I’m often asked how I came up with the titles for the three novels in my Seeds of Civilization series so I thought I’d take this opportunity to explain both the titles and the large symbols you see on each cover. (Click the images below to view the full-sized, original artwork of each object)

When I started writing Tractrix, I didn’t really know where the story was going – heck, I didn’t even know I was writing a novel until about a month into the project! But before my first novel even had a title, a mysterious baseball-sized sphere emerged as a significant object in the storyline. The sphere’s dull black finish and the strange raised figures on its surface made it look both ancient and futuristic and that was enough to intrigue Frank Morton, my main character. When it came time to pick a title, I knew I wanted something unique that referenced the spheres but also sounded mysterious. Calling on my background in mathematics, I came up with the word tractrix. Technically a tractrix is the mathematical inverse of a circle, not a sphere, but that was close enough for me!

By the time my wife and our good friend Alvaro had the dramatic cover of Tractrix finished, I was already sold on the idea of doing a follow-up novel with a different mysterious object at its core – and on its cover. Once I had decided on Japan’s Yonaguni Island as the second book’s location, I began researching ancient Japanese history and that’s where I ran across the word Tsubute (pronounced sue-boo-tay, with the “ts” having the same sound it does in tsumani). A tsubute was an ancient Ninja throwing weapon that’s a distant relative of the modern-day throwing star. Tsubutes were 8-sided objects made of hardened clay and they were used to render an opponent unconscious. In my novel, the tsubutes found deep under Yonaguni’s Mt. Urabu have a much more important purpose than just simple throwing disks.

With a pattern clearly established, I started the third novel knowing I would have to come up with an object for the title and the cover that was as interesting as those in Tractrix and Tsubute. And to make my job even more difficult, I now felt obligated to find a word that began with “T” to complete the trilogy. While the name I chose isn’t exotic, or even unique, the title Triangle has significance on several levels. It’s the third novel (“tri”), it takes place largely in the area known as The Bermuda Triangle and the objects at the center of the story are mysterious triangle-shaped coins discovered on the ocean floor off the northwest tip of Cuba.

As much fun as it was to incorporate inanimate objects into each of my first three novels, I did not carry that practice into the follow-up Parallel Ops series. In the new series, each book “stars” one of the main characters from Seeds and my “variation on a theme” titles hint at the role of each character: The Scientists, The Informants, The Guardians and The Teachers.

Today I’m going to describe – very briefly – a few of my favorite minor characters from the Seeds of Civilization mystery/adventure novels.

Jill Harris is actually a main character during the first half of Tractrix, until a government agent suggests she “disappear” for her own safety. Frank meets the tough ICU nurse when he first arrives in Las Vegas and he soon learns that her family and his investigation are intertwined. However, it is Tony who’s attracted to Jill and they develop a relationship that lasts through the end of the series.

Ben Kingston is an exobiologist employed by the Department of Defense who is brought in late in Tractrix to help Frank, Tony, Linda and Jim investigate the mysterious spheres that are the basis of the novel. Any more information about Ben would reveal too much of the plot, but suffice it to say that his isolated lab, dug into a hillside overlooking Area 51, contains an “out of this world” artifact.

“Fitz” and Susan Fitgerald, along with their dog Sandstrom, join the NWIDI team in the opening pages of book 2, Tsubute. Fitz and Susan are private jet pilots and Sandstrom’s primary role seems to be to pester and annoy Tony! Grrrr!

Bill Ito is a Japanese-American exchange student working in a small hotel on Yonaguni Island when the NWIDI team blows into town in Tsubute. Because of his perfect English and his extensive knowledge of the island, he becomes an unofficial team member until I’m forced to write him out of the story line in chapter 14.

Javier Reyes is introduced in chapter 1 of Triangle and remains a secondary character throughout the rest of the novel. Javier’s experience with a Mexican environmental group buys him a spot on the NWIDI team as they take to the ocean in search of the source of strange signals emanating from deep below the surface near Cuba. However, it is his resourcefulness that saves Linda’s life when they are sent on a covert mission deep into the island nation’s interior.

Miles Adderly is a retired U.S. Navy SEAL who owns and operates a hotel on Andros Island in the Bahamas. When Frank, Tony, and Jim show up, Miles seems to be both an ally and an adversary but a book in his library provides Jim with important clues about the origin of artifacts found near Cuba. After teaching Frank how to use exotic rebreather diving equipment, Miles remains with Frank “to the very end” of Triangle – and the series.

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at some of the characters you’re going to meet in my second series, Parallel Ops.

One of the things I like most about my writing hobby is the fact that I get to “visit” so many interesting places. By the time I’ve researched a location on the Internet, looked at dozens of photos and studied the terrain in detail using Google Earth, I actually feel like I’ve been there. While writing the first series, Seeds Of Civilization, I learned about the Nellis Bombing Range, the vast military complex north of Las Vegas that contains the site where the U.S. did much of it’s atomic and nuclear bomb testing. Nellis is also home to the Yucca Mountain project and the infamous Area 51. I also studied the region in Mexico’s Yucatan where the Maya made their last stand against the Mexican Army in the late 19^th century. And that was just in Tractrix, the first book!

Tsubute, my second novel, was set almost entirely on a tiny Japanese island 1,200 miles southwest of Tokyo. I chose this location because of the famous Yonaguni Monument, an underwater structure that some believe is more than twice as old as the pyramids of Egypt. Although I’ve never been to Yonaguni, I was fortunate to hook up with a dive shop on the island and one of the employees went to the local visitors’ center and mailed me several very detailed maps of the island. The Yonaguni Monument has become a popular scuba diving destination, so I was able to use photos posted on the Internet to get a feel of what it was like “on the ground.”

Triangle, the third novel in the Seeds series, begins in Cancun, sails east to a site off the northwest tip of Cuba and then moves on to Andros Island, in the Bahamas, for much of the story (although Linda and her new friend do make a side-trip to Cuba). While “on” Andros, my readers and I learn all about the Advanced Underwater Testing and Evaluation Center (AUTEC) which is actually the U.S. Navy’s version of Area 51.

Fortunately, not all of my travel has been virtual. After Tractrix was off to the printer, my wife, Marty, and I had the great pleasure of traveling to Mexico’s Yucatan and following the footsteps of my characters from Cancun inland to the city of Merida then on to the amazing Maya ruins at Uxmal. We even toured the Loltun Caverns, where the Maya held off the Spanish Army for months before finally surrendering in 1901. You’ll learn all about these places when you read the book yourself.

In a later post I may let you in on some of the places I’m “visiting” during the writing of the Parallel Ops series. With all four characters traveling independently, I am virtually traveling around the world!