Sime~Gen Inc. Presents

ReReadable Books

October 2005 

"Natural and Preternatural Disasters Disturb Peace"

Dark of the Sun by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Tor HC Nov 2004, pb Sept 2005

Tempting Fate, by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, rprt Stealth Press July, 2001

The Philosopher of Islamic Terror by Paul Berman, New York Times, March 23, 2003, titled

Dark of the Sun by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro is an apocalyptic historical novel, so we know that yes, the world got destroyed but that’s OK because it’s still here. And it’s a vampire novel, #18 in the terrific St. Germain series. So we know St. Germain survives to modern times.

Dark of the Sun starts in the spring of 535 AD, on the coast of China, in Yang Chau (Shanghai), which was at that time located where the Yang-Tse River comes into the East China Sea. And it ends about two years later in St. Germain’s homeland. We get to visit a castle once held by his father while he tells us a story of his early life. We even get to learn his "real" name – "My father was called Ragosh, so I am Ragosh-ski, my . . . I suppose you would call it clan or territory, name is Franzic, for the area where my father’s kingdom lay . . . " And then he tells a woman his original personal name and even explains about it.

What has driven this vampire, well over a thousand years old at this time, to confess all this intimate detail? Real fear that the world, and all the humans in it, had died leaving him and his without sustenance. The problem of course is that, as far as he knows, he can’t die.

Recent research, in the last decade, indicates that the Dark Ages may have begun as a result of a severe climate disruption, crop failures, yellow snow, and resulting superstitious dread. Economic disruption toppled governments and dread gave rise to the rise of The Church throughout Europe. What happened?

David Keyes presents a theory. In 535 A.D., a century before Mohammed founded Islam, the volcano Krakatoa blew up and separated Java from Sumatra by opening the Sundra strait. Keyes says on PBS: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/flash/catastrophe2_script.html  "The amount of power generated by this eruption would have been equivalent to around 2,000 million Hiroshima sized nuclear bombs." (by contrast, Mt. St. Helens released the equivalent of about 500 Hiroshima sized bombs.)

And what ensued, world wide, even affecting both polar ice caps was what we, today, would think of as a "nuclear winter."

Yarbro, a master of historical research, synthesized material from various sources into a vivid trip along the Silk Road during the Year of the Dark Sun. St. Germain, at that time a shipping magnate in China, is called to an Imperial Court and on his way, hears the far distant Krakatoa explosion as a mysterious thunderous rumble. Yarbro’s research shows it was indeed heard all the way to Beijing.

Here in this historical novel, Yarbro has drawn a portrait of what our future may indeed be like. A nuclear war event wouldn’t be needed. This Earth is not at peace internally. Scientists are even now studying the phenomenon known as the Super Volcano, and Yellowstone National Park is on the list.

In fact, the DVD "Supervolcano" about a potential Yellowstone eruption is today one of the Discovery channel’s top 5 sellers, and sci-fi channel has done a TV disaster movie. Doom-criers are pointing fingers, warning us to turn to our religions . . . or theirs.

In this column, we’ve been searching for a definition of what we pray for when we pray for peace. Last month we revisited the role of government in creating "peace." Some of us are too young to remember the "War To End All Wars" and the dedication our nation poured into fighting for peace. You might do well to watch some World War II movies on AMC or by rental to capture the then prevailing attitude.

The idea was that governments can produce peace just by winning wars definitively. Individually, we often feel that we can rid ourselves of strife by vanquishing some one opponent – "I’ll show her! I’ll get her fired!"

In the search for peace, we commit violence and later, when things settle down for a while, we get bored and stir up more controversy. Anything to avoid peace.

The greater group mind of a Nation patterns itself after the average of the individual minds of which it is composed. The psychological and spiritual values of the average individual plays out on the larger stage of international politics.

Wander past a school playground and watch for a while, then check out the news tonight. See if you can discern the dynamics of child behavior illustrated in international concerns.

Read up on Hitler’s personal psychology, (check out his natal chart ( http://www.astrologyweekly.com/natal-charts/adolf-hitler.php   ), and read Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s 5^th St. Germain novel, Tempting Fate set in Nazi Germany.

I can see where Hitler externalized his internal neuroses, trying to "clean" the world so he wouldn’t feel anxious inside any more. His rationalization for this is in his famous book, not worth reading. That book did create a huge, angry, and determined group mind, though.

Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian philosopher hanged by Nasser in 1966, was also imprisoned and wrote a little book that may just be behind much of Islamic Terrorism today.

An article in the New York Times by Paul Berman, March 23, 2003, titled The Philosopher of Islamic Terror explains Qutb’s philosophy and its impact on Islamic Terrorists. Anyone who knows the Hitler story and Mundane Astrology can see the parallels. The inward anguish or neurosis of the charismatic spokesperson can be projected into their group’s mind and prevent peace all around them.

Berman says Qutb exalted Islam during Europe’s Dark Ages, condemned the separation of sacred from secular in Christianity, and warned that Islamic reformers threatened to create the same divide in Islam, preventing it from ordering all aspects of life according to precepts of Koran, Shariah. Apparently he also envisioned a vanguard of Islam's true champions who would undertake jihad and embrace martyrdom for establishment of Shariah.

So what can we learn from Hitler that we can apply to the modern terrorist determination to prevent peace?

You might argue that Hitler’s lack of internal peace was projected onto the world because of the power of his Natal Chart. That projection summoned a coalition of other countries to shatter his group’s mind (Lammas Night by Katherine Kurtz). And that vanquished all that anguish forever. Right?

Well . . . then came the cold war, and in the 1990’s another arch enemy during that war bought up USA real estate then lost a lot of money. Today the battle has shifted to education where the USA is losing. Barred from making big explosions and painting the streets with blood, it appears humans will find other ways to avoid peace at all costs.

Is it then the human animal’s tendency toward aggression that causes strife to erupt in the individual and project into the group? Do we have to control our "powerful," our charismatic leaders who summon Group Minds to fight their battles for them?

To attain peace do we have to leash all "power" and "talent?" Or should we unleash it and let it foment strife – and forget peace as a goal? Is there a path to peace?

Angela Knight has synthesized romance, true soul-pairing love, extreme magical power capable of disrupting the Universe, and a fantasy premise about the structure of the Universe to launch a series of novels and stories currently appearing as "Paranormal Romance" but worthy of an Urban Fantasy or Alternate Universe Historical Fantasy label.

In Master of the Night, and two short stories appearing in other high-profile collections, "Galahad" in the anthology Bite, and "Seduction’s Gift" in the anthology Hot Blooded, (each worth reading for the Charlaine Harris, Mary Janice Davidson, Vickie Taylor, Christine Feehan, Maggie Shayne, and Emma Holly stories alone) Angela Knight depicts a bifurcate universe where our normal reality has a twin along side it, a Mageverse where magic prevails. These Mages strive to make peace on Earth by Championing each country or group mind. Knight shows us another way of leashing the powerful – with love.

Knight rewrites all of human history, introducing a concept as bold as E. E. Smith’s Lensman Series. There’s no space here to give you an inkling of this concept. Just read the book. The Angela Knight series is beautiful, elegant, profound and fascinating – and all about the individual characters. She’s a Star Trek fan, so how can you go wrong? Forget philosophy and just read for pure fun.