Beyond "Invasion": The Story Behind The Story

rgee — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 20:07:45 -0600

By Morgan Wilson

Jon S. Lewis is an American science fiction author, who recently published "Invasion," a novel about a potential alien attack and how one young boy named Colt McAllister is chosen to join a secret organization that works to prevent alien attacks. As if alien invasions weren’t enough, Colt also discovers that Trident Industries, a giant government corporation, is corrupt.

For Lewis, the adventure started when he was a young boy. His favorite book was "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak, and he used to pretend to be the rebellious boy, Max. He then graduated to reading chapter books, such as Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Lord of the Rings; and The Hobbit. He also loved action and adventure movies. “My favorite all time movie was 'The Empire Strikes Back: Star Wars episode 5,'" said Lewis. “But I like all kinds of movies. The new 'Iron Man,' 'Indiana Jones'… anything with a lot of action and adventure.”

He dedicated the novel to his grandmother, who read him many stories every summer. “David and Goliath” is one of the stories that inspired the novel.

Lewis’ favorite science fiction TV shows also helped him create the characters in the novel. “I love television shows like ‘Fringe’ and ‘The X Files,’” he said, “that have some kind of paranormal and supernatural aspect to them. I wanted to mix those all together and have a teen hero.”

In the book, there is a potential attack from an onslaught of aliens. Lewis talked about different races of aliens, and specified the aliens that were bound to attack. “There’s a particular race called the Thule,” he stated. “They want to devour everything…. They need to find a new planet because they killed their own. They’re looking at Earth as the perfect place to come. They put humans against this race of war mongering killers that want to get rid of us and keep [Earth] for their own.” He analogized the Thule aliens to the Nazis in Hitler’s time. “There were a lot of conspiracies of what Hitler did back then. He was trying a lot of weird experimentation. So I said, ‘What if the US military really believed that that stuff existed?’ So I created a special intelligence unit to fight that,” he said.

Thus, Lewis coined the CHAOS organization (Central Headquarters Against the Occult and Supernatural), in which military-chosen students are trained to fight against the alien attacks. “It’s a group that started in the 1940’s when it was rumored that Hitler was running Occult practices,” he continued. “To combat that, the US military set up an assassins group called CHAOS. It’s their job to go after those things that we don’t see.”

The story is set in today’s time, with current technologies. However, it has aspects of the future added to it. Among those aspects is the ability to travel between worlds.

"Invasion" tries to reach high school kids today. It asks them what would happen if an unknown alien race tried to overtake the world.

There will be a series of videos based on the CHAOS series. They will be posted soon on chaosnovels.com. This website will also run contests soon, where kids can film their response to an alien invasion. “I think it’s important because there are people online as much as they are in the books,” Lewis concluded.

Singer/Songwriter Novel dedicates song to Oscar Grant

Devonte Swag — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 14:59:12 -0600

Rapper/Producer/Singer/Songwriter Novel is one of the first artists to respond to the Oscar Grant Murder with his song “Mad World”.

He writes:

"So I saw the footage on Oscar grant like the rest of the world and was sadden and shocked by the tragic event that occurred. If you dont know, Oscar Grant was a unarmed young black male shot in the back by an Oakland Police officer. This song is dedicated to him and his family and anyone who lost someone. This is my take on Gary Jules “Mad World”. I hope this doesn’t offend anyone in anyway for that is not my intention."

Youth Radio - Topic: Novel

Beyond "Invasion": The Story Behind The Story

Singer/Songwriter Novel dedicates song to Oscar Grant