Bøger udgivet af Clocktower Books

When a man loves an airplane, it's a matter of calculations. When a man loves a woman, everything is up in the air. Paul Owens, in the early 1970s, found an obscure Soviet technical journal-and an inspiration that would save the Free World (based on true history). Paul also falls in love with a beautiful, intelligent young widow named Marsha Kassner, 32, who moves next door with her son Peter, 9. A brilliant aircraft engineer at Lockheed's Skunk Works, Paul is also a handsome young man tending toward fast cars, long hair, and loud music-all anathema to his stiff-necked supervisors. Certain mid-level managers conspire to eliminate him, in favor of someone safe, bland, and devoid of ideas like they are. Their mediocrity, and their resistance to change, nearly derails one of the most brilliant inventions of the century. Have Blue, named after the project that gave birth to this technology that saved mankind from World War III, is a historical techno-thriller with a strong romantic story line, loosely based on the first days of that project. The hero, a young engineer with a fascination for aerodynamic nosecones, discovers a stunning mathematical secret in an obscure Soviet journal--overlooked by similarly mediocre managers in the Communist domain. Have Blue was the most top-secret U.S. military project since the atomic bomb project. In 1973, the fate of the world hung on what would eventually become known as the F117-A stealth fighter. This became clear during the so-called Yom Kippur War (October 1973) between Israel and her Arab neighbors. This brief, devastating war was a test run between U.S. and Soviet proxies. One of the key arenas became the war between Soviet-built Egyptian defensive radars and U.S. penetrating attack jet technology-and the latter won, hands down. Now if only Paul Owens could overcome the forces conspiring to keep him from bringing his growing affection for Marsha Kassner through all the opposing radars to win her heart.

Library Journal, in their 2003 review of the print edition, offered warm praise for this "fresh, original new approach to a timeless classic" and recommended it for large libraries everywhere. In its initial appearance as an e-book at Fictionwise, this novel sold thousands of copies and garnered over 400 reviews, almost all positive, most of them raves. (Synopsis follows at end below.) It's a soaring, imaginative science fiction novel in a well-established, long-standing tradition (called Robinsonades, typically about shipwrecked, marooned adventurers) whose science fiction subset alone includes the following: Robinson Crusoe on Mars (film 1964); The Island of Dr. Moreau (novel H. G. Wells, 1896; films 1977, 1996); Enemy Mine (film 1985); Lord of the Flies (novel, 1953 Nobel Laureate William Golding; film 1963); and most recently Andy Weir's 2011 self-published SF novel The Martian, which became a successful major Hollywood film in 2014. There will be many more in the future-maybe even a film based on Robinson Crusoe 1,000,000 A.D. Note: the original Robinson Crusoe 1719 novel by Daniel Defoe is NOT a children's story. Although it has been borrowed, revised, and sanitized-made into Disney fuzzy bunny cartoons, abridged for children's editions-Daniel Defoe wrote a dark, violent, bloody novel about murder, betrayal, slavery, and cannibal feasts. The website (www.clocktowerbooks.com) cites at least one academic expert on this, plus info on pacing, point of view, homages, characters names, and many other fascinating topics. BRIEF SYNOPSIS: A million years into a totally unexpected future, our hero is the last man on Earth. Nobody has ever been so alone. Alex Kirk awakens a million years from now, utterly alone and in terrible danger on a brave new Earth. Humankind has been extinct for eons, and Alex Kirk is at best an accident, an afterthought in an uncaring universe filled with dreadful secrets. This is more than a purely entertaining DarkSF novel in the rich tradition of Blade Runner, Alien, Dark City, and other atmospheric, poetic literary SF. It's a stark warning about the dangers of genetic engineering that will soon be the greatest menace to humankind in history-scarier than 20th Century atomic bomb fears . If you're looking for post-apoc, with a plausible reason, here it is. He is marooned like no human ever before--in time and space. He can never meet another human, because he is a clone born in a wrecked, moss-covered breeding tank deep in a sentient cave. He has only the original Alex Kirk's memories to sustain him, but those are brittle and fragmented in Alex's newly formed mind. And yet Alex Kirk summons the determination to live, to dream, and to strive against all despair. Earth in 1,000,000 A.D. is a planet of shocks and surprises, from huge saltwater flowers to the giant butterflies that pollinate them. Sinister and cunning, black-furred, evolved wolverine/bear Rippers with boar tusks lurk hour after hour waiting for Alex to make a single mistake so they can devour him. This scary new world has living caves that swallow people; armed and marauding aftermen; a haunted village of long-dead clone men and women; a valley formed when an ancient university crumbled and its experimental laboratories fissured, with a swift-flowing river between them, a valley littered with skulls, picked over by Rippers and other un-things in the long afterglow of old Earth. One day, solitary, lonely Alex sees a curious smudge in space, beside the moon. He will discover it encapsulates the secret of what happened to humankind, and the key to his own fate. Starting alone, naked, and with nothing except a fierce will to survive, Alex courageously explores, battles, and conquers. He ultimately confronts the enigma of who he is and why ancient humans left him shipwrecked and alone in eternity. Is there a woman-Friday to relieve his nightmare existence? Read this novel and learn the answer. Hint: "strawberry ice cream."

