Blog Tour: The October Men, by David Impey

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The October Men

David Impey

Trade Paperback, 340 pages

BigBear Communications Ltd.

March 20, 2018
Kindle Edition, 328 pages
David Impey
March 20, 2018

Conspiracy Theories, Mystery, 
Science Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Otto Parsons, a brilliant young Oxford physicist, is missing. The October Men is a story of Otto’s experiment in quantum physics – trying to create zero gravity without going into space – which yields spectacularly unexpected results: time travel. Professor Dan Sibley, ever more desperate to secure funding to keep the experiment running, allows their work to fall into the control of men with an utterly different agenda. Otto's disappearance is the first link in a chain of events, which tie together monumental historic moments including the sale of a lost van Gogh painting, the discovery of rare film footage of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the discovery of a hoard of rare art treasures in a French cave, and the murder of a financial advisor in the Cayman Islands.

The scientists initially try to fund the experiment by producing a historical TV series that uncovers the truth behind the Roswell Incident and the assassination of President Kennedy, among others. Inevitably, the show goes viral and attracts unwanted attention. As the project requires ever more funds, sponsorship is sought elsewhere, and control of the equipment quickly passes to a shadowy cabal of international criminals whose activities have global consequences, as they exploit the equipment to take advantage of the financial and art markets.

When the truth slips out, human existence itself comes under threat.

The October Men is the stunning debut from David Impey, full of twists and turns that will keep you gripped. If you like well-crafted thrillers by John le Carré and Colin Dexter or thought-provoking science fiction by John Wyndham, then The October Men is the novel you must read.

Purchase Links

Amazon US/Amazon UK/Amazon CA

This is the first full-length novel by David Impey. He originally graduated in Chemistry and, afterwards, worked in high-tech industry either on the marketing/commercial side or in advertising.

David has helped write campaigns with a heavy emphasis on demystifying supposedly obscure areas of science that affect everybody on a day-to-day basis, and has won several awards for his work.

His first published work was an April Fool’s article in a yachting magazine and, since then, David has been a frequent columnist and contributor to industry journals and online blogs, as well as setting up some and editing others. He also developed a TV series about health called “The Dose”.

When he’s not writing, David is a composer, producer, and keyboardist. He has worked as a musician for 20 years, principally as a composer of soundtrack music for corporate clients ranging from sherry to paint to insurance and cruise lines.

Some of his music has been used extensively by TV companies across Europe, including the UK and the Netherlands. David lives near Oxford with his wife and insane dog. 

Website/Twitter/Facebook
Amazon Author Page

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The Book Lover's Den #20: Books About Conspiracy Theories, Part II -- The JFK Assassination

Welcome to my Friday feature!

In each weekly post, I explore 

my thoughts on several 

book-related topics.

For my second post about this topic, I have chosen an event that was a national trauma, one that has also led to the wildest theories about who was really behind it. Those who remember the day have definitely never forgotten it. It was a day in which the brilliant promise of a man's dreams  for the future of a nation died right along with him. Everything associated with that day, as well as the days following it, still haunt all of us Americans, no matter what our political affiliation, or lack thereof. This one event has remained as a blight on our history, much as Lincoln's assassination has,

Although a suspect was caught and arrested, he would not live long enough to give a grieving nation any answers, as he himself was killed not long thereafter. Lee Harvey Oswald, who was apprehended the day after the tragedy, had bought a .38 revolver and a rifle with a telescopic sight months before that fateful day in Dallas. He also killed a policeman, Officer J.D. Tippit, less than an hour after killing Kennedy. Jack Ruby, the man who later killed Oswald, had some minor connections to organized crime. He claimed that he had killed Oswald because he was so grieved by the JFK assassination. However, this event was the catalyst for one of the first conspiracy theories, which claimed that Ruby killed Oswald in order to silence him, and that he was hired by whoever did not want the truth to come out -- most likely the Mafia.

In 1964, the Warren Commission Report ruled out the possibility that either Oswald or Ruby were part of a conspiracy, whether within or outside the United States. However, in 1978, the House Select Committee on Assassinations put forth the tentative conclusion that it might have been possible that Kennedy was killed because of a conspiracy masterminded by organized crime. The committee also concluded that there might have been more than one shooter.

According to the Time Magazine website, a 2003 ABC News poll "found that 70% of Americans believe Kennedy's death was the result of a broader plot." Among the conspiracy theories mentioned in their article, there's one stating that Kennedy was killed by CIA agents who were furious with him because of the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Other theories claim that his murder was ordered by the KGB, while yet another claims that the Mafia had him killed in retaliation for the investigations of organized crime being conducted by Robert Kennedy at the time. One very disturbing theory states that Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy's Vice President, plotted the assassination.

