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The Abduction Chronicles
AWARDED THE PIPS VERIFIED BOOK QUALITY AWARD
A blend of Close Encounters of the Third Kind with Total Recall. Imagination gone wild or insane reality?
Based on some true mysterious and compelling life events of the author who experienced some unusual phenomenon in his life. His ex-wife claimed they were abducted, on several occasions, by beings who were not of this world. He was unaware of them until he melted their instilled memory blocks.
Who are the abductors? Where are they from? What do they want? His search for the answers will torment his reality.
An intriguing adventure packed with action, drama, mystery, romance, comedy, and a few exhilarating plot twists that will surely knock your socks off.
Join 'The Comeback Kid' on his journey as he unravels the secrets behind his abductions and comes face to face with his abductors.
THE ABDUCTION CHRONICLES is an abridged version of two books, An Abduction Revelation and its sequel, Abduction Revelation II.
A blend of Close Encounters of the Third Kind with Total Recall. Imagination gone wild or insane reality?
Based on some true mysterious and compelling life events of the author who experienced some unusual phenomenon in his life. His ex-wife claimed they were abducted, on several occasions, by beings who were not of this world. He was unaware of them until he melted their instilled memory blocks.
Who are the abductors? Where are they from? What do they want? His search for the answers will torment his reality.
An intriguing adventure packed with action, drama, mystery, romance, comedy, and a few exhilarating plot twists that will surely knock your socks off.
Join 'The Comeback Kid' on his journey as he unravels the secrets behind his abductions and comes face to face with his abductors.
THE ABDUCTION CHRONICLES is an abridged version of two books, An Abduction Revelation and its sequel, Abduction Revelation II.
273 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 6, 2017
8 people are currently reading
199 people want to read
About the author
Thomas L. Hay
4 books47 followersThomas L. Hay, raised in the Golden Valley of Clinton, Missouri. Graduate of the 1961 Senior High class. Retired from American/TWA and resides in Lake Waukomis, Missouri. He enjoys golfing, fishing, beating his wife in gin rummy, and singing Karaoke. He is married to Karen 'the love of his life' and 'the apple of his eye'. He also lives with some hyperactive squirrel's, too many irritating geese and a few cranky old catfish.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 6, 2019
The Abduction Chronicles is an abridged version of two respective books: An Abduction Revelation and it’s sequel.
The year is 1960 and seventeen year old Tommy has destroyed his new car. The problem? He can’t remember what happened: all he recalls are three strange lights in the night sky, and nothing else. Fast forward to the modern day and Tommy is about to experience far more than he ever imagined.
~Story
As Tommy grows up, his life becomes increasingly complicated. He serves in the navy and continues to have experiences seeing strange lights. When he meets his first wife, Claudia, these strange experiences become far more frequent, until he no longer knows what to believe.
The story was well written, passing between two main settings from the second half onward. It was beyond anything I could imagine: highly imaginative, thrilling, and with situations that although improbable, felt entirely possible if viewed from a certain perspective.
~Characters
There are two main characters I’d like to discuss: Tommy (Tom), and Monroe.
Tom is an honest, hard-working man, having served in the US navy, and worked alongside the US government. He is curious about new things and shows a great depth of compassion for others.
Monroe is an unrecognizable being that I found difficult to trust at first, likely due to Tom’s own trust issues. I was never sure of Monroe’s motivations, but could appreciate all that he had to teach Tom.
I can’t say too much, because of obvious spoilers, but Monroe was oddly enough my favourite character. He is a very literal being, something I could easily relate to being on the Autism Spectrum.
Tom and Monroe gradually form a bond over the course of the story. Like me, Tom couldn’t always trust Monroe or those he associated with. There was a lot of miscommunication between the pair because of how their minds worked and again, I could easily relate to this. There were times where these misunderstandings led to conflict, however the pair’s lasting bond was a strong and beautiful thing to behold.
~Writing Style
Hay possesses a simple, conversational style of writing that I found hard to resist. It felt like I really got to know Tommy (Tom), as if I had befriended him in real life. I came to care when bad things happened to him, wanting only the best for him.
Each chapter ended with a cliff-hanging sentence or two, which pushed me to keep reading.
I had so many questions and needed to see if they were answered.
{Spoiler: they were.}
~Quotes
1) ‘Most people are not aware, however, that official government records
reveal only what the federal government wants the public to know, or believe.’
2) ‘There’s always a catch when something appears too good to be true.’
I found these two quotes to be good ‘grounding’ phrases. They both reminded me that not everything is as it seems, and that what we experience (information-wise) is often filtered by others before it reaches us.
