Okay...the secret is out, so I can admit I knew a long time ago. Tom Cruise had a cameo role as a lunatic studio executive in Ben Stiller's new laugh-a-minute comedy. Filming happened for five months in my own island of Kauai. (We locals claim this island; the movie stars are just visitors.)
I knew some of the production people, who had some big hoops to jump through getting this film made. I also kept stumbling across the Stiller, Nolte and Cruise entourages. (Cruise's children's nanny frequented the same playground my six-year-old frequents in Princeville. Don't get me started on those kids...)
And yes, I even encountered the movie stars on occasion. But we're cool on this island. We don't spill secrets. (Like Nolte spent a couple hours passed out cold at the Lihue airport.) And Cruise...he's a short guy. He is. Believe me.
Keep posted and I might let a few other things slip.
.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Death Game--Could the Plot Really Occur?
With homeland security a national priority, most government officials would prefer that we wipe the imagery of a high-level target like the Golden Gate Bridge going down in a fireball from our minds. But when sailing under bridge in 2002, I found myself thinking, ‘What if…’”
Now that the book is published, have been asked a few times if it really is possible. It's impossible to say, of course. Officials at the Golden Gate Bridge District, like those at other high-profile facilities around the country, are loathe to share information. They simply won’t give you any specifics.”
One thing I do know is that the tight-lipped silence is probably because the bridge has been considered a terrorism target for many years. In 2002, Spanish officials found videos among the possessions of suspected terrorists that included detailed images of the span, and, in 2003, the state attorney general named the Golden Gate Bridge the fourth most likely target in California, after LAX and the ports of Long Beach and Oakland.
Since the bridge contains over 80,000 tons of steel and weighs nearly 900,000 tons overall, realistic scenarios of its destruction aren’t obvious. Still, speculation about possible methodology is all over the Internet. Most of the attention focuses on someone bringing in a car-bomb to blow a hole in the deck.
Now that the book is published, have been asked a few times if it really is possible. It's impossible to say, of course. Officials at the Golden Gate Bridge District, like those at other high-profile facilities around the country, are loathe to share information. They simply won’t give you any specifics.”
One thing I do know is that the tight-lipped silence is probably because the bridge has been considered a terrorism target for many years. In 2002, Spanish officials found videos among the possessions of suspected terrorists that included detailed images of the span, and, in 2003, the state attorney general named the Golden Gate Bridge the fourth most likely target in California, after LAX and the ports of Long Beach and Oakland.
Since the bridge contains over 80,000 tons of steel and weighs nearly 900,000 tons overall, realistic scenarios of its destruction aren’t obvious. Still, speculation about possible methodology is all over the Internet. Most of the attention focuses on someone bringing in a car-bomb to blow a hole in the deck.
That speculation is easy to discount because the Golden Gate Bridge isn’t that vulnerable to those kind of attacks. Compared to the Loma Prieta earthquake, which the bridge easily survived, the typical car bomb attack is equivalent to a mosquito bite.”
An airline attack on the bridge is also occasionally postulated. “The destruction of the Twin Towers in 2001 made it clear that massive concrete and steel structures can be brought down from the air.
An airline attack on the bridge is also occasionally postulated. “The destruction of the Twin Towers in 2001 made it clear that massive concrete and steel structures can be brought down from the air.
If you've read Death Game, you know it pegs the true danger somewhere else. The book uses what most authorities seem to consider the most realistic threat--the use of marine tankers.
It's hard to know if Death Game's plot could possibly occur. What is certain is that 9/11 forced the spectrum of credibility to expand for everyone in the free world. What was inconceivable was now possible--the utterly awful had become chillingly real.
One of the most valuable benefits of thrillers are that they can alert us to what’s possible. With the publication of a book that contains a possible scenario for terrorists, that idea is no longer a usable terrorist plan. Once a plan is public knowledge, they’ve lost the element of surprise. They are forced to go on to Plot B, or Plot C. And hopefully, those plots already have other authors writing books about them.
One of the most valuable benefits of thrillers are that they can alert us to what’s possible. With the publication of a book that contains a possible scenario for terrorists, that idea is no longer a usable terrorist plan. Once a plan is public knowledge, they’ve lost the element of surprise. They are forced to go on to Plot B, or Plot C. And hopefully, those plots already have other authors writing books about them.
