G. Russell Overton's Blog

Launch Date!

It is finally here! Particularly Dangerous Work: Part 3, Reflection on the Water is finally released and ready to read! Of course, if you haven't yet, you must read parts 1 & 2 first. This final volume brings Rodrigo to the end of World War II. His journey continued through 1945, with heart-gripping action as he tries desperately to escape the Gestapo and the Nazi regime in Germany.

In this 21st century time of renewed right wing extremism, Particularly Dangerous Work, the series, is a must read. If anyone has any doubts about what a Fascist regime would mean in the United States or any other country, this series should offer a resounding answer.

If you haven't already, vote for Kamala Harris. That is the only way to stop Fascism in America.

If you want to read Part 3, you can find it here, also with links to Parts 1 & 2:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DGLDJBPX

“War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it” (William Tecumseh Sherman)

I personally am a pacifist at heart. I hate the concept of war and violence for any reason. I recognize that there are times in human history that people of conscience and decent governments must stand up to violence. World War II, unlike World War I, has long been considered one of the few fully justifiable wars in history. It was justifiable from the Allied perspective.

The Allies certainly were justifiable in standing up against Nazis and Fascists. Nazi atrocities are well known, but the Allied militaries and governments committed their own atrocities during the war. American internment camps for Japanese Americans dimmed the beacon of light of American democracy. The Allied governments ignored or, at least, did not react decisively enough to stop the Holocaust. That is hindsight analysis. In the moment, the Allied governments and their militaries were focused on defeating the Nazis. In Europe, Allied bombers leveled Hamburg and Dresden at times when it seemed such destruction, especially with regard to civilians and civilian infrastructure, was unnecessary. In Japan, it was Hiroshima and Nagasaki that paid the price of war.

I am not trying to justify Allied atrocities. It is a simple fact of war that military strategists focus their attention on operational efficiency and effectiveness. If we try to sanitize war to make it anything but atrocious, we doom ourselves to endless war. I am an old Star Trek original series fan. One of the best episodes is “A Taste of Armageddon.” In this episode the Enterprise visits a solar system with two planets that have been at war for hundreds of years. Their war is theoretical, however, and not fought with bombs, guns, and missiles. Computers fight theoretical battles and calculate the casualties on each planet. The victims then report dutifully to suicide chambers, but the civilizations go on without charred buildings or cratered highways. Everything was neat, clean, and pretty, which is why the war had gone on for hundreds of years.

Again, I am not trying to advocate for more violent war. I am trying to advocate for no war. When people get whipped up into a xenophobic or ideological frenzy and rush to war, they think that their glorious armies will put the war on their enemy’s ground and keep the atrocities there. If they had to think that they might suffer the same fate as their enemies, they might not beat the drums so loudly.

That is what the Nazis promised Germany in the 1930s. In the early days of the war, the German Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe put the war on the soil of its enemies and kept it there for several years. That gave Germans a false sense of security and fueled their xenophobia. German atrocities in Poland, France, the Low Countries, Greece, and the Soviet Union grew more and more outrageous as the myth of German invincibility grew.

Germany was not invincible. When the Luftwaffe could no longer fend off Allied bombers and whole armies of the Wehrmacht were swallowed up at places like North Africa and Stalingrad, Germans were gob smacked. They couldn’t understand why Allied militaries were destroying their homes, schools, and hospitals. They simply could not believe that Hitler had lied to them, and they conveniently forgot that they had built the bombs, tanks, planes, and shells that had leveled much of London.

I am an historian first. I look at modern wars and international diplomacy through the glasses of millennia. Whether it was Greeks leveling Troy or Allied bombers leveling Dresden, war is indeed hell. People who start wars rarely consider the consequences of their actions. People like Vladimir Putin might think they and their armies are invincible, but they are not. His day of reckoning is coming, and it will be all of Russia that will have to pay the price for his atrocities.

