Into the Deep Blue Dark — George W. Harper

The saga continues. If you have read the first three novels you already know this will be something different while still adhering to my promise of remaining true to my announced purpose of writing a connected science fiction tale which avoids mystic auras and people 5,000 years from now parroting biases and attitudes reflecting 20th Century values and aspirations. When Jules Verne penned his tale of a journey to the moon depicted men attired with swallow-tailed trousers, top hats and spats designed to protect the ankles from mud/ The women all sported bustles, wore magnificent ostrich-plumed chapeaus and were shielded from the sun by their parasols! Contrast that with the realities of our world barely one and a half centuries later. The changes are stunning. Extrapolating to some 50 centuries from now is dicey, but we may be certain they will be surprising. As a final tidbit, ask yourself if it is potentially possible to escape from a black hole! The problem arises here and the solution is guaranteed to surprise even the most hidebound physicist. No doubt he will scream ‘foul!' and cite all sorts of existing dogma. but if you hold his feet to the fire and compel him to consider the matter solely in terms of the physics which are consequent to a reconsideration of certain attitudes and interpretations of data that are not really proved but are simply taken for granted he will likely retract his head into the safety of his shell, rather like a box turtle, and grump that it is pointless since the present physics are already proved true. I do not say that my adopted physics are correct, but I do maintain that they MAY be correct if judged on the basis of the internal logic rather than mossy-backed dogmatism of today. Try it and see for yourself.