cass, you know we're going to need two extra horses just for your luggage! Have you grabbed the entire scroll shelf from the peripatos room?"

Cassius rolled his eyes, as he usually did when she said something like that. And lately, it had happened more often than he was willing to admit. He wasn't sure what that could mean. Lucia was more important to him than any other girl he had been seeing before Alexandria. He thought he knew her well, yet she was constantly surprising him. He wanted to respond better, but in the end, he merely shrugged and went for the exit.

"I'll talk to him. Please don't mess with my stuff."


* * *


He found him in the dining room after searching every room in the Caesareum and Serapeum buildings. Hero sat alone on the long table, with only a few military-looking scrolls open in front of him. He was taking notes from one of them when Cassius sat down next to him a moment later.

"Cohorts of Roman archers in the Upper Moesia region from the first century" Cassius read the title from the scroll. Along with a date that stated that it was almost a century ago, Hero's note contained a name and the military rank of a person. Cass grabbed the note from him.

"Tiberius Claudius Valerius, pilus prior, Cohors I Cretum, stationed at Timacum Maius, prior to the Dacian wars, a.d. IX Kal. Mai. DCCCLIV A.U.C." Cassius read aloud. He flipped the note revealing a second inscription. "Tiberius Claudius Valerius, n. Hierapytna, Crete, u.c. REG⁠·XI-INS·⁠V, Naissus, Moesia Superior."

"Since when you are interested in military history, Hero? Who's Tiberius Claudius Valerius?"

Rummaging through the books open on the table, Hero found an open scroll and in a few moves unrolled it to the section titled "Κλαυδιου Πτολεμαιου Γεωγραφικης Υφηγησεως - βιβλιον πρωτον". He rolled it couple of chapters further to the section "Δαρδανίας - δ΄ πόλεις Ναϊσσός, Ἀρριβάντιον, Οὐλπιανόν καὶ Σκοῦποι", which was the last entry in the chapter and before the next one began there was a small papyrus inserted to it with almost illegible handwriting and strange vertical icons.

"I found this note in Ptolemy's book. There was a brief Greek translation, and it was written in some letters that were used in ancient civilizations. Like pictographs from Aegyptus. It's possible that it dates to a time before the ancient Greeks, or perhaps further back in time. This document was signed by the pilus prior centurion of the cohort with the initials 'TCV.' It was not difficult to find him in the library. It's not much, but it's a start. The question is, where did he get it, and is there any other information out there? Explanation maybe."

Cassius looked at him in disbelief.

"It was eighty-five years ago. He is dead, Hero." He got to his feet. "After such a long period of time, there is nothing to discover. Just let it go, would you? Let's go to Rome. You belong there. With us." Cassius tried to be compassionate but failed. "You became obsessed by what we saw. It was a message from the gods, some sort of prophecy of Rome's future. Nothing else."

"If it was meant for Rome, why couldn't it be seen from Rome?"

"What?"

"In the previous few months, I asked a lot of people who had traveled from Rome to Alexandria. Nobody witnessed it. Not even the sailors from the north. It could only be seen from here and further south."

Cassius stared at Hero for a long moment, thinking about it.

"It was an omen for Alexandria, then... Have you heard the rumors about a new religion from Iudaea? They claim that they will eventually arrive in big numbers here at some point in the future. From what I've been told, they may be aggressive. They consider Rome to be their only enemy."

Hero stood up as well and began packing the scrolls and his inscriptions. He was aware that Cassius might be right. He came upon a group of religious followers of Valentinus, an Alexandrian philosopher who, a few decades ago, began actively teaching the new dogma about a divine entity that incorporated a human form and who, after being murdered by Romans, resurrected to the heavens. He came across this group not too long ago. That evening, while he was walking along the promenade alongside the lighthouse, they were, to put it mildly, rather intrusive toward him.

"I know there's some truth to that... But you know me, Cass. We witnessed something extraordinary. If there's a way to learn more about it, it's worth a try."

Cassius gave him his best friendly smile. Despite their slight age difference, Hero was his best friend here. But he was right, Cassius knew him well. Whenever Hero had something on his mind, he was aware that there was nothing he could do about it.

"The note. Can I see it again?"

Hero reached into his pocket, pulled out a copy of the papyrus, and handed it to him. Cassius took a good, long look.

"Νεόφοιτος αστήρ ἀνατέλλω." He read it with a heavy accent. "My mother is Greek, and I thought I had learned all the variations from the classic period, but this particular writing..." Cassius stopped for a moment. "What does it mean?"

"The new rising star."


* * *


Usually there is not much of a difference between the hot weather of late summer and the first half of September in Alexandria, but this morning was exceptionally cool. Small boats that were anchored in the port of Alexandria were being tossed around wildly by the wind that was blowing from the sea. Even larger merchant ships, which were also tied in the second row of the dock, were not immune from the dangers posed by the morning storm. Despite this, many sailors and port workers continued their daily routine of unloading ships by passing each other bags of spices and amphorae of varying sizes, most of which were loaded with wine and olive oil, as well as crates of grain and meat.

"Hero!" An echo of Lucia's voice could be heard across the bustling port as she made her way through the crowds and stacked merchandise on the quayside and the wooden platforms that were located at the entrance of the docks. She was on her way to the commercial section of the port, which was one of the largest in this part of the Mare Internum.

This morning, most anchored commercial ships were sturdy corbitas. These were bulky vessels with a stout hull up to 20 gradus' long, inherited from the classic Greek period, more than capable of carrying half a million libras of weight. If it was possible to squeeze inside, they could carry a whole family of elephants. Because of the way they were built, the corbitas could sail even in extreme weather.

Lucia stepped onto the stacked boxes at the beginning of the first pier and searched for Hero among the dozens of dock workers. After doing the same thing in front of the next three piers, she was eventually able to recognize him in the distance. He was engaged in conversation with the ship's captain, clearly trying to persuade him to board the ship for its return trip, wherever that might be.

"Hero!" She shouted as she made her way towards the end of the pier and the corbita that Hero was standing in front of. The wind was howling, and he was struggling to keep his dark hair from concealing his face. The bald captain of the ship finally shook his hand, and Hero turned to go back ashore. At almost the same time, rushing towards him, Lucia bumped into a sailor who was organizing the workers and almost fell into the sea.

"Lucia!" Hero hurried over to take her hand. He couldn't help but smile as he watched her stand up in a comical way. "What are you doing here?" He guided her to the side of the pier, where there were fewer workers around. "I mean, Alexandrian docks aren't exactly the same as the promenade. It may be dangerous, and I'm not talking about the slippery pier."

"I know..." Lucia held on to the small wooden dock's pillar with her free hand. "I was looking for you at the dorm and the dining hall. Cassius' grandfather has arrived. They want to plan the trip to Rome and the details for tomorrow."