The fundamental problem is that our international system doesn’t work. The United Nations and World Court have little enforcement capability. We can charge Putin and his cronies with all sorts of war crimes, but how is that going to be enforced? We can have all the treaties we can negotiate that respect the boundaries of defenseless populations, but who exactly is going to stop a future Putin (or Putin in the future) from violating those boundaries? It is unreasonable to think that one country, such as the United States, can act as the defender and gendarme of the world.

The United Nations charter is the logical place for a solution. It should be revised to make the organization an alliance of enforcement. This could only work if the UN gets rid of the Security Council veto. Then, when a member state wantonly invades another member state, that rogue state would have to answer to the rest of the world. The goal should be not to make war more humane, but to make war illegal. Humanity has a long way to go to get to this point. I hope we make it.

Another Book, Another Giveaway!

The countdown is on for a big day on October 25th! After a four year break, I am finally publishing the final installment in my trilogy, Particularly Dangerous Work. This third and final part takes Rodrigo through the end of World War II in Europe. Like the first two parts, it is filled with romance, passion, intrigue, espionage, action, adventure, and dangerous situations. It should keep your eyes wide open and your nails digging into your favorite armchair.

To celebrate this long-awaited mile stone, I am giving away five copies. The giveaway is open now:

https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...

This giveaway closes on the release date, 25 October 2024. If you have been anxiously awaiting this third and final volume, now is the time to win a free copy.

I’ll try not publish any spoilers here, but I do want to write a few things about this third and final part. The title is: Particularly Dangerous Work: Part 3, Reflection on the Water. This part picks up right where Part 2 left off. It starts off with life in Berlin as the war turns decidedly against Nazi Germany and its allies and ends with their defeat.

Sex, Politics, and Religion

The next two months are going to be interesting. In a month and five days, Particularly Dangerous Work: Part 3, Reflection on the Water is scheduled to be released! It has been a long journey to get to this point. When I started writing this series more than ten years ago, I never dreamed it would take this long to bring it to a conclusion. Life has a way of interfering with plans and goals, and my life, especially in the last three years, has been complicated. I apologize to my readers. I know you have all been sitting on the edges of your chairs waiting to find out what happened to Rodrigo and Robert.

Now is your chance to find out. Although I won’t put any spoilers out here, I will tell you that Part 3 is full of the same sorts of intrigue, sex, adventure, and danger that you found in the first two parts. I fully expect a few easy chairs to have new fingernail marks on the arm rests, and, no, I will not pay for any such damages.

In five days, my giveaway of the first two parts of this series will be finished and five winners will be announced. At present, nearly 3,000 readers have entered this giveaway. I wish I could give everyone a copy of these books, but I do hope all of the entrants will find copies of the first two parts, read them, and be ready for Part 3 on October 25th. As soon as this giveaway is finished, I will be listing another giveaway for Part 3, so please be sure to watch for it and enter it.

I think I have been pretty straightforward about my political convictions, so it will come as no surprise that I hope all of my readers and everyone else will vote for Kamala Harris in November. If, by chance, any of you are unsure how to vote, or worse, are planning to vote for ex-45, please, please read Particularly Dangerous Work. In it, you will see what happens when Nazis take over a country. That should scare the hell out of you, and hopefully will motivate you to vote for the Harris/Walz ticket.

The German Nazis of World War II were depravity incarnate. They had no moral convictions. They were motivated by hate and power. However, if ex-45 and his Project 2025 christofascists take power in January, it will make the World War II Nazis look like nice people. Ex-45 has his own issues. He is motivated by the same hate and lust for power as his German predecessors. Alone, he is a serious threat to democracy, the rule of law, and the Constitution of the United States. He is a liar, a convicted sexual predator, a convicted felon, a fraud, a cheat, and a con-man.

Though his threat is real and one to be taken seriously, he personally is not the worst part of the threat another MAGA presidency would bring. Ex-45 is old and failing. His speeches have become more rambling and incoherent as he has aged. He was never fit or competent to be President, but now senility is starting to take its toll. He doesn’t even have a Nancy Reagan to see him through another term – Melania doesn’t care. However, the worst threats to the United States come from the Project 2025 christofascists. They will be the power behind the presidency and will turn the United States into an Iranian style theocracy. If they ever get into power, women will be beaten for wearing the wrong clothes, LGBTQ people will be murdered, racial minorities will be put into a new form of slavery, and political opponents will . . . well, there won’t be any political opponents.

