“Wake up!” Caroline shook Erik hard. During two tours in Iraq he had learned to sleep through most anything. Caroline’s prodding and shouting was nothing.
“Erik!” This time her prodding was amplified as the whole house shook and the explosive sound of splitting wood cracked the air.
“What?” He mumbled and rolled upright—-eyes widening.
“The house!”
“We need to leave!”
Grabbing the mag light under his nightstand and Caroline’s hand, Erik headed for the bedroom door. Then the front door.
Outside, lights were on in every neighbor’s house but theirs. People filled the street–staring at their house. Mainly staring at the half that now appeared to be falling into the crumbling earth.
“Sinkhole. We’ve already called 911.” A neighbor shook his head. It was an all too common occurrence in modern Florida. Karst topography close to the surface, water drained from the underlying rock for a growing, thirsty populace (and their lawns).
Erik looked at Caroline. “Stay here.” He trotted off towards the hole. A few neighbors joined him with their big flashlights.
At the edge he looked at the two rooms of his house now dangling off the edge of what looked like a 90-foot wide collapsed cavern. The flashing beams of multiple flashlights played across the hole like a Hollywood premiere—-until more than one stopped on a single spot under the far edge.
“A stainless steel refrigerator?” shouted one of the neighbors.
Erik shook his head. “No”
Deliberately placing his feet as he skirted the hole for a better look, Erik jerked to a stop when he could make out the brightly lit object. It was a stainless steel cube–approximately ten feet by ten feet by ten feet. Surrounding it were at least a dozen bleached, human skeletons laying prostrate before the monolith.
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The author has crafted an amazing scenario that seems all the more plausible because of his skillful and knowledgeable writing. The characters all come across as authentic and credible, and the whole scenario leads the reader to believe that such a center exists. The setting is in Tortola, and the writer describes the scene perfectly which transports the reader to the dolphin world. I have not read the first book by Kip Koelsch, but Delphys Rising is a stand-alone book and it did not deter me from enjoying and relating to the story. It certainly encourages the reader to pick up the first book to relate to the origin of the story and to the transition of Dr. Evan McMillon. The writing and the dialogue flow well, making this an enjoyable read from the start. An author to watch.
FOR MILLENNIA HUMANS HAVE DREAMED OF SPEAKING WITH DOLPHINS AND FAILED.
My shirt was saturated–dampness from the fog mixed with the moist, foul breath of The Apocalypse closing in. I was almost to the stoplight at Pinehurst Road–my turnaround point–and contrary to a typical morning the sky became claustrophobically darker.
Many of you know the adventure we’ve been through over the last three years to reduce/stop the junk mail that had been inundating my 86-year old father. At one point he was receiving up to 100 pieces of mail a day and often was duped into making donations to some very questionable “charities” and other organizations. In addition to having all his mail directed to our home, we made calls, sent emails, mailed letters and sent messages on Facebook to over 800 of these groups to remove him from their mailing lists. While the mail has not completely stopped, we now only receive 1-6 pieces of junk mail for him a day at our home.
“In Koelsch’s imaginative, plausible suspense novel, scientists around the world are baffled when hundreds of dolphins beach themselves in Texas, Virginia, and Mozambique, numbers far greater than ever previously observed.”
I can’t speak for every author, but as a relatively new fiction author there are only a few things that I’d really love to receive as gifts this holiday season.
I cried in the woods today.
This is more of a quick RANT than a reasoned blog post as I deal with another scammer trying to dupe my father from his mailbox. Yes, The Amazing Kreskin managed to find him at his new address and send him his deceptive, elder-baiting junk mail.
Like so many of these scam mailings there is no contact information in their materials–just a return envelope for your check or credit card number. And, lucky for me, I managed to intercept this crap before that return envelope was used by my father.
Sometimes when I’m working on my fiction writing it’s so easy to become absorbed in the world you’ve created or, in the case of my current project, the history of the time period in which you are writing, that current events actually seem more distant.
While most wars tend to generate evolutions in defensive designs and offensive weapons technology, the historical timing and global nature of this war saw the rapid production and development of weapons on an industrial scale. Unfortunately, it took some time (if ever) for the tacticians to adjust to the killing power of the new technologies and casualties in single battles were often of a number rarely seen across entire wars.
So, while doing my book research I was struck by how relevant this may be for today–especially since the date for Veteran’s Day in the United States is what many in Europe and the UK refer to (and what our holiday was originally called) as Armistice Day. Our American holiday is typically clarified as a celebration of living veterans–with Memorial Day being the holiday with which we honor those who gave their lives for our country. Yet still, I could not shake the historical link to Armistice Day, the men and women sacrificed and that brief dream of hope.
Kip Koelsch Author 