Monday, May 28, 2007
DEATH GAME BY CHERYL SWANSON BURNING? TELL ME IT AIN'T SO!
Because news disappears in an eyeblink these days, I'm excerpting a story some of you may have missed below.
Wayne of Prospero's Books in Kansas City burned thousands of his books on Memorial Day weekend, as a protest against what he perceived as a lack of interest in reading.
"This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today," Wayne told spectators outside his bookstore as he lit the first batch of books. The fire blazed for about 50 minutes before the Kansas City Fire Department put it out because Wayne didn't have a permit for burning.Wayne said next time he will get a permit.
He said he plans monthly bonfires until his supply — estimated at 20,000 books — is exhausted. "After slogging through the tens of thousands of books and to have people turn you away when you take them somewhere, it's just kind of a knee-jerk reaction," he said.
Wayne said he has seen fewer customers in recent years as people more often get their information from television or the Internet. He pointed to a 2002 study by the National Endowment for the Arts, that found that less than half of adult respondents reported reading for pleasure, down from almost 57 percent in 1982.
The whole country has seen the number of used bookstores decline in recent years, and there are few independent bookstores left in town, said Will Leathem, a co-owner of Prospero's Books.
Dozens of other people took advantage of the book-burning, searching through the books waiting to go into the flames for last-minute bargains.
Mike Bechtel paid $10 for a stack of books, including an antique collection of children's literature, which he said he'd save for his 4-year-old son.
The point of the whole thing. Waye said that not reading a book is as good as burning it. Hmmmm.
Wayne of Prospero's Books in Kansas City burned thousands of his books on Memorial Day weekend, as a protest against what he perceived as a lack of interest in reading.
"This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today," Wayne told spectators outside his bookstore as he lit the first batch of books. The fire blazed for about 50 minutes before the Kansas City Fire Department put it out because Wayne didn't have a permit for burning.Wayne said next time he will get a permit.
He said he plans monthly bonfires until his supply — estimated at 20,000 books — is exhausted. "After slogging through the tens of thousands of books and to have people turn you away when you take them somewhere, it's just kind of a knee-jerk reaction," he said.
Wayne said he has seen fewer customers in recent years as people more often get their information from television or the Internet. He pointed to a 2002 study by the National Endowment for the Arts, that found that less than half of adult respondents reported reading for pleasure, down from almost 57 percent in 1982.
The whole country has seen the number of used bookstores decline in recent years, and there are few independent bookstores left in town, said Will Leathem, a co-owner of Prospero's Books.
Dozens of other people took advantage of the book-burning, searching through the books waiting to go into the flames for last-minute bargains.
Mike Bechtel paid $10 for a stack of books, including an antique collection of children's literature, which he said he'd save for his 4-year-old son.
The point of the whole thing. Waye said that not reading a book is as good as burning it. Hmmmm.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Stealing Books and Writing
Ready for a true confession? When I was a kid I used to steal books from my school library. Okay...don't call the cops. I didn't actually steal them, I would always take them back after I had read them.
I took them because my school only allowed the students to check out two books a week. I wasn't a very fast reader, but I could read a lot more than two books a week. The librarian caught me one day and kicked me out of the library for the rest of the year. That was in sixth grade and it was the saddest school year I ever had.
Something a little similar happened to me the other day, when a librarian yelled at me (we were in cyberspace, so let's call it flaming) for asking how a writer might go about getting their novel into more public libraries. It offended her that I mentioned the title of my book; she thought I was advertising it.
Now...I have to admit that beginning authors do have a bad habit of name-dropping our book titles into conversations. Maybe we are trying to push ourselves, but I doubt it because most of us are so horribly shy. I think it more a way of reminding ourselves that someone thought we were good enough to publish. (There are days when that is all that keeps us going.)
This librarian was really angry with me and it made me feel terrible for a minute or two. But I think I will persist in asking the question, because I'm pretty sure that she was wrong. And so was the the school librarian in sixth grade. Librarians just shouldn't act that way. It doesn't go with the territory.
to those schools. concrete Okay. For all those who think
I took them because my school only allowed the students to check out two books a week. I wasn't a very fast reader, but I could read a lot more than two books a week. The librarian caught me one day and kicked me out of the library for the rest of the year. That was in sixth grade and it was the saddest school year I ever had.
