Zeno’s Paradox

My novel, Zeno’s Paradox, was inspired by the philosophy of the novelist Ayn Rand.

Howard Rhodes’ father was a renowned physicist. He and his wife were killed in a suspicious car accident when Howard was fourteen years old. Howard is now sixteen and living on his own as an emancipated minor. He is also an intellectually gifted and well-adjusted teenager whose mother stimulated his love for learning, explained Christianity’s fatal flaw to him, and taught him that his most valuable asset was his brain and his ability to reason.

In school, Howard deals with a challenge from a classmate who is a class bully, and who is making everyone’s life miserable. He also entertains his classmates and stuns his math and physics teachers when he unravels the error in the logic to Zeno’s famous Paradox, which has had scientists baffled since 400 BC.

Howard’s interest in physics leads him to investigate various possibilities regarding small particles, and he attracts everyone’s attention, including Stefan Nacouski’s who is a sleeper al Qaeda agent living in the United States, when he discovers a new source of energy.

Not only does Howard’s new source of energy eliminate the need for burning fossil fuels, but also, he can create a particle beam shield that will protect the United States and its allies from a Ballistic Missile attack. Unfortunately, this same device can be refined to create a beam that will silently kill hundreds of innocent people. Stephan will resort to anything to get his hands on Howard’s Killing Machine.

Hunker Creek’s Gold

A group of highly trained terrorist snipers are keeping almost every US law enforcement officer busy investigating random attacks. A second arm of the terrorist group is secretly importing and warehousing enormous amounts of narcotics.

The group’s intention is to flood the US market with drugs at prices anyone can afford. Their aim is to addict as many people as possible including high ranking politicians, business people, law enforcement officers, civil servants, and military personnel. The terrorists predict that this will cause America to grind to a standstill. They plan to step up the random sniper attacks spreading terror throughout United States. And, this will be the signal for the Militant, Right Wing groups’ leaders to band together and agitate for a citizen’s revolt against their government that can no longer protect its citizens.

Mike Cranston is a trained Navy Seal sniper, and Little John knows all of the Militant, Right Wing groups’ leaders in the country. Together they plan to infiltrate the terrorist group.

During the summer, Shane Atkins operates his placer mine on Hunker Creek, and he is studying philosophy at the University of Oregon during the off season. He and his mentors are concerned that the moral culture of the United States is in a downward spiral.

Shane’s lecture series for artists, called the Philosophy of the Nature of Man, attracts the attention of the councilors at the many rehab clinics that have sprung up throughout America. The drug councilors are convinced that his compelling logic in support of a rational basis for ethics, a romantic renaissance in the arts, and man’s efficacy offers a valuable alternative to the Twelve Step program.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

And leave it at that.