Where I share my love of books with reviews, features, giveaways and memes. Family and needlepoint are thrown in from time to time.
Showing posts with label David Morrell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Morrell. Show all posts

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Afterword: Spectors in the Dark

Anna from FSB Associates provided me with the excerpt below - it is found in the back of The Shimmer and explains a little more about the myserious lights and what the book is based on.


Afterword
Specters in the Dark
by David Morrell,
Author of The Shimmer

On November 7, 2004, I paged through the Sunday edition of my local newspaper, the Santa Fe New Mexican. Although I don't normally read the travel section, the headline for one of its articles caught my attention.

LIGHT UP YOUR LIFE
TINY MARFA, TEXAS, BOASTS WEIRD NATURAL PHENOMENA

The caption for a ghostly photograph referred to "mystery lights."

I couldn't resist.

Reprinted from the Washington Post, the article described how its author, Zofia Smardz, had taken her family to Marfa, a small town in west Texas, searching for strange lights that are visible there on many nights throughout the year. It's difficult to tell how far away the lights are. Magical, they bob and weave, float and waver, blink and glow, appear and vanish.

As the article pointed out, no one can say for sure what causes them. Perhaps quartz crystals absorb the heat of the day and give off static electricity when the rocks cool at night. Perhaps the lights are formed by radioactive gases. Or perhaps temperature inversions in the atmosphere refract lights from faraway vehicles. Whatever the explanation, the lights have been in west Texas for quite a while. As far back as the 1880s, a rancher noticed them and assumed they came from Indian campfires, except that when he searched in the morning, he didn't find evidence of any campfires.

The article's author described her visit to the area's viewing station. Along with her husband and two boys, she stood at the side of a country road and stared toward the dark horizon, pointing excitedly when the lights made their dramatic appearance. On occasion, however, she saw the lights when her family didn't, or else her family saw the lights when she saw nothing. A similar contrast happened when other tourists joined them. Some people were transported by the lights, while others couldn't see what all the fuss was about.

I finished my coffee, tore out the page, and went to my office, where I put the article among others on a shelf of research materials. I've been doing this for decades, stacking items that intrigue me, waiting to discover which of them calls to my subconscious.

It didn't take long for the Marfa lights to do exactly that. During many nights in the final months of 2004, just before I went to sleep, a persistent image kept appearing in my imagination. A woman stood at a viewing platform at the side of a road, staring spellbound toward alluring lights on a dark horizon. Unlike the author of the Marfalights article, this woman was not accompanied by her husband and children. Although married, she was alone. Having stopped while driving to visit her mother, she was so obsessed by the lights that nothing else mattered to her, including the husband who came looking for her.

That was all I had, and as 2005 began, I didn't even have that -- the image stopped appearing in my imagination. I'm used to ideas not being ready to reveal themselves completely, so I worked on other projects: Creepers, Scavenger, and The Spy Who Came for Christmas. Periodically, though, I removed the article from the stack on my office shelf. Rereading it, I felt compelled to do increasing research until I had a thick binder crammed with notes.

I learned that Marfa isn't the only place where the lights appear. Three other locations -- the Hessdalen valley in Norway, a remote part of the Mekong River in Thailand, and a rugged area in northeastern Australia -- have similar phenomena. In Australia, they're called the Min Min lights, and when an Australian fan got in touch with me through my website, I asked if he knew anything about the lights.

It turned out that the fan, a police officer named Daniel Browning, had actually experienced the lights.
My dad, Robert, and I were out near a town called Muttaburra in central Queensland, doing some kangaroo shooting about 30 years ago. Muttaburra was a tiny little town (10 houses). Dad was a professional "roo" shooter. We were doing some shooting at night by spotlight. We were out in the middle of nowhere -- no houses or roads anywhere nearby.

