Black Sun

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Thank you for joining me on this latest adventure. For those interested in the creative process and the blend of fact and fiction in this novel, I offer the following, beginning with my own thoughts on 2012.

At this point in time, it would be almost impossible not to have heard of the Mayan prophecy. Knowing that other authors and filmmakers had already explored the same subject, I felt it was important to take a different path. That path centered on three questions:

What did the Mayan people really think about 2012?

What type of event could possibly change the world or destroy a good portion of it?

If the prophecy were to come true, how could the Mayan people have possibly known?

In answering the first question, I found that the concept of a 2012 cataclysm is far more ingrained in our society that it was in the Mayan one. The primary source of the 2012 prophecy is the writings of Chilam Balam, the Jaguar Priest. These texts were written after the Spanish conquest, and while they do contain references to dark events occurring at the end of the thirteenth Baktun (December 21, 2012), the vast majority of the writing focuses on other, more mundane parts of Mayan life, and in some ways serves as a method of explaining the oppression of the conquistadors.

Interestingly enough, the Jaguar Priest’s books were actually written at different times, in different places, and by different people, yet they are referred to as if they were the work of a single person, as if some greater force was behind the whole. In time, this thought worked its way into the novel, with the fictional concept of the Brotherhood of the Jaguar: a hidden group acting as one, carrying out their mission, throughout time and despite all odds.

Beyond the words of Chilam Balam, there is less to go on than one might imagine. But less is not nothing. The Tortugero Monument Six is indeed a reality. It lies in a place once ruled by Ahau Balam, the Jaguar Lord, in what is now the Mexican state of Tabasco. Tortugero Monument Six is one of the very few — in fact some say the only — hieroglyphic carving directly referencing the end of Baktun 13. As described in the book, it tells of Bolan Yokte, the god of change (or the god of war, according to some), descending from the Black “something” and accomplishing a great feat. Interestingly enough, Bolon Yokte is as much a mystery as the 2012 reference itself. Little is known about this god and his place in Mayan theism. As described in the book, a portion of the carving is damaged and thus a full translation/interpretation is impossible. Could it be the Black Sun, or the Black Sky? No one knows at this point, and unless something new comes to light we probably never will.

To answer the second question, I had to find a new way to destroy the world. Not as easy as you might think! This earth and the creatures that live on it have proven incredibly adaptive to change. Ice ages, droughts, plagues: Life has survived all of these. Earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, no problem. Life even survived a rock the size of mount Everest hitting our planet at 70,000 miles an hour (the Chicxulub impact, which is believed to have destroyed the dinosaurs).

As I considered this, it occurred to me that we constantly hear how nature is going to rise up and throw off the burden of man, destroying us in the process. And yet, even nature’s greatest efforts have little effect on mankind as a whole. So I chose to write from the opposite perspective: Even if nature could not destroy man, man almost certainly had the power to destroy nature and himself.

And that left the question of how the Mayan people could have known or predicted this. There were only two ways that I could fathom: either they could see the future in some form of clairvoyance (an answer that was not concrete enough for me), or it was told to them by someone who knew it. In the greater sense, the theme of time travel had been settled on during the writing of Black Rain, the novel that preceded this book, but I had chosen that theme with this end already in mind. Of course, as far as we know, no one has ever traveled back to meet us, but there are enough theoretical physicists who think it might happen someday for me to believe in the possibility.

As for other facts and fiction in Black Sun, please read on.

According to the geologic record, the earth’s magnetic field has reversed many times throughout its history. During certain eras it has been incredibly stable, including forty million years during the Cretaceous period. At other times it has reversed quickly, with only fifty thousand or a hundred thousand years between changes.

Our current field orientation has held for 780,000 years, but it is weakening. As described in the book, this weakening has accelerated over the past hundred years or so, for reasons unknown. As the magnetic pole weakens, it also moves, but there are other, perhaps more sinister effects — cracks and fissures that have already begun to expose us to the radiation of the solar wind.

The largest of these is known as the South Atlantic Anomaly. Discovered in 1958, the SAA is a weak spot or low point in the earth’s magnetic field, and it is growing larger. While the SAA isn’t dangerous to humans on Earth, it is big problem for spacecraft in low earth orbit. Astronauts have reported strange vision problems when transiting the area. The International Space Station was designed with enhanced shielding because it often operates in this zone, and many satellites and even the Hubble telescope are shut down as they pass through this region, as a precaution against failure.

So is this a sign of things to come? No one can be sure. If the magnetic field continues to weaken, it is expected that other anomalies will appear; perhaps the earth will be covered with them. In essence, the premise of this book is the question of what would happen if one massive anomaly appeared instantly during a time of great political turmoil and blinded the eyes of the world.

All sharks contain such magnetic sensing organs called ampullae of Lorenzini. They are believed to assist the sharks in navigation as they prowl the dark seas with nothing else to guide them. The ampullae are also used in hunting prey, as all organisms give off a small electric charge.

Hammerhead sharks are known to have an acute sense of electrical charges, as their wider heads create better platforms from which the electrical sensing organs operate. Hammerheads have often been observed swimming in schools of a hundred or more (as Danielle and Hawker encountered), though they are thought to separate at night and hunt alone.

On June 30, 1908, a massive explosion rocked the Siberian tundra. A flash was seen in the sky and a shockwave was felt hundreds of miles away. When explorers reached the area years later, they found trees knocked over in a strange butterflylike shape that measured forty-five miles across. No crater was ever found.

Current theory centers on an air burst of a meteor or asteroid, though dozens of other theories have been proposed, including a super volcano residing underneath Lake Cheko. As far as I know, the Russians never found any items of extraordinary power during their many expeditions to the area, but then again, do you think they would tell us if they had?