The only way to stop this from happening is to VOTE!!!

Upcoming Release of PDW Part 3

I am delighted to announce the upcoming release of the third and final installment of Particularly Dangerous Work: Part 3, Reflection on the Water. Its release is set for Friday, 25 October 2024. This volume completes the story of the Vizconde Rodrigo Manuel de Mendoza y de la Cerda, a diplomat with the Spanish Foreign Service and an Olympic champion. Part 1 of this series was published in 2017. In that initial part of this trilogy readers met Rodrigo Mendoza in 1939, just before the beginning of World War II, and began the long journey of following him through the months leading up to the outbreak of the war, the early part of the war, and the uncertainties the world faced at the beginning of 1941. The second part continued his story through the difficult years the British and their allies faced through the middle of 1941, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, and the entry of the United States into the war. This third and final part starts in early 1943. It follows the decline and demise of the Nazi regime in Germany and the end of the war.

Rodrigo’s journey from 1943 through 1945 takes him from a Berlin crumbling under the weight of a collapsing Nazi regime and the barrage of Allied bombing to a journey through Nazi occupied territory. As an Allied spy, Rodrigo is hunted by the Gestapo, and his fate is constantly in peril. Rodrigo’s journey, as in the first two volumes, is packed with action, adventure, romance, and intrigue. His story is artfully woven into the historical realities of the World War II era. Readers will find themselves on edge following the march of the Red Army through Eastern Europe, the British and American pursuit of the Desert Fox across North Africa, and the D-Day invasion of Normandy. Readers will be elated at the liberation of Paris and its sudden rebirth as the cultural capital of the world and will grieve the loss of American President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the eve of victory in Europe.

The timeline of Rodrigo’s story runs from 1939 through early 1945, a period of six years. In that relatively short period of time, the world that emerged from war in 1945 was hardly recognizable as the world that had existed in 1939. Most of the world knew, in 1939, that the Nazi regime in Germany was morally bankrupt and was an international menace. Despite the blatant anti-Semitism of the Nazi regime, no one was prepared for level of depravity that became known as the Nazi Holocaust.

The concepts of holocaust and genocide were not new to humanity in 1945. Spaniards and Russians had committed their own anti-Semitic atrocities in times past. Turks had victimized Kurdish and Armenian communities. Americans had systematically reduced Native American populations to a fragment of their former populations. Medieval and ancient civilizations had brutally wiped out entire populations. However, nothing in human atrocities of times past compared to the Nazi’s “Final Solution.”

To the twentieth century mind, it was one thing for a primitive or ancient culture to commit acts of barbarity, but for an advanced, highly industrialized, highly educated culture, like Germany’s, to behave like ancient Huns was unthinkable. What was most shocking was the application of an industrial scale to the concept of genocide. The German rail network, one of the best built and modern in the world, was commandeered to transport victims of the Holocaust to their demise. German industrial capacity, which should have been focused on building tanks, shells, and guns, took time and resources to build state-of-the-art gas chambers and crematoria. German bureaucrats meticulously catalogued and recorded their gruesome work as though they were managing a library’s card catalogue. This cold, calculating, methodical destruction of millions of human lives was a level of depravity humans had never seen before. It was as though an entire nation had become serial killers.

In drafting PDW, I struggled with how to handle the Holocaust. Jews, communists, homosexuals, Roma, and other communities had been targeted by the Nazi regime long before the start of the war. Obviously, that aspect of the brutality of the regime played heavily in Rodrigo’s mind and motivation. However, it wasn’t until 1941, after the invasion of the Soviet Union, that the “Final Solution” was made policy and implemented. In his capacity as a diplomat, Rodrigo had no way of knowing anything about the details of the unfolding holocaust. In his capacity as an Allied spy, Rodrigo picked up on certain troubling details, but still was not in a position to understand the scale of what was happening. Rodrigo struggled with what he had seen and the casual reports he received that alluded to genocidal activity. He knew something was happening, but was unable to put it into perspective.