We saw a light. It was just suddenly there. We didn't see it coming at all. It just appeared and shadowed us. It did not seem to get closer or move away. It just stayed the same distance from us, moving with us. The thing wasn't on the ground or high in the air. It just sort of hovered. It lasted about 10 minutes, and what makes it vivid in my memory is that it shook my old man up. He knew we weren't remotely anywhere near homes or vehicles. This thing really had him worried, and then it was gone.
With that image drifting through my mind, I came across the DVD version of one of my favorite movies Giant (1956). Directed by George Stevens, it stars James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, and Rock Hudson in an epic about a Texas oilman's multidecade feud with a prominent cattle family. To my amazement, a documentary informed me that a lot of the film had been photographed in Marfa, the same town where the lights appeared. Moreover, a subsequent Internet search revealed that James Dean had been fascinated by the lights. He'd dragged his costars and his director to the viewing area, but he turned out to be the only one who could see them.

These elements worked on my imagination until, almost three years after that November morning when I'd come across the newspaper article, I was again visited by the image of the solitary woman who stood in the darkness at the side of a road, staring at the mysterious lights. But now I had another image: a man flying a single-engine airplane (I had recently started private-pilot lessons). To this I added the giant dishes of a radio observatory (there is in fact an observatory near Marfa) and the ruins of a military airbase from World War II (an abandoned airbase does exist outside Marfa, near where the lights appear).

I wasn't sure how all these items could be connected. Even so, I suddenly couldn't wait to begin. I made a list of all the elements I wanted to include, creating my own versions of people who in actuality had seen the lights: the rancher in the 1880s, the schoolteacher in the 1910s, James Dean in the 1950s, and the crowd involved with the ghost-light hunt in the 1970s. Yes, there really was a ghost-light hunt. A surprising amount of "reality" is in The Shimmer.

Of course, it's an alternate reality in the same way that Marfa and Rostov are alternate versions of a town in west Texas. Marfa is supposedly named after a character in Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, whereas I named Rostov after a character in Tolstoy's War and Peace. Despite the parallels, no one in The Shimmer is meant to be identified with anybody in Marfa, although I hope that this novel makes you want to visit Marfa, which has come a long way since its cattle-town days and is now a picturesque artists' community similar to Sedona, Arizona, and Santa Fe.

In one respect, however, reality needed improving. Outside Marfa, the famous ranch-house set for Giant, which I call Birthright, was indeed only a facade. Although it appeared to be an entire, grand building, if you walked behind it, you found only open grassland. Over the years, that fake front disintegrated until only its support beams remain, and they won't stay upright much longer. Because of my fondness for Giant, in The Shimmer I allowed the movie set to endure.

For more information about this novel's background, search the Internet for "Marfa lights." You'll find over half a million sites. The more you learn, the more you'll understand what I meant earlier when I wrote that a surprising amount of "reality" is in this book.


The above is an excerpt from the book The Shimmer by David Morrell. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Copyright © 2009 David Morrell, author of The Shimmer


Author Bio
David Morrell, author of The Shimmer, is the award-winning author of numerous New York Times bestsellers, including Creepers and Scavenger. Co-founder of the International Thriller Writers organization and author of the classic Brotherhood of the Rose spy trilogy, Morrell is considered by many to be the father of the modern action novel

For more information please visit www.davidmorrell.net

Learn more about The Shimmer at www.shimmerbook.com

The Shimmer by David Morrell (Book Review)



Title: The Shimmer
Author: David Morrell
Publisher: Vanguard Press


First Sentence: From fifteen hundred feet off the ground, the blue pickup truck looked like a Matchbox toy.

My synopsis: Dan Page is a police officer in Santa Fe. On his day off, he likes to fly his Cessna - it takes so much concentration to fly, that he is able to shut out all the negative things that happen on his job. On this day though, as luck would have it, he finds himself involved in a police chase. He is able to radio a gunman position to the cops on the ground - but isn't able to stop the fiery crash that actually ends the chase. He returns home with his guilt, only to find his wife, Tori, "gone". There is a note saying she has left to visit her mother in San Antonio.

When a day goes by and neither Page or his mother-in-law have heard from Tori, Dan puts in a missing person's report. Being a police officer he knows all the terrible things that can happen, so when he receives a call from a local officer in Rostov, Texas, saying that his wife is there and she is fine, Page is confused. The officer, Costigan, will not tell him why she is there, or any information really, just that he has to come there to understand.