Something a little similar happened to me the other day, when a librarian yelled at me (we were in cyberspace, so let's call it flaming) for asking how a writer might go about getting their novel into more public libraries. It offended her that I mentioned the title of my book; she thought I was advertising it.
Now...I have to admit that beginning authors do have a bad habit of name-dropping our book titles into conversations. Maybe we are trying to push ourselves, but I doubt it because most of us are so horribly shy. I think it more a way of reminding ourselves that someone thought we were good enough to publish. (There are days when that is all that keeps us going.)
This librarian was really angry with me and it made me feel terrible for a minute or two. But I think I will persist in asking the question, because I'm pretty sure that she was wrong. And so was the the school librarian in sixth grade. Librarians just shouldn't act that way. It doesn't go with the territory.
to those schools. concrete Okay. For all those who think
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
ForeWord Magazine Review of Death Game
BOOK REVIEW
Death Game by: Cheryl Swanson
Issue Month: May/June 2007 Category: Mystery Publisher: Zumaya Publications 306 pages , Softcover $14.99, PDF and HTML $6.99, 978-1-55410-326-3 ISBN: 9781554103256
There’s a fine line between games and reality and most of the time it is only the most disturbed people who cross that line—although they occasionally take the innocent with them. That’s what Cooper O’Brien discovers when she watches a video tape that shows her brother, Jimmie, killing another boy. She and her boss, attorney Rick Capra, view the footage on a surveillance tape from a client’s yacht. Although the face of the shooter is not immediately recognizable, the tee-shirt the boy is wearing is distinct. Cooper saw that shirt just this morning when she took Jimmie to school.
Cooper is pulled into this sharp, fast-paced mystery to prove that her brother couldn’t have pulled that trigger, but she is quickly caught up in a tide of intrigue that threatens to derail everything she has considered normal most of her life.
In this debut novel, the author weaves an intricate story with fine characterization and plenty of surprises. The pace is relentless and the language vivid. Early on, the reader is graced with this description of a troubled teenager: “Happiness rarely appeared on his face, and when it did it looked like a guest who had shown up at the wrong party—out of place and uncomfortable. It would hang around for a few moments then flee.”
Cooper has been responsible for her teenage brother since their parents died, and she is often at a loss as how to deal with his grief. This topic is handled with realism and emotional depth in the hands of an author who has known her share of pain.
Swanson holds a degree in education and biology from Arizona State University and has worked in the medical imaging field. She founded IntelliSys, a company that worked on pilot projects in imaging and robotic surgery with various medical colleges. She has written three nonfiction books, but her true love is fiction. Like her protagonist, Swanson has learned that life is not a game.
Review by: Maryann Miller
Death Game by: Cheryl Swanson
Issue Month: May/June 2007 Category: Mystery Publisher: Zumaya Publications 306 pages , Softcover $14.99, PDF and HTML $6.99, 978-1-55410-326-3 ISBN: 9781554103256
There’s a fine line between games and reality and most of the time it is only the most disturbed people who cross that line—although they occasionally take the innocent with them. That’s what Cooper O’Brien discovers when she watches a video tape that shows her brother, Jimmie, killing another boy. She and her boss, attorney Rick Capra, view the footage on a surveillance tape from a client’s yacht. Although the face of the shooter is not immediately recognizable, the tee-shirt the boy is wearing is distinct. Cooper saw that shirt just this morning when she took Jimmie to school.
Cooper is pulled into this sharp, fast-paced mystery to prove that her brother couldn’t have pulled that trigger, but she is quickly caught up in a tide of intrigue that threatens to derail everything she has considered normal most of her life.
In this debut novel, the author weaves an intricate story with fine characterization and plenty of surprises. The pace is relentless and the language vivid. Early on, the reader is graced with this description of a troubled teenager: “Happiness rarely appeared on his face, and when it did it looked like a guest who had shown up at the wrong party—out of place and uncomfortable. It would hang around for a few moments then flee.”
