‘The Extraterrestrial’

Inspiration

(note from Peter)

Writing my debut novel, The Extraterrestrial, was primarily an experiment. Having written several books on scientific subjects, I was intrigued by whether I was capable of writing a novel. I decided to develop a theme and a storyline that would be interesting for me to read if another author had used them for his or her book. I started writing and was surprised when page after page appeared on my laptop. The first draft of the manuscript was finished in about fourteen weeks. The feeling I had during those weeks exceeded my expectations. This was mainly because of the excitement of developing the characters portrayed and their interaction, and the development of the underlying storyline—all so different from writing a book on a scientific subject.

The Extraterrestrial was born out of a desire to explore the possibilities of a man assisting the police to fight crime if he possessed the ability to become invisible and travel at high speed in an airplane. While this sounds absurd, it is actually closer to reality than most people suspect. I have commented elsewhere on this site about the research being carried out on invisibility, while designing and building an aircraft for very high speed, based on a propulsion system as described, is also closer to reality than what we would generally suspect. I decided that the person with these abilities had to be an alien who, when he was two weeks old, was left at the door of a farmhouse in the Salinas Valley, near King City, California. When he is 18 years old, his biological father tells him who he is: that he is the subject of an experiment in which, having expanded his knowledge of technology and medicine, he must fight crime because of the way crime is affecting the lives of people in many cities of the US.

I decided to portray the hero of the book as a sensitive, compassionate man who always puts others first. He also needed to be attracted to women with charm and an engaging smile. The conflict he experiences with developing feelings for such a woman (and she for him) while having to keep his identity and origin secret is a major theme of the book.