Next Summer Set

So with novels like The Armistan Chronicles and Database Divine under my belt, I could one day be considered an author who passionately defends less-than-mainstream topics and interests.

And the novel I have planned after this current one will certainly fit this category.

The novel's entitled Skunk Ape Semester, and will examine the trials associated with the field of Cryptozoology, better known as the study of Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and other large marvels of nature still hidden in the questionable buffer zone between legend and reality. The title refers to the noisome Bigfoot counterpart said to inhabit the remote swamplands of Florida, but though this creature forms the Ahab-Whale axis of the story, the book will examine several other mysterious animals as well as the cryptozoological field as a whole - its history, its successes, its failures, and the many obstacles it faces in the attempt to get full attention from mainstream science.

Anyway, just as I never would have been able to write The Armistan Chronicles without having been involved in an independent videogame project, so too am I not going to write something like SAS without the proper experience informing the finer points of the story's focus. Thus, I have contacted the non-profit organization CryptoSafari and will hopefully be able to accompany them on field outings, small expeditions, or at least meet with them for interviews and a bit of personal show and tell.

If that can't be done, well, I've read literature aplenty about Bigfoot's most frequented haunts, from Texas to Alaska. Maybe I can watch for him myself :-)

(By the way, the famous Patterson-Grimlin footage from 1967, largely considered a hoax, has in fact never been proven to be a hoax. Of all the people who have stepped forward to claim their 15 minutes and say they were the person who either made or occupied the "costume", not a single one has been able to replicate it, or even point to where the original costume is. Hoaxing can work two ways, and it's unfortunate that liars who claim something was a hoax aren't nearly as closely scrutinized for their claims as the ones who put out the story to begin with).