The Prisoner

Secure Manholes

2009-04-18T07:30:00.000-07:00

A few chapters in The Prisoner feature sewers, those who live or work there and many details about operation, construction, and architecture. One of my beta readers questioned the future use of secure manhole-covers, adducing costs and maintenance.

I had to disappoint him. Security manhole covers are already common in enhanced security zones

Sorry...

New release date

2009-04-12T04:25:00.000-07:00

We have a new release date for The Prisoner: November 27

Just in time for Christmas!

Handy hibernation

2009-04-06T23:37:00.000-07:00

On May 6, 2000, BMJ, on their medical publication of the year, reported:

Human hibernation

A Practice closely akin to hibernation is said to be general among Russian peasants in the Pskov Government, where food is scanty to a degree almost equivalent to chronic famine. Not having provisions enough to carry them through the whole year, they adopt the economical expedient of spending one half of it in sleep. This custom has existed among them from time immemorial. At the first fall of snow the whole family gathers round the stove, lies down, ceases to wrestle with the problems of human existence, and quietly goes to sleep.

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/320/7244/1245/a

In these times of crisis the practices of Russian folks might come handy. No food? Dismal prospects? Let's hibernate!

The cover

2009-04-05T01:50:00.000-07:00

At last I have the cover artwork for The Prisoner.

I think it's great. You like?

Bezoars

2009-02-10T07:56:00.001-08:00

The Prisoner required unusual research and several trips beneath the city streets to trample sewers in a bid to garner a whiff of the atmosphere. Unknown to me at the time, several enterprising young men offered guided sewer tours in Barcelona, Rome, London and Paris. During a particularly obnoxious sojourn I learned of a hairball legend I later used on one of the Prisoner scenes:

“A friend told me about giant hairballs clogging the sewers under the city streets.”

Laurel reached for his hand. “Hairballs?”

“It seems that over the decades, strands of hair molted by millions of citizens have built up.”

Lukas checked his watch again and stepped closer.

“You’re joking,” Laurel said.

“I’m not. Lacquered by grease and dirt, tons of hairs have formed huge furry, knotted boulders that swell all the time and trundle though the sewers.”

After countless hours poring over hard-to-get sewer data I failed to confirm the hairball’s existence, an otherwise intriguing proposition, but discovered unexpected treasures in the unlikeliest of places:

Irish medical journal June 1992 volume 85 no 274
Qureshi. Nh; Morris. K; McDevitt. D.
Dept of Surgery, Sligo General Hospital, Co Sligo

Bezoars are repulsive bundles of hair, vegetable fibers, or food that form in the stomachs of humans (and animals). Incredibly, Queen Elizabeth I had a bezoar included in her crown jewels. Sometimes bezoars become large enough to cause trouble. One woman chewed her hair enough for a bezoar to form; it was large enough that it had to be surgically removed.

The complications of bezoar formation can be classified into two categories; mechanical and traumatic. The mechanical complications are obstruction and ileus. Obstruction of gastric outlet or intestinal obstruction is caused by either small broken off pieces or through long string like extensions of the main mass going in certain cases up to ileo-caecal valve or even transverse colon giving it the legendary name of 'Rapunzel Syndrome'.

Cases of trichobezoars should be seen as ones who have some underlying emotional stress leading to trichophagy. Although trichophagia is not frequently related to full blown neuro-psychiatric disturbance but it is said that the trait represents a personality disorder analogous to the finger nail biting.

I agree with the learned authors; ‘Rapunzel Syndrome’ truly is a legendary name.

No Queen

2009-02-01T05:32:00.000-08:00

Sadly, no posts for a full week. I’m off to London, to visit the pussycat.

Blurb for the back cover of The Prisoner

2009-01-31T01:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I received from my publishers copy for the covers of The Prisoner.

2049. Earth’s prisons are shut down and all inmates placed in massive hibernation tanks. In the ten years since then, no one has broken out . . . until now.

Nice blurb, huh? Let’s hope it catches the eye of prospective readers.

Periplaneta Americana

2009-01-29T05:24:00.000-08:00

A survival machine. It only needs warmth and a little decaying matter.

In some of the countries I've visited, these are the only pets the poor can afford. Nice and cuddly, huh?

Syrette

2009-01-28T05:56:00.000-08:00

The devices featured in several chapters of the novel are ultrasonic, but based on the original Syrette; a contraption to inject liquid through a needle. A syrette is similar to a syringe except that it has a flexible tube instead of a plunger.