Cooper has been responsible for her teenage brother since their parents died, and she is often at a loss as how to deal with his grief. This topic is handled with realism and emotional depth in the hands of an author who has known her share of pain.
Swanson holds a degree in education and biology from Arizona State University and has worked in the medical imaging field. She founded IntelliSys, a company that worked on pilot projects in imaging and robotic surgery with various medical colleges. She has written three nonfiction books, but her true love is fiction. Like her protagonist, Swanson has learned that life is not a game.
Review by: Maryann Miller
Monday, April 23, 2007
Death Game by Cheryl Swanson Deepened by Cancer Experience
As Hawaiian thriller author Cheryl Swanson knows, stories often get more interesting when death enters the picture. Amazingly, her own experience has taught her that is sometimes as true in real life as in fiction.
Four years ago Cheryl Swanson was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. “Make a will,” her surgeon urged, when asked for a prognosis. Instead, Swanson transferred her feelings of being out-of -control into her debut novel, a thriller in which a strong, likeable female protagonist has to deal with her troubled teenage brother getting involved in a violent Internet game that leads to murder.
“Being in a chemo room is like being in the anteroom of a gas chamber,” Swanson said. “My challenge was to put that thoroughly awful thrill into words. And then, final step, create a much more entertaining situation than my own, in which those feelings might have happened in the first place.”
In Death Game, Swanson sends her female protagonist, Cooper O’Brien, on a nonstop roller coaster ride through the mean streets of San Francisco. Terror nips at Cooper’s heels all through the book, just as it did at Swanson’s during her cancer treatment. “What Cooper goes through is a reflection of what you experience as a cancer patient,” Swanson said. Cooper’s family, her life, her mental balance, her self-respect—they are under attack. “Just like those of all individuals fighting an extremely critical disease,” Swanson claims.
Death Game is chilling, but also often hilarious. Peopled with renegade teenagers wearing “Enema of the State,” and “I Love my Weenie,” t-shirts, a man who conceals microphones in his Iron Maiden bra, and a nonchalant beauty who seduces almost everyone she meets in Absinthe, a swank San Francisco restaurant, this is the wonderfully wacky landscape of life, San Francisco-style. In Death Game, San Francisco is a city where everything that is not for sale is up for grabs.
As Cooper searches for her vanished kid-brother, she is plunged into a wind tunnel of violence and dread. But she turns her terror and depression into a joke. “This is exactly what you see in cancer treatment rooms,” Swanson said. “You laugh because it’s laugh or commit suicide. You quickly learn not to take anything seriously. “
Cheryl Swanson cites that old Kathleen Turner movie, Romancing the Stone, as one of her inspirations for staying with her novel. “Remember how this crazy romance novelist forgets everything while she was writing? Cancer treatment made me feel just like that. Half the time, while I was writing about my heroine getting beat up, poisoned and terrorized, it was me I was writing about. I would go home from chemotherapy and find myself in the perfect mood to write the next horrifying scene in my novel. And then I would lighten up and start laughing. It’s how you handle something like this—it’s what gets you through.”
Swanson pointed out that being diagnosed with a serious disease often causes people to get down—finally—to doing what they’ve always wanted to do. “A serious disease teaches you your own mortality, your own humanity, your own limits. Once you’ve stop deluding yourself about your invincibility, you realize the time is now. Or never. Not next month, not next year. Today.”
Swanson pointed out that women often struggle with wasting their time on non-essentials. “Women are expected to be caretakers, nurturers, housekeepers, nannys, pet-sitters, and walking credit-cards for their teenagers,” she said. “We’re all at the point of self-annihilation. As Erma Bombeck once said: “’Just doing the housework will kill you, if you do it right.’”
“As women, we have a right to pursue our own dreams—but too often we let them slide. At some point, we’ve got to stop accomplishing what others want us to do.”
The reviews of Death Game indicate that Swanson has accomplished something worthwhile with her debut novel. According to December, 2006, Midwest Reviews: “The author, Cheryl Swanson, has penned a stunning debut novel with all the hallmarks of a great thriller.” According to Jeffrey Marks, consulting editor with Mystery Scene magazine and Edgar-nominee, “Pacing, characterization, intrigue, Death Game has it all. It keep me on the edge of my chair from the very first chapter. I couldn’t put it down and read it well into the night.”
