Chris Angus's Blog
December 3, 2014
Sequel to my thriller FLYPAPER
I'm currently working on the sequel to my book FLYPAPER, which is a thriller about a world pandemic. Friends keep asking me how I can write a sequel to a book in which everyone in the world dies. I understand this might give one pause. However, there were a handful of survivors left after the pandemic ran its course. And no one ever understood what caused the terrible disease. Was it the result of strange genetic anomalies found in human DNA? Was it caused by some extra-terrestrial life form? Or was it the result of the mysterious actions of Buddhist monks thousands of years in the past? To the mind of a thriller writer, these questions leave a vast area of possibility for a sequel.
The new book, as yet untitled, is, like FLYPAPER, set globally, from the United States to Europe to Asia. But the center of the story is focused in the vast, poisoned landscape surrounding the Aral Sea, located on the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Here, on an island in the center of the Aral Sea called Renaissance Island, the Soviets operated a test site for bacteriological weapons for more than sixty years, beginning in 1948 and lasting beyond the fall of the Soviet Union. The variety of lethal agents tested here included smallpox, tularemia, brucellosis, anthrax and plague, among many others. After the bioweapons program ended in 1991, the site was abandoned and a good deal of the infrastructure of the island was dismantled. However, many of the containers holding the spores of anthrax, plague and other bacilli were never properly stored or destroyed.
For fifty years the Aral Sea has been receding as irrigation canals built to develop cotton plantations in the desert diverted water from the Amu-Darya River. Where there was once a vast inland sea, there is now a desert filled with landlocked freighters and fishing boats. Once the island ceased to be separated from the mainland, animals could leave and transport their diseases with them. The drying up of the landscape allowed leftover pathogens to be blown on the winds. Nearby residents began to experience eye diseases, TB, digestive, kidney and neurological disorders and skin illnesses. It has become one of the world's nightmare places to live.
What better setting could a writer of history-based thrillers ask for? In the new book, we get a look at the world ten years after the pandemic struck. A handful of survivors are spread across the globe. The flora and fauna of this new world, now freed from the impact of humans, has begun to flourish once again, and our survivors have begun to look for ways to reconnect the isolated pockets of humanity. A strange radio signal emanating from the Aral Sea attracts the attentions of survivors from as far away as England, the Americas and central Asia.
Hidden beneath the biological laboratories of Stalin's Russia, lies something more, something inexplicable. It has been studied by an international coalition of scientists for fifteen years and still, they have no idea what it is they are studying. These scientists, present at the Aral Sea since before the pandemic of FLYPAPER, once again face the threat of being overwhelmed by mysterious disease. How and whether they will escape impacts our present day survivors now being slowly drawn into the web of mysterious signals emanating from beneath the poisoned soils of Mother Russia.
And it will also affect the lives of a mysterious and previously unknown species of unrelated but very human-like people who have somehow managed to survive in the shadows of humanity for millions of years. Are these strange new people destined to replace even the last vestiges of man on Earth?
And so, the thriller takes hold of the author.
The new book, as yet untitled, is, like FLYPAPER, set globally, from the United States to Europe to Asia. But the center of the story is focused in the vast, poisoned landscape surrounding the Aral Sea, located on the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Here, on an island in the center of the Aral Sea called Renaissance Island, the Soviets operated a test site for bacteriological weapons for more than sixty years, beginning in 1948 and lasting beyond the fall of the Soviet Union. The variety of lethal agents tested here included smallpox, tularemia, brucellosis, anthrax and plague, among many others. After the bioweapons program ended in 1991, the site was abandoned and a good deal of the infrastructure of the island was dismantled. However, many of the containers holding the spores of anthrax, plague and other bacilli were never properly stored or destroyed.
For fifty years the Aral Sea has been receding as irrigation canals built to develop cotton plantations in the desert diverted water from the Amu-Darya River. Where there was once a vast inland sea, there is now a desert filled with landlocked freighters and fishing boats. Once the island ceased to be separated from the mainland, animals could leave and transport their diseases with them. The drying up of the landscape allowed leftover pathogens to be blown on the winds. Nearby residents began to experience eye diseases, TB, digestive, kidney and neurological disorders and skin illnesses. It has become one of the world's nightmare places to live.
What better setting could a writer of history-based thrillers ask for? In the new book, we get a look at the world ten years after the pandemic struck. A handful of survivors are spread across the globe. The flora and fauna of this new world, now freed from the impact of humans, has begun to flourish once again, and our survivors have begun to look for ways to reconnect the isolated pockets of humanity. A strange radio signal emanating from the Aral Sea attracts the attentions of survivors from as far away as England, the Americas and central Asia.
