Why I wrote Quest of the Falcon; Revelations

My name is Robert Picariello and I am the author of a recently published novel titled “Quest of the Falcon: Revelations. I’m writing this blog to tell you about my novel and why it’s an important work for the troubled times we live in today. Before I get to the novel, however, I believe you will gain more insight into Quest of the Falcon if you’re aware of my background and the underlying reasons for writing the book.

I am the son of a naturalized Italian immigrant father and a first generation Italian mother. My father, a successful clothing designer and manufacturer, was the partner of a boys’ clothing firm named for him and his associate, Sol Singer. In my father’s pursuit of the American dream, he moved our family to a fairly well-to-do area called Belmont, a suburb of Boston. In those days, the residents of the neighborhood we moved to were of German, Irish and English ancestry. The Germans and Irish families worked hard and were able to move up the income ladder. But the “We were here first” upper middle income English only tolerated them as their neighbors. Our move into their neighborhood eased the burden of their class struggle as the heat was now off them and on the newest ethnic group on the block. In their ignorance, many now became the purveyors of bigotry and directed it at my family with full force. In the beginning they openly showed their displeasure, and our early days of assimilation were not easy. I was the second to the youngest of six children. My older sisters and I invariably had altercations with other children who seemed to get a side dish of intolerance with every dinner. But we persevered and by the time I was in the sixth grade we were referred to as “the nice family of Italians that live on our block;” a tag that I thoroughly resented.Being a highly sensitive person I was deeply affected by the propaganda of World War II, which made me keenly aware that Adolph Hitler, Tojo, and Hirohito were the prime evildoers of the day. But I was also aware that we had virtuous heroes in the forms of John Wayne, Errol Flynn, and James Cagney, just to name a few. Early on I recognized that unless virtue triumphed over evil, my way of life – all our ways of life, would be jeopardized as the evildoers would erode our freedom until we had none left. I kept that recognition in the forefront of my mind and gave it a leading role in my day to day activities. In the movies back in my early days, it was easy for me to spot evildoers; they always wore black. But in real life this, of course, is not so.

Growing up I was not good at reading between the lines and oftentimes I missed the subtleties between good and evil.As a youngster I developed an alter ego whom I called “Bill”. Bill was a superhero who led a small band of men around the world protecting innocents and doing away with evildoers. They operated from a secret island fortress in the South Pacific that seemed remarkably similar to the house I grew up in. I had my own airplane, which was my father’s 1947 Cadillac car, as well as many fantastic inventions that were fabricated using anything I could salvage around the house and from the trash barrels of homes along the route from school. But most of all I had my imagination, a conveyance that could take me anywhere in the world I needed to go. Of course I matured and had to retire my alter ego, but I always held Bill’s memory in high esteem and emulated his virtue as much as I was able.

After graduating Fordham University in 1958, I deferred a career in writing to enter the work place and join the family business. Here I found that it was difficult to balance my spiritual self with my material self, but I was determined to set a prime example by being an ethical beacon in a sea filled with eddies and reefs. While my family and I were running the business it went well. But in 1971 we sold all our factories, save one, to a large corporation. Our agreement allowed my brother and me to retain ownership in our Biddeford, Maine factory, so he moved to Maine and I, as President of the Trimount Division, went with the corporation. For 10 years I struggled to run my division ethically. Eventually, however, it led to my undoing and I floundered for a lengthy period of time. Then a divorce, an angry break-up of the partnership with my brother, and an unbearable personal relationship began to take its toll on me.Looking to lessen my misery I turned to the world around me, but to my dismay I found only one tragedy after another. Two hundred thousand civilians were being killed unmercifully by Serbia’s program of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo between 1991 and 1999. Two million more fled to refugee camps. After eight years, the world finally had enough and stopped the atrocities using an impassionate aerial bombardment. Tribal conflicts led by the Hutus in Rwanda left 800,000 Tutsis slaughtered in only three months. Two million more scurried out of the country. The atrocities finally stopped without intervention. Right in my own backyard Haiti was experiencing a tumultuous coup that left its poor in turmoil. Thousands were questioning their own survival. Thousands more, attempting to flee to the United States, were turned away by our Coast Guard. The cries of help from the millions of people who inhabited those countries fell on deaf ears and it pushed my own plight into a depression that seemed insurmountable. I felt that no person, no organization, and no government on Earth were effective in quelling the suffering of mankind.My depression grew and I refused to work. I became a menace to my psyche and a burden to those around me. The need to withdraw from life was gripping my body but the need to save the world and myself was tugging at my spirit. I felt compelled to do something. I made a decision to put pen to paper – to reveal my alter ego in an attempt to create a light that people could follow out of the darkness: a light that could elevate the moral plane of mankind. So I reactivated “Bill” and his band, modernized them, gave them sophistication, and directed them to again protect the innocents of the world and to do away with the evildoers.