~Overview
Overall, this was a fantastic sci-fi read that had me questioning the way we live our lives on Earth,
along with all the experiences we share.
My rating: 4 stars.
Recommended? Yes, to lovers of sci-fi, and those interested in extra-terrestrial phenomena.
The year is 1960 and seventeen year old Tommy has destroyed his new car. The problem? He can’t remember what happened: all he recalls are three strange lights in the night sky, and nothing else. Fast forward to the modern day and Tommy is about to experience far more than he ever imagined.
~Story
As Tommy grows up, his life becomes increasingly complicated. He serves in the navy and continues to have experiences seeing strange lights. When he meets his first wife, Claudia, these strange experiences become far more frequent, until he no longer knows what to believe.
The story was well written, passing between two main settings from the second half onward. It was beyond anything I could imagine: highly imaginative, thrilling, and with situations that although improbable, felt entirely possible if viewed from a certain perspective.
~Characters
There are two main characters I’d like to discuss: Tommy (Tom), and Monroe.
Tom is an honest, hard-working man, having served in the US navy, and worked alongside the US government. He is curious about new things and shows a great depth of compassion for others.
Monroe is an unrecognizable being that I found difficult to trust at first, likely due to Tom’s own trust issues. I was never sure of Monroe’s motivations, but could appreciate all that he had to teach Tom.
I can’t say too much, because of obvious spoilers, but Monroe was oddly enough my favourite character. He is a very literal being, something I could easily relate to being on the Autism Spectrum.
Tom and Monroe gradually form a bond over the course of the story. Like me, Tom couldn’t always trust Monroe or those he associated with. There was a lot of miscommunication between the pair because of how their minds worked and again, I could easily relate to this. There were times where these misunderstandings led to conflict, however the pair’s lasting bond was a strong and beautiful thing to behold.
~Writing Style
Hay possesses a simple, conversational style of writing that I found hard to resist. It felt like I really got to know Tommy (Tom), as if I had befriended him in real life. I came to care when bad things happened to him, wanting only the best for him.
Each chapter ended with a cliff-hanging sentence or two, which pushed me to keep reading.
I had so many questions and needed to see if they were answered.
{Spoiler: they were.}
~Quotes
1) ‘Most people are not aware, however, that official government records
reveal only what the federal government wants the public to know, or believe.’
2) ‘There’s always a catch when something appears too good to be true.’
I found these two quotes to be good ‘grounding’ phrases. They both reminded me that not everything is as it seems, and that what we experience (information-wise) is often filtered by others before it reaches us.
~Overview
Overall, this was a fantastic sci-fi read that had me questioning the way we live our lives on Earth,
along with all the experiences we share.
My rating: 4 stars.
Recommended? Yes, to lovers of sci-fi, and those interested in extra-terrestrial phenomena.
October 10, 2020
This is not a science-fiction story in the usual sense. It is a pseudo-autobiography, or perhaps more accurately - a modern day “Tall Tale” story. It starts in a perfectly reasonable and factual way (as a “folksy” autobiography of Thomas Hay, born on April 15th 1943) … and then slowly slides into a UFO abduction story. Like any good “Tall Tale” much of the fun of the story is trying to figure out which parts are fact and which parts fiction.
Disclaimer: I received a free digital ARC for this novel. However, both the decision to post a review and the contents of the review are voluntary and my own alone.
There were a lot of things I liked about this story. For example:
Frequent clever humor poking at well-known tropes for each era. As just one of many examples, there is a Russian trawler scene with the line “It definitely wasn’t a fishing vessel, as we has suspected all along, even though everything about it looked fishy”.
Clichés and their ilk. The author has a lot of fun injecting clichés and idioms at regular intervals in the story. He also has a lot of fun having people (particularly Monroe) misquote them. (I’m reminded of 2010 with “easy as cake” and “a piece of pie” – imagine a whole book along the same lines.)
It has a soundtrack. Well, not quite… However, the author punctuates key sections with the lyrics from well-known songs of each era. I found that this worked pretty well for me (I’m not all that much younger than the author, so the lyrics really did trigger the song in my head). As a caveat, younger readers may be mystified from time to time.
Some cleverness with “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. The reader will immediately recognize a number of science-fiction elements in common with “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. Examples include the spacecraft coming in groups of three, use of music to deliver Morse code, and the like. The author cleverly explains this by reversing the time sequence and putting the movie later in time than the events in the book. “I swear, George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg must have been abductees too, because their movie two years later, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, featured a carbon copy of our device.”
