The Paleo-Indians seem to have appeared on the North American continent at a time when its access should have been blocked by the glaciers of the Ice Age. The idea has been offered that they took a coastal approach after crossing over the Bering Land Bridge. This too would have been highly problematic, however, because the Wisconsin ice pack seemingly extended beyond the western coast of Canada. It is also very difficult to demonstrate that the country was actually settled from west to east, which would have been the reasonable progression had the human incursion come from the Pacific. In this novel I have theorized the existence of an entirely new migratory pathway - one leading beneath the interposing ice mass and beneath the face of the planet proper. My proposed Subterranean Northwest Passage would have placed these Paleo-Indian explorers almost directly in the midst of the North American continent somewhere toward the end of the Pleistocene Epoch. And the prehistoric world, in which they lived all those thousands of years ago, becomes contrasted with an even more prehistoric world, which they encountered below. For the purpose of transparency, I have nominated to retain the modern names of some geological features. Where I have opted to use their designations for these places, I have tried to make the identities clear. And, of course, all forms of communication have been rendered in Modern English. So join with me now, if you dare, for what may indeed have been the most courageous and terrifying adventure ever embarked upon by human beings of any era

We have been delighted for decades by stories of superheroes on TV, in films, and in the illustrated publications where most of the aforesaid experienced their origins. But the truth is that the vast majority of these titans are supposed to possess superpowers that are improbable in the extreme. In fact, many of their Herculean capacities defy any attempt at coherent explanation and fly fully in the face of feasibility. However, what if some of nature's more bizarre abilities could actually be incorporated into an elite assembly of carefully selected individuals? By embracing such biodiversity, would the recipients of this processing perhaps become something other than human, or is it just possible that they might instead represent a necessary step for ensuring our survival as a species? Emerging as almost a stand-alone from the series, while also differing from the format of all its predecessors by being presented in the first person, such is the issue that's explored in Project Chrysalis.

This science-fiction novel, the first volume of the Thunderstruck Series, describes the discovery of a prehistoric world that was created by the draining of the Western Interior Cretaceous Seaway. It exists in what could be described as a massive geode that is located beneath the Badlands of South Dakota, the formation of which resulted from the whirlpool that took the inland ocean underground. The ecosystem of this environment is sustained by chemosynthesis, the same process supporting life around the hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the world's oceans. What was supposed to have been an unmanned incursion becomes first a rescue mission and then a fight for survival when the top-secret rescue vehicle is badly damaged. The unwitting explorers find themselves at risk from not only a host of prehistoric creatures but also possible exposure to a lethal microorganism that is found to inhabit this domain. Unfortunately, even these terrors pale in comparison to the nightmare they discover living in the one section of the immense cavern they had believed to be safe, a predator more horrifying than anything that has walked the face of the earth since before the age of the dinosaurs. And it has just found its way back to the surface

Ten years after escaping from Cretacea, Jordan and Jason are forced to return there as the hostages of a militant group of Native Americans. There, they discover that the United States government has turned the subterranean prehistoric world into its own private laboratory. When Jason and one of the Sioux braves become infected with Organism Alpha, the group must reveal its presence in hopes that the researchers have a cure for this lethal disease. Fortunately, they are correct. Inside the huge complex which has been constructed next to Lava Lake, they begin to learn the scope of the military's agenda. They are only told part of the whole story though, the part that's ingenious and acceptable. The engineers have concluded that Jason's father, Nathan, was correct and Cretacea is unstable. They are involved in an effort to rescue the many endangered species which live there. There is, however, one species for which there is no place on the face of the Earth from which mankind would be safe; the Chill, the giant arachnid predecessors to the subphylum Chelicerata. Their plan is to transplant them to Europa, a moon of the planet Jupiter. It has previously been determined that a liquid sea exists beneath its frozen surface. The scientists intend to create an ecosystem like the one in Cretacea around the hydrothermal vents which have been discovered at the bottom of the alien ocean. In order to be sure that the Chill can survive in this extremely hostile environment, they have experimented with the Chill using gene-splicing. They've taken the most dangerous predator ever to exist on Earth and attempted to improve it. Unfortunately, by using genetic material from a highly classified source, they've more than succeeded.