The Little Universe: Kindle Book of the Day

The Little Universe is a technothiller that's simultaneously entertaining and profound. When Webster Adams creatures a miniature, accelerated universe that evolves in ways he never could have imagined, he begins to question the idea of creation and our roles in our own universe. If you've been looking for a story that's exciting, original, and impossible to put down, you've found it. Grab your copy today!

Name: The Little Universe
Rating: 4.7 stars over 25 reviews
Price: 2.99
Description: What if you could create a universe - a miniature self-enclosed universe? Imagine having probing cameras that could focus to any star or planet looking for life. And once you found life, what if you could accelerate time and watch it evolve? What might you find? Primordial soup. Strange beings. Alien societies. Profound wisdom.

These are not the questions Jon Gruber ponders as he pedals to his next carpentry job. Over thirty and unmarried, he doesn't even own a car. But a new assignment challenges him to rethink his place in the world. Is he a loser? Or is he about to become a partner in an experiment of phenomenal discovery?

Webster Adams, astronomer, inventor, and Jon's latest client, performs such an experiment. To Webster's amazement, he finds planets and cultures beyond his wildest dreams. His little universe turns into a discovery machine - an overnight goldmine. He and his crew observe societies that evolve so far past them on levels of technology and spirituality, that the world will be forever changed.

Webster's lovely daughter, Whitney, also overwhelms Jon. She opens his eyes to the deeper meanings within the experiment - to the divine nature and connectedness of all life, by finding the most advanced beings within the project - the spirit guides from Theta 7.

The Little Universe is a God-game at multiple levels. For Webster Adams, one question immediately comes to light. "If I can create a universe," he wonders, "then who created ours?"

The debate between evolution and creation is the subtle undertone throughout Webster's story. Can it be proven that God exists? Or is life random and free-flowing without design or purpose? Along with Jon, you, the reader, will be presented a new perspective on life and your role in the great mystery of the universe.

Reviews: "The Little Universe is one of those rare books, light enough on the surface to be a fun summer read, but deep enough to keep you thinking about it long after you've turned the last page. The story is absolutely fascinating, one of my new favorite science fiction books."

Get your copy of The Little Universe now!
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Reincarnation, Amnesia and Altered Vision, oh my

Imagine waking up in a new body in a hospital room with complete amnesia and brain damage that enables you to see the auras and chakras of people. This is what happens to Jim in Jim's Life. An excerpt from his awakening;

All we are is the result of our thoughts. What we think, we become. - Buddha

Jim began to wake. His eyes blinked reflexively as he took in the unfamiliar sights. White flashes made it difficult to focus. White sheets. White walls. Bright light through a window. This place was completely new. Having no idea where he was, his initial conscious thought was whether it was real or a dream.

Along with the blinking of his eyes, he became aware of his head, a bulky object just above where he sensed he existed. His head moved in minute amounts. Attached to the neck collar, it brushed against the pillow. It felt completely alien though he was aware the movement was his own. Each adjustment of his head and eyes altered his view ever so slightly. This side. That side.

He sensed his assisted breathing. The device connected to his lungs was still on automatic operation. It filled him with an oxygen mix then allowed the air to escape. As the air moved into his lungs, he realized something was filling him and then leaving. In. Out. He could hear the sounds it made. Raspy coming in, slightly different going out.

Slowly his appendages began to move in tiny amounts. Fingers and toes. Hands and feet. Legs and arms. Jim's eyes began to focus more clearly as his new body's arm moved closer to his face. The fingers twitched near his nose and mesmerized him. The first inklings of panic brewed as Jim stared at his own fingers wiggling back and forth. He watched in stunned amazement, staring at his hand and the violet-white glow around it. Everything in the room suggested peace and calm, but everything felt utterly frightening.

His lips quivered. Eyes and brows creased back. Nostrils flared with air going in and out irregularly, his lungs now setting their own pace despite the respiratory device. His pulse accelerated. His mouth opened slowly in horror. A sound occurred during an exhale, a soft, schwa sound. "Aaah."

On the following exhalation, Jim realized he was making the sound. He made it again. "Aaah." With each exhale the sound grew louder. The room's computer recorded his vital signs and sent an alert to the nurse's station.

A nurse's holographic image popped up over the bed.

"Please relax, James. Assistance is on the way," it said in a soothing tone.