The USA Today website lists six conspiracy theories, and they are the very same ones mentioned on the Time Magazine website, except that they add another -- "the umbrella man theory", which states that a man shot a dart at Kennedy's neck from the tip of his umbrella. This theory was debunked in the 1970s, though.

Recently, I encountered a rather unusual, but fascinating theory on Amazon -- that Kennedy was indeed assassinated by the CIA, but the reason was because he had been trying to "force the CIA to share classified UFO information with other government agencies". This theory is the subject of a book titled Kennedy's Last Stand: Eisenhower, UFOs, MJ-12, and JFK's Assassination, written by Michael E. Salla, and published in October of 2013. This book ties in very nicely with the UFO conspiracy theories I mentioned in last week's "The Book Lover's Den".

According to the CNN website, Dave Perry, who is a retired former insurance agent, has been investigating the most common theories since 1976. Perry does not believe the LBJ theory, saying that it was created by Texans who didn't like Johnson. 

I am certainly very glad that Perry has stated this theory is untrue; I just find it very hard to believe that Kennedy's Vice President would have done something like that.

There's one theory, Perry says, that he has been unable to debunk -- the one dealing with the CIA (not related to UFOs). For further information, please see the links at the end of this post.

Naturally, I am most interested in reading the Salla book, but I'm also interested in the books that mention more mundane theories. In fact, this subject has been in the back of my mind for years now, because of the huge impact it had on our national history. The same goes for the 911 tragedy, which is another event that has sparked several conspiracy theories, although, to my knowledge, none have involved UFOs or extraterrestrials.

Here are the books I would like to read on this very sad, yet fascinating topic:




   

Sources for this Post

History.com: This Day In History

Time Magazine: The JFK Assassination

USA Today: Who Shot JFK?
CNN.com: JFK Conspiracy Theory True?
Dave Perry Biography

What are your thoughts on
 this subject?
Please leave me a comment
and let me know!

The Book Lover's Den #19: Books About Conspiracy Theories, Part I -- The Roswell UFO Incident

Welcome to my Friday feature!

In each weekly post, I explore 

my thoughts on several 

book-related topics.

I have recently become interested in reading about conspiracy theories. Although I'm not currently featuring such books on this blog, I would definitely like to do so sometime soon. The thing about these books is that they can be fascinating even if the theories themselves are a bit off the wall. Of course, if a given theory is completely ridiculous, then that's another matter entirely. It would simply be a waste of time to read about it.

Actually, I have featured at least one book dealing with UFO conspiracy theories. It's titled The Secret History of Extraterrestrials: Advanced Technology and the Coming New Race, by Len Kasten. Unfortunately, I found this book to be an uneven mix of fascinating facts and totally ridiculous, as well as very obvious, fiction. The book even included a picture of an alleged building on an alien planet, occupied by humans. This photo has been proven to be a hoax.  You can access my review of this book HERE.

I've been a science fiction fan for most of my life, so it stands to reason that I would be interested in such theories. In spite of my disappointment with the book mentioned above, I am still very much intrigued by the concept of UFOs secretly landing on our planet, and the whole thing being covered up by governments, especially the U.S. government. So, I am by no means going to stop reading such books!

The topic of UFOs and alien life is a rather broad one, as I'm beginning to discover. So, I'd like to start off with the most famous incident of all -- the Roswell incident. This took place near Roswell, New Mexico, on July 8,1947. At the time, the military reported that an ordinary weather balloon had crashed  at a ranch near Roswell. It was later said to be an Air Force surveillance  balloon whose purpose was the monitoring of nuclear testing.

For 30 years, the Roswell incident was forgotten by UFO researchers. Then, beginning in 1978 and continuing until the present, interest in it revived. This interestt was at its peak in the 1990s. Several books were written during this time, such as The Roswell Incident (1980), by Charles Berlitz and William Moore, UFO Crash at Roswell (1991), by Kevin Randle and Donald Schmitt, Crash At Corona: the U.S Military Retrieval and Cover-Up of a UFO, (1992), by physicist Stanton Friedman and Don Berliner, who has written books about space and aviation, The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell (1994), also by Randle and Schmitt, and The Day After Roswell (1997), an autobiographical book written by Colonel Philip J. Corso.

According to the Wikipedia article, there are contradictions and differences among all of the accounts of the Roswell incident.