Life in the Mediterranean Arms, a luxury apartment building in Brooklyn, is at times like living in a soap opera. It's the 1970s--women were still called 'girls', and many filled their days gossiping about their neighbors. When a beautiful young widow, Marion Davis, is attracted to dashing Neil Kramer, the attraction seems mutual. Marion believes Neil will make her life exciting again.In true daytime soap mode, there's just one problem. Neil is married to Sandra, her best friend and neighbor. Then there's Eddie Berg, Sandra Kramer's brother, who tries desperately to make Marion realize the difference between illusion and reality, between the superficial and the genuine. The yentas of the Mediterranean Arms focus on Marion, betting how long it will take her to 'get' Neil? But is he worth it? And will Marion's awakening come too late to avoid disaster? "Renée Horowitz creates a dead-on portrait of an insular, Mad Men-era world in which women define themselves by their success at marriage...a world in which small acts of malice reverberate. Bitter, indeed, and gripping." -Janice Steinberg, bestselling author of The Tin Horse. "The story transported me back to the Brooklyn I remember, and I felt as though I knew the characters personally. The kind of book that keeps you thinking about the characters and the story long after you finish reading the last page." -Barbara Meyerson, literary critic and Brooklyn native.

Praised by reviewers, Lantern Road* is a far-future adventure of a doomed love between a human and a gorgeous alien princess. In a galaxy where humans are hated and hunted like prey during the Inversion of Man*, their affair causes scandal that only ritual suicide can fix. While Lady Ramy is forced to take her life (but wait - you don't know the whole story until the end), Jory the Velvet Thief & Failure escapes to the stars - and an amazing adventure.*The title Lantern Road refers to the imperial highway circling Oba's great island in eternal night. Based on feudal Japan's famed Tokaido Road, in this novel - full of foot traffic with swinging, hurrying lanterns of all colors - it evokes the galaxies above. **The Inversion is a 2000 year dark age in humankind's long, checkered history documented by the series.Two passionate lovers, best friends since childhood - a human slave, Jory, and his alien mistress, the beautiful young princess Ramy of Oba - are discovered in a forbidden tryst. They face death together by the classic twin short-swords, inscribed with nursery rhymes doubling as suicide poems, which are routinely gifted to lovers in this dark, faraway world run by a samurai-like warrior cult. What will become of the doomed lovers? Will their Lantern Road be one of death, or will they find their way to the stars? In a terrifying, achingly far-distant future lies an alien realm that resembles feudal Japan. Old Earth is long forgotten or may never have existed. Humans are despised underpeople of the galaxy, hunted as prey, hated everywhere, cruelly enslaved on worlds like Oba.Alas, Lady Ramy and her wasp-sister Ramy-baba cannot escape their self-execution by the twin short rabbit-swords of the ancient poetic fame. But Jory O'Call, her human lover - condemned as well by his own people - escapes to the stars. There, he encounters wonders beyond imagination. But the greatest wonder of all is a secret we encounter at the very end of the story. It is a new life, a new Lantern Road, in which the lanterns are the ocean of stars through which Jory navigates starships - but sometimes fate comes full circle. There is even more to wonder at, but we leave that to your reading pleasure and amazement.Tim Pratt, Locus Online: "...a richly-realized far-future world in which strange wonders are revealed as considerable suspense builds. The characters are interesting, and the plot moves well, but the real star here is the universe in which the events take place, especially the inhabited moon, Shur, with its complex star faring alien culture, reminiscent of Imperial Japan, but with strange complications--including multi-use fungi gardens and a third gender. Argo's handling of detail is remarkable, creating a sense of a whole universe without bombarding the reader with unnecessary information." (full review with the book).John K. Muir, author/media critic, SciFi Channel, Cinescape; "I had the pleasure of reading Lantern Road...and found it to be a very atmospheric reading experience. I was floored by many of the descriptive passages and conceits... John Argo's Lantern Road is a sensuous and elaborate glimpse into a distant future--evoked, interestingly, by way of our storied past. Earth is a barely-remembered legend, man is a slave, and a unique species of alien (which includes an insect-like third sex...) dominates a faraway planet. But the story is accessible and immediate (rather than farfetched) because the writer, in lyrical, descriptive passages, has forged a civilization that evokes memories of the ancient Orient, with all of its imperial plotting and conspiracies. Our hero, Jory O'Call, is a slave, sold into a royal alien family by his poor parents..." (full review with the book).

