I got the inspiration for this story one day while hiking in the North Cascades National Park, when I happened upon the tree shown on the cover. I was immediately struck by the ghostly quality of the face chopped on the stump by a woodsman’s ax. I snapped the photo and as I walked along, the story came to me.

I jotted some notes when I got home, and after some weeks and months of puttering with ideas, I finally put together a compelling account of the mysterious spirit that is suggested by that ghostly image. The spirit lurking in that tree looks less than happy, don’t you think? Tree poachers beware.

Tree poachers, by the way, are a very real threat to the ancient trees still standing in Pacific Northwest forests. They drive their monster trucks into remote areas, cut huge cedar trees, section them, and take them to shingle mills where no questions are asked. In this story, maybe a little justice is being served, but by whom?

The story is available for 99 cents on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Sony, Diesel, and in other formats at Smashwords.

By the way, the podcast crime show Crime City Central contacted me and licensed the right to produce an audio recording of this story. If you’re interested in iTunes podcasts and dramatizations of mystery fiction, I highly recommend CCC. Stop by their website and see if they have released “The Ghost Trees” yet. Most of their recordings are given away FREE. That’s cheap! They have a backlog of stories, so mine may not have appeared yet. If not, perhaps a request from you may encourage them to prioritize my story a little higher up their list?

And what was behind that cover has stood the test of time since the 1950s when I bought it off a rack at a G O Guy drug store. Wells’ tale of relentless space invaders and humanity’s collapse in the face of superior force, has remained a favorite concept for me in books, stories, and film. And that can be said for a lot of other people as well.

But you might not be aware that some of my own stories make more than passing mention of Wells’ work.

For instance, in Dinosaur Wars: Earthfall and its two sequels, the invading dinosaurian army roars down out of space in ships that blaze through the atmosphere like balls of fire, just like the martians did in War of the Worlds. In War of the Worlds, Wells casts a scientist by the name of Dr. Ogilvey as the first human to try to make contact with the invaders. In Dinosaur Wars, the paleontologist who has been digging up bones of the creatures now returning to earth after a sixty-five-million-year absence, is also named Dr. Ogilvey. Not a coincidence. A nod, or a tribute as they say, to a man who explored this territory before me.

And the notion written so effectively by Wells, of human artillery hopelessly outmatched against laser death rays, has made quite a comeback on my pages. I spend some time describing terrifying military disasters and a few successes experienced by our troops fighting against laser-blasting glittering walking machines. In Wells’ book, the soldiers were essentially World War I vintage forces. In Dinosaur Wars, the soldiers and sailors and airmen I describe in action are drawn from current service men and women. That trick of showing the reader our familiar forces up against an unknown and superior enemy, is an exact match to Wells’ plan. It puts the reader much deeper into the conflict than some story set in a time and galaxy far far away.

In War of the Worlds the invaders immediately put humans on their dinner menu. In Dinosaur Wars–well, um–the invaders are human-sized carnivorous dinosaurs, so guess what?

If like me, you’re sorry there was only one War of the Worlds book published by H.G. Wells, take heart! There are three books in the Dinosaur Wars trilogy, and some short stories in my Dinosaur Tales series set in times just after the end of the original books.

So if one of your influences in science fiction is H. G. Wells, and if he’s left you wishing for more, may I suggest you take a look at Dinosaur Wars? I tried hard to make every book and story good enough to be a fitting tribute to the original master of the form.

The Duwamish longhouse hosts displays of native art, and this time around they have chosen a native of the small coastal Washington town where I have set my latest medical thriller, The Neah Virus. Because I am in the last revision of the novel and it’s due out this month, I thought I would have a look at Nytom and his work. I went to the grand opening of his show at the longhouse and I was far from disappointed. Rather, as I have almost come to expect with local natives, I was regaled with sights and sounds beyond anything I had imagined.

How many museum openings have you been to where the artist sings, as well as displays his art? I’m beginning to understand the native concept that a work of art is no work of art if it has no song attached to it. Nytom told a story of a time when he was a young sculptor and gave a carved mask to people in a nearby tribe. He was asked, “Where’s the song that goes with it?” and had no answer. He’s matured considerably since then, and the songs he sang to us visitors at the longhouse were mesmerizing and finely performed to the accompaniment of a tambourine-like native drum with beater stick.

The guy could go to New York and sing opera while displaying his carvings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

If you can get to the Duwamish Longhouse any time in the next few months, you really should stop by and have a look at Nytom’s work. He’ll be back in Neah Bay, but his works are fine art in the highest sense. Carvings and prints abound, each with a story or song attached to it.

People who live in the Seattle area and neglect the Duwamish Longhouse really ought to reconsider. It is a place of amazing happenings and delightful experiences. The art, the song, the culture, and the history of the place are hidden gems of this fabulous part of the world some of us are lucky to live in.

Scientists have known for decades that the American diet is deficient in certain healthy oils and overloaded with other not-so-healthy oils. The end result of this imbalance is early death from hardening of the arteries, which is an inflammatory condition, and lots of suffering from the pain of arthritis and the swelling of allergy.

