An Interview with the Author

(Q) PJ, You were a nuclear power plant specialist on a Navy submarine, a Scuba instructor, a tattoo artist and business owner..... What lead you to writing the Haleon Chronicles?

(A) The Haleon Explorer is a 1" to the foot scale model I began building over 3 years ago. Building fantasy flying machines is a hobby of mine, and the Haleon Explorer is #45 in a long succession of flying machines. It's still a work in progress mind you. During the three years I spent building the stories of the world the Explorer belonged to and how it got built and who owned and paid for it and who crewed it and all the wheres and whens fell into place. When visitors came over to see the progress I began telling them the stories. I've always been a fan of Jules Verne and this is sort of an Ode to him and his "Albatross". I've even scaled down Vern's portrait and put it in my Captain Hale's cabin. The stories were way too fun to tell so it seemed like a logical next step to write them down.

(Q) I've had the pleasure of seeing the Haleon Explorer. It is eight foot something long and three feet tall. Why this size? and Why now after 44 much smaller flying machines?

(A)The Haleon Explorer was built to "Doll House" scale, 1"=1'. I've been building plastic model cars and airplane from kits since before I knew how to read the instructions and they were all a much smaller scale, 1/72"=1', 1/32"=1' and so on. Very small. When I built a doll house for my second wife back in the '80's, it was the first time I had worked with the much larger 1" to the 1' scale and I found it very enjoyable.

When I started out to build the Haleon Explorer, I didn't start out to build it in any scale. Non of the other 44 flying machines were built to a scale. I built them to look to some extent believable. With the Haleon Explorer, I started out to build the largest flying machine yet and I had the gondola nearly finished before I started to go for scale. Going for scale came down to the fact that there are a wealth of accessories available from doll house stores that would enhance the Explorer and I was already familiar with them.

The earlier flying machines were all built with construction paper, toothpicks and yarn with a piece of wire coat hanger to act as an armature to hang from. Since I was going for BIG with #45, I replaced the construction paper with matte board, the toothpicks with bamboo skewers, the yarn with a number of different kinds of string and the coat hanger with welding rod. The added enhancement of the dollhouse leftovers, that I still had, lead to my going for scale. At some point I decided that I needed a doll figure to get a visual reference and that’s where George came in and the stories began.

One of the main requirements of building anything is that you have the space to do it in. And with the Explorer it just so happened that I did. I live in a warehouse that a portion of has been converted into living space. The rest of the space allows me the freedom to build anything up to the size of an automobile with room for all the workbenches and tools and tool cabinets combined.

(Q) So the doll that became George was the trigger. How did the story grow from that first doll?

(A) In the beginning George was just another measuring tool that I was using to bring flying machine #45 to life (at this point the Haleon Explorer didn't have its name yet,). All the spaces on board had to look like George fit comfortably into them. But, there is more to fitting in then just being able to walk through a door or not have your feet hang over the end of the bed. George and #45  had to have a world to fit into as well.

The Jules Verne stories of the Nautilus and the Albatross take place around the time of the American Civil War and at first I was going to stay in that period. But, as I began to research various aspects of my flying machine's world, the period of the great renaissance in flying at the turn of the century became much more appealing.

I knew from the start that George owned #45 and the questions ran to where, how and why. I had the what (#45), the who (George) and the when (turn of the century) of the story. 'Where' came from my finding out that the 1st newspaper account of a UFO was in The Sacramento Bee from the year 1896. Sacramento is where I live and everything else snowballed from there. The how and the why of the story then comes later from George's father, Joseph.

I began to collect resin doll house figures as I continued to build. The figures had to look period believable and like they could be part of the crew and with each character the story grew.

(Q) You have told me pieces of the stories over the last two years as answers to the questions I've had about your project. I remember talking about a novel, then a trilogy and now we have chronicles. What is your vision for where these stories are going?

(A) I see these stories growing like a tree, in all directions. I've got the roots in the stories of George and Franklin's childhood as well as everyone else'. Ten of the sixteen main characters life stories are already written (in the rough) and just waiting. Each character has their own story to tell. I've got The Haleon Explorer worked into a three book trilogy of it's trip around the world as the trunk of the tree,  with book one all roughed in. The other two are still in process. And then after the around the world trip, the adventures the Explorer may get into, before, during and after the first world war have the possibilities of filling a library, branching out like the proverbial spreading chestnut tree.

(Q) Where do you see this going in the future?

(A) I plan to build three more flying machines, the two predecessors to the Explorer which are The Scout and The Flyer, and then Navarro's Helium Dirigible. I'm sure there will be stories coming out of their building. Plus I'm having great fun with the pictures that I'm doing to go with the stories. So there will be pictures all along the way.

I started building flying machines from the inspiration of Jules Verne. Someday, I'd like to see The Haleon Explorer along side The Nautilus and The Albatross.