No matter what you happen to be doing at the time, opening a field or waging a war, these things are bad news if you ever need them, but a Godsend.

Searching for “Mel’s hole.”

2009-01-27T01:20:00.000-08:00

Please, check the photograph. The shapeless heap in its center is the one and only Max Action, in action!

Read the full story of this epic feat at:

http://www.actionsquad.org/stahl.htm

I must warn you, some of the photographs are... disturbing.

The Prisoner's release date

2009-01-26T03:47:00.000-08:00

Random House has just announced the publication date for The Prisoner: September 29, 2009.

Written by yours truly, it will go on sale as a 496-page paperback at the ridiculous price of $6.99.

As yet there’s no cover artwork.

ISBN: 978-0-553-59163-7 (0-553-59163-0)

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780553591637

Snotsicles

2009-01-25T04:21:00.000-08:00

Max Action, from Actionsquad, reviewed The Prisoner's manuscript to straighten the sewer scenes and chapters. His counsel was priceless.

In a private e-mail he wrote: "awesome to see that a word I coined (snotsicles) is going to be included in a real book! Made my day to stumble across it in there."

Indeed. Max’s word is priceless. It combines noun and adjective in a single word, describing the jiggly excrescences (algae colonies) that dangle from the roofs of old sewers.

The damn things have the consistency of thick snot and stick to your hair where they dry to a hard and flaky mess. Yuck!

2009-01-24T03:50:00.000-08:00

Like all my novels, The Prisoner's plot sprang out from the snippets of bizarre or unusual news and facts I keep stored in vast files.

From my treasure chest I selected two files: The first contained statistics of the United States Prison System showing a threefold inmate population increase within the last fifty years, coupled to a tenfold increase in costs. The second file contained a collection of newspaper articles dealing with human hibernation:

The Times April 22, 2005
Suspended animation is poised to move from science fiction to reality: scientists have successfully induced a state of reversible hibernation in mammals for the first time, using methods that could eventually be applied to human beings.

The breakthrough in the United States promises to allow doctors to slow human metabolism almost to a standstill, protecting critically ill patients from damage to the brain and other organs that would normally be inflicted by oxygen deprivation. Patient trials could begin within five years.

Please, note the date and the vague five year forecast. Two years later, I discovered scientists were making inroads in the so far budding science, and announcing imminent human trials.

The Sunday Times May 27, 2007
Race to be first to ‘hibernate’ human beings John Harlow in Los Angeles.
Turning science fiction into science fact, American doctors are preparing to chill volunteers. into a state of suspended animation that could keep them asleep for months.

Medical teams in Los Angeles, Boston and Pittsburgh are racing to become the first to test out new theories of “induced hibernation” which could save lives and also help to send man towards the stars.

Hasan Alam, a surgeon at Massachusetts general hospital and consultant to the US army, is poised to start the first human trials before the end of the year.

I figured that just like the discovery of fireworks led inevitably to the cannon, human hibernation, if conquered, could change the future prison systems. If scientists manage to pull this particular rabbit out of science’s hat, the world will change beyond our wildest dreams. Or nightmares.

From these two facts, I drafted a novel structure, composed a synopsis and wrote the first six chapters. My agent took the proposal over to Random House and they bought it. Then the guys and gals at Bantam inserted, on the back page of Perfect Circle, my previous novel, this plug :

Fifty years from now, the cost of maintaining a burgeoning prison population has driven the American government to its knees. Hypnos, a private corporation, offers a solution: A state of the art hibernation system. Crime levels plummet. Until one bold prison break, engineered by a highly-trained team, removes a particular prisoner from stasis— a prisoner who can expose Hypnos’ rotten core and the many abuses of what once looked to be the perfect system.

Which sums up the plot. But writing The Prisoner, was far more difficult than I had anticipated.

Researching the science behind Prisoner was like extracting coins from Scrooge’s purse. Scientists in Italy, Russia and the US, refused to part with much solid data, taking refuge not in the now worn ‘top secret’ formula but the ‘industrial property’ one.

In addition, a large proportion of the novel's plot takes place in the sewers, and I knew next to nothing about the netherworld below the city streets. But that was before I enlisted the help of the fearless fraternity of urban explorers in three continents.

After reading the rough manuscript, my editor counseled: "You must tone down the shit". I did.