NOTE: for an update on the second anniversary of MH370's disappearance, see John T. Cullen's new book titled Lemma 3: MH370 Solution. Contains updated info as of 8 March 2016 (detailed new intro) plus the complete June 2014 text as in Vanished 777. Finds of wing debris in African waters strongly support the author's 2014 proposal now called Lemma 3 or Africa Gambit. Website info soon at Clocktower Books. What really happened to Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370? Author John T. Cullen unleashes an imaginative wake-up call against complacency. Here is a plausible, scary, fact-based theory that avoids crackpot conspiracies while delivering a chilling "what if" thought experiment. Yes, it is possible that the plane met with a tragic accident and fell into the sea--but the circumstances of its vanishing are so bizarre that we must think outside the box and suspect a diabolical plan by the terrorists who caused 9/11 and other assaults on civilization. The default premise is that Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 (fictionalized here as Flight 777) was taken by terrorists, will be weaponized, and will be used against the West in the most spectacular terrorist attack to date. The story never takes its eye off its entertainment mission, while delivering a battery of plausible, hair-raising scenarios - culminating in a cliff-hanger climax you guaranteed will not see coming. A vacation in paradise becomes an adventure in hell for Jack Dorsey and his deeply covert Team Gray troops. Returning from a top secret mission in the Middle East, the men enjoy a few innocent days of R&R with their young wives on a remote, tropical Malaysian island - just hours before being hurled into aviation history's darkest mystery. The circumstances of the plane's disappearance are too suspicious to ignore. Even more ominously, the presumed hijack comes just before the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's May 2011 death during capture by U.S. Navy SEALs in Pakistan. Forensically, talk about motive (revenge), opportunity (a rich choice of horrifying targets), and means (the hijacked airliner). In particular, think about method. This enemy often uses common means of mass transportation for his spectacular mass murders. Think World Trade Center 2005 (car bomb); NYC 9/11 (planes); Madrid (trains); USS Cole (warship); London (subway, cars)... the list goes on. Flight 777 (aircraft), anyone? The author, a U.S. Army veteran comfortable with military culture at all levels, takes you directly to command centers as well as action scenes. Our primary hero is Jack Dorsey, a historian and millionaire in private life, and a U.S. Army Reservist on duty. He is the hero of Doctor Night, a futuristic Jack Gray thriller, for which Vanished Flight 777 is now a prequel. Jack is preoccupied with his beautiful wife Catherine, who is due to deliver their first child at their Temecula (San Diego County) ranch. All the heroes and heroines of this novel seem real and compelling, with personal lives and families, but without slowing a breakneck pace. They also have a special stake - Team Gray member Rob Keaka and wife Marian took off on Flight 777. Supporting Jack, as he uncovers the riddle of Vanished Flight 777, are engaging characters including tall, capable U.S. Navy Cdr. Mary Rose 'Maro' Rodriguez; the gritty and hard-moving young Admiral Paul Falk; and heroic Special Forces troops from all services including Master Sergeants Ben Latoni and Ray Marston and USMC Captain Shep Sepak. Jack also works with regional intelligence analysts like IDF Colonel Rebekah Goldstein and Saudi RAF Col. Mustafa 'Don' bin Malik. Civilization's relentless enemy has only death in his dreams for us, day and night. We must assume that Flight 777 is weaponized and ready for the deadliest, most spectacular assault yet. Only through awareness can we anticipate and defuse the next chapter in our ongoing nightmare. Join us for Vanished Flight 777 - and think about the implications while enjoying a

