The Media Candidate (36 page)

I have spent forty years as a physicist in Ohio, New
Mexico, and California. Some of those years I did basic physics
research at The University of Dayton in the areas of ionizing
radiation detectors, shock waves in solids, and infrared
measurements. This stuff probably doesn’t excite very many of you,
but it has been breathtaking for me. Call me a nerd, but I love
science.

I spent some years at a beltway bandit* doing a
funny thing they called system studies. Then I evolved into a
mid-level manager for a big defense hardware company. I learned
pretty quickly that upper management is really, really hungry.
That's why middle management has to run so fast. Now I have become
an even higher lifeform. I work off and on for an itsy bitsy
company right in the bosom of Silicon Valley. My business card has
a blank under my name so I can be anything I want. And I haven't
needed a security clearance for the last twenty years.

I’m a firm believer in second careers. When I was
doing physics research, I had to do mostly what other people wanted
me to do. That was still great because it was such exciting stuff.
But now I can write whatever I want to. Maybe that’s just as good,
in a way. I think every writer should write as a second career, not
as a first. It gives my writing roots and a unique point-of-view
beyond writer.

I married Marilyn where we met at the University of
Dayton. We moved to Alburquerque** where our two daughters grew up;
and now we all live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

FOOTNOTES:

* Beltway Bandit — For those not conversant in
Government Speak, a Beltway Bandit is one of the companies
clustered around the Washington, DC Beltway that sells
“professional services,” which is stuff the Government could do
itself if they had any idea what they wanted done or if they
weren’t fighting among themselves about who should do it.

** Alburquerque — Most of you traditionally educated
readers are probably under the mistaken opinion that the dusty
little town in central New Mexico is Albuquerque, not Alburquerque.
It was, however, named after Don Francisco Fernandez de la Cueva
Enriquez, Duke of Alburquerque, Spain, and Viceroy of New Spain in
1706. About a hundred years later, it was misspelled to its present
form. I, in the spirit of Don Quixote de la Mancha, have taken up
the cause to redress the evil of misspelling the name of one so
highly born.

WHAT REVIEWERS SAY

ABOUT MY BOOKS

THE MEDIA CANDIDATE

"It is not often I read something this well
written. What a mix of farce, satire, techno-thriller, SF, romance,
social commentary. And all good. You are at your best when into the
technology. That you do as well as anyone in print. You either know
exactly what you are talking about, both the actual technology and
the processes within the organization, or you are the best damned
bluffer I've ever read. The flashbacks to the school science fair
touched me. I have been a science teacher who has advised his
students to use the scientific method and then had a girl with a
pretty display of pills win when judged by a community of morons. I
know the scene, man and you got it right. Great!"

. . . David St.John, executive editor of
Elderberry Press

The Media Candidate by Paul Dueweke

Books are like closed doors. You open them and
step through into new worlds where you may find unusual people and
live through unusual experiences. Those new worlds may be governed
by leaders with new, perhaps frightening ideas.

The Media Candidate is one such world, a place
where democracy has been replaced by media-led, computer tyranny.
Using satire as a keen bladed weapon, Mr. Dueweke shows us what
could happen if no effort is made to rein in government and the
media as they gain ascendancy over the minds of the governed.
Murder is rife as those who question this power are eliminated. Who
is the mind behind the killings? A person or a computer? Or a
combination of both?

If you like intrigue, mystery, and have an
understanding of what drives characters, you will find this sci-fi
satire interesting, peopled with well drawn characters who try to
balance their acceptance of an unbalanced governing entity and
their fear of the same.

I found the technology described herein
enlightening. The author knows his subject and his people and has
written an interesting story around them. If you like books that
cross genre lines and want to see what could happen if the media is
allowed to stay its present course, you will find this book a good
read.

Review by Anne K. Edwards, author of "Death
Comes Knocking"

for eBook Reviews Weekly

Word Wrap: A book review by Patricia Spork

The Media Candidate

by Paul Dueweke

Intellectual Techno Thrill! Recommended

The year is 2048. News media and celebrities
have converged to political "infotainment". NBC Democratic Party
and CBS Republican Party candidates are actors, porn queens and
musicians, all in the running for Presidential office. The
Committee for Political Equality (CORE) preserves (actually,
controls) political competition through neural computer networks
and robotic assassins.

Elliot Townsend, a retired Nobel physicist,
becomes suspicious about several deaths involving people charged
with espionage. When Townsend personally investigates, he is
labeled an "anarchist". CORE field agent, Sherwood, formally a
software developer for the Dagger Project (robotic assassin
development) begins surveillance of the famed scientist. Townsend
soon fears for his life and his family's, and searches for evidence
to enlighten the general public about CORE's unethical
practices.

Paul Dueweke, author, metamorphose programmed
computers into thinking assassins by using rich, technical detail
and vivid imagination. THE MEDIA CANDIDATE is a realistic view of
what could be if media moguls and government officials had their
ways in our world. Although written well, the HTML version could
have used more editing, as a few words were misused or misspelled.
Other than grammatical errors and a luke-warm ending, THE MEDIA
CANDIDATE is a competitive techno-thriller for the science fiction
genre.

Cindy Penn

Senior Editor,

Amazon top 50 Reviewer

eBook Specialist, Midwest Book Review