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Woodrow Wilson 731 Avocado Place Del Mar, CA 92014 858-793-6828 woody@woodrow-wilson.com California chemist publishes hard science fiction novel DEL MAR, CA Woodrow Wilson
has published a science fiction novel.
His Dead
Astronauts is a first contact story with a twist: the alien visitors
all died in transit. Exposed to
what killed the crew, can NASA let the astronaut explorers come home? Quarantined and running out of air,
can they survive?
The author is a Caltech
PhD with a career in research and developmentŃincluding military and
intelligence applications of space.
No warp drive here, he insists his story is hard science fiction. Even the alien technology is in human
laboratories today. We live in the outer
suburbs of the Milky Way Galaxy where stars are few and far between, he
says. Interstellar travel here
is far beyond human technology.
Maybe our neighbors are more advanced. What if they tried to come here, he wondered. Even at a hundred times the speed of
the Apollo mission, itÕs a journey of a thousand years. A lot can happen in a
millennium. Dead
Astronauts explores the
possibilities. The book is available on WilsonÕs
website http://www.woodrow-wilson.com, and from most on-line book dealers.
Dead Astronauts, Woodrow Wilson, BookLocker.com, August 2010, 174
pages, $13.95 paperback $8.95 electronic, ISBN 978-1-60910-290-6 |
About the
Author
Woodrow
Wilson is a Caltech PhD with more than thirty years experience in research
and development for the military and intelligence communities. He has
explored space and other exotic environments in the laboratory and in the
computer. He contributed to the
design and testing of space-based and ground-based anti-ballistic missile
defenses. He has studied chemistry at 10,000”F, 30,000 mph collisions, plus
fires and explosions in zero gravity, the aurora borealis, and more. WilsonÕs
work in military applications of space puts the science in this hard science
fiction work Dead Astronauts. His interests are eclectic. He published The Champagne
Taste/Beer Budget Cookbook
offering restaurant quality meals without quality restaurant prices. He is a Distinguished Toastmaster,
and a Toastmaster District executive. He has addressed scientific meetings in
Russia and Germany, and throughout North America. He addresses general audiences on technical and historical
topics. Wilson lives in northern San Diego County with his
wife and their two yellow labs.
His two sons and four grandsons live nearby. He is working on his next novel, The Utah Flu, a medical fiction piece. Learn more about him on
http://www.woodrow-wilson.com. |
What are they saying?
Del Mar Times, October 8, 2010
Del Mar author talks about his latest
science fiction novel, ŌDead AstronautsÕ
By Marlena
Chavira-Medford Staff Writer An alien ship
is orbiting around Earth, and after investigating from afar, NASA has decided
to send a couple of astronauts to make contact. After boarding the ship,
theyÕve discovered all of the aliens are dead, and now that the astronauts
have been exposed to whatever killed the crew, NASA must decide whether they
can come home or not. ThatÕs the
synopsis of Del Mar author Woodrow WilsonÕs latest book, ŌDead Astronauts.Õ
Wilson, a Caltech Ph.D. with a career in research and development Ń including
military and intelligence applications of space, pulled on his many years as
a scientist for the plot of his new book. Here, he sheds some light on how he
developed these extraterrestrial characters, and whether he thinks we really
have reason to worry about alien invaders or not. How did you make the
transition from the science world to the literary world? Well, IÕve been
writing long before I ever really could. After graduating from college, I
decided I was a functioning illiterate. I started working on my spelling,
going back and studying grammar nobody had ever taught me. Becoming a writer
helped me be a better scientist because you have to be able to communicate
what you find Where did
the idea from this book come from? This book is
the result of some deep contemplation, just looking at stars and saying to
myself: ŌHow would anyone get here?Õ Even at a hundred times the speed of the
Apollo mission, the journey to get here would be a thousand years. A lot
could go wrong in that time, and in this case, it does. I wanted to explore
the possibility of aliens coming here, but the science behind it is all real,
some of it is an extrapolation, but itÕs all real. IÕve even deeply disguised
some quantum mechanics in this story. All the science may be
real, but how did you conjure up your fictional aliens? I didnÕt want
to look at TV or movies for inspiration because all of the aliens portrayed
look like humans. They donÕt have enough money to make them very alien, so
they dress them up and give them pointy ears, and they end up looking like
guys in rubber suits. I donÕtÕ think other intelligent life beings would
necessarily follow our template. Look at dolphins: they donÕt look much like
you or me. Or look at giant squids, another intelligent being, and they look
even less like us. For this book, I decided that these aliens came from a
liquid planet, and they were interested in Earth because we were the nearest
planet with water. So, I went with the squid model. And I didnÕt just create
aliens, I create an entire world where they came from. So when the astronauts
board their ship, they explore quite a bit. Being from a liquid planet [the
aliens] eat seafood, so these astronauts run into fish farms. Where did
the inspiration for your human characters come from? Characters
always start out as someone you know, but over a period of time they grow.
You synthesize these characters and by the time youÕre done, theyÕre not the
person you knew in the first place. These characters are a totally new person
that you know so well because you just spent a year with them inside your
head. Stephen Hawking, the
famed cosmologist and black hole expert, warns mankind about alien visitors.
Do you agree with him? I donÕt agree
with Hawking on that. I donÕt think Earth has anything worth the time and
energy it would take to come and get it. If we did, aliens couldnÕt detect
it. Even from the nearest star, it would take superb optics just to see Earth
as a dot. They couldnÕt resolve it into a picture. Spectroscopy could tell
them we have air and water here. ThatÕs about it. They couldnÕt detect life
here Ń much less tell that we taste like chicken. The spoils of raiding the
planet wouldnÕt be worth the cost of getting here. What book
are you working on next? My next book
will likely be a medical fiction. I did a lot of medical research where I was
involved in developing ways to defend against biological attacks, so again,
IÕm pulling from that. This next story will include subplots on anthraxŃand,
of course, there will be a twist, because it wouldnÕt be any fun if there
wasnÕt a twist. WilsonÕs book,
Dead Astronauts, is available on his website www.woodrow-wilson.com, and from
most on-line book dealers. The
Genre Traveler, November 1, 2010 Podcast
Episode 6: Could Alien Astronauts Survive a Trip to Earth?
By Carma Spence In Episode 6, I chat with
the author of Dead Astronauts, Woodrow Wilson about
his book, his name and his proclivity for cooking. We also cover the
possibility of life (intelligent or otherwise) in the universe, the myriad
ways that alien astronauts would not survive a trip to Earth, cooking and how
having eclectic interests can affect your writing. |