Preface

A Chapter by Smooth Criminal

A few words before the story

Thank you, buddy, whoever you are, for taking a chance with this novel.

To begin with, this novel is not exactly one of my darlings. I regret the negative connotation this statement makes, but I wish to be honest (at least, in print). Having said that, I do not make any comment on the quality of the story being good or bad - I leave it to the better judgment of the readers. I admit it has almost everything I personally believe a good novel should spurn: irrational storyline, illogical scenes and incomplete research. If you are a stickler for any of these like I am, you will do well to forsake this novel. If you were to comment on any of these while you read, I would beg you to forgive me and overlook the shortcomings, as this novel did not come out of the mind of a seasoned writer but just an obsessed teenager. I write this just as a practice to improve my writing and my faculty to research.

I developed this story when I was seventeen. It has got in it every kind of Hollywood action I was familiar with as a teenager. I assure you it would make you feel like reading a heterogeneous novel adaptation of many Hollywood thriller movies. But, I wish to believe there is a chord of my own imagination skewered through them all to bind them together into one thrilling, exciting novel.

It was a daunting task to take up this novel, considering the amount of research involved in it. I am going to fall terribly short of perfection with research throughout this novel. It is partly because many scenes in this novel revolve around United States federal and military agencies, most of the details of which are classified. It is also because I am not a native American, and I know less than even a US civilian would about military technologies and strategies and protocols, so I have to rely on the soul support of the Internet. On top of them all lies the irrefutable fact that I could not spend all my time writing and researching for this novel, as I need to feed a few mouths and contend a few hearts through other means that pay me.

I wish this story gives you, reader, a wonderful time. I was mostly criticized about the length of my writing and the complexity of the words I used in my previous works. I hope I do not sound so arrogant when I say this, and I honestly don’t say this out of arrogance. I would rather write as myself and be criticized for what I am, rather than changing what I am and praised for being someone else. I assure you any reader who has read any English novel could read mine, too. Your valuable comments and support are going to be my driving factors to move this novel along.

Here goes my gratitude for all the people who made me take the giant leap from fruitless-plotting-to-no-end phase to actually-sit-down-to-write-it phase. Thanks to:

All my childhood chums for hearing the story out when it was in its budding days, and egging me on to improve it. Special thanks to Michael Vijaya Raj and Irshad Ali for occasionally pulling it back from the darker corners of my mind.

My love, for having spent two sleepless hours to hear it all out and point out to me where it was good and where it went boring.

My old classmate of name Hari Saravanan, whose inadvertent comment before a rushing Chemistry exam, served as the starting point for this story.

All the creators and actors of famous Hollywood action movies whose virtual representations are characterized in this novel.

My love and Swaathi for being my Ideal Readers, to whom I submit every update of this novel prior to posting it for public reading, for possible enhancements.

Michael Vijaya Raj, again, for the time he spent to develop the cover of this novel. My love, Irshad Ali and Maria for taking time to choose among the covers I laid out.

And you, reader, for spending your valuable time with me through this novel.

And, last but not least, Wikipedia, for being the inexhaustible wealth of information from where I dug up most of the nomenclature and technicalities required for this novel.

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