The Betas take the field in 'The Fracking War'

WATKINS GLEN, New York, USA - Eight months and 95,000 words later, The Fracking War (at least Ver. 1.0) is done.

Spiral-bound copies of the manuscript were dispatched today via U.S. mail to two beta readers, one in California, the other in Maine.  The third beta reader is my in-house editor (and wife!) who each week checks over my column for the Finger Lakes Times carefully before I send it in.

All three beta readers have been tasked with the same thing: Please read this as you would any novel and see if it works.

The  idea for writing this book came from reading several very well-done, non-fiction tomes critical of hydrofracking for natural gas. They were full of details, numbers, references to studies. There were references to lots of news reports. Lots of references. Lots of news reports.

In some chapters, the books showed flashes of the emotion and trauma that surrounds this technology - a technology so lovingly embraced by our incumbent U.S. President and fossil-fuel companies who are making a bundle of cash.

And pretty much destroying the environment in the process.

Unfortunately, I don't believe those books have been able to capture the imagination of the public. They report and recite. In The Fracking War, I want to report and ignite - as in ignite passion.

My three beta readers will let me know in the next few weeks if I did that.

If I did. Well, Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Dogs of War!