Had the British and American governments taken seriously the reports of the holocaust from Polish refugees that news might have filtered down to someone like Rodrigo. The Allied governments had treated such reports with a measure of skepticism. Allied military establishments feared that concern over the unfolding tragedy might divert precious resources from military objectives. Historians can look back at World War II and make critical judgments about what Allied governments knew and how they could have reacted differently, but in the midst of the war, it was difficult to comprehend what was happening. This was ultimately the position in which I found Rodrigo. He knew something was happening, but wasn’t able to understand its significance until it was too late. Rodrigo, as a character, did not have the luxury of hindsight.

A Very Long Sabbatical

Dear Readers,
It has been more than four years since I posted an update here. Please accept my apologies! I will try my best to do better.

In that time, my long-time partner and I separated and divorced. I sold my house and boat in Lansing, Michigan, found a new love, and moved to California. No, it was not a mid-life crisis (that happened twenty years ago). It was simply time for change.

My new relationship is a bit of a May/December thing, twenty-seven years between us! His name is Jamie, and he is the most wonderful man in the world. I have never experienced the kind of love we share.

It's funny, when I was writing Particularly Dangerous Work and envisioned the relationship between Robert and Rodrigo, I imagined a romantic relationship that would be super hot sexually, mutually respectful, passionate, and, above all, unconditionally loving. I had imagined two partners who could withstand the horrors of war and forced separation. I imagined two people so much in love that casual sexual encounters with others, whether together or apart, could never damage their relationship.

All the while I drafted each of the three parts of Particularly Dangerous Work, I always thought that what I was writing about Robert and Rodrigo was pure fantasy. It was a great idea and ideal, but it could never happen. I was wrong. I am happy to report that I have found my version of Robert. Except for the horrors of war, our relationship has experienced pretty much everything Robert and Rodrigo experienced.

This is my excuse and reason for a four year hiatus here on Goodreads. It is also my excuse and reason for not getting the third and final installment of PDW published. Our relationship is strong and gets stronger everyday. I think it is now time to move forward with publishing this final installment of PDW. I think Jamie and I can endure the horrors of publication. The draft is done and edited, it just needs a new preface and a few peripheral things. It will be published and available for readers sometime this fall.

After that, I will be ready to move forward with my next piece of LGBTQ historical fiction. I have several ideas. In my next blog post, I will float some of those ideas, and I will welcome comments and reader suggestions.

Independence Day 2020

I first wrote the blog post that follows this introduction in July 2018. I had no idea then how poignant it would be here in July 2020. The United States in July 2020 is, in many ways, facing dangers, the likes of which it has not seen since 1776. We are in serious trouble.

We have a pandemic that is killing the equivalent of a mid-sized city every three months, and it is getting worse. We have a president, who is a national embarrassment. He has done nothing to slow the spread of the deadly virus, and, in fact, has made it worse. He is a racist, misogynistic, greedy, abusive, tyrannical excuse of a man. Congressional leaders within his party mostly follow him blindly, echoing his lies and advancing his agenda of hate and division.

The ecology of our country and our planet are in a dire circumstance. The phrases “global warming” and “climate change” no longer fit. What we are facing is “climate destruction.” The time has now come that places that were once habitable can no longer sustain human life, and the area of these places is expanding. At the same time, our president, almost daily, issues executive orders permitting the expansion of carbon and other pollutants that will only accelerate climate destruction.

Just as in 1776, the real patriots of this country believe in an ideal. We believe in a place where we can build a just and vibrant nation. We believe that we can fight tyranny in all its ugly forms. We believe that in November 2020 we have the power to oust the tyrant and all of his minions. What makes Americans exceptional is that when things seem lost and hopeless, we find a way, through ingenuity, determination, sweat, and, if necessary blood, to find hope. We will beat this virus, we will beat climate destruction, we will beat racism, and, in November, we will beat the tyrant.

