LughIldanach: Blog

As I write about the period of the Cuban Missile Crisis, I keep having urges to put, into sidebars, comments on how something would, for example, be a lesson that still was not learned in the Vietnam War. Perhaps readers can tell me if they would like marginal notes.

Otherwise, I shall save them for what will be future stories of the past, in this universe. Future stories of the past? You know what I mean...

Some actual things that happened, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the setting of "Tomorrow is another Day", are funny but didn't really lend themselves to much content in the story.

The CIA Director, John McCone, got married in mid-September 1962, at a time when the Soviets were beginning their buildup. McCone, although not an intelligence professional but a long-time government adviser, was one of the "Wise Men" of the conflict, consistently making accurate predictions.

He and his wife went off on a honeymoon in France, accompanied by a CIA communications team and presumably some security people. Nowhere have I seen a writeup of what the new bride thought of this entourage. The accounts do mention that they were traveling in France, not staying in one location, and I keep trying to picture a secret circus caravan.

Later, during the most tense parts of the crisis, a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft, flying out of Alaska, accidentally entered Siberia, and was desperately called back. President Kennedy observed "some son-of-a-bitch always fails to get the word." The Soviets could have misinterpreted that as the first move of an attack, but apparently they recognized that stupidity and incompetence are among the elemental forces of the universe.

Years later, when President Johnson, for reasons of making news deadlines, came on TV and announced the first airstrikes on North Viet Nam while they were still inbound, the Russian advisers heard through their intelligence channels, and tried to get the North Vietnamese to go to full air defense readiness. The North Vietnamese declined, saying the Americans couldn't possibly be that stupid.

Again, thanks to a helpful reader who noticed the scrambling.

I've enabled voting, and will be interested to see what happens. So far, I've probably gotten more comments and questions about this than any of my other SOL contributions.

It is historical/science fiction, not history. Yes, I get specific, but I simplify details. From a couple of questions, maybe there are readers who want more than "NSA reported", but that an analysis came from G Group of the Operations Division, based on an ERB-47H ELINT detection of a WHIFF fire control radar. I've been assuming not, and that if there is a minute level of detail, that's better received when it's about Vivian's legs or Lois' creatively sexy outfits.

Suggestions are really welcome. I have a substantial number of chapters in draft, but I can still vary their direction, within my view of where the story is going. Preview readers also are welcome.

With a prologue and Chapter 1, I've started submitting Tomorrow is another Day, the first story of a universe of the same name. It is do-over/time travel, science fiction (or at least technothriller), historical, and autobiographical.

This is the story of an alternate Cuban Missile Crisis. With Russian cooperation and declassification, we've learned a great deal about the reality, which was much, much worse than we realized at the time, even in classified circles. I can argue that we might be living in an alternate reality where the world didn't go to global thermonuclear war. We came incredibly close.

The story addresses many of the what-ifs that could have led to explosion. Since I'm here writing it, to borrow that wonderful dialogue at the end of The Andromeda Strain,

"I take it that the bomb didn't?"
"The bomb didn't".

My character comes back courtesy of the Alien Space Bats, occasionally represented by the distinguished orange hypercat, James Bong. He has fairly complete knowledge of the Crisis, although some of his memories come back during the progress of the story. He develops a clan, or household, of people to help him move things in the right direction, bonded formally with a clan oath that I am honored to borrow from Honor Harrington.

Their bonding is also reinforced by sexual magick, some drawn from Alasteir Crowley in his benign moments. Let's see...a basic premise was that since we get fucked by politicians, it seemed only fair to use happy fucking to unfuck what they had fucked up. :-) He has, and can share, some telempathic abilities, as well as the ability to geas against disclosure.

As mentioned, I've lived the period and been fascinated. I was about 14 at the time, but with a pretty deep knowledge of warfare. Most of my career was spent in the Washington DC area, which is where I set this. Outside the apartments, which still are a real place (the Berkshire on Mass Avenue), the locales are generally as accurate as I can make them.

Since I drew from Crowley, his sexual magick includes the power of "elixir". That probably means that if you are squicked by snowballing and creampies, pick another story. There is, at least yet, no explicit m-m sex, but the characters do not preclude it, in a principally het context. I identify as het, but I went through some real experiences where lovely ladies said "you like watching me with women. Shouldn't you return the favor at my request?" In my own experience, I then did have m-m contact, but only with ladies present and participating, and had a damn fine time of it.

I am having fun with this, and going back and forth fine-tuning both the history and the actions. It's at 13 chapters and growing, with individual chapters splitting and spawning due to size. I'd welcome readers, especially those who accept they are looking at a work in progress.