However, there were some things I struggled with. For example:
Dream and/or unconscious sequences are used to the point of distraction. The base story (without the dream sequences) already has several time loops in it. More specifically, there is the original character (Tom), the cloned version of the original character (Tom-Tom), equivalents for the wives (Karen and Caren); a first time loop where the clones are substituted for the originals, and a second time loop where that substitution is reversed because of the short lifespan of the clones. This is already pretty complicated! However, on top this were multiple (4? 5?) dream/unconscious sequences involving such topics as Monroe being an alien, the aliens “consuming” humans, Monroe pulling out Tom (or possibly Tom-Tom’s) teeth, and a variety of fire-fights involving lasers, aliens, and the like. Frankly, I got lost in all the reverses. Even when I went back and looked more closely at the book while writing this review, I was not confident I’d correctly untangled the story line from the repeated dream sequences. While one can certainly say that dream sequences are a valid writing technique, I would counter that the real impact of the story is in the “Tall Tale” nature of the narrative, and the frequent reverses generated by the dream sequences are distractions from that narrative.
Fiza. There were a number of sexual episodes discussed in the story, and I had some issues with the ones involving Fiza. At a high level, Tom enters into a sexual relationship with Fiza (a Saudi woman), a relationship that starts in the presence of her brothers, and evolves into a relationship where “the force of our love making soon knocked us onto the floor” and “we scratched and clawed like two wild animals in heat”. Fiza and Tom marry, and then Fiza is kidnapped by her family and returned to Saudi Arabia. Tom then learns later that she was sold into slavery into a Bedouin Tribe and suicided by being bitten by a king cobra (note that king cobras are not commonly found in Saudi Arabia). Putting it simply, there is some dissonance in this narrative. To begin with, the narrative is likely fictional. Since a Saudi woman requires the approval of the King to marry a foreigner (and the Saudi culture has numerous issues with Saudi’s marrying non-Islams) it is nearly inconceivable that the brothers would allow this relationship to even start – much less end up as a marriage. More fundamentally, should the author have actually have experienced this situation in real-life, one would assume the whole thing would be pretty traumatic (having one’s wife kidnapped and eventually commit suicide would seem to be a life-altering event) and thus likely to not be discussed in a generally lighthearted story. Given all this, the Fiza narrative appears to be largely or fully fictional. Unfortunately, a fictional narrative creates the impression that the story arc was intended as some sort of parody, and (given the cross-cultural concerns about honor-killing and the like) it comes across as tactless and impolitic rather than funny.
Disclaimer: I received a free digital ARC for this novel. However, both the decision to post a review and the contents of the review are voluntary and my own alone.
There were a lot of things I liked about this story. For example:
Frequent clever humor poking at well-known tropes for each era. As just one of many examples, there is a Russian trawler scene with the line “It definitely wasn’t a fishing vessel, as we has suspected all along, even though everything about it looked fishy”.
Clichés and their ilk. The author has a lot of fun injecting clichés and idioms at regular intervals in the story. He also has a lot of fun having people (particularly Monroe) misquote them. (I’m reminded of 2010 with “easy as cake” and “a piece of pie” – imagine a whole book along the same lines.)
It has a soundtrack. Well, not quite… However, the author punctuates key sections with the lyrics from well-known songs of each era. I found that this worked pretty well for me (I’m not all that much younger than the author, so the lyrics really did trigger the song in my head). As a caveat, younger readers may be mystified from time to time.
Some cleverness with “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. The reader will immediately recognize a number of science-fiction elements in common with “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. Examples include the spacecraft coming in groups of three, use of music to deliver Morse code, and the like. The author cleverly explains this by reversing the time sequence and putting the movie later in time than the events in the book. “I swear, George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg must have been abductees too, because their movie two years later, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, featured a carbon copy of our device.”
However, there were some things I struggled with. For example:
Dream and/or unconscious sequences are used to the point of distraction. The base story (without the dream sequences) already has several time loops in it. More specifically, there is the original character (Tom), the cloned version of the original character (Tom-Tom), equivalents for the wives (Karen and Caren); a first time loop where the clones are substituted for the originals, and a second time loop where that substitution is reversed because of the short lifespan of the clones. This is already pretty complicated! However, on top this were multiple (4? 5?) dream/unconscious sequences involving such topics as Monroe being an alien, the aliens “consuming” humans, Monroe pulling out Tom (or possibly Tom-Tom’s) teeth, and a variety of fire-fights involving lasers, aliens, and the like. Frankly, I got lost in all the reverses. Even when I went back and looked more closely at the book while writing this review, I was not confident I’d correctly untangled the story line from the repeated dream sequences. While one can certainly say that dream sequences are a valid writing technique, I would counter that the real impact of the story is in the “Tall Tale” nature of the narrative, and the frequent reverses generated by the dream sequences are distractions from that narrative.