Jim's sounds turned into an anguished cry. He struggled against the devices holding him in place as the hologram reminded him assistance was on the way. He began screaming louder and flailed against the neck collar like a person going mad. Eventually the sound of running footsteps reached the door, which dematerialized. Vicki burst through the opening. She held down his arms in an attempt to calm him.

"Relax, James. You're alright. Relax." She pressed him into the bed. "Relax, James, please."

Vicki was firm against his struggling. He looked at her with the same expression of doubt and fear that he had for everything. He closed his eyes and screamed louder. The boy's muscles were so weak from the coma that she easily held him in place. What concerned her was the frightened look on his face, his eyes closed tightly as if keeping the outside world away.

"It's okay, James. You're going to be fine. Relax, James. Relax."

Two nurses and a doctor finally arrived. The nurses helped Vicki to keep the boy still while Dr. Fredericks pulled a vapor injector from his lab coat. He brought the device to the catheter and injected the solution into the plastic tube.

He said, "Three, two, one…"

Jim looked up at the crowd somewhat dazed. His efforts became exhausted before he passed out. Vicki and the nurses returned his arms to his side.

"What the hell's going on here?" Fredericks asked.

Vicki couldn't believe the question. "He's regained consciousness."

"I can see that, Nurse Morgan. Get him out of this room. Take him upstairs to ICU."

"Yes," Vicki said. She quickly realized how wonderful it was despite Fredericks' being a prick.

"Best with the straps," one of the nurses said.

Vicki had already reached down the side of the bed and grabbed one end of a thick black strap. She attached it to Jim's arm then cinched it to the bedside.

"Legs and head too," Fredericks added. The other nurses rolled their eyes as he had pointed out the obvious.

One of the nurses asked, "What's that then? A month?"

"Two," Vicki answered. "He arrived almost two months ago."

Read more of Jim's Life at Amazon, or read free sample chapters at TheLittleUniverse.com. 

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Brandi Seduces Jon

This was always one of my favorite parts to The Little Universe, where Jon begins to realize the potentials and temptations (both good and bad) from his new found employment.

courtesy http://www.flickr.com/photos/myvirtuallady/

One night after a lesson with Jessica, I landed my PFD outside my apartment. A car pulled up next to me. I locked the cabin door and was about to walk up my apartment steps, when a young woman with bright red hair got out of the car and approached me.

“That thing is amazing,” she said.

“It’s pretty cool.”

“You gave a friend of mine a ride two weeks ago. Remember Molly?”

“The girl I met outside the liquor store?”

“You flew over my house that evening. I waved to you from my window.”

“That was you?”

“Molly said it was the most fun she’s ever had.”

“I’d have to agree with that,” I told her.

“Could you take me for a ride?”

“I was about to turn in for the night. Maybe tomorrow?”

“It took me two weeks to figure out where you lived.”

“You’ve been following me?” I asked.

“Every night. I watch the skies and drive the direction I see you go until I lose you. Then I wait there the next evening until I see you overhead. I kept making progress until tonight. I finally found you.”

I looked at her more closely in the dark. She was one of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen. She had striking red hair and the face of a model. She also wore shorts and a tight blouse revealing long legs and ample curves. I had never been approached by such a beauty. I realized the pick-up potential my new toy was providing. She repeated how interested she would be in a ride, even for just a few minutes.

“Please take me for a ride. I’ll pay you,” she offered.

“What’s your name?”

“Brandi.”

How could I say no? I unlocked the cabin door and helped Brandi climb up. I buckled her into the passenger’s harness. We took off and flew over the woods behind my apartment.

I told Brandi, “Let me know if anything is too frightening.” Then I proceeded to perform a few stunts. We did several rolls. Brandi clutched my torso and pressed her chest into my back.

She shouted in my ear, “Molly was right! I love it!”

She directed me to fly over her house and then over a few homes of her friends, including Molly’s. She was hoping to see someone, but it was late. After half an hour, we were getting low on fuel. I flew the craft back to my apartment.

Brandi was elated. When we jumped down from the cabin of the PFD, she asked, “May I come inside?”

I thought about Whitney and wondered if I had an obligation to say anything. I let Brandi in and apologized for the mess. She didn’t care. She was still high from the flight.

She said, “That was like a dream come true.”

