Kol Debar: Awakenings

by John Smith

Awaken Your Potential The Guardians are ancient benefactors stranded on Earth thousands of years ago. Locked in a millennial struggle with the non-human shape shifting Kahn, many Guardians are unaware of their history or their incredible potential. A single selfless action can unlock a mystical force within them known as the Kol Debar. Guardian tradition teaches that the Kol Debar governs the physical elements, forces and the fabric of reality itself. Unlocking its potential gives Guardians mastery of the physical world and the forces that formed and govern it. ….Dirk McConnel, a battle hardened Special Ops team leader, seeks a new start, but even with the new power he gains, can he recast himself as the hero he wanted to be instead of the villain he fears lurks within him? ….Michael Marks is a young inventor whose new technologies have helped to enable colonization of the Moon, Mars and Asteroids throughout the inner solar system. Investigating a horrible tragedy leads him to discover a conspiracy that threatens the very foundation of the New World the colonies have come to represent. ….Sean Marks is the heir of one of the largest independent corporations of the mid 21st century. His marriage to Lady Kathryn Harkaan, the heiress of Earth's only remaining Monarchy, was to provide a bastion against the tyrannical Global Cabal of Multi-National Corporations known as the Association. As international politics, alien manipulation, and personal tragedy rock the later half of the 21st century, will the awakening of the Kol Debar in a few enable them to overcome the turmoil threatening their world, or will they be casualties of an alien war that began before the inception of human civilization?

579 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 31, 2014

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

John Smith, a native of Kansas City, Missouri, enjoyed a forty-two year career with General Motors, beginning in 1968 when he started work at the Chevrolet-Kansas City assembly plant. For someone just a few days removed from high school graduation, the rigors of life on the line in an automobile assembly plant. . .even if only for the summer. . .provided John with important grounding for everything that followed.

After receiving an Industrial Engineering degree from General Motors Institute (now Kettering University) and an MBA from Harvard, John joined GM’s New York Treasurer’s Office in 1976. This group provided key staff support to the company’s top leaders and its Board of Directors, and offered John a top-down view of GM’s breadth and depth. Over the following years, John would lead GM’s joint venture vehicle programs with Toyota, Isuzu, Suzuki and Daewoo, help establish GM operations in Central Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and be part of the team that developed options for the company’s all-important China business. John would later serve as GM’s first global product planning leader, and be on the ground floor of many of the company’s alternative propulsion initiatives.

Prior to coming to Cadillac in early 1997, John was President of Allison Transmission following the collapse of a possible sale of that business in late 1993 to German car parts maker ZF. John and team developed and executed a turnaround plan for Allison that lead to a twenty-fold increase in its sale price a decade later. John retired from GM at the end of 2010 and has since served as consultant or company director for a number of public and private for-profit businesses. He and his wife Nancy have been involved in ongoing relief and social services work in Haiti since the devastating earthquake of 2010, principally in and around the city of Jeremie, in support of which they co-founded a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization named Jeremie Rising. All proceeds from the sale of Fin Tales will be contributed to Jeremie Rising.