"I am not coming with you two, Lucia." Hero tried to conceal signs of emotion on his face. "I've just booked a ship across the sea."

"I know. I saw you did."

"Why are you rеally here?"

"I..." After a little hesitation, Lucia raised her gaze to his eyes and peered into them. "I thought you would leave without saying goodbye."

"I would never do that. The ship will set off the next morning." He offered her a second hand, and she took it. Her long black hair was a jumble in the wind, and her dark eyes were unusually perplexed, yet her entire appearance reflected what Hero had always thought of her, a rare blend of brilliance and beauty. He knew Alexandria and the library would not be what he would miss the most when he departed tomorrow. But that's probably for the best.

"Come on, let's go to breakfast."


* * *


In every library building, there was a breakfast nook that was a part of the dining room. In this area, all of the food was arranged at a single huge table, and the students were typically engaged in active conversation while standing. It was more of a place where the events of the previous day were summarized, and some of the arguments that took place the day before were either concluded or continued.

But what Lucia and Hero discovered in the room after they had returned from the harbor was not merely a typical quarrel taking place in the morning. Gaius Augustus Dio, Cassius' grandfather and an old merchant from Rome, was sitting at the breakfast table, surrounded by Cassius and his classmates, as well as others from the library's history and philosophy classes.

"I am telling you, he is more interested in games than in all the political affairs of the empire." Gaius was in the middle of a conversation. "The last time I saw him, before I left Rome, he entered the arena like a Murmillo, only with a gladius and the smallest scotum shield. He fought five retiarius slaves, killing three of them. The man is really insane."

Everyone had heard of the new emperor's strange behavior, but it was unusual to hear it firsthand outside Rome. There was widespread anticipation that Marcus Aurelius would be succeeded by someone else. In the past, it was quite uncommon for the emperor's own son to be the heir to the throne. It was, to put it mildly, a source of irritation for Cassius, and he was unable to fully accept it.

"The rumor is that Commodus is not actually the son of Marcus Aurelius, but of a gladiator his mother slept with." Cassius took the stage with an unusual passion. "We are all aware of the things that have been said about Faustina. She was one of the few mistakes that Aurelius made. She was more equipped for a lupanar and was nothing more than a ..."

At that moment, Lucia left Hero's company and took a few steps down to the dining room floor.

"Cassius!"

She shouted from the entrance of the dining room and hurried to the nook as quickly as she could. She moved past around twenty students and gave him a light forearm squeeze. She met his gaze, and the two of them exchanged glances for a while before she finally found the right words.

"You know that it is illogical to debate about anything in the absence of evidence or reasonable doubt. This is not in the spirit of this place. We're meant to be scholars above gossip and rumor. This is not the library way. And it's not real observation and scientia."

"Lucia..." Cassius started but then stopped.

"Look." She could sense his hesitation. "I am impressed by the research you've done on Marcus Aurelius, as well as the historical point you have made regarding the reasons why empirical governments are currently more beneficial for Rome than the republic or pure Greek democracy. I couldn't agree with you more. I really do." Lucia raised her arms in the air. "But this... This is not you." She stopped, realizing she had gone too far in front of Cassius' friends and grandfather. She lowered her head. "Cassius, I am truly sorry. Please, can we go?"

"No... You are right." Cassius calmed down. "I am really sorry. You are totally right." He burst out laughing and faced his grandfather. "Gaius!" He hugged the old man and gave him a friendly punch in the chest. "Why am I always acting like this with you around?" He pointed toward him. "You've always been a bad influence on me."

He took Lucia's hand. "Come on, let's go. Let's go finish packing, and then we'll make the most of the last day we have here by doing something nice. How about taking a camel ride and having a picnic in the desert?"

"That sounds wonderful."

"We sail out tomorrow after breakfast." Gaius said. "Don't be late. It's a long trip. We should take advantage of this wind while it lasts."

"Don't worry, we will be there on time." After saying that, Casius and Lucia made their way toward the exit and the dormitory. As soon as he put his arm around her shoulder, they were back to being a couple engaged in vibrant conversation, as they were known to be in the circles of the Great Library. Cassius' laughter was sincere, and he was back to his usual self.

Upon arriving at the door, which was somewhat narrow, Cassius was the first to enter it and then vanished down the corridor. Lucia took a step behind him, but then stopped for a moment. She turned her head back towards the corner and the area behind the tables, but Hero was already gone.


* * *


Hero finished packing and waited until noon to transfer his belongings to the corbita. It was a cargo ship, and he made a nest out of crates and sacks inside the belly of the ship. He decided to spend the afternoon alone in his room before leaving early the next morning. The ship was set to leave the harbor at first light.

He went out in the evening to bid farewell to all his classmates and friends, including his teachers. In the hopes of finding Cassius and Lucia, he made the decision to go for a stroll along the promenade around the lighthouse. The windstorm had ceased, and the sky had cleared up by the time night fell. But they were nowhere to be seen. He thought that it was probably for the best.

In the morning, the wind returned, and at dawn, he left the empty library and headed for the harbor. He couldn't put into words how he felt about the last five years in the library and everything that happened at school. Even though it was without a doubt the most fantastic time of his life, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was emotionally depleted for some reason. He refused to think about it further because he was afraid of the answers.

Following his arrival on the fourth pier, he proceeded in the direction of the distant corbita. He tried to focus on his future journey and what was ahead of him, but he couldn't. He was experiencing a great deal of bitterness in his gut, and Hero once again refused to understand the reason for this. Maybe it will always be like that when one phase of life ends, and another begins. Maybe...

The moment he laid eyes on the ship, he came to a sharp stop and his gaze remained fixed. For a short period of time, the wind ceased, and a sliver of sunlight appeared through the clouds. It was a little surreal, but just for a moment, until he realized that all the bitterness he felt walking from the dorm to here had completely vanished.

Lucia was standing on the deck, with a tiny knapsack in her hands and a travel bag by her side.

The Prequel to the Prequel’s Prequel

Hmmm, I think I got that title wrong. I wanted to write something catchy, but obviously language puzzles are not really my thing. In the case of Star Wars storytelling backwards in time, this triple 'prequels' looks fine, but again, if I put all the main Jedi characters of various ages in chronological order, i.e., something like this: Gella > Avar > Anakin > Luke > Rey, then it does look like I missed one more word 'prequel' in it. Or... well... if we consider Rey's story to be the only sequel to the first prequel's main story in this thread, which started with "A New Hope", the very first movie of the franchise that initiated it all... then I could be correct after all. Right? Oh, darn it, let it be... So, let's explore the latest prequel in the galaxy far, far away and long time ago, minus 150 years.