The following is from my July 2018 blog:

George Washington knew what it was like to have a difficult Independence Day. On 4 July 1776 the independence of the United States of America was not a foregone conclusion. In fact, it seemed likely that the efforts of the Continental Congress might be nothing more than an interesting footnote of history. Washington and his Continental Army were in New York. The British, under brothers General William Howe and Admiral Richard Howe (yes, nepotism was a British thing, too), had just landed a massive invasion force in New York and were entrenching for the purposes of subjugating their rebellious colonials. They outmanned and outgunned the Continental Army, and Washington’s situation seemed hopeless.

To make matters worse, the Americans had invaded Quebec the previous year with the intent of inciting the French population there to join them in a war of liberation. After nearly a century of war in Canada the French colonials had finally been abandoned by their king in 1763, and they had no stomach for challenging their new British masters. Between French Canadian ambivalence toward the American revolutionaries and British advance preparation led by Sir Guy Careleton, the American invasion had been a disaster. In July 1776 the American invading force was in full retreat and Carleton’s Redcoats were in hot pursuit.

General Washington faced the prospect that he could be attacked on two fronts, one from the brothers Howe and the other from Carleton. To make matters even worse, Americans, especially in the battle zones, were growing weary of the two year old rebellion. Washington wrote to President John Hancock (Hancock was President of the Continental Congress, and, by right, the real first President of the United States of America) on 4 July 1776, “The disaffection of the people about that place [Staten Island and vicinity] and others not far distant is exceedingly great, and unless it is checked and overawed, it may become more general and be very alarming. The arrival of the enemy will encourage it.”

The experiment of the United States appeared to be doomed before it could ever take hold, but appearances can sometimes be flawed. General Washington was fighting for something far greater than personal wealth and glory. He was fighting for that, too, but what had started as his ire at potentially losing his investments in the Ohio country, turned into a fight for something better.
Washington and the other founders of our republic had all the human frailties and flaws we all have. By our own standards today some might even seem to have been monsters. Some were greedy, racist, or misogynistic. Some were slave owners. Some were land speculators, and some were pirates.

Whatever their flaws may have been they shared a common goal. They knew their lives could be something better. To be objectively accurate life for English colonists in North America before the Revolution was not bad by global standards of the time. Some were traders, some farmers or plantation owners, some were carpenters, furniture makers, or coopers. Except for those in a form of bound labor (either outright slavery or indentured servitude) most colonials were free to travel. Most people spoke their minds freely, though disparaging the king or God was not advisable. They were generally prosperous and not oppressed, but they knew they could do better.

They had the audacity to dream of a country where people could freely disparage a king or a deity. They imagined a place where citizens, not subjects, could freely pursue their wildest dreams by the sweat of their brows and succeed or fail according to their own merits. They concocted a notion that, by their example, people around the world, who truly were oppressed, would rise up against their own tyrants.

The American revolutionaries of 1776 knew they were not perfect. They knew that the experiment they had started was only a beginning. They were confident that succeeding generations would improve the experiment. I think that those revolutionaries would look at the 240 years of accomplishment between July 1776 and July 2016 and be mostly pleased with what their descendents had done. So on this 4th of July I celebrate the accomplishments of those first 240 years, the abolition of slavery, the enfranchisement of women, the spread of democracy, and the freedom to love. May God bless the United States of America.


https://www.bluewatertales.com

My Mind is Set . . . Finally

The year 2020 is just two months away, and primary season will kick into high gear. I’ve been reluctant to choose a favorite Democrat to run for the office of President of The United States until now. Before I continue I want to state that I am handily impressed with the field of candidates overall. There can be only one nominee, and whoever that may be I will heartily support with my vote next November. I believe that any of the candidates now running can beat the monstrous beast currently occupying the White House. I do think some candidates can do it with greater ease than others. I also think, after listening, reading, watching them all interact, that some candidates have better ideas than others. I also think that some candidates have better leadership skills than others, and some have the ability to unite this country better than others – something we sorely need, especially after the last three years. These reasons form the criteria of my selection process, and for all of these reasons I have decided to endorse Mayor Pete Buttigieg for President.