Berlitz and Moore claimed to have interviewed over 90 witnesses for their book, while Stanton Friedman also contributed some research, for which he was not credited. The book mentions debris that was purportedly not of earthly origin, and the authors add that the press was not allowed to examine it closely.

In their own book, Randle and Schmitt added 100 new witnesses, one of which described alleged alien autopsies for the first time.

Friedman and Berliner wrote in their book that there were actually two spacecraft and eight aliens, two of which survived and were subsequently taken into custody by the U.S. government.

In their second book on the subject, Randle and Schmitt claimed that several alien bodies were flown to Washington, D.C., to be viewed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Philip J. Corso reported, in his book, that he was shown alien bodies by a Sergeant Brown, while he was assigned to Fort Riley, in Kansas, in July of 1947.

In spite of all of these variations, many people continue to believe that an alien craft did indeed crash in New Mexico in 1947.  At the risk of being considered slightly wacko, I must confess to wishing and even hoping that a UFO really did crash at Roswell..... Again, my lifelong interest in science fiction has spiked my curiosity about alien spacecraft and civilizations. Besides, I definitely think that being fascinated by the possibility of the reality of UFOs is VASTLY preferable, and far more intellectually stimulating, than being interested in the doings of the Kardashians, for instance!

Here are the books mentioned above, and which I would very much like to read!     




    

Of course, other books have been written on this topic, but these 5 appear to be the most important ones. I happen to own the last one -- The Day After Roswell -- so I will probably begin with it. 

I hope to be able to get to read all of these books, as well as those written by other authors regarding the mysterious events in the New Mexico desert......

NOTE: The information source for this post was the Wikipedia article listed below.

For Further Information

Roswell: Wikipedia Article

UFO Evidence
Roswell UFO Incident: Crystalinks

Roswell UFO Museum

Roswell TV Series 

Roswell: History.com 

Roswell UFO Festival 2015 

What are your thoughts on
 this subject?
Please leave me a comment
and let me know!

Book Review: The Secret History of Extraterrestrials, by Len Kasten

The Secret History of Extraterrestrials: Advanced Technology and the Coming New Race
Len Kasten
Trade Paperback,328 pages
Bear & Co., Nov. 11, 2010
Aliens & UFOs, Conspiracy Theories, Nonfiction
Source: Purchased at Barnes & Noble

Book Synopsis:  Explores the role of ETs in the military, government, technology, history, and the coming new age. Surveys contact with ETs, abductions, alien technology and exopolitics, genetic tampering by ETs, and the history behind the Nazis and UFOs.
 
The extraterrestrial presence on Earth is widening and, as we enter the Aquarian Age, will be admitted officially, causing shock and an urgent universal need to understand the social and technological changes derived from our space brothers. A primer for the explosive advances humanity will experience scientifically and spiritually in the coming years, this compendium explores the ET phenomenon and its influence on humanity past and present.
 
The book surveys contact with ETs and abduction accounts, unexplained public and undisclosed military technology from aliens including anti-gravity devices, exopolitics (the influence of ETs in human affairs), the Iraqi Stargate, the Hybrid Project of alien interbreeding by abduction, Nazi ties to UFOS and their secret underground base in Antarctica, government cover-ups of alien interactions including Roswell, and the transformation triggered by the Hale-Bopp comet. Based on interviews with people who are witnessing the coming changes as well as those visionaries who are actually bringing them about--including John Mack, Major Jesse Marcel, Paul LaViolette, Robert Bauval, Michael Salla, and Helen Wambach--this book sketches out a breathtaking vision of the planetary revolution just around the corner.

 My Review

As an avid science fiction fan, I've always been fascinated by the concept of aliens and their different cultures. This interest of mine has also led me to the logical question: Do extraterrestrials and flying saucers (now mostly known as "UFOs") really exist?

Of course, in order to answer this question, conclusive proof is needed. After all, it's one thing to enjoy science fiction, and quite another to affirm that it's science FACT.

The evidence in Kasten's book does seem very compelling indeed. But is it really? In order to judge with an open mind, it's actually necessary to do outside research about the various topics presented and discussed in this book, which is really an overview of a supposedly 'secret' history of ETs, gathered from the works of other writers. These are listed in separate bibliographies for each chapter.

