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“Where Do You Get Your Ideas From?”
Chapter One
Once upon a time...
A harness-maker named George Murdoch ran afoul of a cow. The story goes that Mrs. O'Grady's cow kicked over a lantern and began the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which left thousands homeless in the Windy City. One of them was George. Eventually, he went West and settled outside the stockade of Fort Calgary, the Mounted Police post. The Blackfoot called him "Leather Man."
It was George who circulated the petition and raised the $100 required to get Calgary incorporated as a town on November 12, 1884. The election that followed had more fistfights than speeches, but in the torchlight parade that December, George, Calgary's first mayor, was carried shoulder-high.
That same month, George became a justice of the peace. His diary records a court session: "A strange sight, civilians, military, and Indians in paint looking in at the windows." When he refused to enforce the prohibition on alcohol - which, according to his diary, would be "suicidal" - George provoked the enmity of Jeremiah Travis, teetotaler and the federally-appointed magistrate. An epic battle ensued:
Library and Archives Canada records: "Yet perhaps Murdoch's most enduring legacy lies in the diary and notes he kept assiduously during his early years in the west. With their insight and detail, his comments provide a valuable account of frontier life as seen through the eyes of a newcomer and permanent resident."
Michael Slade is George Murdoch's great-grandson. Inspired by Leather Man's 235-page frontier diary, he plotted his first novel, HEADHUNTER, published in 1984. It begins: Medicine Lake, Alberta, 1897. The body hung upside down from the ceiling by nails driven through both feet. The head was missing, the neck severed to expose vein and muscle, artery and bone in a circle of raw flesh. What was left of the man was still dressed in the bright scarlet tunic of the North-West Mounted Police...
Chapter Two
In 1922, Vivian Murdoch was born in Calgary. George Murdoch's granddaughter was a country girl at heart, who wished to see the world. On the day she graduated as an RN from the Misericordia Hospital in Edmonton, Viv jumped a train to Vancouver to work as a war nurse. Her adventures (pages 71 - 76) inspired KAMIKAZE, a tale of double revenge for the atrocity at St. Stephen's Hospital during the Fall of Hong Kong ("Banzai" pages 42 - 52 and "Barbed Wire" pages 76 - 86) and the atomic-bombing of Hiroshima by the Enola Gay.
Michael Slade is Vivian Murdoch's son and granddaughter. As an undergraduate in history before he studied law - Jay Clarke has acted in more than 100 murder trials - Slade did a year's research into President Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb. As a UBC History graduate, Rebecca Clarke delved into subsequent revelations. That conspiracy inspired the chapters "Hickam's Flag" (pages 146 - 159), "The Big Bang" (pages 191 - 201), and "Black Rain" (pages 216 - 222). In 1945, Viv joined Trans-Canada Air Lines, now Air Canada. She met and married Captain Jack Clarke.
Chapter Three
Flight Lieutenant Jack Clarke, a Montreal commercial artist, flew 47 raids with #10 Squadron, RAF over the Third Reich and North Africa when he was twenty. In the Battle of the Atlantic, he attacked the Gneisenau and the sub pens in DAS BOOT, flew in all the 1000 bomber raids, and served under Monty against the Desert Fox at the Battle of El Alamein. His adventures ("Warrior of the Night" pages 136 - 147) inspired SWASTIKA, a tale about the conspiracy to whitewash SS-Sturmbahnführer Wernher von Braun so he could build nuclear missiles for the Pentagon.
With #6 Group, RCAF, Jack trained crews that raided Von Braun's V-2 rocket factory and test site at Peenemünde in August 1943 ("Tomorrowland" pages 110 - 126, "Achtung!" pages 149 - 156, "Wonder Weapons" pages 171 - 179, "Spoils of War" pages 193 - 201, and "Death March" pages 212 - 217).
[Quill & Quire: "Michael Slade has a reputation for conducting extensive research before beginning to write his novels, and there is much evidence of this in SWASTIKA. The scenes in Hitler's bunker and the V2 rocket factory are so descriptive that it's difficult to know where historical fact leaves off and fiction begins. SWASTIKA will please anyone who enjoys a good thriller with a historical bent."]
In 1945, Jack became a pilot with Trans-Canada Airlines. In 1956, as the captain of Flight 810 which slammed into Mount Slesse, he died along with 61 others in the worst aviation disaster in Western Canada. That story will be published this November in DISASTER ON MOUNT SLESSE by Betty O'Keefe and Ian Macdonald.
Chapter Four
Boiled down to basics, one could theorize this. The conspiracy in KAMIKAZE allowed the White House to test the potential of the atomic bomb as a warhead threat to control the Soviet Union. The conspiracy in SWASTIKA gave the Pentagon the nuclear missile to attack Russia. Combined, those two conspiracies spawned the Arms Race and the Cold War. The Cold War spread American and Soviet troops and influence around the world. At the end of the Cold War, the Russians went home. The Americans didn't. Bin Laden created al-Qaeda from Muslim outrage over U.S. troops being stationed in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam. Al-Qaeda aims to drive Americans and American influence out of all Muslim nations. That led to 9/11, which led to the War in Iraq...
Chapter Five
And everyone lived happily ever after.