I know, a lot of people are thinking, “Hmmm, a gay guy endorses the gay guy. Surprise, surprise.” Well, it wasn’t that easy. First I didn’t welcome the specter of being a gay guy endorsing a gay guy. In fact, I was slow to warm up to Pete. My initial favorite was Kamala Harris. I like her a lot. I think she would be an excellent president. I’ve always liked Joe Biden, and had he run in 2016 I don’t think we would have the mess we have now. I like Elizabeth Warren, she is a native Oklahoman, and that speaks to me, not to mention her brilliant ideas. Bernie Sanders has some great ideas, too, so do most of the others.

There were two factors that pushed me solidly onto Team Pete. In a sense they are two sides of the same coin. As much as I like Elizabeth and Bernie, they can be rather dogmatic and inflexible. We have dogmatic and inflexible right now, and look at what that’s accomplished. We need a president that can work with diverse ideals and temperaments. I believe Pete can do this. The other factor is Pete’s ability to bring people together, even conservatives and liberals. The only other candidate, who I think could be as effective in uniting Americans, would be Joe Biden, but, as much as I like Joe, his time has passed.

There was one other factor that is a little more difficult to articulate. I tried to imagine next fall a scenario in which each Democratic candidate was up against 45 (or Pence or Romney if 45 makes an early departure from office). I asked myself which one could compete most effectively against any of those three. With Biden, all we would hear would be “Ukraine.” With Warren, it would be “Pocahontas.” With Bernie it would be “Socialist.” Pete has no such baggage, and it certainly wouldn’t be the gay card because even the most rabid Republicans know that it’s a non-issue to most Americans.

There are those who wonder of if a gay guy could get elected in the United States. I’ve previously explored this thought, and I’ll repeat what I’ve stated in the past. In 1932 people thought a guy in a wheelchair couldn’t get elected. In 1960 some thought a Catholic couldn’t win. In 1976 people wondered how a peanut farmer might fair at the poles. In 1980 it seemed scandalous that a divorced actor might win. In 2008 a black president seemed unimaginable, and in 2016 the idea of a sexual predator winning the White House was absurd. All of your civics teachers taught you that anyone can grow up to be president in the United States, and they were right. So, Mr. Hurst, you too are right. We do have a “queer running for president.” Get used to that idea because he might very well be your commander-in-chief very soon.

https://www.bluewatertales.com

Pride and Thanks

Pride month is winding down, and it is time for my contribution to the dialogue. In this fiftieth year celebration of what started as the Gay Rights Movement and evolved into LGBTQ Pride, I have concluded that future events should be celebrations of both pride and thanks. We should be proud of who we are and what we have accomplished, both individually and collectively. We should also give thanks to those who helped us along the way, both individually and collectively.

I am proud of the fact that starting in 1990, at a most unlikely university, in a most unlikely part of rural Oklahoma, I stood tall with a group of brave LGBTQ students to demand recognition by our student government. It was at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma, that I became a part of what was then known as the Gay Lesbian Student Organization and later the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Community Association (it was 1990, we were still evolving). I am proud of the fact that I served two terms as co-chair with two amazing women, first Lys Buck and second Natasha Rice.

I am proud of the fact we established a hot-line for LGBTQ students. We served as a resource, guide, and sympathetic shoulder to university students struggling with questions about sexuality. I am thankful for people like Mike, Kevin, Hildreth, and many others that gave their valuable time to undergo the necessary training and to answer the phone when it rang. We helped many people through a most difficult moment in their lives.

I am proud of the fact that we worked with open minded religious organizations to help repair the damage caused by millennia of cultural oppression. The open forums and panel discussions helped LGBTQ students find a safe and affirming way to express their spirituality. Some of us rejoined our communities of faith and I am thankful for the lifelong friendships that resulted from this effort, especially for Vikki, Deb, Corbin, Paul, Paul, Paul, and Toby.

I am proud of the fact that starting in 1991 we led a contingent of LGBTQ students that marched in the Oklahoma City Pride Parade. We made our voices heard. We demanded our rights.

