Beyond Neanderthal by Brian Bloom @BrianB_Aust #Thriller #AmReading #Conspiracy

Visit to a Blue Amber Mine

As Tara alighted from the vehicle, she found herself facing a ghostly white haze of wispy, low-lying clouds that hung as if suspended in time above the undulating hilltops. The peaks rose from the variegated emerald and olive valley below and stretched into the distance amid a virginal mixture of lush equatorial undergrowth. She drew a deep, involuntary breath.

‘Wow!’ There were no other words to describe the feeling of awe-inspired privilege that washed over her. The vista was about as far removed from Central Park as a New York city skyscraper was from the little pastel coloured huts lining the Carretera Turística.

Aurelio smiled. Intuitively, he seemed to understand that the most appropriate response to this magnificent sight was silence. It was a full two minutes before Tara gathered her thoughts.

‘Let’s get going,’ she said.

They made their way carefully—gingerly climbing over dead logs, negotiating their way around rocky outcrops, and grabbing onto available plant life to steady themselves as they walked and stumbled their way towards the valley below. On either side of the track, a mixture of tall, fronded plants grew in an array of shapes and sizes beside stunted and gnarled old trees with deep green foliage. Tara thought of the trees like friendly bystanders, their leafy branches protectively shading Aurelio and her from much of the glaring sunshine above. They came across a trickling stream, which they followed for a while; Tara ever mindful and vigilant, watching for any sign of wildlife in the undergrowth. Except for the background humming of insects, the occasional noisy squawking of a flock of parrots flying past overhead and, once, the silent imprint of a shoe sole on the muddy banks of the stream, they seemed to be alone.

Then, in a clearing, they came across a group of young men standing seemingly relaxed and chatting. A few feet away, under a lean-to made of branches and palm fronds, one of them squatted while cooking something on a small paraffin or gas stove. Aurelio and Tara had arrived at the mine.

Again, there was a short conversation in Spanish. Again, there was a wrinkling of noses followed by broad smiles of understanding and agreement. There were also some side comments and laughter amongst the men. The word ‘gringa’—foreigner from America—came up a couple of times. Tara thought she also heard the words ‘bonita’, and ‘sexual’, but she couldn’t be sure. She decided to keep a slight distance for the time being. They were in the middle of nowhere, miles from the nearest civilization.

Aurelio walked back towards her. ‘They will be happy to show you around, but we should remember our time limitations. We cannot spend more that half an hour here if we are to return to Santo Domingo before dark.’

‘Are you trying to protect me from these guys?’ she asked with a smile. Aurelio looked embarrassed.

‘What’s he cooking?’ she asked to change the subject. ‘It smells great.’

‘That is called arroz con abichuelas, a mixture of rice and beans. He is probably cooking some small pieces of beef with it, but it could be any meat.’

‘Can one buy that in a restaurant in Santo Domingo?’

‘Of course, but not exactly the same. This is a local dish for locals. To sell food like this to tourists would be like offering leftovers to your guests. It would not be right. In the restaurants it is much more carefully presented and is usually served with salads.’

The word ‘dignity’ popped into Tara’s mind. Aurelio seemed to have it, and that was what she had seen on the faces of the fruit vendor and the amber polisher and, now, even the miners as she approached them. Other than their initial jocularity, they seemed to consider her as their guest and themselves as hosts who happily welcomed visitors into their world. The men were just being men.

As they approached the entrance to the mine, a happy looking miner wearing a backward facing baseball cap sat with a short-handled pick in one hand, a lump of soft rock in the other.

‘Hola, señorita,’ he said, grinning broadly.

She smiled back at him, lifted her hand in greeting, but continued to follow Aurelio to the mine entrance. It was like standing at the entrance to the burrow of a large animal.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Thriller

Rating – MA (15+)

More details about the author

Connect with Brian Bloom on Twitter

Beyond Neanderthal by Brian Bloom @BrianB_Aust #Excerpt #Thriller #BookClub

Chapter 3 – Skiathos Story

‘Which reminds me,’ Patrick said as the waiter left, ‘of a Greek holiday I had on Skiathos.’

Samantha knew he was trying to lighten her mood. She also knew she was in for one of his long, drawn out but usually entertaining stories and leant back in her chair.

‘I was on this little island swimming and sun-baking in the late summer. It was September and everywhere you went there were swarms of wasps across the island.’

