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Win a signed copy of Tomorrow the Train: Journey to the World Record
Write a travel story of a trip you took or a fantasy trip you’d like to take.
Earthly trips only, please!
The story should be 3 to 6 paragraphs. Paragraphs may be as long as you wish.
Suggestions: Romance; scenery that makes us want to go there; danger and escapes; exciting events; interesting strangers and or friends you meet or travel with.
Or, use your imagination entirely or mix it with one or all of the suggestions.
The winner will be announced on Oct 3rd in the Eons Book Gallery Group.

The story behind the story of THE EZEKIEL CODE:

The seed that eventually grew to become The Ezekiel Code was actually planted many years prior to having any notion of writing a novel.

Back in the late 60s I had decided to read the Bible from cover to cover. I can't say I read every word but I did at least read "through" it from beginning to end. Now, having had an interest in the UFO phenomenon since the age of about 12, some of the passages in the Bible struck me as being somewhat similar to reports I'd read about UFO sightings. I first noticed it in the story of the Israelite's long journey through the desert. They followed a "pillar of cloud by day" and a "pillar of fire by night". That struck me as a rather curious phenomenon. Added to that was the Ark of the Covenant which functioned to somehow to serve as a communication device between "God" and Moses, the leader of this band of wandering Jews. I wondered, could the Ark be some sort of a wireless communication technology so "God" (or whatever it was!) could talk to Moses from his "ship", the pillar of cloud by day, lit up at night? Then in the book of Numbers this "cloud" that carried "God" actually landed on the ground. Then there was Elijah who was "taken up" in a "whirlwind". It was becoming curiouser and curiouser. Then came the hammer that hit me on the head. It was the book of Ezekiel. His descriptions of the object that came down from the sky seemed much too mechanical to be anything of an ethereal nature. His incredibly detailed descriptions seemed to me like the way someone of his time in history, with a priestly background and absolutely no knowledge of advanced technology (beyond a cart pulled by a donkey), would describe a technological craft. Some years later I discovered a book called The Spaceships of Ezekiel written by a former NASA contract engineer by the name of Joseph Blumrich. His son had noticed the same things about Ezekiel's descriptions that I had noticed and, knowing the nature of his father's work with NASA, he told his father about it. Blumrich didn't believe it at first but the more he studied it the more he began to change his mind. The book is his professional analysis of what it was that Ezekiel may actually have encountered. After reading that book I was left with not a shred of doubt that Ezekiel had experienced what we now call a Close Encounter of the Third Kind.

Fast forward to sometime in the mid-90s:

I was sitting in an all-night diner at about 2 o'clock in the morning with my best friend, Julie. I think maybe we had been to see a sci-fi movie earlier in the evening which is probably what sparked a conversation about UFOs. Once again, this idea about Ezekiel came to the forefront of my mind and I told Julie about it. I mentioned that the idea would make a great theme for someone like Spielberg or Lucas to build a movie around. The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea but I knew I had no way of getting the idea to either of those guys. This left me quite disappointed. I'd probably never get to see this idea on the big screen. Then it hit me. I can't make a movie but I can write. Why don't I write a novel based on this idea? I was all ready half way through the writing of another sci-fi novel at the time but this idea struck me as so extraordinary that I immediately shelved the other novel and began sketching out ideas for this new book which, at the time, had a working title of Ezekiel's Wheels. So how and why did it change from Ezekiel's Wheels to The Ezekiel Code? That was a two-part process of an organic nature.

Part-1 of the process:

At about the same time I started working on the book I was also well into the beginning stages of another little exploration that eventually began to take over my life. I had, quite by accident, stumbled onto the idea that the English alphabet might be naturally or artificially "encoded" in some manner so as to correspond with our base-10 numbering system and that, somehow, the number 9 and the phenomenon of "synchronicity" were key to the whole thing. That, in itself, is a long story and the work is detailed at www.secretofnine.com. The bottom line is that this work was so ingrained into my consciousness that it almost naturally began to flow into my ideas about the plot of my book. It provided a perfect plot device to propel the story. Not only did I recognize how well it would work I also knew it was so original that it would be unique among anything else that was out there.