In response, health-food advocates and medical professionals have for several decades recommended people get more omega-3 fatty acids in their diets by eating the right foods or taking supplements in pill form. They have also suggested that a dose of baby aspirin every day also helps dampen inflammation.

Well, what’s new is the discovery in the year 2000 of exactly how these supplements and pills work. They cause your body to produce resolvins and protectins.

Whatins and whoseins, you say?

The image at the top of this note is a chemical schematic of resolvin D2, one of a group of molecules produced by your body to help “resolve” inflammation. These beneficial oils are only produced in sufficient quantity when enough omega-3 fats are around to make them from (one of these omega-3s, docosahexaenoic acid or DHA, is shown at right).

Here’s the cool thing that’s just been discovered in the last few years: aspirin interacts with the enzyme in your body that converts DHA to resolvins. This science is so new that nobody seems to have gotten on the health-food bandwagon about it yet. I’m somewhere near the first to “get it” and that’s only because I have five years of PhD training at Cornell Medical College under my belt and a lifetime in the lab.

The researchers who have spearheaded studies of resolvins and protectins (similar molecules that stop brain inflammation) seem as amazed as I am at their findings. Suddenly, decades of knowledge that omega-3 oils and aspirin are good for inflammation sufferers have come together, and even more powerful beneficial molecules have been identified.

So what am I gonna do about it? I’m gonna take more omega-3 supplement pills than I used to, and keep taking that baby aspirin daily. At least now I know why I’m doing it.

I developed the picture from my research on the sculpture and artwork of Pacific Northwest native people. The two-headed sea serpent is a spirit animal that figures in legends up and down the North Pacific coast. It is said to have great medical power, suggesting it might be related to the ancient Greek caduceus, the winged staff with two twined serpents carried by the medicine god Mercury, which in recent times has become the symbol of the medical profession.

Folks I have spoken to in Neah Bay say Makah tribal lore doesn’t include a creature comparable to the Alaskan Kwakiutl’s Sisiutl or the Tamallay of the Quinaults to the south. However, Makahs are quite familiar with a pair of Lightning Snakes who help Thunderbird on his whale hunts. Furthermore, a 500-year-old carving of a two-headed serpent was unearthed in a Makah archeological dig.

Anyway, enough about the serpent. How about the cover? I’d love to get some opinions before it’s finalized. If you’d like to have a say in my next book’s cover, now is the time. You can comment on this post below or find an email contact by clicking on the “website” link just under my smiling face above.

You can see I duded up the first image to make the second image a little more three dimensional. But does that help? I’m not sure. Click the images to see larger versions. The first is a little more stark and that seems like a good cover for a medical thriller where the stark terror of a deadly disease awaits within the pages.

So let me know which you prefer. Or, let me know if you’d prefer something else.

I’m all eyes and ears. So is the serpent.

It’s tough duty but it’s got to be done. My daily ritual of writing starts sometimes as early as 3:45 AM and can last deep into happy hour.

The image is a draft cover for the ebook. Like the text, it will get quite a bit of editing before all is said and done.

Some things seem certain, however. For instance, the notion of a virus that spares Makah Indians but kills all the rest of us is a given. The idea that a mysterious two-headed serpent spirit is involved, is a given. The concept that the super-intelligent biomedical researcher hero, Dr. Peyton McKean, will be involved in trying to cure the disease before it gets him and all of us, is the big question. Can he come up with a solution before we all become fevered, crazed maniacs? Or will modern society crumble in the face of a threat from a virus that is centuries old?

That sort of thing. Anyway. Back to editing.

Surrender Earth or Die!

The photo above, taken by a news correspondent in Pecos, Texas, shows one of the towering machines engaging a tank troop from nearby Fort Bliss. Needless to say, the action went poorly for the humans. Opening up with laser blasts from its eyes, the machine devastated its opposition and went on to roll over the news photographer. A mechanical voice from the charging machine challenged, “Let’s see how you like getting run over like you have done to us for years!”

The Pentagon, the President, and an elite group of planetary scientists issued the following statement: “We deeply regret the loss of life. We have established a committee to protest to the Martians, if we can find them.”

Martians, it turns out, are human shaped but about the size of bacteria. Our robotic rovers, moving about on their planet, have caused havoc on a scale only imaginable if one is 1/60,000th of an inch tall. Whole Martian cities have been annihilated under the six rolling wheels of our planetary rovers. The Martians attempted to retaliate with their minuscule thermonuclear devices, which hardly slowed the march of our machines across their homes and cities. 7,219 Martian nations have banded together to create these immense machines and launch them to earth.

A radioed statement was received from a group calling itself the United Nations of Gree-wah-noo-noo, just as the first landers dropped onto their terrestrial landing ellipses. It translates, “Take that, you big meanies!”

I know. I know. You’re going to say, “Aw, poor little Tommy. Does him have to suffer in that hot sun all day? Does him have to wear him sun hat to keep mean old Mr. Sun off him head? Does him have to slurp wine until him might fall over? Poor beebee!”