Epinions review (December, 2006) said: “If you’re looking for a thoughtful, well-crafted thriller that will keep you guessing till the last clue’s in place, with a strong-willed protagonist who’s so real you finish the book thinking that she must exist somewhere on Earth, then give yourself a break and read Death Game at the earliest opportunity.”
Four years ago Cheryl Swanson was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. “Make a will,” her surgeon urged, when asked for a prognosis. Instead, Swanson transferred her feelings of being out-of -control into her debut novel, a thriller in which a strong, likeable female protagonist has to deal with her troubled teenage brother getting involved in a violent Internet game that leads to murder.
“Being in a chemo room is like being in the anteroom of a gas chamber,” Swanson said. “My challenge was to put that thoroughly awful thrill into words. And then, final step, create a much more entertaining situation than my own, in which those feelings might have happened in the first place.”
In Death Game, Swanson sends her female protagonist, Cooper O’Brien, on a nonstop roller coaster ride through the mean streets of San Francisco. Terror nips at Cooper’s heels all through the book, just as it did at Swanson’s during her cancer treatment. “What Cooper goes through is a reflection of what you experience as a cancer patient,” Swanson said. Cooper’s family, her life, her mental balance, her self-respect—they are under attack. “Just like those of all individuals fighting an extremely critical disease,” Swanson claims.
Death Game is chilling, but also often hilarious. Peopled with renegade teenagers wearing “Enema of the State,” and “I Love my Weenie,” t-shirts, a man who conceals microphones in his Iron Maiden bra, and a nonchalant beauty who seduces almost everyone she meets in Absinthe, a swank San Francisco restaurant, this is the wonderfully wacky landscape of life, San Francisco-style. In Death Game, San Francisco is a city where everything that is not for sale is up for grabs.
As Cooper searches for her vanished kid-brother, she is plunged into a wind tunnel of violence and dread. But she turns her terror and depression into a joke. “This is exactly what you see in cancer treatment rooms,” Swanson said. “You laugh because it’s laugh or commit suicide. You quickly learn not to take anything seriously. “
Cheryl Swanson cites that old Kathleen Turner movie, Romancing the Stone, as one of her inspirations for staying with her novel. “Remember how this crazy romance novelist forgets everything while she was writing? Cancer treatment made me feel just like that. Half the time, while I was writing about my heroine getting beat up, poisoned and terrorized, it was me I was writing about. I would go home from chemotherapy and find myself in the perfect mood to write the next horrifying scene in my novel. And then I would lighten up and start laughing. It’s how you handle something like this—it’s what gets you through.”
Swanson pointed out that being diagnosed with a serious disease often causes people to get down—finally—to doing what they’ve always wanted to do. “A serious disease teaches you your own mortality, your own humanity, your own limits. Once you’ve stop deluding yourself about your invincibility, you realize the time is now. Or never. Not next month, not next year. Today.”
Swanson pointed out that women often struggle with wasting their time on non-essentials. “Women are expected to be caretakers, nurturers, housekeepers, nannys, pet-sitters, and walking credit-cards for their teenagers,” she said. “We’re all at the point of self-annihilation. As Erma Bombeck once said: “’Just doing the housework will kill you, if you do it right.’”
“As women, we have a right to pursue our own dreams—but too often we let them slide. At some point, we’ve got to stop accomplishing what others want us to do.”
The reviews of Death Game indicate that Swanson has accomplished something worthwhile with her debut novel. According to December, 2006, Midwest Reviews: “The author, Cheryl Swanson, has penned a stunning debut novel with all the hallmarks of a great thriller.” According to Jeffrey Marks, consulting editor with Mystery Scene magazine and Edgar-nominee, “Pacing, characterization, intrigue, Death Game has it all. It keep me on the edge of my chair from the very first chapter. I couldn’t put it down and read it well into the night.”
Epinions review (December, 2006) said: “If you’re looking for a thoughtful, well-crafted thriller that will keep you guessing till the last clue’s in place, with a strong-willed protagonist who’s so real you finish the book thinking that she must exist somewhere on Earth, then give yourself a break and read Death Game at the earliest opportunity.”