Minus 150 years means 150 solar cycles of Coruscant, the capital of the Republic, an entire planet evolved into one giant city before Phase I in the Star Wars canon, described in the books, started with "The High Republic: Light of the Jedi".  Phase II consists of two (adult) books, "The High Republic: Convergence" and "The High Republic: Cataclysm", and it is placed officially around the year 382 BBY (382 Coruscant years before the battle of Yavin within "A New Hope").

After finishing the books, I couldn't shake the same feeling I had after watching "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story". Due to the early history of VFX in creating the movies, the very first trilogy came, from this distance, not visually great and had a hard time conjuring the "wars" part from the title. Don't take me wrong; when I was young and saw "A New Hope" for the first time, I watched it with my mouth wide open almost the entire duration of the film. The second trilogy jumped into the trap of using too many visual effects, which, as a result, looked more like a fairy tale than anything else. The latest trilogy came to fix things a bit, but still, in my mind, only "Rogue One" rendered the war as it should be—as a brutal and believable one with tremendous action and a fabulous ending. In the world of the "Star Wars" books that belong to the same franchise canon, "The High Republic: Cataclysm" provided the same feeling as "Rogue One" once did. The latest book fully justified the entire "Star Wars" premise. There were moments during the reading that I couldn't believe that words alone were capable enough to portray the battle of such epic proportions using only the reader's imagination and nothing more.


Behind the pen of the latest novel was Lydia Kang, and compared to the prequel book and those three from Phase I, "Cataclysm" is perhaps the best of them all. Sure, Lydia's storytelling is perfect with lots of characters well described, but she was in luck—the story that ended the first phase of the High Republic era had it all: the already mentioned fast-paced action described in great detail, interesting and respectable villains, and multiple storylines from protagonists belonging to the "good guys" (or to the Light side of the Force, to be exact), including both the Jedi and people originating from the Republic forces and those from planets Eiram and E'ronoh, whose backstory is the backbone of the entire phase. If we add young(er) Yoda and Yaddle fully included in the story, the author really had an easy task to pack one of the most interesting Star Wars books to date.

Surely, the end is not concluded, and we are left with many loose ends on both sides (villains and heroes), but that was to be expected. As hinted in previous books, the Leveler (a Nameless species), with the ability to overwhelm force-sensitives and nullify their connection to the Force, is something I am sure we will encounter again in the future. The future of Star Wars canon, that is, as it is absent from the movies, and I guess their fate will be resolved in the void after phase 2 and the Battle of Yavin, or the time described with 0 BBY. 


To me, one of the most interesting facts after reading all five Star Wars adult books from the High Republic times and those I also read that don't belong to the canon or directly to the official franchise was the need to picture all the species from the galaxy far, far away. The history of watching movies helped a lot, but I definitely needed to do a little research to find out what all the species look like to allow my imagination to be as accurate as possible while reading.

The images I chose to illustrate the text of this blog story are not entirely accurate, as they belong to different Star Wars concept arts, but the High Republic stories are still very young, and we will have to wait for the future movies for more photographic details. I, for one, would definitely want to see at least one movie dedicated to these events in the upcoming years.

The War No One Wants

Before the start of the Great War, the prevailing sentiment in most, if not all, European countries was that victory in any major military conflict was guaranteed only if it was fought with a large, durable, well-trained, and modern army. The dawn of the 20th century established the environment in which countries entered the race to mobilize the largest part of the qualified population, to create faster motorized transport for troops and logistics, to use state-of-the-art communications and the greatest range of artillery, as well as to use various new drugs in medical treatments like morphine and even cocaine to boost the troops and fuel their fighting mood. Compared to 19th-century wars, new warfare was revolutionized and upped to the next level. By June 1914, the stage was set and only a spark was needed to fire off the conflict.

But was it really inevitable? Was the military race alone enough to cause the conflict in which 20 million died and many more were wounded? Or did it need a plot to be played in just a specific order that would lead to the unavoidable horror? Did it need at least one party to actually want the war to happen? To honestly believe that a war on that scale could be won?


When asked if the Great War could have been avoided, Ronald Spector, professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University, said that ’if Sir Edward Grey hadn't been the foreign secretary in Britain, then Britain might not have necessarily entered the conflict. Furthermore, if German Kaiser Wilhelm II hadn't been the flaky person he was, then the Germans may have made different decisions, and in the end, if Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who at the time was the head of the faction that wanted to avoid war, had not been killed, the outcome might have been different’. According to Professor Spector and many others, the real trigger for the First World War was indeed only a combination of these unfortunate coincidences that took place in the summer of 1914—military preparations, the alliances, the people in power—all of those steps that built one after another created the Great War.

In the aftermath, the war did happen, and to many, including me, the question was not who won it four years later but rather what stage it created in the following years. It ended the Austro-Hungarian empire, the German empire lost a lot of territory, and the Turkish empire ceased to exist. On the other end, new statehoods arose along with a new wave of nationalism, as many felt they hadn't achieved enough for their sacrifices and losses. History books at the end of the war never really recognized the winner or the loser. It officially ended in the Compiègne railway car on November 11, 1918, and the final document was signed as an armistice.


But what about today, a century and a change after the war that could have been avoided and the war that allegedly nobody wanted? Is there a new similar danger we could repeat again? The one that, according to Ken Follett, could also be one tragic accident, all things considered. Is there a war that no one wants today? The one that could leave a permanent mark on the surface of humanity. The one that will not be fought in trenches and the one that will truly be worldwide this time.

I think we all know the answer to that question. Yet, just like before, and even though nobody really wants it to happen, it could happen nevertheless. Just like before, it only needs a plot that, if set in motion, step by step, spark by spark, decision by decision, can lead to the point of no return. Are we today, on the first anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, already walking that path? We already have everything the Great War had before it started. Countries have already been in the arms race for a long time—the race for ultimate supremacy and world military dominance. Army budgets are filled up to the roof. More than 10,000 nuclear warheads of various kinds are already in military stockpiles for use by missiles, aircraft, ships, and submarines. We also have questionable leaders like before, even flaky ones like in Professor Spector's description. Let's just hope we will have better luck this time.


However, in light of today's story, let's get back to Ken Follett's fiction. I am really a big fan of his work, and his current thriller, "Never", is his vision of how the Great War could repeat today. In a chronological order of events that one by one led to the brink of a nuclear war, he amazingly described a fictional story that looks so real and so familiar. And so possible. He begins the book with a quote from a Chinese proverb, "Two tigers cannot share the same mountain", and it amazingly describes the entire book premise. I couldn't agree more with Stephen King when he said that "Ken Follett can't write a bad book", and I could only add that "Never" is definitely more than a book. One of his best. One of those that keeps you thinking long after you finish it.

