Andrew Dequasie – författare

Our civilization is indeed fortunate that Dr. Visionaire has been the first to solve the problem of turning back the clock on the aging process. Fortunate because the brilliant Dr. Visionaire is a highly ethical man. He knows that his discovery can have disastrous consequences; a sudden population explosion as death becomes rare; economic chaos as pension plans go bankrupt; entrenchment of immortal dictators; frozen opportunities for young people facing an immovable establishment.

The doctor decides to expose the world to proof of his discovery in a small way without revealing the secret. He knows that someone else will eventually discover the secret and perhaps have no compunction about releasing it, but hopes to give the world time to prepare for the consequences before it becomes an unleashed reality.

He takes a job as resident physician in the Spruce Valley rest home for elderly people. As the residents begin to regain their youth, he pretends to be mystified and encourages the rumor that the spring supplying water to the facility might be a second Lourdes. Then he leads the owner of the rest home and the owner''s wife into a plot to confirm the Lourdes hoax. As the good doctor puts it, it''s necessary to give God the credit --- and the blame.

The doctor has chosen his fellow conspirators well. They have a grand time establishing the hoax, which sometimes succeeds all too well.

As the fame of the Spruce Valley Miracle spreads and the facility is doubled, the first of Doctor Visionaire''s predictions comes true; the Government wants a piece of the action in order to give certain VIPs preferred status. Government money doubles the facility again, bringing a host of new characters and overwhelming paperwork. The local Government agent, Jane Ormond, becomes the doctor''s soul mate.

Then the second of Doctor Visionaire''s predictions comes true; the bad guy appears. A renegade CIA man worms his way into Spruce Valley to search out the real source

The 16 tales in this book range in length from 115 pages for "Whizzers" down to a single page for "Commuter," and are arranged in order of length from the longest down to the shortest. Each tale is distinctly different from its 15 neighbors and none is longer than it needs to be to carry the plot.

Some of the characters are those almost mythical ''real Vermonters'' and some are folks who were born elsewhere but had the good fortune to relocate in Vermont. One is a wild turkey, one is a colonial ghost, one is from the very distant past, and one is from the future. The rest are folks you might meet at a town meeting or a restaurant. Two of the stories in this book were previously published; "A Long Winter''s Nap" appeared in the February, 1999 issue of Alfred Hitchcock''s Mystery Magazine, and "The Infernal Machine" appeared in issue Number 2, Winter 93/94, of OffWorld, a nice little magazine that didn''t survive.

Other books have been written about battles between humans and creatures from outer space. So, what''s different about this one?

Well, the aliens in this case know a great deal about planet Earth and its human population, but their info is disastrously out of date. It''s a war in which tactics make all the difference and the aliens would have found peaceful cooperation a far more useful thing than the battle.

As a side issue, these highly intelligent aliens have evolved on a planet where oxygen and water are rare. Impossible? Not at all. The author''s thesis on this point is that life can evolve anywhere there is an energy source the life form can use. In each case, the life form evolves so as to use the available energy source and, therefore, is very dependant on it, just as we depend on oxygen and water.

This book is a collection of essays and anecdotes about 19 animals, 18 birds, 15 fish, 10 reptiles, 31 insects, 39 plants, 17 trees, and 6 other subjects encountered in nature by the author, mostly in the region from West Virginia to Vermont. Hopefully, it lends personality to these subjects and leaves the reader with a sense of the changing view of our natural world during the 20th century. It is not encyclopedic, being

limited to things the author has had experience with. On the other hand, it contains many off-beat details not to be found in other references.

Among stone-age peoples, one of the important duties the hunter had to fulfill when he returned home was to tell the other members of his tribe where he had been, what he had seen, and what he had done. That is what the author attempts to do in this book.

