Haleon Chronicles Quadriligy Overview

An epic Docu-fiction quadrilogy! Stories set in the early 1900's when flight, for man, was still a mystery and a laboratory accident in the 1880's yielded a substance that set one group of men ahead of the rest of the world! What would have happened if the need to manufacture nitroglycerin in this country had produced a chemical known to the Tibetan monks in ancient times!

It takes four parallel series of books to tell the whole story of the difference Halium would have made in the world. How it could have changed peoples lives, fortunes and destinies in the late 1800's. The stories unfold as we go back and forth across three generations and eight families.

Adventure, romance, tragedy, coming of age, the impact of technology and rivalry explored through peoples everyday lives!

First Night, Early Spring 1910 and First Day After, Early Spring 1910 begin the chronological telling of the story of the airship, Haleon Explorer and it's journey around the world.

The First Book of Thaddeus is a prequel to First Night. The events leading up to the Haleon Explorer's' launch seen through the eyes of a 7 year old.

 The First Book of Edwards: In Pursuit of Professor Navarro is the Villains story told by the detective assigned to keep him under surveillance. At one time a friend and insider, Dr. Navarro is now a disgruntled outsider bent on corporate espionage and revenge!

Rebirth of the Flyer begins the fourth thread and completes the Quadrilogy. The predecessor to the Haleon Explorer, it was a test bed for the advanced systems that would revolutionize airships.

A Story About the Stories

My brother and I hadn't spoken much for 20 some years. After my wife passed in '12 I started opening that door. I stopped in for dinner one trip, spent the night another trip. We got to know one another again. The second time I stopped in he showed me his latest 'flying machine'. I had seen his 'flying machines' before, he has been making them since the early 70's. He had even given me a couple. They had been whimsical fantasy. The Haleon Explorer was something else entirely!

This is an exact 1/12 scale model! Of what, exactly...... perhaps a cross between Jules Verne and Martha Stewart describes it best. Pictures are the only proper way to describe it. The photographs adorn the story covers.

Then you have to realize that the Haleon Explorer, the model that is, is 8 FEET long and has four removable decks! It's built of poster board, string, bamboo skewers and welding rod. He had an incredible amount of detail, all to scale, to the point where even the toilet paper roles were hung on the wall properly [and did I mention 'to scale']!

He had staffed his model with a crew of interesting figures. So I asked "who's this?" and I wished I had had a recorder! He had the most fascinating stories about the characters that staffed The Haleon Explorer. Who they were, where they came from, how they got there.

I got home and regretted not taking pictures. The next trip I took a few. The following trip I videoed PJ removing the decks and putting them back. Each time there were more stories that I didn't remember to record. PJ talked about writing the stories into a novel. The next trip the stories were going to have to be a trilogy, there was just so much to tell! A couple trips later and the stories had become chronicles because there was just so much going on in the lives of the characters.

Then I got really brave and asked "How did you come up with the stories?". "in the quiet hours of building this one, when my hands were busy putting pieces together, my imagination was busy figuring out why this had to be here and that had to be there.... and yet I wasn't really aware of imagining because I was busy putting the pieces together", was his reply. Typical, my brother the artist! I have to WORK at art and then I'm lucky if it looks better than 3rd grade. PJ oozes art, he should, he has been drawing since he first figured out how to hold a pencil. I have had a couple of instances of the creativity muse doing art through me so I can relate... a bit. I'm convinced the muse of creativity lives at PJ's!

So when you finally do read The Haleon Chronicles take the time to contemplate the dedications. They will give you as much insight as the stories themselves!

Jerry