“I can relate.”

“What about you, Jon? What are some of your dreams?”

When I felt at a loss for words, she kissed me. Before I knew it, Brandi and I were in my bedroom.

Read more of The Little Universe at Amazon.

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Moment of Creation in The Little Universe

That was when I realized I was nervous. Something changed in that moment of time as I stood in a dark room looking at black monitors and wearing sunglasses while a nuclear event was taking place yards away. Those jokes from Adams about a mishap destroying the planet must have gotten to me. Or it could have been the thought of Rose’s spirit in the room that made the skin on my arms break out in goose bumps.

Even behind the silly shades, I could see the anticipation and anxiety written in the lines of his face. This event defined a decade of work, from Rose’s theorizing, to planning, to convincing Maxwell and Adams it could be done. Then after her death, the thousands of hours of bringing all the pieces together.

I wiped the sweat from my palms onto my pants. Adams gripped the back of his swivel chair as he stood behind it, pressing his thumbs into the fabric. His stare remained locked on the blank monitors. I felt the tension getting worse, and I wanted to say something witty to break the silence but nothing came to mind. Instead, a calm peace spread over us from the dark screens. I could hear my breathing and feel my heartbeat over the sounds of anything else. The silence made me think something wasn’t working. I looked at the control panel and noticed Jim’s green light was glowing as brightly as I had ever seen it, as if at any moment he would explode from thinking. I figured there must be a glitch, and I expected Adams to take off his glasses in frustration and start complaining to Rose about what went wrong.

Then suddenly, a tiny spot of light began to show on the main monitor.

As soon as I could focus on it, it flashed into a brilliant explosion across all the monitors. Then it was dark again. Jim’s light dimmed to a dull green glow. I looked to Adams for an explanation. He started laughing out loud, staring at the screens. The flash had blinded me after it dissipated. Eventually I saw tiny dots of light remained. Those spots of white emerged from the center of the main monitor and began spreading out and getting larger.

“Yes!” Adams cried.

“Yes, what?” I asked.

“Everything okay, Jim?” he asked, taking off his glasses.

“I think so,” Jim said. “I think it’s working.”

The screens remained primarily dark, but small areas of glowing light were visible.

“There!” Adams said. “Let’s get a closer shot from Monitor One.”

As the camera zoomed in, I could make out what looked like glowing gas. The light was bright yet transparent. It floated outward and settled into swirls with other bits and pieces. My hand made swirling motions, mimicking the action on the monitors.

I turned to Adams. “What is that stuff?”

“Matter,” Adams said, smiling broadly. “Pure matter.”

It didn’t look like matter. It looked like a bundle of glowing gas. As the shot went closer in toward the light, I could see big blobs and little blobs, each pulsing with tiny specks of light.

“Chemical analysis of the matter, Jim?” Adams asked, nervously spinning the chair in front of him.

“Hydrogen. Entirely hydrogen.”

“Perfect!” Adams said, rubbing his hands together.

“It’s just gas,” I said. “You took hydrogen from one source and merely placed it into another.”

We watched the images of the glowing gas blobs become larger. They spread out and intermingled with other blobs of light. It was mildly intriguing. We stood motionless for several minutes just watching.

Then Adams broke the trance. “See, Jon. These lights number in the millions. Most are locked in orbits with others.”

As I looked more closely at the tiny areas of light, I suddenly realized they looked like galaxies.

A shiver traveled down my spine. A tiny universe had been created before my eyes. Within minutes, dozens of different masses sparkled against the darkness on the screens. Each mass hovered about on its own, tracked by a different camera within the cavity of the building and displayed on a monitor. Our dimly lit lab room was filled with light from these newborn galaxies.

Adams laughed again. “Jim, zoom Camera Two in closer.”

Monitor Two revealed a cluster of stars, tons of them surrounded by extraordinary colors and formations. It was like a fountain of magic dust, reminding me of the pictures in the hallway I passed by each day.

“What’s happening here?” I asked. “This doesn’t look like gas anymore.”

“It’s a nebula!” Adams cried out, raising his arms to the ceiling in victory. “We have a nebula! Slow down the rate, Jim. Take it down to a crawl.”