Monday, April 16, 2007
Terrorism Subject of Thriller Death Game
Death Game Focuses on Unusual Terrorist Attack
With homeland security a national priority, most government officials would prefer that we wipe the imagery of high-level targets going down in a fireball from our minds. But when sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge in 2002, Cheryl Swanson, an expert on three-dimensional computer technology, found herself thinking, ‘What if…’”
Such was the genesis of Death Game, a suspense/thriller recently published by Zumaya Publications, LLC. “Doing the research was a challenge,” Swanson said, “because officials at the Golden Gate Bridge District, like those at other high-profile facilities around the country, are loathe to share information. They simply won’t give you any specifics.”
The tight-lipped silence is probably because the bridge has been considered a terrorism target for many years. In 2002, Spanish officials found videos among the possessions of suspected terrorists that included detailed images of the span, and, in 2003, the state attorney general named the Golden Gate Bridge the fourth most likely target in California, after LAX and the ports of Long Beach and Oakland.
Since the bridge contains over 80,000 tons of steel and weighs nearly 900,000 tons overall, realistic scenarios of its destruction aren’t obvious. But Swanson found that speculation about possible methodology was rife on the Internet. “Most of the attention focuses on someone bringing in a car-bomb to blow a hole in the deck,” Swanson said. “But the Golden Gate isn’t that vulnerable to those kind of attacks. Compared to the Loma Prieta, the typical car bomb attack is equivalent to a mosquito bite.”
An airline attack on the bridge is also occasionally postulated. “The destruction of the Twin Towers in 2001 made it clear that massive concrete and steel structures can be brought down from the air,” Swanson said. But her thriller pegs the true danger somewhere else; Death Game is based on an attack on the piers by marine tankers. “I came up with the idea mostly based on an awareness of how easy it is to sail into harbors on the California coast unchallenged,” she said. “But most authorities seem to consider marine tankers one of the more realistic threats.”
Swanson said that over the years she was only boarded once on the California coast—by immigration officials, when she strayed into Mexican waters. “My experience is that anyone can sail up and down the coast, enter whatever harbor they wish, and no one even notices.”
Swanson is the author of three non-fiction books and an expert in esoteric video technologies, including those used to train surgeons, as well as robotic systems for guiding emergency surgery in remote locations. “The U.S. Army, medical schools, Hollywood animators, and teenage boys are all fascinated by computer games,” she said. “I already knew a lot about the technology, from a realm where it was used in a helpful way. But you can’t work with advanced technology without realizing that this millennium has become increasingly dangerous because the things with which we are surrounded with are more dangerous.”
Swanson never intended to write a suspense/thriller, when she chucked her career in medical technology and started writing a novel. “I was in the middle of chemotherapy for breast cancer,” she said, “I was also in the final stages of an adoption from Guatemala, which my surgeon told me to stop pursuing because of my cancer diagnosis. That put me in a black mood. And then, like all of America, I was transfixed by 9/11. After 9/11, the spectrum of credibility expanded for everyone in America with a thinking brain. What was inconceivable was now possible--the utterly awful had become chillingly real.”
Swanson neatly transferred her feelings of being out of control into the heart of her heroine’s. Cooper O’Brien is on a nonstop roller coaster in Death Game, trying to prove her kid-brother is not a killer. “Being in a chemo room is like being in the anteroom of a gas chamber,” Swanson said. “My challenge was to put that thoroughly awful thrill into words. And then, final step, create a much more entertaining situation than my own, in which those feelings might have happened in the first place.”
Swanson said that she believes we are under-estimating the sophistication of terrorists, and mistaken in calling their acts irrational. “There’s a popular misconception that terrorists are lunatics who want to kill everyone in the West. It’s comic book image—Batman fighting the Joker. What we are actually seeing, instead, is much more complicated. These are highly sophisticated individuals, fully versed in media imagery. They know that we in the West think in images. On the West Coast, nothing is a more powerful image than a beloved landmark like the Golden Gate Bridge.”