For instance, he tells of : Dealings with raccoons, both tame and wild. How to rescue a skunk from a storm drain. Home-made animal traps. What constitutes a successful backwoods fox hunt. How kingfishers and sparrow hawks mourn their dead. Why bluebirds are scarce. Why a killdeer will tease a dog. Where to find bluegills in the Ohio River or smelt in the Niagara River. A box turtle''s prediction of dry weather and rain. Living where copperheads live. Playing with garter snakes. How to find a bee tree. The very different lives and habits of hornets, brown wasps, and mud dauber wasps. Sleeping with bedbugs. The psychological warfare of the deer fly. When to look for snow fleas. How to recognize chamomile by its aroma. The scarcity of ginseng. Trouble with jack-in-the-pulpit. Using jimson weed to kill flys. The forms and effects of poison ivy. Why black raspberries grow in smaller patches than red raspberries. Making use of elderberries. How Indians used acorns as food. Growing black walnut trees from seed.

There are no pictures in this book. Those would greatly increase the size and &nbs

The Civil War started in the spring of 1861. In the spring of 1862, Jeb and Doris Whitney head west with their youngest son, Josh, leaving their older son, Joe, and his bride in possession of the Ohio farm. Jeb and Doris are seeking a new homestead for Josh, but their move is also contrived to prevent Joe from joining the Union Army.

Doris dies of undulant fever just short of the beginning of the Oregon Trail at Westport, Missouri. Jeb becomes a despondent alcoholic and Josh desperately enlists a couple of new-found friends in Westport in trying to bring his father back to normal.

Jeb clashes with Mr. Blue, a mean, gun-slinging card shark that wiser men avoid, and is severely wounded in the resulting shoot-out. Several days later, Josh is the sole witness as a cheated card player confronts Mr. Blue at gunpoint one night and is killed by Mr. Blue. Josh is the only one who can prove that Mr. Blue is innocent of murder by the standards of the day. But Josh finds that the whole town wants Mr. Blue hung. He has killed six men, bullied everyone in town, and threatens to kill Josh and his father when he gets out of jail. Josh makes a decision contrary to his own conscience.

Jeb sobers up and marries the lady who nursed him back to health after the gunfight. Josh wants to continue west and finds his opportunity when a preacher and his wife come through Westport, seeking a location to start a new church. Josh joins them, thinking they will need his help to survive and prosper, but also finds that they are determined to practice non-violence in this violent land. By the time the preacher and his wife reach Fort Laramie, Josh has saved them from several outlaws and an Indian raid, but they have cast him out as an agent of the devil.

Josh wins the friendship of Lewis, a small, but very tough mountain man who serves as a scout for Fort Laramie. On a trip into Sioux country, Josh finds that Lewis has a Sioux wife and children that he loves more than he wants the Army to know. They join a Sioux buffalo hunt and Josh runs afoul of White Hawk, a Sioux warrior, due to the mischievous flirting of an Indian maiden. By the time he and Lewis return to Fort Laramie, Josh regards Lewis as a best friend and has learned some sympathy and respect for the Sioux. Lewis predicts that it''s only a matter of time before the Army controls all Indian lands, but is doing all he can to keep the peace and delay that day.

The preacher''s wife is caught by a band of Indian raiders and brutally killed. Abandoning non-violence, the preacher is at Fort Laramie, doing his best to stir up an all-out war. A shipment of rapid-fire rifles is being sent to Fort Laramie. Lewis worries about the rifles and the "sword swinging" officer bringing them.

Kirby Twine, a young greenhorn, convinces Josh to go with him into the Big Horn mountains in Crow Indian territory in search of the source of a sample of gold ore he has. Deep in the mountains, Josh realizes how foolish they are and discovers that Kirby''s "gold ore" is fool''s gold. Kirby is eager to continue the search until they are caught at a severe disadvantage by a Sioux band that has come to raid the Crows. White Hawk is the leader of the Sioux band, and Josh negotiates successfully at gunpoint.

Back at Fort Laramie, Josh is present when the shipment of rapid-fire rifles arrives and the crates prove to contain only sand and a few token Indian arrows. In the official inquiry that follows, the conclusion is that the rifles were stolen by Indians with the aid of Confederate spies or soldiers. Some time later, Josh realizes that Lewis is the only man he knows who could have led Indians on such a mission. Talking it over with Lewis in an oblique way, Josh is given a reason to keep the secret.

The preacher enlists the aid of a self-serving scout, La Croix, to help him punish the Indians, but the preacher is apparantly killed while on a mission with La Croix. Later, Lewis kills La Croix in a shoot-out, and the