(Updated 2020 May 12)
So, there are (as of this writing), two Adventure– books in print, chronicling the formation of the Open Water Exploration Company in 1972 and its first two expeditions into the parallel-to-ours, Alternate World.
A number of readers have asked, “…but where did the stories concept come from and what’s it all about?” In this section, those and some other questions about the Adventure– chronology and its setting in the Alternate World will be addressed…
…starting with, “How did this all come about?”
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Adventure – -‘s concept dropped into James Hood’s head, unannounced and without warning, more than four decades ago. Then-young James wanted to both read stories of grande adventure and perhaps a bit more than subliminally, entertained nascent desires to actually write them.
Plenty of fiction had been read and /or seen on television and movies. However, none of it was truly, deeply, totally exactly what James’ soul longed for.
Jules Verne’s magnificent 1869-71 Victorian father-of-all-modern science fiction, Twenty Thousand Years Under the Sea, introduced arguably THE first modern science fiction story. In it, three adventurers (two French, one American), journey around the world aboard the mysterious Captain Nemo’s fantastic Nautilus, a submarine ship of beyond-futuristic modernity not produced in reality until almost 80 years later, when the atomic powered submarine, USS Nautilus, in 1954 (named in honour of a World War II US Navy submarine and Verne’s fictional vessel) was commissioned.
From the 1940s through 60s, British author Cecil Scott Forester penned (literally, he wrote in longhand and gave ten pages to a typist, daily) thirteen stirring (later to be described as, “This is how it’s done“) volumes of Napoleonic era (late 1700s, early 1800s) seafaring tales, the legendary era of, “Wooden ships and iron men.”
In the Horatio Hornblower series, Forester matured a teenage British boy from adolescence in Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, ultimately to Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies, some thirty stories-years later (and twenty of Forester’s writing).
Gene Roddenberry’s forever-defining-modern science fiction Star Trek (The Original Series, 1966-69), was described by its creator in the book, The Making of Star Trek as, “Horatio Hornblower in space.” (Roddenberry was a C.S. Forester fan)
Young James Hood was one of the hundreds of millions around the world fascinated with and inspired by Star Trek “T.O.S.” Gene Rodenberry joined C.S. Forester and Jules Verne as subliminal influences “inspiring-lite,” James Hood to try his hand at writing fiction.
Not detective; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories had hundreds of millions of admirers and there were gobs of detective fiction writers around. Besides, James Hood was not an enthusiast of what in his mind was labelled, “cops and robbers” stories.
Not science fiction featuring spaceships (or starships) and bug-eyed monsters; space sci-fi was just too “far out” (sorry, pun not intended). Besides that, Star Trek (The Original Series) already had a cult following and other sci-fi masters like Frank Herbert and Robert Heinlein did not really appeal to James Hood (though some of their work was read).
Not Swords and Sorcery; J.R.R. Tolkein’s Hobbits never found root in the soil of James Hood’s mind. Robert E. Howard’s Conan The Barbarian stories were outstanding and the series was devoured, but not the genre James Hood wanted to write.
Historical fiction had great appeal and gobs of books thereon provided entertainment, education and education for this writer. C.S. Forester’s and Alexander Kent’s Napoleonic sea stories were thrilling, but James Hood wanted to write about more modern happenings than 175 years ago.
World War Two (roughly, including prequels and post-formal-Axis surrenders, 1931-1950) was the widest occurrence in recorded history, affecting more people in more places, simultaneously, than any other “happening.”
By the early 1970s, there existed a vast amount of WW II-based historical fiction. Many movies and some television shows and even one musical (“South Pacific”) were framed around World War Two’s indescribably wide array of possible subjects.
James Hood was fascinated especially with, the 1939-45 era from childhood and read, watched as much TV and as many movies as he could, thereon and built at least a hundred plastic models of WW II subjects. (Allied and Axis, aircraft, vehicles, ships, figures, a number of scales from 1/1200 to 1/8)
But something stirring in young James Hood, (also a wannabe writer, wanted “more” for the setting for his proposed stories. Something less (weird) than Swords and Sorcery but less constricted than the increasingly-well-documented events of World War Two era. Quite a bit of WW II historical fiction was devoured, most of the below, read a number of times.
There is a great gob of WW II historical fiction out there. Some which read especially well to James Hood were, C.S. Forester’s Gold From Crete, The Good Shepherd, The Man In the Yellow Raft, The Ship. Douglas Reeman’s HMS Saracen and HMS Ulysses felt a tad melodramatic but told interesting Royal Navy sea stories. Clare Francis’ meticulously-developed, Night Sky was set in occupied France. John Oliver Killens’, And Then We Heard the Thunder dared to address American service-men’s race relations during the War.
WW II aviation fiction by Richard Newhafer, The Last Tally-Ho and Derek Robinson’s Piece of Cake were set respectively aboard a US Navy aircraft carrier in the Pacific and a Royal Air Force fighter Squadron during 1940.
James A. Michener’s writing in, Tales of the South Pacific was so perfect, his stories became the basis of the immortal musical, South Pacific and TV series, Adventures In Paradise.
An “ancient” sage for writers is, “Write the book you want to read.”
James Hood read gobs of tomes on WW II, fact and fiction and ultimately wrote a number of varied articles thereon. But Jules Verne, Gene Roddenberry, Robert E. Howard, Hal Foster, the other fiction writers still tugged at him…to write something “wider” than strictly historical (based) fiction.
(updated 2020 April 23 Thursday)
Exploration for exploration’s sake and with less noble (financial and lands-gain) had been a favoured subject since youth.
The idea came pretty much fully-formed, all at once, unbidden, with the subtlety of being hit by a heavyweight boxer.
How about an adventure novel based on space travel,for the purpose of exploration...
…but without all the complexities and ultra- whizzo, futuristic-speculative technology?
Space travel without starships or bug eyed aliens…not set several hundred years in the future?
Set in the recent past?
The Adventure– concept became a living embryo in James Hood’s mind-soul…
…but needed a setting, before the story could begin.
(updated 2020 April 25 Saturday)
Literature, television and cinema was ripe with possibilities. Parallel universes, other dimensions, characters whisked off to undreamed fantastic realities…these had long been staples of science fiction and myriad flavours of fantasy stories.
By this point in his life, young adult James Hood had read some C.S. Lewis (Narnia), J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit The Rings Trilogy), Mark Twain (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court), Edgar Rice Burroughs (the Mars series), Robert E. Howard (Conan the Barbarian)…
…and watched TV’s “The Twilight Zone,” “One Step Beyond” and “The Outer Limits.”
Settings and “rules” governing places which existed only in stories quietly gestated in the back of James Hood’s creative mind, while his actual life addressed the realities of this world.
The Alternate World, where most of the story would take place, began defining itself. It would be a parallel reality, pretty standard science fiction fare, but much different than Narnia or Middle Earth.
For the Adventure– stories to be believable to the writer (and readers), The Alternate World would be real, familiar with a few twists attributive to parallel evolution. Governed by the same physical, chemical, biological laws as our reality.
Existing parallel to our reality, like another television channel or the opposite pole of a magnet.
The Alternate World did though, “need” to be somewhat different from ours.
MORE COMING SOON
JAMES HOOD 