Summer in the Garden of Eros celebrates that delightful memory in many a man's life, a youthful fling with a slightly older woman. We're talking about young people who are all in their twenties, so the author originally published this story as Spring & his Summers, with his younger self as May or Spring, and his slightly older seductresses as June or Summer. When the sensuous god Eros demanded that his name be included (truth in packaging), the title became as you see it. Hormonius Young was a handsome, strong, but lost (or 'not yet found') young artist with long hair, a beard, and a guitar. For some reason, his life was continually graced by an irresistible attraction to Spring-Summer or May-June romances. He and his women lovers were all in their twenties, the oldest just thirty. His women were slightly older and more experienced. Many were jaded and hurt by divorce and social straight-jackets of former unhappy marriages. For a young man, a relationship like this is a learning adventure full of wonder, an initiation into mature emotions and sexual delights with a woman of experience. For a women newly divorced or widowed, dealing with her pain and anger and other issues, a dalliance with her young lover is a brief interlude of the greatest freedom she will ever experience. Think about it: she is between marriages. She keeps her lover secret from family and friends. There are no obligation or future, just the pleasures of here and now. The woman owns and operates the show, so the garden of secrets and delights is hers to share as she sees fit. It is her garden of dreams and games, into which she allows a suitable and well-appointed young lover who is gentle, kind, understanding, energetic, and a stallion. This is that moment in old movies, where they couldn't show anything, where the violins turn into a gale wind under ripping gray clouds in the (dark and stormy) night, and wild horses are released from their barn to run free in the alfalfa fields whinnying with exuberant desire. Like the young Spring, a beautiful young Summer will forever remember the wildest fling of her young life, and her moment of total freedom when the sun never stood higher, rounder, yellower, warmer, or happier in her own secret Garden of Eros. Together, the young man and each of his women in succession found unforgettable passion in the secret garden of her heart--and among the pillows. It was, at the time, forbidden fruit--a love out of season, especially ripe and full in the summery Garden of Eros, and never to forget. Let's put it this way. Hormonius Young was a boy, by most standards, even with a beard and the lustful appetites of a brewery horse. His women were not cougars, but kittens (with claws, and teeth as sharp as their appetites and shameless laughter). Hormonius Young wrote these erotic memoirs much later in life, when the haze of memory and the brandy of time had painted new layers of delight and understanding into what had once been, for him in his spring and the hers in their blissfully perfect young summers, the raw energy of youth and the dawning of experience. Summer in the Garden of Eros stands freshly and delightfully on its own as a character-driven, sensual novel, with nods to many predecessors in erotic candor, including D. H. Lawrence (Lady Chatterley's Lover) and Anaïs Nin (Delta of Venus) as well as the 'wild Dionysian yelps' of John Updike (Couples). Summer in the Garden of Eros celebrates male-female (mf) love, specifically that of the lusty young man and slightly older, lustier young woman, with an occasional tidbit of ff to add spice. It is tamer, and for more universal tastes, and therefore for many readers more engaging and filled with humor and sunshine, than darker-themed modern oeuvres like Pauline Reagé's The Story of O or E. L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey.

Ray Bradbury sent John T. Cullen a personal note in 2008, thanking him for writing this dark holiday fantasy worthy of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, or of Ray Bradbury's macabre yet heartwarming tales. The story is cute and entertaining for all ages, young and old. The story will have special resonance for those whose families have been touched by alcoholism and some of the resulting wounds that stay with us for a lifetime (does not touch upon sexual abuse, but violence and neglect). At the same time, this remains first and foremost an entertainment, not a lecture--much as Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol may be read either way as well. Arthur Latchloose, a miserable, wealthy old banker, has everything--but has nobody. A modern genie with a cell phone, and a wondrous clock made for the Sun King, turn his world upside down.This is a dark holiday fantasy for men and women of all faiths and cultures, which loses nothing from its unique Christmas spirit while opening its doors of wonder and spooky humor (along with a few tears) to all. Each of us is a traveler in a river of time. Like fish in water, or merfolks patrolling the deep, we are unaware of the medium in which we travel. We are born, we grow up--we love, lose, and love again--we suffer; and ultimately, each of us becomes yet another discarded vessel among the objects that time's rushing river has deposited in its empty riverbed. This, you see, is a river that only passes once through any point in time. In his hour of need, our friend Arthur Latchloose, by a strange confluence of fate and chance, comes upon a marvelous device that runs precious time through its hands. This wondrous, antique grandfather clock was built for the Sun King, and ended up passing among the hands of Oriental despots for centuries. During the recent many unfortunate wars in that mystical region, it came into the clutches of a desperate straggler-from yet another of the many wars there. This unfortunate soul, Major Jarlid, upon returning home from the war, is forced to sell it to pay his final debts. His buyer turns out to be a terribly wealthy but equally desperate and lonely man-our friend Arthur Latchloose. Along with the fabulous clock of the Sun King comes a genie right out of a bottle on some Oriental beach. He is, one might say, not a spirit to be rubbed the wrong way. But this djinni has not met the likes of feisty old Latchloose before now. And so begins a dark and curious tale, on a cold and snowy Christmas Eve. It is a story best told by firelight, worthy of Mr. Charles Dickens, but without Tiny Tim Cratchett or wailing ghosts clanking in chains. Instead, we have a genie constantly talking on his cell phone, working on contract and harried by his London office.