Once upon a time...
A harness-maker named George Murdoch ran afoul of a cow. The story goes that Mrs. O'Grady's cow kicked over a lantern and began the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which left thousands homeless in the Windy City. One of them was George. Eventually, he went West and settled outside the stockade of Fort Calgary, the Mounted Police post. The Blackfoot called him "Leather Man."
It was George who circulated the petition and raised the $100 required to get Calgary incorporated as a town on November 12, 1884. The election that followed had more fistfights than speeches, but in the torchlight parade that December, George, Calgary's first mayor, was carried shoulder-high.
That same month, George became a justice of the peace. His diary records a court session: "A strange sight, civilians, military, and Indians in paint looking in at the windows." When he refused to enforce the prohibition on alcohol - which, according to his diary, would be "suicidal" - George provoked the enmity of Jeremiah Travis, teetotaler and the federally-appointed magistrate. An epic battle ensued:
Library and Archives Canada records: "Yet perhaps Murdoch's most enduring legacy lies in the diary and notes he kept assiduously during his early years in the west. With their insight and detail, his comments provide a valuable account of frontier life as seen through the eyes of a newcomer and permanent resident."
Michael Slade is George Murdoch's great-grandson. Inspired by Leather Man's 235-page frontier diary, he plotted his first novel, HEADHUNTER, published in 1984. It begins: Medicine Lake, Alberta, 1897. The body hung upside down from the ceiling by nails driven through both feet. The head was missing, the neck severed to expose vein and muscle, artery and bone in a circle of raw flesh. What was left of the man was still dressed in the bright scarlet tunic of the North-West Mounted Police...
Chapter Two
In 1922, Vivian Murdoch was born in Calgary. George Murdoch's granddaughter was a country girl at heart, who wished to see the world. On the day she graduated as an RN from the Misericordia Hospital in Edmonton, Viv jumped a train to Vancouver to work as a war nurse. Her adventures (pages 71 - 76) inspired KAMIKAZE, a tale of double revenge for the atrocity at St. Stephen's Hospital during the Fall of Hong Kong ("Banzai" pages 42 - 52 and "Barbed Wire" pages 76 - 86) and the atomic-bombing of Hiroshima by the Enola Gay.
Michael Slade is Vivian Murdoch's son and granddaughter. As an undergraduate in history before he studied law - Jay Clarke has acted in more than 100 murder trials - Slade did a year's research into President Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb. As a UBC History graduate, Rebecca Clarke delved into subsequent revelations. That conspiracy inspired the chapters "Hickam's Flag" (pages 146 - 159), "The Big Bang" (pages 191 - 201), and "Black Rain" (pages 216 - 222). In 1945, Viv joined Trans-Canada Air Lines, now Air Canada. She met and married Captain Jack Clarke.
Chapter Three
Flight Lieutenant Jack Clarke, a Montreal commercial artist, flew 47 raids with #10 Squadron, RAF over the Third Reich and North Africa when he was twenty. In the Battle of the Atlantic, he attacked the Gneisenau and the sub pens in DAS BOOT, flew in all the 1000 bomber raids, and served under Monty against the Desert Fox at the Battle of El Alamein. His adventures ("Warrior of the Night" pages 136 - 147) inspired SWASTIKA, a tale about the conspiracy to whitewash SS-Sturmbahnführer Wernher von Braun so he could build nuclear missiles for the Pentagon.
With #6 Group, RCAF, Jack trained crews that raided Von Braun's V-2 rocket factory and test site at Peenemünde in August 1943 ("Tomorrowland" pages 110 - 126, "Achtung!" pages 149 - 156, "Wonder Weapons" pages 171 - 179, "Spoils of War" pages 193 - 201, and "Death March" pages 212 - 217).
[Quill & Quire: "Michael Slade has a reputation for conducting extensive research before beginning to write his novels, and there is much evidence of this in SWASTIKA. The scenes in Hitler's bunker and the V2 rocket factory are so descriptive that it's difficult to know where historical fact leaves off and fiction begins. SWASTIKA will please anyone who enjoys a good thriller with a historical bent."]
In 1945, Jack became a pilot with Trans-Canada Airlines. In 1956, as the captain of Flight 810 which slammed into Mount Slesse, he died along with 61 others in the worst aviation disaster in Western Canada. That story will be published this November in DISASTER ON MOUNT SLESSE by Betty O'Keefe and Ian Macdonald.
Chapter Four
Boiled down to basics, one could theorize this. The conspiracy in KAMIKAZE allowed the White House to test the potential of the atomic bomb as a warhead threat to control the Soviet Union. The conspiracy in SWASTIKA gave the Pentagon the nuclear missile to attack Russia. Combined, those two conspiracies spawned the Arms Race and the Cold War. The Cold War spread American and Soviet troops and influence around the world. At the end of the Cold War, the Russians went home. The Americans didn't. Bin Laden created al-Qaeda from Muslim outrage over U.S. troops being stationed in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam. Al-Qaeda aims to drive Americans and American influence out of all Muslim nations. That led to 9/11, which led to the War in Iraq...
Chapter Five
And everyone lived happily ever after.
Submitted on October 12, 2006 in By David.
