Delmar Stevens, obscenely rich oil baron with rigs and drilling platforms throughout the world, is obsessed with theoretical research by an obscure, and now dead, woman scientist at a small college in Iowa, research he believes will give him the power to generate massive earthquakes, or set off equally massive volcanoes, at selected places on Earth. Caught up in this obsession with a potential weapon of mass destruction are a suite of characters, including scientists, detectives from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, and an oil field inspector working for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, and a young geologist who holds the key to success, or failure, of Stevens' obsession. Belief in the validity of scientific discoveries drives Stevens' actions, namely an effort to build a weapon of mass destruction disguised as a natural disaster. He dreams of the power at his command if he can use his company's massive inventory of equipment and those Einstein-level equations to prove that his ideas work. The first big experiments are underway in Oklahoma. About the author:John Janovy, Jr. (PhD, University of Oklahoma, 1965) is the author of seventeen books and over ninety scientific papers and book chapters. These books range from textbooks to science fiction to essays on athletics. He is now retired, but when an active faculty member held the Paula and D. B. Varner Distinguished Professorship in Biological Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His research interest is parasitology. He has been Director of UNL's Cedar Point Biological Station, Interim Director of the University of Nebraska State Museum, Assistant Dean of Arts and Sciences, and secretary-treasurer of the American Society of Parasitologists.His teaching experiences include large-enrollment freshman biology courses, Field Parasitology at the Cedar Point Biological Station, Invertebrate Zoology, Parasitology, Organismic Biology, and numerous honors seminars. He has supervised thirty-two graduate students, and approximately 50 undergraduate researchers, including ten Howard Hughes scholars.His honors include the University of Nebraska Distinguished Teaching Award, University Honors Program Master Lecturer, American Health Magazine book award (for Fields of Friendly Strife), State of Nebraska Pioneer Award, University of Nebraska Outstanding Research and Creativity Award, The Nature Conservancy Hero recognition, Nebraska Library Association Mari Sandoz Award, UNL Library Friend's Hartley Burr Alexander Award, and the American Society of Parasitologists Clark P. Read Mentorship Award.