Hidden beneath the biological laboratories of Stalin's Russia, lies something more, something inexplicable. It has been studied by an international coalition of scientists for fifteen years and still, they have no idea what it is they are studying. These scientists, present at the Aral Sea since before the pandemic of FLYPAPER, once again face the threat of being overwhelmed by mysterious disease. How and whether they will escape impacts our present day survivors now being slowly drawn into the web of mysterious signals emanating from beneath the poisoned soils of Mother Russia.
And it will also affect the lives of a mysterious and previously unknown species of unrelated but very human-like people who have somehow managed to survive in the shadows of humanity for millions of years. Are these strange new people destined to replace even the last vestiges of man on Earth?
And so, the thriller takes hold of the author.
November 5, 2014
Churchill's Last Years
I recently discovered at my favorite used bookstore, a little volume called "Churchill's Last Years" by Roy Howells, published in 1965, the year of Churchill's death. Howells was Sir Winston's personal attendant during the last seven years of his life. It is such an interesting and revealing portrait of the great man's character. All of the characteristics we associate with Churchill, his temper, irascibility, charm and wit are, if anything, amplified by the challenges of old age. We see how depth of character, even in its least exemplary moments, can sustain us through the process of aging that we all must go through.
More books have been written about Churchill in a short time than perhaps any other figure. I've read many of them, but this is, in many ways, one of my favorites, because it gives an unusual take on a subject whose life has been explored exhaustively from birth to death. Here I learned many details about his life at the Churchill country home at Chartwell and at their town house in London at Hyde Park Gate, about who his close friends were, what his daily routines consisted of and how he coped with everything from minor domestic problems to serious health episodes.
Still very active in his late eighties, Winston enjoyed trips to the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, gambling at Monte Carlo, vacationing on Aristotle Onassis's luxury yacht, visiting the House of Commons and painting prolifically. On the Riviera, he was visited by Charles de Gaulle, Greta Garbo, the author Somerset Maughham and Prince Rainier and Princess Grace. There is no question his voyages on the luxury yacht "Christina" in the company of a wide variety of luminaries were among Churchill's favorite pastimes. Onassis and his wife Maria Callas went to great lengths to provide everything the great man might conceivably wish for, from fine brandies and cigars to private showings of the latest films. The yacht contained gold bath taps made in the form of dolphins. It had its own small hospital, air conditioning, a mosaic dance floor that converted to a swimming pool at the touch of a button. At the center of the salon was one of Sir Winston's landscapes. The best steel bands in the Caribbean played specially for the former Prime Minister.
For excursions ashore Winston was provided with his own picnic basket containing whisky, soda and ice and perhaps a bit of expensive caviar, forbidden by his doctors. The ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn and her husband were among favored guests with Mr. and Mrs. Churchill. Winston went ashore at Gibralter where he fed the apes on the Rock. During the war he was responsible for having the animals smuggled in as their numbers were diminishing. The belief was that when the apes left the Rock, so too would the British. He visited with the Yugoslavian leader, President Tito, who came out to the yacht for lunch. On the island of Crete, he went ashore and toured about, no doubt contemplating the fierce battle that took place there in 1941 between German paratroops and the British defenders.
One of the things I found most astonishing was how devoted people all around the world were to Churchill even twenty years after the war. He was the most famous man in the world, the savior of western civilization, the embodiment of the spirit of the Commonwealth. Everywhere he went, hundreds lined up to catch a glimpse as he entered a hotel or restaurant, took a stroll or tried to set up his easel in a private spot to paint. When he broke his leg from a fall and had to be whisked off to hospital and then to London on a special plane, police guards on motorcycle stopped traffic to ensure his passage. When he went to see his daughter Sarah, an actress, perform as Peter Pan in the Scala Theater, there was always a stir as he entered, sometimes causing a delay before the performance could begin. He was presented with awards wherever he went, as often as officials could get him to sit still long enough to receive them. He flew to Paris to receive the Cross of the Liberation from General de Gaulle who declared it was for his "decisive contribution to saving the freedom of the world."