For many authors, their novel is the product of an inspiration that was formed either at the time of writing or from an event that predated the time of writing. Quest of the Falcon: Revelations is neither. It is the expression of a wonderful dream that I had secretly nurtured during my entire lifetime but was duty-bound to bare.

Time has elapsed since I originally wrote the book, and with the advent of a new century the world’s situation has spiraled downward. After thirteen years my book has finally been published, and just at the right time. In Darfur innocents are still being slaughtered and uprooted as the world sits idly by. In the Middle East, radical Muslim minorities are threatening Western civilization and killing thousands of their own in the process. Because they put so little value on human life they have become a formidable enemy. Their misinterpretation of the Koran as well as their hatred for the infidels of the West ensure that for every one we kill two will take their place. Westerners have not learned anything in our dealings with Muslim radicalism. We use the same ‘beat-‘em-with-an-axe’ method that was used during the Crusades. Only today they are hardly using scimitars, and their potential for using weapons of mass destruction is increasing every day.

Now that you have my background and reason for writing the novel, I’ll get to the book itself. Quest of the Falcon: Revelations is an uplifting allegory; an absorbing story that contains an underlying message. The message is this: the world had better get its act together before it ends up in serious trouble. The book offers unique answers to two major questions foremost in the minds of mankind: Where is the depravity of man leading humanity and how are we going to save ourselves from ourselves?The first question, “Where is the depravity of man leading humanity?” has an obvious answer. My book points to a holocaust. This holocaust was predicted by the scientists of a planet inhabited by humans millions of miles from Earth. The scientists on that planet discovered Earth 1600 years before the birth of Christ and observed life here for the express purpose of trying to establish a link between the two worlds. They did. The amazing parts of the link are that both humanities were physically similar and the evolutionary patterns identical. Unfortunately their own course of history contained an era that was the lowest point in their civilization. They called it the Age of Despair. By simply applying a time factor and overlaying it on their own course of history they were able to predict Earth’s Age of Despair at the year 2050A.D.Filled with compassion for the welfare of their fellow humans, the people of this planet, which I call Cerberus, dispatched an expedition to Earth. It consisted of four talented educators. Their mission was explicit: prevent Earth’s impending Armageddon by breeding a third generation of Earthlings they could train to become the guardians of Earth.

The description of Cerberus’s holocaust is significant. The scene is this; one of the alien educators who arrived on Earth is revealing to his great grandchildren that he is actually an alien, and he is explaining to them why they must accept the mandate to save Earth.“Fifty-six hundred Earth years ago our world became so corrupt that human life had no value. Territorial wars, ethnic wars, and race wars dominated the planet. Weapons of mass destruction were employed in many of these conflicts, creating the loss of millions of lives. Law and order diminished while crime and corruption flourished…… political and economic systems broke down from the apathy. Despair and chaos took over.”

Having offered a bleak but plausible response to the first question, I now had to address the second question; “how are we going to save ourselves from ourselves.” I needed to inject hope because there is hope—there is always hope!The great grandchildren of these four educators were all trained from childhood. The process took from twenty to twenty-five years. During that time, they learned that four basic methods were needed to prevent the holocaust and bring about a lasting world peace.1. To set a virtuous example for the world to follow.2. To unite humanity against evildoers.3. To develop an educational program that will elevate the virtue of children world-wide.4. To work for the establishment of a world government with a constitution based in morality and ethics.Quest of the Falcon Revelations is first and foremost a wonderfully inspiring fictional story. But the four basic methods it contains were fashioned from reality. They arose from many hours of research, many years of observing human behavior, and lastly from a well-honed intuition.

