6-10-04
ENGINEERING PROFESSOR WRITES
SCIENCE FICTION IN RETIREMENT
Dr. Robert Farrell's plastics engineering technology students and graduates will no doubt be taken aback when they hear that his new book, the first product of his retirement, is titled Alien Log. Something in rotational molding would seem a little more likely.
But Farrell, a plastics engineering technology professor emeritus who retired from Penn State Behrend in 2002, says this book has been brewing for about ten years. He just needed time to get it on paper. Now it's out there, not only in a book but at www.alienlog.com.
To create Alien Log, Farrell combined
his lifelong interest in physics with ten years of research to create
a novel that follows his two main characters, a world-renowned
linguist and a leading expert on quantum gravity, as they investigate
an artifact found at a UFO crash site in 1953. This artifact, believed
to be a ship's log, holds key information about the aliens and could
save humankind as we know it.
"Good science fiction is soundly based on good science," says Farrell.
"Alien Log is designed to thrill and inform not only those
interested in science fiction and UFOlogy, but also those curious
about the beginning and future of our Universe." Using what he's
learned in astronomy, cosmology, physics, anthropology, genetics,
linguistics, and UFOlogy, Farrell broaches such unusual topics as the
Anunnaki Project, anti-gravity, Big Bang theory, crop circles,
hybrids, Nibiru, Planet X, Sumerians, abductions, and Area 51.
Farrell admits to emulating the writing of Michael Crichton, scientist
and author of books such as Andromeda Strain and Jurassic
Park. Although his style proves that he still retains the heart of
a scientist, Farrell is working to develop his writing and has
recently had three short stories included in an anthology, Sonoran
Mirage, published by the Writer's Round Table of Phoenix. In July
Farrell will attend the 2004 UFO Festival in Roswell, New Mexico.
Alien Log, in addition to providing a wealth of science, offers
readers suspense and an ending that will lead to a sequel now in
progress. Farrell opens up new ideas and new worlds for his readers,
and as the Alien Log Web site says: "After reading this book, it will
be hard to look at our world in the same way."
Copies of Alien Log are available for purchase online at www.alienlog.com.
Contact:
Loretta Brandon
814-898-6063 (O)
E-mail: lzb6@psu.edu