‘Sounds like hell,’ Samantha said. ‘I can’t imagine what you and your girlfriend were doing on a wasp infested lump of rock.’

‘Who said I was with a girlfriend?’ Patrick feigned indignation. ‘And my God, you bankers are a breed apart. I say the word “hot”. You hear the word “hell”. I say the word “island”. You hear the word “rock”.’ He paused, momentarily lost for words. ‘Let me try again.’ He picked up a spoon and held it in front of his mouth like a microphone, cleared his throat, then continued in a melodramatically hushed voice. ‘The island was ablaze with bougainvillea, contrasting magnificently with the muted tones of the verdant olive trees.’ His hand swept panoramically through the air.

‘The sun shimmered off the roughly plastered white walls of the sleepy villas. And below them, the sea sparkled like a rippled mirror. On the hilltop, the domed roof of the little church was a blue so bright that it seemed the whole sky had been squeezed from it to form the background of God’s canvas. There was music in the air ... a sense of magic was interrupted only by … the buzz of wasps.’ Then, Humphrey Bogart style, he said, ‘Got the picture sweetheart?’

Samantha could not help but smile back at him with. How could she not help but like him so much. ‘Okay’ she said leaning towards him. ‘But wasps? What should I be thinking when I hear the word “wasp”? White Anglo Saxon Protestant?’

‘Aarrgh!’ Patrick struck his forehead with the flat of his hand. ‘I’m not going to answer that.’

‘What’s the matter darling? Wasp get you?’

‘Okay. You asked for it. The barefaced, unadulterated version …’

Patrick gave her a wicked look as he took a swig from the glass of wine the waiter had poured for him to taste.

Samantha looked at him in mock disgust. ‘You cretin. You’re supposed to discreetly swirl that around in your mouth and taste it like a sophisticated gentleman of the world. I can’t take you anywhere. Give you a billycan of tea, a loaf of damper bread and a lump of meat and you’d be as happy as Larry.’

He ignored her outburst and winked at the waiter. ‘It’s great,’ he said. ‘The lady doesn’t drink, so you can just fill my glass.’

‘Ignore him,’ Samantha said quickly before the waiter had time to respond. ‘He hasn’t been allowed out for a while. And yes, I will have some wine, thank you.’

Patrick fixed his green-eyed gaze on her as though he was about to pin a butterfly to a corkboard. ‘Get you Gertrude,’ he said. ‘This is my story, and I’m on a roll here. And like I said, the bare facts ma’am, nothing but the facts.’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’m having fun. Keep going.’

He took her hand that had been lying innocently on the table near the stem of her wine glass and squeezed it playfully.

‘Here’s where it gets interesting,’ he said. ‘The island is so small that tourists hire these Vespa scooters for a few bucks a day to travel from one end of the island to the other. You know, the Italian scooters with the splashboard in front where you put your feet. It’s like driving around on a slow armchair with one wheel front and back.’

‘Uh Oh.’ Samantha laughed, her hand flying to her mouth. ‘I’m starting to see where this is headed. Tell me, what were you wearing after your swim?’

‘You got it in one, sister,’ Patrick said with a laugh. ‘The answer is that I was wearing a pair of wide legged shorts with nothing on underneath, and this bloody wasp flies straight up my pants leg.’

‘No way!’

‘Wait! There’s more.

There is an energy force in the world—known to the Ancients—that has largely escaped the interest of the modern day world. Why? There are allusions to this energy in the Chinese I-Ching, in the Hebrew Torah, in the Christian Bible, in the Hindu Sanskrit Ramayana and in the Muslim Holy Qur'an. Its force is strongest within the Earth's magnetic triangles.

Near one of these--the Bermuda Triangle--circumstances bring together four very different people. Patrick Gallagher is a mining engineer searching for a viable alternative to fossil fuels; Tara Geoffrey, an airline pilot on holidays in the Caribbean; Yehuda Rosenberg, a physicist preoccupied with ancient history; and Mehmet Kuhl, a minerals broker, a Sufi Muslim with an unusual past. Can they unravel the secrets of the Ancients that may also hold the answer to the future of civilization?