Refs:
https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/was-world-war-i-avoidable
https://thediplomat.com/2014/08/the-great-myth-world-war-i-was-no-accident/

Historical Fiction of the World War Two

The start of the second world war in the Balkans was known as the "April War", which lasted no more than 10 days in the operation called "Führer Directive No. 25". The swift conflict ended on April 14th in an armistice based on the unconditional surrender of Yugoslav military forces. My grandfather was a 22-year-old corporal in the former Yugoslav army when he was transferred to a war camp in Germany in mid-April 1941, along with 30,000 other surrendered soldiers. He spent the next four years in a Nazi military camp, leaving behind his young wife and 2-year-old son.

I am sure it was not easy for him to cope with the entire time of imprisonment and captivity, especially in the beginning, but considering all the horrors of the most cruel encampments of Nazi Germany, the unconditional surrender of the entire Yugoslav Army came with negotiated terms and an agreement of fair treatment of all the prisoners during captivity in various labor camps in the following years. Perhaps the main trauma for all the former soldiers came in the second part of 1945, after the fall of Hitler's Third Reich, when all of them, along with more than 7 million displaced people, ended up for several months in the chaos of the immediate postwar traumatic experience of trying to find their way home. After his return to Serbia under a completely new regime, life treated him pretty well, and the post-war time is perhaps best described with his own words: "Although I was not a member of the communist party, I think I was respected in society; I became a councilor of the municipality of Nis and a member of the council of the electronic industry. Above all, I was proud of my family and 50 years of marriage."


Doing hard labor in the fields and machine workshop helped him to pass through the war relatively undisturbed, and, if we exclude the short April war in the beginning, I am sure the bullet holes in the car he used to maintain were his only reminder of all the horrors of the war. He was pretty quiet about all that happened to him for years, until one of our family gatherings about thirty years ago when he opened his soul and told us most of what happened in those four years, and especially a couple of those last months in 1945 when he headed back home on foot. 

I only found two of his photos that appear to be from his imprisonment, and I was genuinely surprised that there were any at all. The one with the notebook is the most interesting, and knowing him is also not surprising. Who knows, maybe out there somewhere is still waiting to be found that very notebook, which possibly contains one extraordinary journal along with a couple of potentially untold stories he may have taken with him to the grave and not told to anyone.


Anyhow, what reminded me of my grandfather and inspired me to write all this was the latest Mark Sullivan novel, "The Last Green Valley", a historical fiction following a remarkable story of one displaced family and their unfortunate and, at the same time, amazing adventure from the last year of the Second World War. It really was one great novel with an astonishing feeling composing after each page turned. It simply left me speechless after the last one. 

While we are at historical fiction, I warmly recommend two more titles in the genre: Mark Sullivan's "Beneath a Scarlet Sky", with a similar heartbreaking story from the same period in northern Italy, and Ken Follett's "Hornet Flight", with war adventures based on real events in occupied Denmark.

In the Footsteps of Pino Lella:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UJfEaFiMK4

In the Footsteps of Pino Lella

It doesn't happen often that after reading a book, you can compare most of the places and some of the portrayed characters with real sites and buildings along with real protagonists from the historical story. Actually, this never happened to me before, and after I'd reached the last cover of 'Beneath a Scarlet Sky', a novel written by Mark Sullivan, published in 2017, I saw the rare opportunity of visiting the city where it all happened and where all the sites still stand today. Not much later, and after my entire family read the novel or at least got familiar with the story, we packed our backpacks and hit the road. In the aftermath, the result is this blog post along with an embedded video story as a documentary of the half-day walking tour of Milan in Italy, where everything happened more than 70 years ago. In the spirit of a fair warning, I advise you to read the book first before watching the video since it might spoil the reading for you or to wait for an upcoming series or movie with Tom Holland in the lead role.


The novel is based on the true story of an Italian teenager, Pino Lella, who lived in Milan during the second world war and, within the last two years until the very end of WW2, helped many Jewish people escape to Switzerland over the Alps and, in the final year, acted as a spy for freedom fighters while being a personal driver for General Hans Leyers, Adolf Hitler’s left hand in northern Italy. Pino survived all the horrors of the war and the Nazi occupation and deeply fell in love with Anna, a girl he met on the streets of Milan on the day of the first bombing of the city. He constantly dreamed about the future they would one day share.

This book tour would not be possible at all without fantastic Valeria Andreoli from BellaMilano, who guided us throughout Milan beautifully for almost five full hours! It was amazing to mix the real streets, all the buildings, the castle and the cathedral, hotels, the train station, and even the monumental cemetery with our vividly built images of all the places we already formed from the book and Mark Sullivan's amazing narrative.



Undoubtedly, spending three days in Milan for us provided lots of more opportunities for visiting the history back to the time all the way to Leonardo da Vinci. Around the year 1482, he moved to Milan to work for the duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, as an engineer, sculptor, painter, and architect. Until 1499, when Milan was invaded by the French, he left behind the 'Last Supper', a famous mural painting of Jesus and the twelve apostles; many paintings, including 'The Virgin of the Rocks', Milan's Narvigly, the system of navigable canals to ferry people and merchandise in and out of the city, 'Leonardo`s horse', an uncompleted equestrian sculpture; and many more.

We were especially interested in Leonardo's engineering projects and his machines, models, and sketches displayed in 'Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia—Leonardo da Vinci' and within a new exhibition dedicated to this amazing man called 'Leonardo3' stationed in 'Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II', another Milan landmark from the 19th century. This second video log of Viktor's shows a glimpse of what we managed to visit and learn.



(Un)expectedly, at the end of our first visit to this great city, we have left with much more footage from what we initially planned to make with Pino Lella's and Leonardo's stories. All these are now packed in this third video embedded above, and if you like to see more of Valeria and stories hidden behind Leonardo's paintings, especially the ones he did in the Sforza Castle, if you want to learn what you need to do if you are in search of a good luck charm during your first visit to the legendary 19th-century shopping mall, or if you are eager to check out one great Italian restaurant along with a couple of more places we managed to visit, this is the video definitely worth clicking on.

As for us, I am more than sure that Milan definitely didn't see us wandering its streets for the last time. The rest of Italy too.

The book references:
https://bellamilanotours.com/footsteps-pino-lella/
https://marksullivanbooks.com/

Beneath a Scarlet Sky:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32487617-beneath-a-scarlet-sky (en)
https://www.newtoncompton.com/libro/lultimo-eroe-sopravvissuto (it)
https://www.knjizare-vulkan.rs/istorijski-roman/44294-pod-grimiznim-nebom (srb)

Museums:
https://www.museoscienza.org/en
http://www.leonardo3.net/en/

Technothrillers

You know that feeling with reading novels when your bookmark location is in the second half of the book and you find yourself turning pages faster and faster in order to find what happens next? If your reading interests coincide with mine, the most likely case is that you are reading either science fiction, spy or fast-paced action thrillers, or good and old adventure stories filled with espionage and politics in the background.