Fiza. There were a number of sexual episodes discussed in the story, and I had some issues with the ones involving Fiza. At a high level, Tom enters into a sexual relationship with Fiza (a Saudi woman), a relationship that starts in the presence of her brothers, and evolves into a relationship where “the force of our love making soon knocked us onto the floor” and “we scratched and clawed like two wild animals in heat”. Fiza and Tom marry, and then Fiza is kidnapped by her family and returned to Saudi Arabia. Tom then learns later that she was sold into slavery into a Bedouin Tribe and suicided by being bitten by a king cobra (note that king cobras are not commonly found in Saudi Arabia). Putting it simply, there is some dissonance in this narrative. To begin with, the narrative is likely fictional. Since a Saudi woman requires the approval of the King to marry a foreigner (and the Saudi culture has numerous issues with Saudi’s marrying non-Islams) it is nearly inconceivable that the brothers would allow this relationship to even start – much less end up as a marriage. More fundamentally, should the author have actually have experienced this situation in real-life, one would assume the whole thing would be pretty traumatic (having one’s wife kidnapped and eventually commit suicide would seem to be a life-altering event) and thus likely to not be discussed in a generally lighthearted story. Given all this, the Fiza narrative appears to be largely or fully fictional. Unfortunately, a fictional narrative creates the impression that the story arc was intended as some sort of parody, and (given the cross-cultural concerns about honor-killing and the like) it comes across as tactless and impolitic rather than funny.
November 6, 2017
The Abduction Chronicles by Thomas L. Hay was a book that I found myself finishing the same day I began reading it. I just could not put the book down I had to know the truth behind the abductions and if the wife;s claims were true or if she was insane. This is a book that anyone who enjoys the supernatural and science fiction novels can easily be pulled into with its gripping story and the wondering of what is truly fact and what is fiction. Do aliens exist were they really abducted? These were the questions that kept me captivated and enthralled forced from one page to the next to discover the truth!
November 22, 2017
Another great book that I have stepped out of my "normal" reading material for. This book will have you thinking all kinds of what ifs. This is a book that will intrigue you and make you want more. So if you haven't read this book by now I highly suggest you do!
October 8, 2021
Thomas L. Hay is a new author for me and I didn't know what to expect. I'm very interested in the subject and this book satisfied my expectations. There were several unexpected twists that really caught me off guard. I recommend it!
September 21, 2020
Interesting read
Hay pens an interesting story in The Abduction Chronicles. I haven't read anything from this author before, and I really enjoyed this. The characters were relatable and fun to read about. The pace of the story was pretty steady and in some places a little fast, but the story worked. The author certainly shows imagination and an interesting perspective on aliens, and what would or could happen if one was abducted. There is humor and wit, and it was nicely weaved in the story. I find this story to be more comedic rather than sci-fi, but I liked the story. It really stretched the imagination of the reader, and that's probably what the author wanted. It's a great story to follow and try to figure out what will happen next. This author's characters develop and interacts well with the other characters. I have fast become a big fan of Hay. I look forward to reading more stories by this author. This book is a definite recommendation by Amy's Bookshelf Reviews.
Hay pens an interesting story in The Abduction Chronicles. I haven't read anything from this author before, and I really enjoyed this. The characters were relatable and fun to read about. The pace of the story was pretty steady and in some places a little fast, but the story worked. The author certainly shows imagination and an interesting perspective on aliens, and what would or could happen if one was abducted. There is humor and wit, and it was nicely weaved in the story. I find this story to be more comedic rather than sci-fi, but I liked the story. It really stretched the imagination of the reader, and that's probably what the author wanted. It's a great story to follow and try to figure out what will happen next. This author's characters develop and interacts well with the other characters. I have fast become a big fan of Hay. I look forward to reading more stories by this author. This book is a definite recommendation by Amy's Bookshelf Reviews.
December 22, 2017
Herein, there are aliens, spaceships, domed cities, alien abductions, clones, and descendants from the future. All these are a part of the life of Thomas Hay, or so he says. Oh, and he has had multiple wives, he's quite the ladies man, again so he says. Then there is time travel to the future and back. The characters are mildly interesting and the book is written basically as a memoir. All in all, it's not a bad read, but not one that will keep you on the edge of your seat. I think the best part of this book, is the humorous side of the author. Mr. Hay has an intriguing way of keeping the reader interested, even if it's not in their preferred genre.