The twisting and moving slowed down, halting the lights. The monitors displayed dozens of galaxies frozen in time. Adams, mystified by his creation, stared at the screens. Each one showcased a galaxy of brilliant lights and amazing colors. He laughed in delight.

“We did it,” he said, shaking me. “We really did it.”

I looked around at the monitors into a vast horizon of heavens, feeling like I was on a space station in the center of the universe.

“I still don’t understand,” I said. “How did this come from a little atomic matter?”

Adams sat in his chair, calmed himself, and stared at the monitors in a dreamy way as if the full understanding of the invention had just come to him.

“When you analyze extremely small things, like quarks and elements of atoms... and when you compare them to extremely large things, like stars and galaxies... they’re oddly similar. Physical size may be one of the great mysteries of life.”

Then it became clear to me. I found myself saying out loud, “We have a model of a universe. Not just a plastic model, but a living, breathing, real universe right in front of us.”

All that time in the making, I never really understood the significance of what he was attempting until that moment.

“What’s more,” Adams added, “we’ve just witnessed The Big Bang.”

“Creation has happened! It’s been a long road, but we arrived today. Rose, you were right as usual. Portal from ct over zero at parsec y! If I die tomorrow, I’ll be happy. Doubtful to sleep tonight, the rush of it all is still in me. Watching light come out of nothing... watching the birth of stars! It was everything I had hoped for and more.”

- from p. 23 of Webster’s journal.

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thelittleuniverse.webs.com

I was playing around with website creation (playing is a fuzzy term, more like pulling my last remaining hairs out in dire frustration), when I came across a place to create a totally free website that included a very powerful and easy to use sitebuilding program. In my opinion, this program was far easier to use than the paid ones with hosting company giants, Godaddy and Hostgator. Of course, I would have to pay a bit to upgrade beyond the advertisements on the side and to increase bandwidth, monthly contact emails, etc, but for free this seemed like a good thing to do especially to build my web design abilities.
If you want to check out my TOTALLY FREE website where I can even sell my ebooks from, just take a visit to thelittleuniverse.webs.com

There you can purchase ebooks in pdf, mobi and epub formats of both The Little Universe and Jim's Life. Or for the low price of $5.95, you can buy both.
thelittleuniverse.webs.com

And if you're interested in creating your own totally free website, try it out at webs.com

Title change - The Big Bang: Notes from Looking Within is now The Little Universe

Yes, they are the same book. I should have realized The Little Universe was a better title much sooner. The name change was inevitable. The Big Bang was hardly original with dozens of astronomy books under the same title. Then there's the TV show Big Bang Theory, the Rolling Stones album, so many things. Then there was chance that readers would have on first glance, thinking it a science book that they wouldn't like. Hindsight being clearer, The Little Universe says it all much better and with paradox. Now available on Kindle at Amazon or through the website or at any other retailer in ebook and paperback formats.

 

Why can't we get these things right the first time?

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The Greatest Good is like water... Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

The greatest good is like water

which benefits all life without trying to

It resides in the purest mountain snow

and dwells in the lowest of places

Thus it is like the Tao.

-Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

from wikipedia;
Lao Tzu, aka Laozi and many others, was a philosopher of ancient China and is a central figure in Taoism or Daoism. Lao Tzu literally means "Old Master." He is revered simply as a wise man in philosophical forms of Taoism, but revered as a god in religious forms, much like The Buddha is regarded differently by the religious and philosophical schools of Buddhism. According to Chinese tradition, Lao Tzu lived in the 6th century BC and is traditionally regarded as the author of the Daodejing (Tao Te Ching), though its authorship has been debated throughout history.
The above is my own translation of his teaching on water being the greatest good. No, I don't speak any form of Chinese, but from going over many other different interpretations, I believe this is what Lao Tzu was saying;
that we all should strive to be ourselves, without ego getting in the way, to mix among all walks of life both rich and poor, both good and bad (whatever that means) and in between. And that by truly being ourselves, we'll actually be helping everyone around us without even trying (sort of like Forrest Gump.) Perhaps by losing the ego and letting go, we'll allow Spirit to work through us, thus being like the Tao or The Way.

I also believe if you read between the lines in the teachings of Jesus Christ, you'll find a lot of similar themes. Some scholars argue that Jesus appears to have studied Buddhism during his "missing years" between the ages of 20 and 30. Wouldn't surprise me one bit.

What are your thoughts?

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