Category: SUSPENSE

Boddington Fort: Inspiration for Tolkien?

Boddington Fort - looking North-east — Boddington Fort – looking North-east

The Ridgeway, England’s oldest road at 7000 years, runs along the Chiltern Hills, as it heads South to Avebury in Dorset.

My stepmother passed away in the last week and my father passed away almost exactly a year ago. I wasn’t close to either in the final decades, but it made me think about the Autumn of life. I suppose post Covid, many of us have lost family, so it seems appropriate to post something personal, because I last did this during lockdown.

(Right-click the image to see the high-resolution version)

Last week, knowing she hadn’t long, I decided to walk part of the Ridgeway, the oldest road in Britain at 7000 years. I walked the first part, going south from Pitstone Hill to Tring Station (~10.5 miles), in the sweltering heat of the 2022 Summer. I thought this section, from Tring Station to Wendover Station (~10.5 miles) would be a doddle. I was wrong!

I believe Boddington Fort is a serious candidate for Tolkien’s inspiration for the hilltop clearing in the Old Forest from The Fellowship of the Ring. Here’s why.

Continue reading “Boddington Fort: Inspiration for Tolkien?” →

Operation Peppermint: Radiological Fallout

Operation Peppermint
The hazards posed to nuclear veterans – whether personnel (including down wind civilians) were present at Trinity, Hiroshima and Nagasaki (included the targeted civilians) or at nuclear test areas thereafter – were well known prior to the formation of Manhattan Project. Indeed, radiation sickness had been fully described by medical authorities in Europe and the US in the 1930s. The radium dial painters – their illnesses and suffering – were tracked by US authorities from the 1920s until the last worker died in the 1990s (making this the first human radiation experiment conducted without victim permission). Many such workers suffered decades of ill health, many died in the 20s and 30s.

Source (no longer online)

Read more about WWII radiation experiments, including the project to build and detonate a Nazi Atomic Bomb in my forthcoming book: December Radio, to be published around 29 January 2016 by A-Argus. Continue reading “Operation Peppermint: Radiological Fallout” →

Explore the world of Atalan T’ea

The Hole Inside the Earth – epic quest from the far past to the far future!

Only the Vampire Priests understand the Blood Moon Prophecy: “A drop of His blood fills the cup and brings the Blood Moon Dawn.”

“Lots of cool action and drew me well in.” – AHF Magazine.

Both men, distracted, stepped back. She knew they would be unbalanced, so she executed the estoc, her sword strike entering one man’s exposed right armpit. He fell.

I, Zosimyache, mercenary of ancient Greece, wrote this.
I once asked Omacron what time seemed like for one who had survived for so long in a tumultuous world.
“Time is meaningless,” he said.
“Then, what does have meaning?” I asked.
“Memory.”
This, then, is the story, as recalled by me and those Rememberers, few in number, who survived the last war on Earth. I wasn’t there at the beginning, but I am here now in the tale that continues.
– from The Garden, final chapter of Volume 15: The Sea of Lost Intentions

Take a sneak preview of a map of Atalan T’ea Llantu here