I am proud of the fact that we upset the evil forces of oppression. I am thankful for those who waved their Bibles and tried to shout us down. I am thankful for the death threats I heard on my answering machine. They only made us stronger and more determined.

I am proud of the fact that we made a contribution to the Pride Movement. I am thankful for those people that gave of themselves to accomplish something for a greater good. Twenty-nine years ago a group of students at a most conservative university, in a most conservative region, of a most conservative state broke the closet door off its hinges and proudly demanded justice and equality.

https://www.bluewatertales.com

Currents and Eddies

It was Spock in the original Star Trek series episode, “City on the Edge of Forever,” who postulated a theory about currents and eddies in time. It was a necessary theory for the storyline. Doctor McCoy had accidently injected himself with a drug that caused severe psychotropic effects. In his madness McCoy transported himself down to a planet where a strange time portal took him into 1930s New York. Conveniently Spock had been recording the images of the time portal on his “tricorder.” McCoy somehow changed history, which resulted in the sudden deletion of the universe and the Enterprise, leaving only the landing party on the planet with the time portal. Kirk asks the portal to replay time, whereby he and Spock jump through the portal just before the moment when history changed, hopefully to prevent McCoy’s bumble and to right history.

Kirk worried that they might have landed in some far off continent weeks, months, or years before McCoy arrived and would have no idea how to find him even if they were nearby. This is where Spock concocted his theory about currents and eddies in time. The theory seems to suggest that if history is like an ocean current following a predictable stream, certain moments in history run counter to that current creating an eddy of sorts. These are the moments that could trap a temporarily insane McCoy and could also draw Kirk and Spock into that same eddy. It would not be possible, for instance, for Kirk and Spock to have landed in Berlin on Kristallnacht while McCoy landed in New York at the doorstep of Edith Keeler (played by Joan Collins). They all would be trapped by the same whirlpool. Spock’s theory proved true, and, of course, they fixed history. The universe was made whole again, and the Enterprise was back in orbit ready to take its merry crew on another adventure.

When science fiction writers need a logical solution to an illogical problem, concocting such a theory or a new law of physics is a convenient tool in their arsenal. Standard fiction writers, and especially historical fiction writers don’t have that luxury. For us the world is round and it revolves around the Sun. When someone drops an apple, it must hit the ground.

Nevertheless, I am intrigued by Spock’s theory. I’ve often noticed that places, themes, and seemingly unrelated events cluster as if caught in an eddy of time. It is an old superstition that “deaths come in threes.” My dog died, a week later my mother died, six months later my dad died. My world suddenly changed forever. The year 1949, often labeled “The Year of Shocks” by historians, witnessed the establishment of East and West Germany, the Berlin Blockade, the atomic bomb in the Soviet Union, the fall of Nationalist China, and a host of other momentous events. The world changed forever.

Maybe Spock’s theory has merit. I wouldn’t want to suggest that some metaphysical force is responsible for clustering events. It is not as though a deity arbitrarily decides, “Hey, it’s 1871, I’ll make the Parisian’s revolt and form a commune, and then I’ll have Mrs. O’Leary’s cow knock over a lantern.” If I am postulating something, it might be a challenge to our Euro-centric linear point of view. We tend to think of time as a purely linear thing with sixty second minutes, sixty minute hours, twenty-four hour days, . . .. Events, both major and minor, simply are notches along that steady, dependable, predictable time line.

The problem with our tidy and neat time keeping system is that it is a human invention. It is a system superimposed over the facts of history. Regardless of a system of minutes, days, months, and years, historical events follow their own pace. History is like a freeway. Time keeping is the posted 70mph speed limit, which is supposed to keep traffic moving at a steady, even, predictable pace. Historical events, however, are made up of a BMW flitting down the road at 90mph, a Prius ambling along at 55, and a half-rusted Crown Victoria lurching from 65 to 80 and back to 70. At some point the BMW, the Prius, and the Crown Vic will all meet up on the same stretch of road, hopefully avoiding a collision. That is the moment that creates Spock’s eddy. It is a random phenomenon.

https://www.bluewatertales.com