About the Author:

In 1987, Brian and his young family migrated from South Africa to Australia where he was employed in Citicorp’s Venture Capital division. He was expecting that Natural Gas would become the world’s next energy paradigm but, surprisingly, it was slow in coming. He then became conscious of the raw power of self-serving vested interests to trump what – from an ethical perspective – should have been society’s greater interests.

Eventually, in 2005, with encouragement from his long suffering wife, Denise, he decided to do something about what he was witnessing: Beyond Neanderthal was the result; The Last Finesse is the prequel.

The Last Finesse is Brian’s second factional novel. Both were written for the simultaneous entertainment and invigoration of the thinking element of society. It is a prequel to Beyond Neanderthal, which takes a visionary view of humanity’s future, provided we can sublimate our Neanderthal drive to entrench pecking orders in society. The Last Finesse is more “now” oriented. Together, these two books reflect a holistic, right brain/left brain view of the challenges faced by humanity; and how we might meet them. All our problems – including the mountain of debt that casts its shadow over the world’s wallowing economy – are soluble.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Thriller

Rating – MA (15+)

More details about the author

Connect with Brian Bloom on Twitter

Author Interview - Brian Bloom @BrianB_Aust

Are there any new authors that have sparked your interest and why?

An author by the name of Vaclav Smil recently came to my attention as a result of a tweet by Bill Gates, who I follow from time to time. I am thinking of reading some of Smil’s work. He is a polymath, an emeritus professor at Manitoba University amongst other things, and he seems to be focussing on some of the same subjects that I have focussed on in my novels. I would like to compare notes with him when I finally understand what he is saying. It might take me a year or two to get up to speed.

How do you feel about social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter

They give people a platform to be heard, but I wonder who is listening? From one perspective, they perpetuate the questionably valuable practice of communicating superficially, and in sound bites. From another perspective, they allow truth (and nonsense) to be disseminated across the planet at the speed of light, which might turn out to be a great way of keeping the mainstream media honest.

What is your favourite quote, by whom, and why?

The quote below is from the Book Earth, by Frank Townshend, George Allen & Unwin, 1929.

The reason it is my favourite quote is that it reinforces my perception that there is dignity in difference and that we need differences to inform and enrich life. The tendency for people to think that “if you’re not like me then there’s something wrong with you”; or that “if I can’t aspire to be the same as you if I choose then there’s something wrong with the system” is pure foolishness. Gender, race, religion, why does everything have to be the same? Why do some black people aspire to be black white people? Why do some women aspire to be female men? Why do some Muslim extremists believe that they have a duty to Islamise the entire planet? It may be politically incorrect for me to say this, but it seems to me to be just plain foolishness. Personally, I place a high value on individuality and differentiation. I would have difficulty in feeling the same degree of tenderness and love towards my wife of 42 years if she was possessed of the killer instinct that she would need to have in order to succeed in a dog-eat-dog world. Could she succeed? Of course she could! It’s not a function of her ability. If anything, she is more capable than I am. But if both spouses in a marriage have a killer instinct, then what’s the probability of their nuclear family surviving for long enough to impart the same values to their children that Denise’s and my parents passed down to us? Well, maybe the answer is for the woman to be the breadwinner and the man to be the house-husband. But then we might have to produce babies in test tubes – which would sort of spit in the face of Nature, would it not? Should there be a law against any of these foolish aspirations? Of course not! Provided it doesn’t cause tangible harm to others. We certainly can’t allow people to go around blowing themselves up along with innocent bystanders. But what is likely to be the result of unfettered “human rights” is that there will be less than optimal happiness. There is balance in Nature. If you want to buck Nature then be prepared to pay the cost. You want to see the cost of screwing with Nature? Just read and/or watch and/or listen to your daily media. What proportion of the daily news is “good” news? Isn’t it time we faced reality?

“Of the three main currents of life, I observed

Energy, from the West;

Wisdom from the East;

Rhythm, from the South.

And all of these shall run together to inform life.

For energy without wisdom is blind;

Nor can they act effectively together,

Out of rhythm with the earth.”

What makes you happiest?

Hearing my grandchildren laugh with delight or watching a pod of dolphins cavorting in the waves.

What are you most proud of in your personal life?

I have an ability to sublimate my ego when a disagreement is not objectively important.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre - Conspiracy Thriller

Rating – MA (15+)

More details about the author

Connect with Brian Bloom on Twitter

a Rafflecopter giveaway