Winston's many foibles are illuminated in depth in this book. He went to bed in the early morning hours and slept, or at least remained in bed till noon or later. Each morning he had breakfast in bed, usually consisting of steak, bacon and eggs and occasionally fresh salmon, while his favorite pet, Toby, a large green parakeet was allowed to fly about the room and peck at whatever happened to be on his master's plate. He drank prodigious amounts of alcohol of nearly every variety throughout the day and smoked as many as a dozen huge cigars. Perhaps because of these habits, he brushed his teeth three times a day taking a good fifteen minutes over each brushing. He was a fastidious dresser, much enamored of formal uniforms for various occasions from meeting the Queen to attending the House of Commons. However, his nightgowns and sleeping attire were famously odd and he could be utterly indifferent if he had a sudden need to rush out into the hall from his bath to whether or not he happened to have any clothes on.
Churchill was a character, writ large. Perhaps it's not a requirement for great leaders to also be great characters, but Winston certainly broke the mold when he set foot on the world stage.
More books have been written about Churchill in a short time than perhaps any other figure. I've read many of them, but this is, in many ways, one of my favorites, because it gives an unusual take on a subject whose life has been explored exhaustively from birth to death. Here I learned many details about his life at the Churchill country home at Chartwell and at their town house in London at Hyde Park Gate, about who his close friends were, what his daily routines consisted of and how he coped with everything from minor domestic problems to serious health episodes.
Still very active in his late eighties, Winston enjoyed trips to the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, gambling at Monte Carlo, vacationing on Aristotle Onassis's luxury yacht, visiting the House of Commons and painting prolifically. On the Riviera, he was visited by Charles de Gaulle, Greta Garbo, the author Somerset Maughham and Prince Rainier and Princess Grace. There is no question his voyages on the luxury yacht "Christina" in the company of a wide variety of luminaries were among Churchill's favorite pastimes. Onassis and his wife Maria Callas went to great lengths to provide everything the great man might conceivably wish for, from fine brandies and cigars to private showings of the latest films. The yacht contained gold bath taps made in the form of dolphins. It had its own small hospital, air conditioning, a mosaic dance floor that converted to a swimming pool at the touch of a button. At the center of the salon was one of Sir Winston's landscapes. The best steel bands in the Caribbean played specially for the former Prime Minister.
For excursions ashore Winston was provided with his own picnic basket containing whisky, soda and ice and perhaps a bit of expensive caviar, forbidden by his doctors. The ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn and her husband were among favored guests with Mr. and Mrs. Churchill. Winston went ashore at Gibralter where he fed the apes on the Rock. During the war he was responsible for having the animals smuggled in as their numbers were diminishing. The belief was that when the apes left the Rock, so too would the British. He visited with the Yugoslavian leader, President Tito, who came out to the yacht for lunch. On the island of Crete, he went ashore and toured about, no doubt contemplating the fierce battle that took place there in 1941 between German paratroops and the British defenders.
One of the things I found most astonishing was how devoted people all around the world were to Churchill even twenty years after the war. He was the most famous man in the world, the savior of western civilization, the embodiment of the spirit of the Commonwealth. Everywhere he went, hundreds lined up to catch a glimpse as he entered a hotel or restaurant, took a stroll or tried to set up his easel in a private spot to paint. When he broke his leg from a fall and had to be whisked off to hospital and then to London on a special plane, police guards on motorcycle stopped traffic to ensure his passage. When he went to see his daughter Sarah, an actress, perform as Peter Pan in the Scala Theater, there was always a stir as he entered, sometimes causing a delay before the performance could begin. He was presented with awards wherever he went, as often as officials could get him to sit still long enough to receive them. He flew to Paris to receive the Cross of the Liberation from General de Gaulle who declared it was for his "decisive contribution to saving the freedom of the world."
Winston's many foibles are illuminated in depth in this book. He went to bed in the early morning hours and slept, or at least remained in bed till noon or later. Each morning he had breakfast in bed, usually consisting of steak, bacon and eggs and occasionally fresh salmon, while his favorite pet, Toby, a large green parakeet was allowed to fly about the room and peck at whatever happened to be on his master's plate. He drank prodigious amounts of alcohol of nearly every variety throughout the day and smoked as many as a dozen huge cigars. Perhaps because of these habits, he brushed his teeth three times a day taking a good fifteen minutes over each brushing. He was a fastidious dresser, much enamored of formal uniforms for various occasions from meeting the Queen to attending the House of Commons. However, his nightgowns and sleeping attire were famously odd and he could be utterly indifferent if he had a sudden need to rush out into the hall from his bath to whether or not he happened to have any clothes on.
Churchill was a character, writ large. Perhaps it's not a requirement for great leaders to also be great characters, but Winston certainly broke the mold when he set foot on the world stage.