Swanson found through her research that an amazing number of the Arab and Muslim terrorists have secondary and even primary identities as Westerners. “A standard part of growing up in bin Laden’s family, for example, involved attending university in the West. Osama studied in Jiddah, but he was a playboy in Westernized Beirut before he repented and returned to fundamentalist Islam. In many ways, that is the driving force of aggression against the West. They see it as a betrayal of his Muslim identity and pride.
“Terrorists intend to kill a certain number of people, yes, but their real goal is to exploit the news media to terrify a far larger portion of the public, she added. “The brilliance of bin Laden’s plan was that he spoke to us in a language of images we understood. Watching 9/11 on television, people felt like it wasn’t real. It seemed like something made up—a scene out of a movie. And that was the point. It was supposed to be like something out of a movie. The imagery kept it front and center on the world’s news’ channels for a long time. Bin Laden counted on that to help him attract a fresh army of recruits to jihad.”
Swanson said she felt there was a strong connection between the reduction of individuals to abstractions and terrorism. “In 1967, the political scientist Ole R. Holsti published an essay titled “Cognitive Dynamics and Images of the Enemy,” in which he argued that, while terrorists exploit media images, they are also psychologically disposed to reduce their human enemies into a single abstract image. Holsti went on to say that these abstractions cause terrorists to resort to violence, because the very abstractness and unreality of those images means they are bound to inspire immoral action.”
“It is a closed loop,” she said. ‘Terrorist groups manufacture oversimplified and repulsive images of the enemy, and then those images prompt attacks that are themselves highly repulsive.” Is it also possible that Swanson’s novel—with its imagery of a terrorist attack-- might inspire some immoral action?
She believes that it’s more likely the images created by books like hers are a deterrent. “One valuable benefit of fiction is that it alerts us to what’s possible,” she said. “With the publication of anything that contains a possible scenario for terrorists, that idea is no longer a usable terrorist plan. Once a plan is public knowledge, they’ve lost the element of surprise. They are forced to go on to Plan B, or Plan C.”
(Considered officially to be in cancer remission, after four years of being cancer free, Cheryl Swanson now lives with her Guatemala-born daughter, and her husband, Bob, two densely jungled miles from Michael Crichton in Kauai. Death Game can be purchased from Amazon.com and through local bookstores.)
With homeland security a national priority, most government officials would prefer that we wipe the imagery of high-level targets going down in a fireball from our minds. But when sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge in 2002, Cheryl Swanson, an expert on three-dimensional computer technology, found herself thinking, ‘What if…’”
Such was the genesis of Death Game, a suspense/thriller recently published by Zumaya Publications, LLC. “Doing the research was a challenge,” Swanson said, “because officials at the Golden Gate Bridge District, like those at other high-profile facilities around the country, are loathe to share information. They simply won’t give you any specifics.”
The tight-lipped silence is probably because the bridge has been considered a terrorism target for many years. In 2002, Spanish officials found videos among the possessions of suspected terrorists that included detailed images of the span, and, in 2003, the state attorney general named the Golden Gate Bridge the fourth most likely target in California, after LAX and the ports of Long Beach and Oakland.
Since the bridge contains over 80,000 tons of steel and weighs nearly 900,000 tons overall, realistic scenarios of its destruction aren’t obvious. But Swanson found that speculation about possible methodology was rife on the Internet. “Most of the attention focuses on someone bringing in a car-bomb to blow a hole in the deck,” Swanson said. “But the Golden Gate isn’t that vulnerable to those kind of attacks. Compared to the Loma Prieta, the typical car bomb attack is equivalent to a mosquito bite.”
An airline attack on the bridge is also occasionally postulated. “The destruction of the Twin Towers in 2001 made it clear that massive concrete and steel structures can be brought down from the air,” Swanson said. But her thriller pegs the true danger somewhere else; Death Game is based on an attack on the piers by marine tankers. “I came up with the idea mostly based on an awareness of how easy it is to sail into harbors on the California coast unchallenged,” she said. “But most authorities seem to consider marine tankers one of the more realistic threats.”
Swanson said that over the years she was only boarded once on the California coast—by immigration officials, when she strayed into Mexican waters. “My experience is that anyone can sail up and down the coast, enter whatever harbor they wish, and no one even notices.”
