Where does your love of science fiction come from?
I have loved science fiction since I was a child. I always enjoyed watching science fiction programs on TV and wanted to live in the future. I decided if I couldn’t live in the better future I read about or saw on TV, I could at least try to shape it into something better.
Is there a single event, invention, or public figure who inspired the main character?
Over half a century ago, I read about flywheels in one of the science magazines and thought that the future of transportation was electric vehicles that used flywheels instead of batteries. I wanted to be the auto engineer that built flywheel-powered electric vehicles and made Dick Thurman the embodiment of my dreams.
Do you want your work to be seen as a mixture of science fiction and futurology?
Science fiction has been a predictor of the future for so long that it is natural to write about the future through science fiction. Not everything I write about will happen within the next twenty years. But I’m hoping what I write about will inspire others to try and make my fiction into reality.
What would it be if you could take one invention from the book and bring it to life?
Trying to single out one of the inventions I write about to be made real is like asking a parent who has half a dozen kids which one they want to help the most. I’d like to make all my inventions real and have written enough detail to make that possible, hopefully. One of the flashiest inventions would be the flying car that uses field displacement engines to fly like a UFO. The double-field motive system would allow the vehicle to levitate and become the field displacement engine used to cause the car to fly. People have associated the future with flying cars. I’m hoping my technology will make flying cars practical.
How did you come up with the name of the book, and is there a hidden meaning?
I explained in the book that the founder of the organization called BOSS, which stands for Backers and Organizers for Sensible Solutions, bought an underground installation that was going to be used to store radioactive waste until anti-nuke people prevented that from happening. He decided to start a research and development center where a lot of things were going to be worked on. It was going to be so busy that it would be like a madhouse there. That’s how I came up with the title “The Madhouse Projects.”
Would you like to turn this into a series that jumps further into the future?
My next book in the trilogy might be titled “The Martian Connection.” Since the cousin of the wife of the main character discovers he is part Martian in my book “The Russian Madhouse,” I intend on making connections between Earth and Mars and eventually the Kuyper Belt where an alien race known as the Ortasians left space stations there before coming to Mars and then Earth where they interbred with the Asian races. I intend on having America, Russia, and China battle it out for control of the Kuyper Belt, where there is enough mineral wealth to pay off the world’s debts a million times over. What the three countries discover is that there are alien races there already. I intend on having the story take place maybe a couple of years after the second book in the trilogy happens.
If you had to write only one book to add to it, would it be a prequel or a sequel?
A sequel is a natural result in the series.
How do you think science fiction shapes and informs the emergence of new technologies?
I like to read science fiction stories and books that deal with futuristic technology. Jules Verne was famous for it. His book “A Trip To the Moon and Back” inspired me to come up with the Ground/Ship Launch/Propulsion System, which was like his cannon only instead of using gunpowder, I would use an electromagnetic energy beam. I envisioned the use of an electromagnetic energy discharge cannon back in 1967, around the same time I thought of the tri-beam system for my charged particle beam weapon I call the power ray. The original version of “The Madhouse Projects” was written in 1992 and submitted for the Ted Turner writing contest. I would have received $1 million if it had won, and my book would have been made into a movie. It wouldn’t have had the final four chapters, which I added a few years ago to the updated version of the book. I read the advice of someone who said science fiction books should deal with one major advancement in technology. I’m glad I didn’t follow his advice. I have too many ideas I want to write about to limit them to one per book. I call it a shotgun approach to science fiction. I present a number of ideas for people to consider and hope that more than one of them will become a reality. I don’t have enough time to write about one idea at a time.
Who would it be if you could get your book endorsed by one leader in tech or science fiction?
As far as endorsements go, If Elon Musk were to read my book, he might want to start a research and development installation like the Madhouse, where a lot of projects to develop advanced technologies can be worked on. I’m sure he wouldn’t want to do only one thing. Maybe he could build some of the things I wrote about and make billions in the process. If the book were made into a movie, I would submit my car designs and try to have them become working cars; even the flying ones.
Finally, do you have any advice for aspiring writers in your genre?
My advice to aspiring science fiction writers is to write confidently. I went to Southwest Missouri State University, which is now called Missouri State University, and had a teacher in my radio and TV broadcasting class who complained about how I spoke about things as if I thought they were real. I told him if I didn’t sound confident about something that might not become a reality for years, how could I expect others to believe my ideas might become a reality in the future. I try to look back at the future from a time that is further in the future. If I write a story that is supposed to take place in 2050, I try to imagine how things might be in 2100 and regress technical advancements back to where they would be half a century in the past from a 22nd-century perspective. I also write visually. What I write down comes from what I see in my mind. I would advise science fiction writers to write in a way that readers can visualize what they see as they write about it. Readers should feel like they are in the future handling objects from that future, not to marvel about them but use the objects. If I could go back in time driving my Ford, I wouldn’t want someone from the 18th century to be in awe of it. I would want to teach them how to drive and teach others how to build vehicles like mine. I hate it when people think I write about a future that is either ridiculous or has no possibility of becoming real. Science fiction writers should write about a future they want to live in or warn people about. If they want to write about today that just happens to have advanced technology, they should make sure the technology might be possible today. Jules Verne was writing about his day and time that just happened to have what would have been considered advanced technology. His submarine, the Nautilus, was nuclear powered because he might have known about radioactive materials since Uranium was discovered in 1841. He might have known it had great potential as an energy source. Science fiction writers need to make their stories sound plausible; otherwise, they are fantasy writers. Suppose I write about escaping a black hole. In that case, I will write about producing an energy barrier between my ship and the event horizon and using repulsion-dive to repel my ship away from the energy barrier that is being sucked into the black hole at the sub-light speed at hyperlight speed.
Remember, there has to be a semblance of science in science fiction; otherwise, it should be called fantasy. Try to make people believe the impossible might someday become possible. I have written about androids becoming pregnant after having sex with humans. But instead of writing about a pregnant synthetic person, I would write that the android needs to produce a synthetic copy of the human DNA and RNA and combine it with the android’s DNA and RNA to give birth to a cyborg. Also, if the android is male, he is the one that needs to become pregnant since only he could produce synthetic DNA and RNA. Science fiction writers should attempt to be able to explain the ideas they write about. If they don’t talk confidently about their material, they shouldn’t expect readers to take them seriously. Always try to write entertaining material. Readers need to be interested in a story and not feel like they are in a lecture. Jules Verne wrote like he was conducting a lecture at times. But he also had enough exciting material to keep my attention. If a science fiction writer can combine the two and keep people’s attention and wanting more, they should consider themselves a success.