Part-2 of the process:

I was not at all happy with the working title, Ezekiel's Wheels. It wasn't dramatic enough. It wasn't very catchy. Sort of... blah. Then one day, maybe around 2003/2004, I heard about a book by one of my favorite "alternative" researchers, Gregg Braden. His book was called The God Code. That reminded me of the title of Dosnin's best selling book, The Bible Code. And Julie had recently purchased a book called Healing Codes of the Biological Apocalypse (a book, by the way, in which the co-author had made one of the same key discoveries about the English alphabet that I had made a few years earlier!). At the same time came the phenomenal best-selling The DaVinci Code. Well, I'm not blind. I started to recognize a pattern. All of these books were best sellers in their respective categories. Clearly the public had a thirst for anything with the word "code" in the title. How fortuitous for me! My book definitely had the code element going for it so I latched onto the idea and changed the title to The Ezekiel Code. As soon as I made that change all the little things that kept blocking my progress regarding the direction of the plot just fell away and the story began to write itself, sometimes so fast I could hardly keep up with it even though it did take me nearly 9 years to complete the darn thing!

So that, in a nut shell, is the story behind The Ezekiel Code.

"2012 is coming...The clock is ticking...The code must be deciphered...And only one man can save the planet...If he can just figure out how...Before it's too late."

Sample chapters and reviews:
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One day when I came home from school, a woman who didn’t speak English was in our living room sewing a dress on my mother’s sewing machine. My mother spoke to her by using the dictionary she’d bought for her Spanish class. After the woman left, my mother said she was from Barcelona. Her husband had been a doctor, like my father, but he’d been killed in one of Franco’s air raids. Now she was a refugee and had to support herself by making dresses.

To read the balance, please go to Reply 1

Hubby's new column. Please check it out. Why it is so hard to learn English!

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WE ARE HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE THE SECOND ANNUAL FREE AUTHORS DAY EVENT HOSTED BY EONS.

The event is a whole day affair where Authors meet and chat with readers about their experiences, their books, about the craft, and network with other authors. We have over 50 authors participating. . This year some authors are giving away prizes for contests and games. It begins at 9 am EST and ends at midnight!

MARK YOUR CALENDAR!

EONS BOOK GALLERY

After card eighteen the compositions of the Horrors of War cards seemed to open up and grow less crowded. In addition, the subject matter expanded from the Sino-Japanese War to the Spanish Civil War that began in July of 1936 and to the October 1935 Italian invasion of Ethiopia. The Sino-Japanese war cards continued to be clearly anti-Japanese. They called the Japanese “Japs” and dwelled on their brutality. Indeed, they were so vigorously anti-Japanese that some members of Congress complained and accused GUM, INC., Phila. Pa. of conducting ”Bubblegum Diplomacy.”

To read the balance, please go to Reply 1

Hey, all my friends! Check out my newest column. Please leave a comment if Avon books comes looking, they need to see I have a readership! (LOL)

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Sammy's new column. A little different from his usual humorous fare. Life and Loss on the Farm.

Please feel free to leave a comment!



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Part 2—The Coquillages
I left the café, strolled up the boulevard, took a table in a seafood restaurant and ordered mussels, a green salad and a bottle of Rhone red. As I finished Camus’ chapter on nihilism through history, the waiter returned and displayed my wine. I read the label, nodded and watched him extract the cork. I gave it a cursory glance, twirled and sniffed the sample he poured, tilted the glass to examine the opacity, twirled it again to watch the tracks run down the far side, allowed some onto my tongue, rolled it from the front of my mouth to the rear, stared into the middle distance for a count of three, all more for the waiter’s benefit than my own, (I can’t always distinguish table wine from Origin Controlled) and nodded for him to fill my glass.

To read the balance, please go to Reply 1

Part 1—Camus and Lincoln
A couple of months ago, I was sitting in a cafe on Boulevard du Montparnasse, having a drink before dinner, rereading THE REBEL, half-hoping to be interrupted by some intellectual Parisienne, fluent in English or willing to speak French slowly.

To read the balance, please go to Reply 1