Swanson is the author of three non-fiction books and an expert in esoteric video technologies, including those used to train surgeons, as well as robotic systems for guiding emergency surgery in remote locations. “The U.S. Army, medical schools, Hollywood animators, and teenage boys are all fascinated by computer games,” she said. “I already knew a lot about the technology, from a realm where it was used in a helpful way. But you can’t work with advanced technology without realizing that this millennium has become increasingly dangerous because the things with which we are surrounded with are more dangerous.”
Swanson never intended to write a suspense/thriller, when she chucked her career in medical technology and started writing a novel. “I was in the middle of chemotherapy for breast cancer,” she said, “I was also in the final stages of an adoption from Guatemala, which my surgeon told me to stop pursuing because of my cancer diagnosis. That put me in a black mood. And then, like all of America, I was transfixed by 9/11. After 9/11, the spectrum of credibility expanded for everyone in America with a thinking brain. What was inconceivable was now possible--the utterly awful had become chillingly real.”
Swanson neatly transferred her feelings of being out of control into the heart of her heroine’s. Cooper O’Brien is on a nonstop roller coaster in Death Game, trying to prove her kid-brother is not a killer. “Being in a chemo room is like being in the anteroom of a gas chamber,” Swanson said. “My challenge was to put that thoroughly awful thrill into words. And then, final step, create a much more entertaining situation than my own, in which those feelings might have happened in the first place.”
Swanson said that she believes we are under-estimating the sophistication of terrorists, and mistaken in calling their acts irrational. “There’s a popular misconception that terrorists are lunatics who want to kill everyone in the West. It’s comic book image—Batman fighting the Joker. What we are actually seeing, instead, is much more complicated. These are highly sophisticated individuals, fully versed in media imagery. They know that we in the West think in images. On the West Coast, nothing is a more powerful image than a beloved landmark like the Golden Gate Bridge.”
Swanson found through her research that an amazing number of the Arab and Muslim terrorists have secondary and even primary identities as Westerners. “A standard part of growing up in bin Laden’s family, for example, involved attending university in the West. Osama studied in Jiddah, but he was a playboy in Westernized Beirut before he repented and returned to fundamentalist Islam. In many ways, that is the driving force of aggression against the West. They see it as a betrayal of his Muslim identity and pride.
“Terrorists intend to kill a certain number of people, yes, but their real goal is to exploit the news media to terrify a far larger portion of the public, she added. “The brilliance of bin Laden’s plan was that he spoke to us in a language of images we understood. Watching 9/11 on television, people felt like it wasn’t real. It seemed like something made up—a scene out of a movie. And that was the point. It was supposed to be like something out of a movie. The imagery kept it front and center on the world’s news’ channels for a long time. Bin Laden counted on that to help him attract a fresh army of recruits to jihad.”
Swanson said she felt there was a strong connection between the reduction of individuals to abstractions and terrorism. “In 1967, the political scientist Ole R. Holsti published an essay titled “Cognitive Dynamics and Images of the Enemy,” in which he argued that, while terrorists exploit media images, they are also psychologically disposed to reduce their human enemies into a single abstract image. Holsti went on to say that these abstractions cause terrorists to resort to violence, because the very abstractness and unreality of those images means they are bound to inspire immoral action.”
“It is a closed loop,” she said. ‘Terrorist groups manufacture oversimplified and repulsive images of the enemy, and then those images prompt attacks that are themselves highly repulsive.” Is it also possible that Swanson’s novel—with its imagery of a terrorist attack-- might inspire some immoral action?
She believes that it’s more likely the images created by books like hers are a deterrent. “One valuable benefit of fiction is that it alerts us to what’s possible,” she said. “With the publication of anything that contains a possible scenario for terrorists, that idea is no longer a usable terrorist plan. Once a plan is public knowledge, they’ve lost the element of surprise. They are forced to go on to Plan B, or Plan C.”
(Considered officially to be in cancer remission, after four years of being cancer free, Cheryl Swanson now lives with her Guatemala-born daughter, and her husband, Bob, two densely jungled miles from Michael Crichton in Kauai. Death Game can be purchased from Amazon.com and through local bookstores.)
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