Well, that was before. Nowadays, if I wanted all that combined in a single novel, there's a new subgenre called technothrillers, and with some of them, especially with new authors in the self-publishing realm, and on almost all occasions, I found myself turning pages even faster. Three of those great technothrillers you could find are presented in this blog post. The premises are extraordinary, and all of them are borrowed from science fiction: smart robotic nanoparticles enhancing human bodies, evil artificial intelligence operating on Darknet, and one extraordinary idea of teleportation based on time travel.

Let's start with a nanoscaled interface between the human brain and computers. It has always been a holy grail to make this efficient ever since the invention of the first computer. Even now to create this post, I am using the old-fashioned keyboard to type the letters, checking for typos, taking care of the grammar, and rolling the mouse around the table for lots of other commanding purposes. "Interface" by Tony Batton is giving us all the potential outcomes of the system without all those helping gadgets only by using nanoparticles with remote access to everything with a CPU and with the thriller plot that is, in one word, outstanding. I will only add that I touched the icon for the sequel purchase just a couple of moments after I finished the book.


For the next technothriller in line, these three reasons were enough for me to hit the download button: DarkWeb & Net layers of the internet, villain AI, and automated corporations. It was amazing how all this, not so hard to imagine, near future inspired Matthew Mather to create this astonishing novel named "Darknet". Simply put, I felt that all that's happening in this techno adventure was as real as in any ordinary thriller. This reality, in one way or another, is really knocking on our doors, especially the part with automated corporations with no need for humans in roles of CEOs, CMOs, CTOs, and all the other C?Os. The scary part is that we don't even need supreme AI to take over, just advanced automation. The thriller part of the book is as perfect as the premise itself. Enough said.

Last, but not least, comes the boldest sci-fi premise in Douglas E. Richards' "Split Second". While at first it is not immediately comprehensible how time travel can be used for teleportation and then for the entire thriller story, it is quite simple really. I don't really like to spoil the book here, especially since the author kept the details from the reader for a big portion of the pages, but I have to say that it is an ingenious idea. I will just give you a hint to think about it: we are living in a universe with four dimensions by its nature, three spatial ones and time as the fourth. If we move along one dimension, i.e., up and down, we are not really moving left or right or forward or backward. We would be only using one spatial dimension and traveling forward in time. The other two spatial coordinates would stay the same. Similarly, the question from the book was, what if we were able to use only the time dimension and move just a fraction of a second forward or backward in time and NOT use spatial dimensions by doing so? Where exactly would our spatial coordinates be AFTER the time travel? Where would everything else be after our arrival? If you are intrigued, this book is definitely for you.


To summarize this spoiler-less review, even though I liked and enjoyed all the stories the same, the plausibility of the background science fiction is always important to me, and with these three, "Darknet" is maybe something we could witness within our lifespans, and just for that fact, if I had to rate these three technothrillers, it would be my first choice of recommendation. As much as I would love to see something similar to the nano-sized robots floating in our bloodstreams, the "Interface" premise is still going to wait for a better understanding of our own intelligence and brain activity. The wait must also include significant nano-scaling of the CPUs as well. As for the time travel, if you ask me, this might stay in the fiction only for a very long time, perhaps even to stay in the realm of the impossible, but who knows, we might witness one-day time travel of the information data somehow if sending any mass back in time proves to be unfeasible.

Nevertheless, I truly enjoyed all the twists in stories, all the characters and their interactions and development, writing styles, and how everything unfolded at the end of all three novels. A warm recommendation goes without saying.

Books:
http://www.tonybatton.com/interface/
http://matthewmather.com/books/darknet/
http://www.douglaserichards.com/split-second

More thriller reviews:
https://www.mpj.one/2017/04/cotton-alex-will-travis-and-david.html

Fiction and Reality of Mount Olympus

I was very young when I visited Olympus for the first time. It happened during our early vacation in the region back then, in the eighties of the previous century. I vividly remember there was a dangerous dirt road with not much room for two vehicles to pass by, ending near one of the mounting homes with an embedded small tavern, which can really print on its portfolio that was built on the top of gods' heavenly entrances. For some fairly strange reasons, Coca-Cola and souvlaki on the tavern's terrace felt really tasty, just as the pure and clean water from the water stream just next to it. Unfortunately, and despite all of my efforts, I couldn't see or find anything divine, out-of-worldly items, or even a glowing, shiny rock. There were no gods whatsoever. Or naked muses. Or beasts with snakes instead of hair. Or horses with wings. Or mighty heroes. Nothing. Well, I was only 10 years old. What did I know... Maybe that pair of hawks we saw flying around the highest rock across the tavern and screeching in high tones were actually Apollo and Artemis arguing about something.

On the other end, it might be that I visited Olympus during the gods' withdrawal. Way too early...


But, before I continue with the actual glimpse into modern Olympus fiction and short reviews of one hilarious book and one extraordinary comic, I think I need to write a word or two about the photo I embedded above, which might be interesting to read. This is in fact the Mount Olympus (just like the highest peak shown from the air in the post header). The most famous mountain in the entire world. The mighty one. It is not the highest of them all—just slightly lower than 3K meters and not even the highest in the entire Balkans—but it was the one chosen by gods to build their own abode during the ancient times. Sitting just next to the Aegean Sea, it is the first sight you see when you travel from Thessaloniki to Athens in modern-day Greece. I took this image in 2010 from the beach in the sea resort of Leptokarya, described by Wikipedia as "the former seat of East Olympos municipality, which is part of the municipality of Dio-Olympos". During my countless visits to northern Greece in the past several decades, and all of them during summer holidays, believe it or not, all of my Olympus photographs ended with a similar heavy stream of clouds above mountain peaks. It is like Olympus is always hidden in clouds by some weird meteorological reasons. Well, that was not entirely true, as I have seen Olympus naked on an occasion or two, but still, it was not often. It's like Olympus is attracting the clouds and capturing them to stay and hide its peaks.

This summer, almost forty years after my first excursion to the famous mountain, we took the perfect opportunity to board a tourist bus and venture their Olympian route, following new paved roads carrying people to the multiple resorts within the mountain base and visiting Olympus' main attractions. At least to the point where the road limits heavy buses from proceeding. The tour included the town of Litochoro, the famous Bath of Zeus, Agios Dionysios Monastery, and Old Panteleimon, a picturesque mountainous village on the slopes of the mountain. Surely seeing the sites with your own eyes has no alternative, and the next best thing is to check a couple of those travel guides and stories you can stumble on online, but as far as this post is concerned, I will leave it to my son Viktor to tell you all about it in his channel's video log we both filmed this August. If you find it pleasing, you know the YouTuber's drill - please like and subscribe... ;-)



The mountain definitely contains a beautiful charm of its own, but we all know that Olympus is best known for its part in Greek mythology, and with all its ancient fiction, it has inspired writers all over the world ever since. With some of them, the thin line between fiction and nonfiction is not really visible at once, but in the case of Michael G. Munz's amazing novel called 'Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure' one would say it is all about fiction and laugh-out-loud (LOL) moments. The gods in this comedy returned from their withdrawal after more than two thousand years with all of their entourage and got back to the active and mutual life with mortals. And they returned with a twist.