Writers such as George Adamski are mentioned. Adamski claimed to have been contacted by a very human-looking alien named "Orthon", in the Colorado Desert (USA), in 1952.  Kasten then goes on to discuss the 1947 Roswell incident, in which an alien craft allegedly crashed in New Mexico. He also mentions the work of Linda Moulton Howe, an Emmy-award-winning TV producer who became a UFO investigator, crop circles (Kasten admits that at least one of them was most likely created by humans), exopolitics (alien interference in human affairs), the work of T. Townsend Brown, Stanton T. Friedman, and space-age science. This last, according to Kasten, is mostly the direct result of reverse engineering of alien spacecraft, resulting in such things as anti-gravity propulsion. Then there's the construction of biospheres, which are self-contained human environments being tested on Earth for use on the planet Mars.

In spite of my doubts, I found this book fascinating to read. However, I do think it's a rather uneven mix of fact and what looks very much like fiction. Also, I thought the author would start his 'history' from the time of the alleged ancient astronauts. Instead, he begins it with the Adamski sightings, and then jumps back to the Roswell incident. From there, he moves forward. 

For instance, from the Wikipedia article about Adamski, it seems pretty clear that the man was a superb con artist, with a coterie of blindly devoted followers.

Other things mentioned in the book sound so outrageous as to be totally unbelievable, such as Kasten's assertion that "....twelve astronauts left Earth in July, 1965 and were taken to the planet Serpo in the binary star system Zeta Reticuli aboard an alien spaceship as part of an exchange program." (pg. 77) He also states that the 1977 movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", may have been inspired by Project Serpo. 

Also outrageously unbelievable is the explanation, put forth by one Michael Salla, former researcher-in-residence at the Center for Global Peace at American University in Washington, D.C., that the real reason for the war in Iraq was to keep a stargate located in Uruk, Iraq, from falling into the hands of the French, Germans, and Russians, which would have meant the end of American hegemony!

Another controversial aspect of the UFO movement mentioned by Kasten is the hotly debated existence of "Operation Majestic-12" (also known as "MJ-12"), which is a secret government project purportedly set up by President Truman in 1947, in order to investigate UFO phenomena. The authenticity of the  documents associated with this group is strongly defended by nuclear physicist Stanton T. Friedman, who is now a full-time UFO researcher. However, the topic does remain controversial.

There are other aspects of the book, such as the chapter on T. Townsend Brown, as well as the one on  the B-2 bomber, which do sound more credible. As for the Roswell incident, I'm not quite sure whether or not it's credible, in spite of all the evidence in support of the alleged facts.

The book also reports on extremely fascinating scientific theories, such as the nature of time and space, as well as delving into more mystical topics, and a favorite New Age staple, the advent of the superhuman race.

Of course, alien abductions are included. Accounts of such abductions are only available through hypnotizing abductees, since most of the memories are too traumatic to be recalled consciously.  They usually involve bizarre 'scientific' experimentation on human subjects by aliens.

While I feel that something is undoubtedly going on, I'm not sure to what extent the various aspects of the UFO phenomenon are real. Certainly, lights have often been seen in the sky throughout the centuries, by different observers. The book, Alien Encounters, by Chuck Missler, reports many such incidents, and this can also be easily verified on the Internet. Also, there have been many, many reports, worldwide, by people claiming to have been abducted by aliens. However, these experiences are simply not within the scope of what most of us would consider saneness and reality. Perhaps there are psychological factors involved.

After finishing this review, I decided to go to Amazon to see what other reviewers thought of this book. I was shocked that one of them, Michael F. Burdick, reported that a photo included in this book is an actual hoax! A building that Kasten hints might be "an astronaut habitat" on the planet Serpo (pg. 83), is really the back side of the San Francisco de Asis Mission Church in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico! I knew this photo looked familiar. In fact, it reminded me of a painting by the famous American artist Georgia O'Keeffe!  There are photos of this church on Wikipedia, so that readers of Kasten's book can easily verify that the photo is indeed a hoax. I then decided to incorporate the above information into my own review.

In short, although this book is indeed very interesting, as well as very well-written, some of the events being related sound more like fiction than fact. I think the author should have been more careful to  verify certain things, because they might almost certainly be taken as fraudulent. The inclusion of the photo that turned out to be a hoax is a serious drawback, for instance.  I found the book fascinating simply because of the subject matter, so I might read parts of it again so as to do some research on these topics, while at the same time being alert for more flaws.


MY RATING:

  

For Further Information

George Adamski
Michael Burdick Amazon Review
San Francisco de Asis Mission Church 

Roswell UFO Incident

Project Serpo

Linda Moulton Howe 

Stanton T. Friedman

Thomas Townsend Brown

Majestic-12

Psychology Today: Five Traits that....

The Shocking Truth About Alien Abductions