Where did it take you?
To a much more political world than I had imagined. It’s going to take two, maybe three books to get to Mars.

Do you consider yourself a “conspiracy” freak?
No, even though my book turns on a complex conspiracy. What most people might call conspiracy, I simply think of as real politik. The world is run behind closed doors by people no one elected to a larger extent than most would be comfortable. And this isn’t even the conspiracy. This is business as usual and it just feels like a conspiracy if you’re obliged to look at it at work. It’s like the expression, “There are two things you don’t want to watch being made. One is sausages. The other is legislation.” So, I don’t consider myself a conspiracy freak because I’m just calling it as I see it.

What’s happening on the movie front?
Maybe that’s the third thing you don’t want to watch being made. The Orion Protocol has been optioned. I’ve written the screenplay adaptation from the book. And it’s getting read by actors and directors.

What’s Richard Dreyfuss’ involvement -- how did you get him into this?
Richard and I actually were in a movie together when we were 19, and we’ve been friends ever since. I told him there’d be two astronauts who’d gone to the Moon together and seen something they weren’t allowed to talk about. And some smart female science journalist in the present who was tracking down their secret. And I knew I wanted a Capra-esque ending where the truth got told and the world got changed. How all that was going to come together, exactly, I didn’t know yet. But, he was sold. The Orion Protocol was born as a movie project, took form as a novel, and now Richard’s production company is shopping the film.

Since this is your first novel, people might want to know, how would you describe your writing style?
Stephen King once said something I took to heart. It’s very simple: “The adverb is not really your friend.” And that helped me in making more lean and clean what would otherwise be a convoluted verbose writing exercise with a potential for unlimited sentence length that would try the patience of any reader – kind of like this one.

Do you believe the things you wrote about “former intelligent life”?
I think there are extraordinary images that NASA satellites have sent back which they don’t even bother to try to explain in scientific terms. I’ve posted some on my site to give an idea of what might be waiting for us to explore once we get there.

If you had a dream dinner party to discuss all this, who’d be the most intelligent life of the party?
Former Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin. You know he says he hasn’t personally seen UFO’s but he’s spoken publicly about conversations he’s had with other astronauts who’s credibility he has no reason to question who have had that experience.

Arthur C. Clarke – He’s an ardent advocate for human space exploration too, who makes the argument in terms of the human spirit and our evolution as a species that I find compelling. He’s also convinced that some of the photographic evidence suggests the possibility not just of former intelligent life but current organic life.

Bill Clinton – When Clinton came into office he was very curious about whether there was evidence in national security documents in the Pentagon, CIA, etc. about UFO’s and extraterrestrial contact. He even sent a White House emissary to try and uncover what he could about all this stuff that’s speculated about in books, movies, and TV shows like the XFiles. What came of that has never been told publicly, so maybe with a couple of glasses of decent California Chardonnay we could pry it out of him.

Dr. Mark Carlotto –He’s the foremost satellite imaging expert who has worked for NASA in this capacity and many of the top aerospace companies and his analysis and examination of the Face on Mars and other anomalous objects is just the most complete and thoughtful and credible to me.

Charlie Rose – Because he’s the best moderator and best listener and I think he has a wide ranging curiosity that would extend to this subject.

Do you have an agenda – anything you hope will happen because of people reading this book?
I hope The Orion Protocol will help inspire a rebirth of the once-and-future enterprise of manned space exploration, the greatest peaceful challenge ever taken up by Mankind… and the most ennobling.