What is most interesting about the old Greek gods, compared to all of the modern religions of today, is that their godhood was not that estranged from their creation like it is now the case with all of those Jerusalem monotheistic beliefs. Greek gods loved to mingle with mortals. And by mingle, you know what I mean, which is especially true with Zeus (probably Dionysis too). In fact, within the opening chapters of the novel, Apollo defined it best when he said that "Gods are just like mortals, only... better." And that means with everything that we can use to describe ordinary people, including conspiracies, hatred, intelligence, stupidity, love, sex, affairs,... It's like the Greek gods possess everything good and bad we mortals experience on a daily basis; only theirs is enhanced and powered off the charts. And of course, they could change appearances into hawks... and do other magical stuff. So, by establishing that, we can safely say that all the gods in "Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure" are more than just divine creatures. They are active characters in the story, and along with amazing Michael's narrative, which is playing with the reader on numerous occasions, it is something that gives this book, at least for me, the originality I have never experienced before. The humor is everywhere, especially in the narrative, which on many points requires a fair amount of the reader's geekery and knowledge of ancient mythology. I'll stop here with no further spoiler and only my warm recommendation.


As for the other media dealing with Olympian myths, there are numerous movies, among them "Clash of the Titans" and "Wrath of the Titans", with Perseus played by Sam Worthington and Liam Neeson as Zeus. They were not that bad movies at all, despite all my reservations, and best of all, the script of the second movie offers the answer to the ultimate question of how and why gods from Olympus ended their presence on Earth. Of course, Henry Cavill as Theseus in "Immortals" was also one of the visually great movies, with heavy usage of old Greek myths and Olympian gods in main roles.

On the other hand, the world of graphic novels never disappoints, and Rick Riordan's novels with Percy Jackson adventures recently, after debuts with two motion pictures, transferred into extraordinarily enjoyable comics. The world of demigods in so far two graphic books looks very nice and, I have to admit, much more appealing than in movies. Perhaps because reading comics was my first love from early childhood and/or maybe because these two books were my first comics reading with the Kindle way of presenting graphic novels, but nevertheless, if you are into Olympian myths and love great fiction that emerged from old tales, my recommendation for Riordan's "Heroes of Olympus" series with "The Lost Hero" and "The Son of Neptune" goes without saying.



zViktor22 YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH2BtavSrxaRyvOJS5JZaHQ

Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure
http://michaelgmunz.com/books/zeus/

The Lost Hero: The Graphic Novel
http://rickriordan.com/book/the-lost-hero-the-graphic-novel/

Chasing Ghosts of the Universe

You probably heard that matter is pretty much an empty space. It's true. Everything is made of tiny particles with nuclei in their centers and clouds of electrons orbiting around. If we take hydrogen (H), for example, the smallest atom with just one proton in the nucleus orbiting by just one electron, and if we scale the proton to be the basketball size, the orbit of the electron in diameter would be something about 15 km. Both the nucleus and electrons are electromagnetically charged, keeping everything in stable equilibrium, and also inside the nucleus, two more fundamental forces—strong and weak nuclear interactions—are keeping all the matter and energy in line. However, the smallest atom in the universe is not the smallest, standalone system we know of. According to the standard model, all atoms and complex molecules found in nature or artificially produced are made of fundamental particles. Something we cannot cut into smaller pieces. Electron is one of them. But there are more. So far, as far as we know, if we count all of those basic particles inside protons or neutrons and those that represents force carriers in addition to the "god" particle that makes all the mass possible, there are exactly 17 of them. But one of them deserves its own story to tell. It's nickname is "the ghost particle," and it is literally capable of passing through any mountain like it is made of cheese.


You probably guessed, this will be a short story about neutrinos, the most elusive particles in the universe we can play with. They are products of radioactive beta decay in heavy nuclei where proton or neutron decays into other sub-atomic particles, i.e., if proton decays in a process known as 'beta plus decay', it transforms into a neutron, a positron, and a neutrino. In the moment of its creation, even if it happens in the center of the sun, it escapes the entire star immediately. There are many different beta decay types, and I mentioned just one; others help as classified neutrinos. Just like with other fundamental particles that come in three flavors—with charged leptons (electron, muon, tau), the up-type quarks (up, charm, top), and the down-type quarks (down, strange, bottom), neutrinos can also be different in mass and property. The one created in the previous example with the creation of positrons is called an electron neutrino, but if anti-tau or anti-muons are created in the process, neutrinos that emerge on the other side of the decay will be tau or muon-neutrinos, respectively. Neutrino, no matter which type it is, belongs to leptons as well. This means it is not affected by strong nuclear force at all, and it only interacts with weak nuclear force, and because it is a particle with mass, it also follows gravity as well. To simply illustrate its ghostly manner, I will just note that its tiny mass is about 4 millionths of the electron mass (and electron mass is 1837 times less heavy than the entire mass of hydrogen). Furthermore, it is not electromagnetically charged and therefore not affected by this fundamental force as well. In other words, if you like to watch horror movies or believe in ghosts, the obvious conclusion is that they are made of neutrinos. That would perfectly explain how ghosts travel through walls and doors just like Patrick Swayze did in the movie "Ghost" a couple of decades ago.

Well, kidding aside, and thankfully for these neutrino's features, they are really one ghostly particle that is extremely hard to either control or detect. However, this phantom behavior of theirs immediately triggers some extraordinary ideas. If we could embed messages into neutrinos and control the path of their beam, we might literally send them through anything. If some neutrino-based portable device is possible to be built and you are located, for example, in Buenos Aries, Argentina, and you want to send a message to Beijing, China, you would have to point your neutrino device slightly toward the center of the Earth*, and neutrinos would reach the receiver with speed of light all the way through the planet. But before we glimpse into the obvious possibility of whether or not it is possible to use neutrinos in some sort of communication, let's check some more facts about them.


