The novel’s fourth section focuses on humanity’s greatest exploratory achievement to date – the landing of humans on the Moon by NASA during the Apollo 11 mission.
In my view, NASA is perhaps the greatest organisation on Earth, having mapped the solar system and beyond. Its achievements in space exploration inspired the final section Timeless Journey which looks into the question of what world lies beyond the speed of light. This would be the final leap of power. Whatever your beliefs, the legacy of Einstein’s relativity theory is that the physical cosmos is founded on the power of light. And that is a beautiful scientific fact around which to build some intriguing science fiction.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For One Million Years Ago, the following books helped me to understand the basics of the study of hominids and the traces they left behind them, especially in Africa: The Hunters or the Hunted, An Introduction to African Cave Taphonomy by C.K. Brain, From Tools to Symbols: From Early Hominids to Modern Humans edited by Francesco d’Errico and Lucinda Backwell, Sterkfontein: Early Hominid Site in the Cradle of Humankind by Amanda Esterhuysen, A Guide to Sterkfontein, the Cradle of Humankind by Professor Lee R.Berger and Brett Hilton-Barber and The Evolution of Homo Erectus by G. Philip Rightmire.
Trail-blazers of prehistory and the ancient origins of humanity in our continent include pioneers like Louis and Mary Leakey, Richard Leakey, Dr Charles Kimberlin Brain, director of the Transvaal Museum from 1965-1991, honorary Professor of Zoology at the University of the Witwatersrand and expert in African cave taphonomy, Professor Raymond Dart, identifier of the Taung Child skull fossil,[1] one of the most important pre-human fossils ever found, Robert Broom, who discovered, along with John T. Robinson, several important hominid fragments at Sterkfontein, Professor Philip Tobias, a South African palaeoanthropologist who tirelessly excavated hominid fossil sites, and Professor Lee R. Berger, Reader in Human Evolution and the Public Understanding of Science at the University of the Witwatersrand, who identified Homo naledi.[2] Joined to these prominent figures and legends are so many unsung heroes and heroines of this science.
For the section Dark Force, a work of documentary realism, the following books were essential reading: Chad Diehl, And the River Flowed as a Raft of Corpses: the poetry of Yamaguchi Tsutomu; Leslie Groves, Now It Can Be Told – the story of the Manhattan Project; Michihiko Hachiya, M.D. Hiroshima Diary – the journal of a Japanese physician, August 6-September 30, 1945; John Hersey, Hirsohima; Michael J. Hogan, ed., Hiroshima in History and Memory; Masuji Ibuse, Black Rain (translated by John Bester);
Alice Kimball Smith & Charles Weiner, Robert Oppenheimer: Letters and Recollections; Manhattan Engineer District of the United States Army, The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Manhattan Engineer District, Photographs of the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (part 1); Richard H. Minear, ed., Hiroshima – Three Witnesses;
Wilson D. Miscamble, The Most Controversial Decision: Truman, the Atomic Bombs, and the Defeat of Japan; Robert Serber (with Robert P. Crease), Peace & War : Reminiscences of a Life on the Frontiers of Science; Robert Serber, The Los Alamos Primer – the First Lectures on How to Build an Atomic Bomb, annotated by Robert Serber; Ronald Takaki, Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Atomic Bomb; Harry S. Truman, Year of Decisions 1945 The Memoirs of Harry S. Truman, Volume One; Samuel J. Walker, Prompt and Utter Destruction – Truman and the use of atomic bombs against Japan (revised edition).
In addition, these DVDs were insightfuclass="underline" “Date with History: Hiroshima, narrated by Ludovic Kennedy”, Associated British-Pathé Ltd Production; “Hiroshima – a dramatised documentary exploring the humanity and the horror of the first atomic attack”, BBC DVD; “Modern Marvels: Manhattan Project 2004”, History Channel; “The Day after Trinity – J Robert Oppenheimer & the Atomic Bomb” a film by Jon Else; “Truman: Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the United States (1945-1953)”, SpeechWorks; “World War 11 with Walter Cronkite – War in the Pacific”, CBS News.
The story of Apollo 11 is one of a brilliant application of science, technology and systems, coupled with unparalleled levels of human courage, ingenuity and collective national cooperation. I drew the material for this book from the following main sources: Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon and Reaching for the Moon by Buzz Aldrin, Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journeys by Michael Collins, Failure is Not an Option by Gene Kranz, Flight: My Life in Mission Control by Chris Kraft, First Man: the Life of Neil A. Armstrong by James R. Hansen, Neil Armstrong: 1930-2012 by Life, Moonshot by Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton, with Jay Barbree, Chariots for Apollo: The NASA History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft to 1969 by Courtney G. Brooks, James M. Grimwood and Loyd S. Swenson, Into that Silent Sea: Trailblazers of the Space Era, 1961-1965 by Francis French and Colin Burgess, Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles by Roger E. Bilstein, and Lunar Science: A Post-Apollo View by Stuart Ross Taylor. My sincere gratitude is due to all these authors, many of whom were eye witnesses to, and participants in, the greatest event of the previous century.
In addition, I found the online Spacelog Apollo 11, containing transcripts of radio communications between the crew and Mission Control in Houston, to be a fascinating way to follow the unfolding drama as well as an indispensable resource.
When their exploration of the Moon’s surface was over, Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins had successfully connected Earth and Moon. The two cosmic bodies could never again be strangers to each other.
Over fifty years on, the Space Age adventure has hardly even begun.
LIST OF CHARACTERS
One Million Years Ago
Ayak – ape-boy from one million years ago in the grasslands of the Cradle of Humankind
Tor – Ayak’s father
Kyra – Ayak’s mother and Tor’s partner
Agor – chief of the northern hominids
Uma – Ayak’s girlfriend
1
According to Wikipedia, the fragments of this remarkable skull were discovered in 1924 by quarrymen working for the Northern Lime Company in Taung, South Africa. Raymond Dart then described it as a new species in the journal Nature in 1925. Dean Falk, a specialist in brain evolution, has called it “the most important anthropological fossil of the twentieth century.”
2
Wikipedia reports that these fossils were discovered by recreational cavers Rick Hunter and Steven Tucker in 2013 and then formally described in September 2015 by a 47-member international team of authors led by American and South African paleoanthropologist Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand, who proposed the bones represent a new Homo species.