And that’s just it. Here I am, sitting around by the pool, bathed in the glare of that unfamiliar object in the sky, fearful of getting a burn on my tender white hide, feeling compelled to have another sip. It’s tough duty, but I intend to prevail.

Hopefully, when all my suffering is done, “High Stone Chateau” will have some of that “Je ne sais quoi” that makes a good mystery story so intoxicating.

God knows I’ve been through hell to create it.

I belong to the Pacific Northwest chapter of the Mystery Writers of America, the most prestigious gathering of mystery writers on the globe. Our local group of writers and readers of mystery fiction meet monthly, usually on the second saturday, to eat, drink, and listen to some pretty enthralling speakers. We host famous authors, law enforcement people, crime scene investigators and other players in the never-ending cavalcade of crime reality and fiction. You always learn something new and useful at an MWA NW meeting.

And tonight is no exception. The Northwest chapter is hosting the annual Willo Davis Roberts award in mystery fiction, which this year goes to Northwest mystery author Earl Emerson. If you’re a fan of Emerson’s stories, you might want to drop everything else and make plans to join us tonight in Bellevue WA for the big event. Drop-ins can be accommodated for a small fee plus the price of dinner.

Here’s the announcement:

Join us Saturday evening, April 20, at Firenze restaurant near Bellevue as we celebrate the career of longtime Seattle-area writer Earl Emerson, author of the Thomas Black and Mac Fontana mystery series, and 27 novels in all. With an introduction from our own Leslie Adkins, an über-Emerson fan, Earl, a veteran Seattle firefighter and Shamus Award winner, will share his thoughts on the craft of writing, the appeal of the Northwest as a mystery locale, and the state of book publishing, among other topics. Join us at 6 p.m. for drinks and dinner with one of the most iconic figures in Northwest crime fiction. RSVP to MWA-Northwest board member David B. Schlosser at dbschlosser@analects-ink.com or 425-242-0162. Due to the size of the venue, attendance will be capped at 30, so place your RSVPs now!

I’m not saying that all, or even most, people working in the business are of low and mean nature, but it is disturbing to recall how often those of lesser talent found ways of circumventing, backstabbing or simply outlasting their intellectual betters. On reflection, it amazes me sometimes how any significant scientific discoveries ever happened in the biotech corporate cultures I have seen, given how much energy was wasted in conflict and political maneuvering.

I won’t mention any names, either of people or companies, and I won’t get too specific in details of old showdowns, but suffice it to say that my Peyton McKean mysteries almost always involve the kind of in-fighting I personally experienced years ago while simply trying to do my job as a scientist and get on with the business of scientific discovery. Here are a couple examples of personality types who made my job a lot more difficult than it had to be:

The sycophant. This is a classic corporate type and I can recall several from my early years in biotech. This is the guy (or gal) who always sees it the boss’s way. You would think the boss would get wise, but instead I have seen such ass-kissers go from minor players to top lieutenants, and even on to become heads of major corporations as years roll by. But here’s the problem. Every time I would debate the boss’s cherished–and often wrong–concepts for how to tackle a problem, the sycophant would argue with me and add to the boss’s certainty. The end result was that new personnel would be assigned to join the ranks of the sycophant’s research group while mine languished. And here’s the rub. More often than not, the boss’s plan would fail and my approach would succeed, and yet the sycophant would continue on with the larger research group. A neat trick. Fail while using the boss’s plan and enhance your standing anyway. Never fear though, I am not giving you a showcase of defeatism. I would often pursue my own disdained approach and solve the problem despite my lack of help or the boss’s approval along the way. The end result was corporate success with the project and my name featured prominently on a company patent with few co-authors.

This sort of thing happened quite a few times. I ultimately was the leader of the smallest but most productive laboratories in several organizations. Here’s another interesting character type:

The cry baby. After my discoveries had made me prominent in one biotech company, I began to take a certain kind of flack. I would be called to the big boss’s office for a browbeating about how my remarks at one meeting or another had upset some of my colleagues. As often as not, the boss refused to tell me who had complained, insisting that I might subject the plaintiff to more upsetting conversation. Of course, all I wanted was to make a direct apology and try to establish some sense of camaraderie. Often, the criticism was not about what I had said–perhaps a new way to approach a problem–but rather about how I had said it. Not politely enough for some people’s tastes, I guess.

The toady. Here’s one more quick one. I recall a particular man who, when playing up to his boss, actually bent down so low in voicing his flattery and obeisances, as to take on the actual posture of a toad.

I’d better stop or I’ll have an unending cavalcade of ne’er-do-wells to tell you about. Perhaps I’ll blog again someday about some more of these types.

There’s one nice thing about recalling these characters from my real-life past. If I get tired of writing about their odious ways in my stories, I can always concoct a scene in which they die horribly or are reduced to an ignominious end. In The Neah Virus, I’m glad to say, that happens more than once.