the BOOK!

“What is it?” asked Naedaara, peering out over his shoulder. “It smells Awful!”
        “A small oil rig,” said Tagg. “A working affair, by the look of it.”
        She looked where he indicated. “Oil,” she said, uncomprehending. “Out of the ground?”
        He glanced at her momentarily, then away.
        “Yes,” he said. “It’s a liquid, pumped out. Used for fuel, lubricant, lots of things. Forms naturally. From dead things. After millions of years. In layers underground,” he finished lamely, too preoccupied to give her a proper explanation. Her dubious look became a shrug of simple acknowledgment.
        Beyond the concrete lip, a man-high tangle of greenery showing new growth indicated a previously cleared area, perhaps a buffer zone between the drill site and the high wall of steaming, dense jungle. The confusion of rampant, moss-bearded foliage, snarl of entwined lianas, and soaring canopy of lacy ferns, plus the oppressive, sultry atmosphere sodden with the stench of rancid vegetation meant one thing. The intermittent, faint flickering of silent lightening clinched it.
        “Hyperjungle,” Tagg pronounced. “We’re somewhere in the bloody great hyperjungle!”
        The cage rattled. Far up on its dome, something had pitched and now clung, chittering, its talons sunk into the protective mesh. A thinly mucilaginous drool dripped from that point straight down to spatter the concrete base of the tower . . .

(from novel chapter 'Drill Site' of R A Bragg's novel by the White Book)

ANGELUS. Where all fish are sharks and rabbits are deemed too "human" to eat, but where no other mammals, birds, reptiles or amphibians live. Where no insects exist, but where the "horse" you ride, the "camel" carrying your goods, the "chicken" you had for lunch are arthropods all, and any gnat can disembowel you in a slash. And, while others, mega-behemoths, anchor themselves into the plateau prairie to survive heat-spawned tornados, the skael will snatch you from the miles-high cliffs, chortling in hyena-laughter...

        Then it was gone.
        Stunned, Paullo and McGregor, their backs pressed into the inside wall of the roadway, looked at each other across the space that Tagg had occupied split seconds before.
        “Oh, my God . . . !” began McGregor. “I don’t believe this!”
        They looked up and down the roadway in the gaining light as if Tagg could have run and hidden himself in a crevasse somehow. But there was no crevasse, no ripple in the road. And no Tagg.
        McGregor stepped gingerly to the outer edge of the road, hoping against impossible hope that he would see Tagg on a ledge, or clinging against the rock face.
        But Tagg was gone, snatched away by the skael. It had the finality of a physical blow. McGregor slumped to the road, sat there, his dilorikus [energy rifle --Webmaster] cradled across his knees ...

(from novel chapter 'Climb, Snatch, Rescue, Blowout' of R A Bragg's novel by the White Book)

ANGELUS. Where humans are a lonely colony planted by the alien Grays centuries before, experimented upon, watched, and finally left to fend for themselves. Or maybe not ....

ANGELUS. Where the only automobile in the world is a fiery red 1930s Alfa Romeo Grand Sport. And the only man in control is a superman, a human among many mutated by alien curiosity, but, unlike any others, intent on fathering a dynasty – with the reluctant help of his own sister. An ironic thing – and difficult – since they’re both ‘mules.’ Sterile. Barren.

the STORYLINE

It is the nature of the type of speculative fiction known as "science fiction" (or 'SciFi' to some) to suggest new concepts or connect previously unrelated and often familiar ideas - the "What ifs". RA Bragg's novel by the White Book has several - What if Christianity developed on another planet? What if a specific culture and language were transported to another world? What if teleportation were possible? But let's return to a couple of earlier speculations ...

THE ALIEN GRAY: At least some reports of alien 'Grays' are based on somebody's actual experience with off-planet intelligences, and represent only one off-planet group that has visited Earth. After all, do you really think homo sapiens represents the one and only lifeform in the Milky Way Galaxy, not to mention in the universe, with equivalent - or greater - intelligence?

So, what if today’s bogeyman, the little bug-eyed aliens called ‘Grays’ (or Greys if your apartment is a flat! ) are not a contemporary version of yesterday’s leprechauns? What if they have been abducting humans for centuries, shipping them off to colonize at least one far planet. How would that society have developed – customs, religion, language, government?

Fuels from natural gas burn ‘clean’ (fewer polluting carbon emissions) due to less nitrogen, sulphur, carbon ring-compounds, and alternate oil sources from gas are ‘clean’, but make fuels expensive (even more so from tarry deposits and coal). Of course, heat-trapping CO₂ (carbon dioxide) emissions from oil consumption are blamed for global warming, rising sea levels, and changing, even violent, climatic effects. But world oil infrastructure is highly resistant to change – with an unlimited supply, these vested interests would maintain the status quo 'til doomsday!