Basically, neutrinos, strictly speaking, belong to the radiation realm. They are indeed carriers of radioactive energy. The same as alpha and beta particles, gamma rays, muon radiations, and tons of other types of particles floating around the universe as a result of different types of particle decays or some other processes in the universe. Actually, we are living in a soup of radioactive energy on a daily basis from various sources, as pretty much everything in the universe is decaying or decomposing toward the ultimate fate of the universe, which will in the end be just one giant soup of basic ingredients, if the ever-lasting expansion of the universe is the correct theory, that is. Therefore, the choice between usage of paper and plastic bags has nothing green in the potential answer. Either way, both bags will eventually decompose. Just give them enough time. Humans are also radioactive; we also emit radioactive particles thanks to the radioactive food we are consuming. Technically speaking, all food is radioactive because all organic food contains carbon-14, or radiocarbon, as it is nicknamed. Many other radioactive elements can be found in other products, and the most notable one is potassium-40. This one is actually a radioactive isotope that undergoes all three types of beta decay. In one of them it emits neutrinos as well. So, if you like eating bananas, rest assured that you are one of the neutrino producers, as well as bananas are very rich in potassium. Believe it or not, large container shipments full of bananas at ports or airports regularly trigger radiation alarms. Well, if you have not eaten the entire container full of bananas, you are safe. Radiation from a couple of bananas is harmless, way below the edge, and potassium is actually very good for you, and if you emit a neutrino here and there, nobody will notice. Believe me. Well, on second thought, don't believe me. Even though neutrinos are very hard to detect, there is still, after all, a way to do it.

Neutrinos are tiny particles, but few of them, on rare occasions, still collide with the atom nucleus of the material they are passing through. And by few, I mean the literal meaning of the word. The Sun is producing an extremely large number of neutrinos—60 billion per square centimeter are passing through Earth and... us each second. That is maybe around 100 trillions of neutrinos passing average humans. To detect that few, several extremely large detectors are created, and one of them is shown in the above image: Super-Kamiokande under Mount Ikeno in Japan. It utilizes Cherenkov radiation, optically equivalent to a sonic boom, to detect collisions. If neutrino collides with the electron or nuclei of water, neutrino only changes direction, but the particle that was struck recoils in sudden motion and faster than the speed of light in water (which is slower than the maximum speed of light in a vacuum). This creates a flash of light, which is amplified with photo detectors (those round bulbs all over the water pool). This flash provides information on the direction and type of the neutrino. SK is located in the old zinc mine 1 km below the surface in order to exclude all other radiation to reach the water and ensure that only neutrinos are detected. To illustrate the small number of neutrinos detected with this approach, state the fact that the total number of collisions detected from supernova SN1987A in Kamiokande was only 19 out of trillions of neutrinos emitted by the supernova. A small amount of neutrinos are regularly detected from the Sun, and their number is way smaller than predicted by the number of estimated nuclear reactions in the star, which provides proof that neutrinos are able to change their flavor during their travel, and as it seems, especially during their travel through solid matter. Different numbers of solar neutrinos are detected during the night as they pass a long way through the solid matter of the entire planet Earth, while on daylight they need to penetrate only those 1000 meters to reach the mine chamber.


Poor detection of neutrinos due to their weekly interaction with matter is only the start of bad news regarding the potential communication device we are trying to build. More difficulties follow. For example, artificial production of desirable types of neutrinos is either with nuclear reactions or in particle accelerators, which are either too large or too dangerous to build. Encoded information in beamed neutrinos can also be lost with their oscillation between flavors during travel. Creating desirable beams and paths is still not perfect, and last but not least, there is too much noise on the way as billions and billions of other neutrinos are also there, either created in stars, supernovas, or those created in the very beginning during the big bang. Even so, scientists with powerful proton accelerators developed a procedure to develop stable beams of neutrinos or anti-neutrinos**, which are then directed toward near and/or distant detectors. Two experiments emerged with potential scientific value: in the first, a neutrino beam at Fermilab was sent with a short, encoded message through 240 meters of rock toward the MINERvA neutrino detector, and the word "neutrino", which was binary encoded within the beam sequence, was successfully decoded. The second and most challenging one was performed in Japan. Within the "T2K experiment", both neutrino and anti-neutrino beams are created in the J-PARC laboratory and sent toward 295 km distant Super-Kamiokande. Both are successfully detected and, in return, opened the first working neutrino beamline on large distances.

So in both theory and practice, neutrino communication might be possible, and current experiments confirm it with working proof of concepts made in large neutrino observatories and accelerators. Actually, it resembles the state of computers as they were some half a century ago, when they were large and limited in mathematical computation and built with bulky vacuum tubes. With the invention of semi-conductors and transistors, everything changed, and the result is pretty much in front of you, either on your desk, lap, or palm. Perhaps a similar breakthrough is waiting to be invented so we could equip our smartphones of the future with neutrino messaging when we would be finally able to send texts to Mars from our living room without enormous satellite dishes. Who knows, maybe the search for extraterrestrials would gain a completely new angle, and perhaps many of those neutrinos that are passing through our bodies right now could be complex messages from E.T., and neutrino communication in the future might be our ticket into the Milky Way alien internet. Universe's WiFi. So to speak.


Speaking about E.T. and science fiction in general, this neutrino story reminded me about two more things I love to share in conclusion for this post. The first one is John Cramer, experimental and theoretical physicist and professor at the Department of Physics, University of Washington, Seattle. Some seven or eight years ago, Cramer intended to perform an experiment with two quantum entangled laser beams pointed in different directions. He was trying to prove that by fiddling with one beam that was sent into a circuitous detour miles away through optical cable, it would be detectable on the second beam that was ended in a detector much earlier in a different location. Detection of this form of laser beam fiddling would be an indication that quantum entanglement is a phenomenon not only between spatially distant particles but also distant in time. When asked what he expects in the outcome, John Cramer, being a science fiction author as well, said: "If this experiment we're doing works, then I will follow up and push it as hard as possible. And if it doesn't work, I will write a science-fiction novel where it does work. It's a win-win situation."

The second thing, and in the recent tradition of MPJ and its "books" thread, what partially hinted at this post is the great novel "Signal", written by Patrick Lee, with the entire plot triggered by the neutrino-based portable device capable of catching radio waves from the future by harvesting neutrinos that move against the direction of time. The device is able to hook into radio stations 10 hours ahead. Just try to imagine all the implications and applications of this kind of fictitious device. If you can't, I am encouraging you to grab Patrick's novel and read it. I literally swallowed it and, during reading, eagerly waited for another chapter. I really can't emphasize what is better, the thriller plot, scifi, or the intense writing. I will say no more.

