Project Notebook

by Jason J. McCuiston

In July of 1947, something fell to earth near Roswell, New Mexico. However, the summer skies above the state of Washington were alive with strange lights and unidentified objects nearly a month before.

Elzabad Summers, veteran of D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge, leads a small team of special operatives to the Pacific Northwest to investigate the Maury Island Incident. This investigation is seriously compromised when their first encounter with the unexplained results in the team being scattered across the Seattle-Tacoma region, disarmed and suffering from amnesia.

To make matters worse, a coterie of well-armed Soviet spies appears to be one step ahead of them in tracking down who or what is responsible for the mysterious phenomena plaguing the skies over the Queen City and Mount Rainier.

Paperback

Published June 30, 2020

About the author

Jason J. McCuiston was born in the wilds of southeast Tennessee, where he was raised on a healthy diet of old horror movies (both classic and of the B variety), westerns and war movies, comic books and old pulp magazines, sci-fi and fantasy novels, and, yes, Dungeons & Dragons. He attended the finest state school that would have him where he studied art before coming to grips with the hard truth that his heart just wasn’t in illustrating other folks’ stories.

Following his matriculation, he embarked on a whirlwind tour of underpaid and uninspired career paths until finally realizing that all his forays into role-playing games, comic books, and creative design were merely the manifestation of his innate desire to be a storyteller.

Reviews

[Philip Athans · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Project Notebook, author-to-watch Jason J. McCuiston has mined some long-standing UFO conspiracies, made them his own, then set a masterfully realized cast of complex characters on a wild ride through a flying saucer-haunted Seattle of the 1950s. HIGHLY recommended!

[Jason McCuiston]

As the author, I won't review this. I'll just post the link to Publishers Weekly's review:

https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781...

Full disclosure, the review was made prior to the novel's intended publisher going under, I have since self-published through Amazon, keeping the story intact.

[Jason McCuiston]

As the author, I won't review this book. I will share the link to Publishers Weekly's review:

https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781...

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elzabad Summers, the protagonist, has problems no one should have to face. He manages a government team that harbors doubts about his leadership abilities. He works for a boss who’s too trusting and lacks skepticism. His marriage is shaky. And, oh yeah, he’s pursuing aliens who may be controlling his mind.

I’m pretty sure the author, Jason J. McCuiston, spent no portion of his life in the late 1940s or even early 1950s, yet he’s written a novel set convincingly in that era. The language, songs, brand names, and other references seemed authentic to me, without any apparent anachronisms.

I’m no UFO expert, but Mr. McCuiston’s debut novel seems to hit all the right notes for this subgenre and stays consistent with UFO lore. It doesn’t take place in Roswell, New Mexico, but instead is set in the Seattle-Tacoma area of the Pacific Northwest. Once again, the author really puts the reader there.

You’ll enjoy following the many twists and turns as the hero, El, and his team try to solve the mysteries and uncover the secrets of the otherworldly events taking place, all while striving to remain anonymous and avoid alarming the populace.

I highly recommend this book and look forward to reading more by this author.

[Graham Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was gonna be 3 stars for being generally good, but the final chapter + epilogue really brought the whole thing up a notch. Video incoming.