Page flies his plan into a small airport in Rostov and locates the police department. Together with Costigan they locate his wife. She is sitting on an observation platform outside of town, just staring across a meadow. She does not even react when Page shows up. They are not there long before other people start to arrive. Evening comes and some of the watchers start to get excited, because they can see some lights in the distance. Some can't though and don't know what the fuss is about. Page can't see the lights at first, but remembers his father telling him that sometimes you have to change what you expect to see, and what you see will change. Eventually he sees the lights and gets swept up in the "dance" that they are doing.

These lights are called the Rostov lights and have been there for as long as anyone can remember, though no one can explain them. There is a facility outside of Rostov that has huge radio observatory dishes pointed towards the sky - all but one. One is pointed horizontally towards the horizon, but has been made to look as if it were being repaired. This is the most interesting one. On this particular night, it begins to pick up some strange music - music that not only can you hear - but you can taste it, feel it. It is clearer than it has ever been. This music is also being picked up at an Army Intelligence Command known as INSCOM and it is affiliated with the National Security Agency. They had been on this project for over 50 years. They are not just picking it up in Rostov but in three other locations around the world as well. They get set to send a team to Rostov as well.

As both the observatory facility and INSCOM are picking up these strange sounds, a gunman appears at the observation platform that is now filled with people from kids to families to a tour bus that has arrived. The gunman is having an adverse affect to the lights though and tells them to go back to hell where they came from. He begins shooting at them - only to turn and begin firing into the crowd. As Page gets his wife to relative safety, hears Costigan return fire, but the gunman hits Costigan first. This is turning out to be a nightmare.

My thoughts: From the reviews that I have read, people either loved this book or hated it. There didn't seem to be any "on-the-fence" opinions. I, myself, was glued to the book and couldn't read it fast enough. I am a fan of short chapters as it seems like you are covering more ground than you are. There is also a report named Brent in the story who I liked very much. You get to know him pretty well through out the book. I read First Blood many years ago in high school (think early '80s) and can remember liking it and using it for a report. I wish I could remember more of it so that I could contrast it with David Morrell's new book!

The Shimmer
Publisher/Publication Date: Vanguard Press, July 2009
ISBN: 978-1-59315-537-7
352 pages

Thursday, August 27, 2009

ARC Arrival: The Shimmer by David Morrell


The Shimmer by David Morrell

Publisher: Vanguard Press

About the book: Creator of Rambo and co-founder of the International Thriller Writer organization, David Morrell has been called "the father of the modern action novel." Now this award-winning, New York Times bestselling author delivers The Shimmer, a novel of chilling impact.

When police officer Dan Page's wife disappears, her trail leads to Rostov, a remote Texas town where unexplained phenomena attract hundreds of spectators each night. Not merely curious, these onlookers are compelled to reach this tiny community and gaze at the mysterious Rostov Lights.

But more than the faithful are drawn there. A gunman begins shooting at the lights, screaming "Go back to hell where you came from!" then turns his rifle on the innocent bystanders. As more and more people are drawn to the scene of the massacre, the stage is set for even greater bloodshed.

To save his wife, Page must solve the mystery of the Rostov Lights. In the process, he uncovers a deadly government secret dating back to the First World War. The lights are more dangerous than anyone ever imagined, but even more deadly are those who try to exploit forces beyond their control.

With The Shimmer, David Morrell takes readers on a brilliant, terrifying journey. Suspenseful, yet thought-provoking, it is the master at his very best. (book jacket)

About the author: David Morrell is the award-winning author of numerous New York Times bestsellers, including Creepers and Scavenger. Co-founder of the International Thriller Writers organization and author of the classic Brotherhood of the Rose spy trilogy, Morrell is considered by many to be the father of the modern action novel. (book jacket)


The Shimmer
Publisher/Publication Date: Vanguard Press, July 2009
ISBN: 978-1-59315-537-7
352 pages



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