Image refs:
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-neutrino-detectors-look-so-cool
http://irfu.cea.fr/Sphn/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Ast/
http://www.patrickleefiction.com/
http://www.nuclear-power.net/nuclear-power/fundamental-particles/antineutrino/
http://particleadventure.org/neutrinos.html

In text refs:
* http://www.antipodesmap.com/
** http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/november-2012/how-to-make-a-neutrino-beam

Refs:
http://physics.info/standard/practice.shtml
http://chemistry.about.com/od/foodcookingchemistry/tp/Radioactive-Foods.htm
http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/life-is-rad
http://www2.lbl.gov/abc/wallchart/chapters/03/2.html
https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/neutrinos/neutrino-types/
http://timeblimp.com/?page_id=1033
http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2007/07/17/4350992-backward-research-goes-forward
http://faculty.washington.edu/jcramer/cramer.html

Atlanteans

If I am going to give a thought or two about ancient Atlantis, its mysterious people and all the conspiracy theories behind it, there is no doubt that I'll first think of the origin of the story. Classical Greece and Plato. One of the most famous scholars from BC. In his own time, Plato was definitely the top Greek philosopher from ancient Athens, who lived in fourth century before Christ and dedicated his entire scholarly life to philosophical research and development of modern society and politics. The method he used in his publications were dialogues, very popular way of expressing scientific thoughts at the time. Plato's dialogues, in which he never took the role as one of participants, were often the front story accompanied with narration, but in some of them he even excluded narrator and presented his work in pure novel-style with his characters carrying the story all the way.


In regards of today's title, two dialogues are especially interested - Timaeus and Critias. Participants in the dialogues where Socrates, Timaeus, Hermocrates, and Critias and Plato tried to describe the perfect society time-framed way back before the old Classical Greece. In very short, these two dialogues describes a tale from a man called Solon, another Athenian, who during his travels throughout the ancient Egypt, learned about mysterious people who lived and perished many generations before. Twenty years or so before these dialogues, Plato had written his masterpiece "The Republic" in which he discussed what he thought of ideal state with a 'just man' and the meaning of justice in general from the point of view of Greek cities from the classical time. His ideal state was named 'Ancient Athens', placed in existence 9000 years before Plato's time (or 900 if suggested error in translation is true) and governed with superior and almost utopian society. As it seems, Atlanteans are used in Plato's books just as an example of how even the enemy that was so powerful, beyond any current comprehension, is incapable of defeating perfectly regulated society. After that the story went wild and Atlanteans, who tried to enslave entire Mediterranean, were easily defeated by 'utopian' and perfectly organised Athenians. In the aftermath, their superb armada retreated to their island and the gods in their final rage destroyed entire Atlantean civilization which Plato described in his famous words "There occurred violent earthquakes and floods and in a single day and night of misfortune the island of Atlantis disappeared into the depths of the sea." In second dialogue "Critias", Plato described in more details the origin of the 'ancient' Atlanteans with extensive use of old Greek mythology as Poseidon's heaven who created perfect society that ultimately, over time, started to fade out as soon as they started losing their divine origin and got overwhelmed in corruption.

Today, we have a great knowledge about ancient Greek times and so far there is no scientific facts in favour of "ancient of the ancient" Greek society that is older than 3 millenniums BC who fought mighty civilizations who came from the other side of the Pillars of Hercules and both vanished without a single trace. However, there is a faint clue and tons of theories of where Plato really found inspiration for this incredible tale.

Reconstruction of a late Cycladic Ship (© 7reasons, Michael Klein)*

As for the faint clue, I would vote for ancient Minoan civilization and their predecessors who preceded Greeks in the Aegean and suffered ultimate decimation from both natural disaster and human invaders. They lived on the island of Crete within ancient settlements of Knossos and Gortyn and also within northern Aegean island of Thera (Santorini) in ancient site of Akrotiri which is, just like Roman Pompeii remarkably preserved after the tremendous volcanic eruption. Their civilization flourished in late Bronze age and like in Plato's words, within single day and night, around the year of 1600 BC, disappeared into the sea in one of the most powerful volcano eruption in the history of entire world. What is today known as 'The Minoan eruption of Thera' seismologists tend to classify as four times powerful than well known explosion of Krakatoa. If Minoans had more settlements in the neighborhood, which was likely, they were all destroyed and sunk during the natural reshaping of the archipelago. Massive eruption, no doubt, created large tsunami wave that probably reached all the way to Crete and ultimately decimated Minoan people in the northern part of island. In a following years, pirates and thieves from the sea and land took the chance and made sure for Minoans to never recover to what they once were.

Well, in a conclusion and after this small history glimpse, if you ask me, there is a fair chance that Plato's Atlanteans are truly based on ancient Minoans. After all, 2300+ years ago, in Plato's time, the world wasn't big and the entire cradle of the civilization as we popularly call Greek Classical times was small and all about the Aegean sea. Even the Mediterranean was too large for wooden galleys and far travels. Ancient Minoans came to Aegean two millenniums before Plato and after their misfortune I am sure the legends and myths about them grew slightly above the facts. Still, their language, clay tablets, art, pottery, architecture and overall history prove they once were a very respectful and organized society.


There is no doubt that Atlanteans from Plato's 'Timaeus and Critias' served just a supporting role in this piece of philosophy but still ever since the Atlantis story has had a large impact on literature, comic books and movies. They are used in tons of novels and portrayed as insanely advanced civilization with all the technological wonders, perfect cities, flying ships, state of the art armory, etc. There is no bay or gulf in Mediterranean sea and Atlantic ocean all the way to Caribbean that some rich adventurer or scholar didn't try to find the Atlantean ruins or at least to post new theory of Atlantis site or conspiracy theory of some sort. To be honest, I am really ok with that - if you look to it from the entertainment point of view, what you get is very much fun and if you read it on the beach it surely adds another level to your vacation time.

This is exactly what I did this summer and during our ten days of R&R on Thassos Island of northern Aegean I loaded all three books of The Origin Mystery in my Kindle and swallowed them all in record time. Honestly, from this trilogy I expected a lot and this is exactly what I got! You have to be brave to make yet another novel about Atlanteans and A.G. Riddle wrapped it just right. He managed to connect several Sci Fi genres into one successful story. For my taste all the sciences are there and connected perfectly. Biology, virology and genetic research including junk-DNA involvement, physics and space travels, quantum entanglement, Antarctica, known history and use of connection and conspiracy theories like Nazi bell (Die Glocke) or Roswell UFO sighting. Play with time dilatation and hibernation. Space battles of enormous proportion. Explanation of Gods and ancient astronauts. If you add usual 'Indiana Jones' type of adventures and romance there was no better choice for me this July. Perhaps, using so many connected sciences in the plot is too risky as the author faces with challenges of choosing what is more important and deserves to be explained better at the expense of other technologies or speculations but I don't mind. All in all, Riddle's Atlanteans are perhaps the best version I read in a long while and I warmly recommend it.

Reconstruction of the Akrotiri Supervolcano (© 7reasons, Michael Klein)*

As for the real Atlanteans or in this case ancient Minoans I hope some of next summers will lead us to the southern Aegean and then this story will earn another post in the thread. No doubt with images from ancient Akrotiri. In the meantime don't miss below link with incredible scientific reconstructions from before the Minoan Eruption made by the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archeology (LBI ArchPro).

Images credit:
The Akrotiri Supervolcano (© 7reasons, Michael Klein)