November 1, 2017
Reviewed by Divine Zape for Readers' Favorite
Captivating, fast-paced, and mind-boggling, The Abduction Chronicles by Thomas L. Hay begins with a powerful claim from an unusual person. The protagonist’s ex-wife just called to say they were abducted by aliens. And in a matter-of-fact-tone, she explains how she has been able to overcome the mind block that has kept them from remembering what actually happened. This isn’t a phenomenon that happened only once, but something that occurred several times. Now, intrigued, he must find out the truth. Will he be able to unveil the mystery, discover who the abductors were and what they wanted?
This novel is a unique blend of sci-fi and the supernatural, a story that will remind readers of the quirky moments of out-of-body experiences and unusual happenings that steal upon their souls in the hushed hours of the day. I felt as if I had been where the protagonist/narrator has been. Thomas L. Hay has the gift of taking readers on a ride to places that feel so strangely familiar, the places that steal into their dreams and leave them feeling as if they have actually been somewhere. Never has sci-fi felt so real to me. The characters are well-developed and the emotions they harbor within themselves will be familiar to readers. I enjoyed the way the conflict is developed. From the very first page, the author builds a sense of urgency through the masterful use of descriptions that capture the emotional and psychological depth of the story. The Abduction Chronicles is fast-paced, featuring a complex plot and memorable characters, a must-read for fans of the supernatural and sci-fi.
Captivating, fast-paced, and mind-boggling, The Abduction Chronicles by Thomas L. Hay begins with a powerful claim from an unusual person. The protagonist’s ex-wife just called to say they were abducted by aliens. And in a matter-of-fact-tone, she explains how she has been able to overcome the mind block that has kept them from remembering what actually happened. This isn’t a phenomenon that happened only once, but something that occurred several times. Now, intrigued, he must find out the truth. Will he be able to unveil the mystery, discover who the abductors were and what they wanted?
This novel is a unique blend of sci-fi and the supernatural, a story that will remind readers of the quirky moments of out-of-body experiences and unusual happenings that steal upon their souls in the hushed hours of the day. I felt as if I had been where the protagonist/narrator has been. Thomas L. Hay has the gift of taking readers on a ride to places that feel so strangely familiar, the places that steal into their dreams and leave them feeling as if they have actually been somewhere. Never has sci-fi felt so real to me. The characters are well-developed and the emotions they harbor within themselves will be familiar to readers. I enjoyed the way the conflict is developed. From the very first page, the author builds a sense of urgency through the masterful use of descriptions that capture the emotional and psychological depth of the story. The Abduction Chronicles is fast-paced, featuring a complex plot and memorable characters, a must-read for fans of the supernatural and sci-fi.
May 23, 2019
I had the honor of beta reading "The Abduction Chronicles" for author Thomas Hay when he was still contemplating separating Chronicles up into three books. I found the story I read entertaining and creative as it was. Hay's way of crossing the lines of the reality for humans and the questions of what might be out there is quite honestly a breath of fresh literary air. The reader is never truly on top of the story, nor should he be; what fun would that be? Keep in mind that the characters, as off the wall as they may seem, as quirky and quite honestly dumb as they might show themselves to be, serve a purpose you can't yet see. You do not know where this story is going, how it will reach its finality, that much I promise you. Everything that a reader might be thinking is a mistake that is railroading the whole plot, I say to you, just keep reading. It's not what you think, it's better. It's not completely absurd, it's a possible truth if you can let go of the Starbucks world you live in most of the time. "The Abduction Chronicles" is absolutely sci-fi but with a human element that, if you let it, will open your mind. At the very least you'll get hulluva entertaining read out of it!
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March 16, 2018I can honestly say that this is one of the most unusual books I've ever read. It was definitely not what I was expecting. The writing style feels a lot like a memoir with a very conversational tone. I liked this aspect as it made for very easy and fast reading.
Unfortunately, the plot was not my cup of tea. I think it was mostly because I went into the book expecting one thing and ended up getting something completely different.
I think many people would enjoy the story but it just wasn't for me.
I received a copy of this book from the author for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Unfortunately, the plot was not my cup of tea. I think it was mostly because I went into the book expecting one thing and ended up getting something completely different.
I think many people would enjoy the story but it just wasn't for me.
I received a copy of this book from the author for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews