When information is buried deeply in the black, it soon may be lost to the very governments that first held it. Such is the case for three incidents of alien spacecraft arriving on Earth in the mid Twentieth Century. But the information was not lost, only removed from government control and brought into a very secret organization that would work for many decades to prepare for the arrival of an alien fleet that they knew was coming to claim Earth for their home.
Nebula tells how this group of scientists, engineers, industrialists, and warriors prepared to defend Earth from a threat that they knew would come. It tells how they built a force to meet the invaders and how they engaged in a war that threatened to destroy both the human and alien races, and it's told in a way that makes it seem real. The science and technology are plausible, with only a few stretches of the imagination. The human and alien strategies and tactics represent the way that human wars are planned and fought, leading to a conclusion that is very different from the usual ending in a story of alien invasion.
This emphasis on technical and operational realism reflects the author's background as a physicist and defense scientist. The technology is mostly an extension of our current capabilities, amplified by several orders of magnitude but still based upon current scientific principles. The one exception is a fictional ability to control gravity and inertia.
Fans of "hard" science fiction and military action will appreciate the avoidance of implausible fantasy and the focus on almost-real technology and very real strategies and tactics. Readers familiar with science fiction will recall the realistic treatments of authors such as H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, but set in the Twenty-First Century, with our modern technology as its basis.
The principal character is a professor who is drafted into a secret project and evolves from a relatively introverted scientist to an active participant in a small team that plays a central role in a strategy to defend Earth. He joins the team and finds that they have been developing spacecraft and weapons based on alien technology discovered many decades ago, when a reconnaissance ship crashed on Earth. They are attempting to develop and deploy systems that can confront the invasion fleet, which is expected to arrive in less than one decade. But that estimate turns out to be very wrong, and the advance elements of the fleet appear much sooner, forcing Earth's defenders to accelerate their efforts and prepare for battle.
The defenders use technical intelligence, surprise, and deception to counter the invaders' military superiority, and the outnumbered Earth spacecraft are able to prevail against the larger and more powerful alien warships in several intense battles. But each tactical victory results in losses that cannot be sustained for much longer, and the conflict moves to a conclusion that was not anticipated by either side and that reflects the way that rational beings might respond in such an untenable situation.
Intertwining of history, UFO legends, and plausible technology gives the impression of real events that will lead to a confrontation with an alien species sometime in the mid to late Twenty-First Century. In fact, several readers who are familiar with the author's professional background wondered if this was just fiction or if it was based on some of the classified work with which he was involved during his forty year career. The answer, of course, is that it is totally fictional, regardless of how plausible it may seem. Nevertheless, in the end, readers may be left with a sense that something of this sort may be happening even now, especially if some stories of UFOs are based on fact.
About the Author: Howard Marsh was born in New York City and grew up in northern New Jersey. He received a B.S. degree in physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1963 and a Ph.D. in physics from Cornell University in 1969. He then worked as a defense scientist for 42 years, specializing in command and control, communications, and intelligence systems.
He worked for 26 years in the Mitre Corporation, conducting and managing research, development, and acquisition activities for the Air Force, Navy, and Defense Information Systems Agency. This included a 6 year assignment as Special Assistant for Command and Control at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe. Upon his return to the United States in 1988, he resumed working for the Mitre Corporation as a Department Head.
In 1995 he moved to SRI International, where he soon was offered an Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) assignment with the Office of Naval Research (ONR) as Chief Engineer for the "Extending the Littoral Battlespace" Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration. At the conclusion of that project, he continued in IPA assignments from SRI to ONR, including service as Academic Chairman for the Command and Control school in Marine Corps University from 1999 until 2001. He was then assigned as Associate Director for Command and Control, Communications, and Information in the ONR field office in London.
After completing his work in London in 2003, Dr. Marsh's IPA assignments moved from ONR to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) where he served first as Associate Director for Surveillance and Knowledge Systems and then as Technical Director in the Technology Integration office. He retired from OSD and SRI in 2011.
Dr. Marsh is married, with 2 children and 2 granddaughters. He is now retired and spends his time enjoying life with his wife, Lynn, and writing the stories that have accumulated in his mind over the years. He is an avid fan of "hard" science fiction.