The first method is the easiest to achieve. Their have been some great people throughout world history who were beacons of virtue. In some cases they were the forefathers of great religions. To name a few, there was Abraham, Siddhatth Gautama known as the Buddha, Jesus Christ, and Mohammed. In politics, Ghandi led a successful bloodless revolt against the British, and in human rights we can’t forget our own Martin Luther King Jr. My book deals on this kind of grand scale, but it supposes that virtue can spread on a more intimate person to person basis. Virtue is a quality that is infectious just like love, good-will, friendliness, and yes, even evil. An example comes to mind. My wife and I take brisk walks most every morning. Once in a while we run across a person who avoids eye contact and offers no “hello” or “good morning”. In spite of their attitude, I always try to direct a smile and greeting to them. Without fail on future encounters they will smile and greet on their own. This is an overly simple illustration of how one person maintaining a virtuous life will affect the lives of those around them. But never forget, however, that one person maintaining an evil life will also affect the lives of those around them.

The second method is somewhat harder but well within the realm of possibility to achieve. On a base level, it might occur when a family unites against a member who is abusive to wife or children. Taking it to the next level, there have been articles written about people uniting and co-operating with the police to rid their neighborhood of drug dealers. I am now hearing that Sunnis in Iraq, disgusted with the merciless killings by foreign extremists, are turning on them by reporting their whereabouts as well as their weapons. On a grand scale, the people of the world united and stopped Nazi Germany and Imperialist Japan in their tracks.State sponsored terrorism is the same play with different actors on a different stage. The world cannot sit idly by and allow state sponsored terrorism to flourish. We must unite against these evildoers until they line up behind peace and cease their support of terrorist organizations. Before it is too late!

The third method is so important. We’ve all been reading in the newspapers about the goings on of youths in our schools. Children are becoming more unruly then they were in my generation. The sale of drugs to children by other children is on the increase. And of course murder, never heard of when I went to school, is on the up-tick as well. Teaching children morals is not happening in many homes today. Both parents work and the grandparents are not taking care of children as they used to in days gone by. Parents either lack training in teaching morals to their children or have neither the time nor the inclination to do so. More importantly, some parents and some educators have a negative impact on the morality of children. Regarding the latter, I am mainly referring to the madrassas of the Middle East where the radical Muslims are teaching warped interpretations of the Koran. They preach hatred for all non-Muslims, especially Israelis, and they teach their students that life has little value on Earth but has a high value in Heaven only if achieved through Jihad.The only way to stem the flow of suicide bombers and Jihadists is through education – by replacing the radical teachers and raising the moral plane of the children through a proper educational program. I believe that a mandatory program should be established in all school systems. It should be tailored after sensitivity education, of which I have been a participant. It will teach children to have respect and love for oneself as well as for one’s fellow man, and it should extend at least through 12 to 13 years of education.

The last method is the hardest one. I believe that Earth’s civilizations need to be drawn together by a single, central, and moral federation. It will be empowered by a moral constitution and governed by an appointed council which will consist of the most virtuous people of that day. It will be a nonpolitical federation unlike the United Nations, which has its hands tied by the special interests of each political entity. This federation will have its own enforcement arm built by an assessed tax on all the states of the world. But it will, necessarily, act independently of those states. It will leap into action when evil doers threaten the world’s innocents.

Many chuckle and tell me, “Hey Robert, nice thought, but it will never happen that the countries of the world will get together and centralize their power, even if it is the power of morality. What you’re proposing is very ideological.”My response is yes, it is very ideological, but it can work. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia defines ideology as: “…an organized collection of ideas…. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things….as in common sense…. The main purpose behind an ideology is to offer change in society through a normative thought process.”Capitalism, democracy, and socialism are some of the many ideologies the world has recognized. They all became working systems because support was provided by the masses. My view may seem strange at this juncture in our history, but recognize it for what it is. It is heartfelt and contains no threat to humanity. It’s meant to improve man’s plight by directing civilization toward a lasting peace. Think of my view in those terms before you discard it as only pie in the sky.

I hope anyone out there who decides to buy Quest of the Falcon; Revelations will not only enjoy it but get something from it. Possibly you will become devotees of the Light!
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by Robert Picariello
6/19/07
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