Author Line-Up for 3-8--22

 Posted by Wayne G. Barber 

E-Mail waynewnri@yahoo.com with any questions or comments 

News, Lively Literati, Expos, Poetry, Publishing Questions, Author Interviews

1901. It was the beginning of a grand new century. William McKinley was re-elected president. Roosevelt was now the vice-president and wanted a secret spy agency for the executive branch. The Pan-Am Exposition heralded electricity as a new power to light the world, The American economy was booming, engineering innovations eclipsed previously believed limits, and submarines captured the Navy's attention. But a failed assassination on Kaiser Wilhelm started a cascade of events that threatened to spiral the world's fragile balance of power out of control.

Secrecy and Gamesmanship is set in 1901, primarily in the United States. William McKinley had been re-elected president with Theodore Roosevelt as his vice-president. Prior to the Spanish-American War in 1898, as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Roosevelt brought in John Wilkie to rebuild the Secret Service and split off a special group of agents who would eventually become a spy agency for the Executive Branch.

Sam Carter, a Citadel graduate and illegitimate son of a German Federation spy who had died on the civil war submarine, CSS Hunley, had been working for the Secret Service as one of those special agents since before the Spanish American War. He had grown weary of chasing John Wilkie’s empty promises of permanent appointment to the special group, leaving him wanting something else. Coaxed by his marine engineering studies at the Citadel, Carter investigates the latest of the U.S. Navy’s advanced engineering acquisitions, the Holland submarine.

Author Line-Up for 2-8-22

 Posted by Wayne G.Barber 

News, Book Signings, Poetry, Publishing Questions, Lively Literati, Author Interviews

E-Mail the program live at waynewnri@yahoo.com 

Tentatively Scheduled at 9:05 am Author Jeff Lucas will discuss, " The Lost Ship" 

A fearless sixth-grader dives alone in the ocean with a single mission: to photograph an octopus. What confronts him is nothing short of astounding.

This fast-paced and illuminating middle-grade novel takes readers on an undersea exploration and adventure. A book like none other, combining a wealth of oceanic facts and marine lore with a generous dollop of imagination.

Jack is a 12-year-old amateur diver who lives in Bounty Bay, a haven for an abundance of marine life with its proximity to the vibrant reef. When his sixth-grade school assignment has him set on procuring an elusive photograph of an octopus, he unknowingly begins an oceanic quest that is life changing when he befriends a talking octopus. Author Jeff Lucas masterfully weaves an enthralling and enchanting middle-grade story with The Lost Ship, a novel of friendship and determination set against a backdrop of the world's biggest wonder: the ocean.

Jack secretly embarks on the dive, taking his gear and some gadgets invented by his dad including a "scubaphone," a device that allows divers to communicate without a tablet (one was recently lost on an ocean outing). When Jack soon spots an octopus, he is elated...and astonished to find that it can speak! Armstrong, as the affable animal calls himself, is the proud owner of the lost scubaphone, enabling him to chat with a flummoxed Jack. From listening to passing boaters and divers over time, including Jack's dad and his assistant Max, Armstrong has an excellent command of language...and impeccable manners, to boot! A wary Jack is appeased when his eight-armed companion tells him, "Look, Jack, I don't intend to eat you...We're going to be friends."

The duo's friendship is solidly secured when Jack helps his new pal in a two-on-one fight to the death with a green moray eel, an octopus's worst enemy. As Jack explores the wonder and beauty of the thriving and plentiful sea life surrounding him, Armstrong tells him a story from his youth when he saw a wooden ship resting on the ocean floor hidden away in a deep, dark cavern. Jack immediately recognizes that this find could be "one of the greatest maritime discoveries in history," and the pair have a new mission: to find the old wooden sailing ship.

It turns out, Armstrong is a walking―er, swimming―encyclopedia of knowledge about the vast multitude of marine life. Along their journey, Jack learns from Armstrong that a sea lily is not a plant but an animal and has been around for more than 400 million years; a torpedo ray can give a terrible electric shock of two hundred volts; an olive-green sea snake has a venomous bite ten times more powerful than a king cobra's; and barrel sponges can live more than 2,000 years. But the most important fact that Armstrong shares with Jack is that the ocean has a critical symbiosis among its living creatures that helps to maintain nature's fragile balance: all have their purpose.