July/August , 2006
Dear Reader:
It’s time for mystery to take a front seat in our lives, once again.
No one can deny the allure of a baffling phenomenon impacting upon the staid and self-satisfied ‘accepted view.’ For many of us, it goes without saying that the world has it all wrong, and has had for most of history.
Those things that go bump in the night never fail to thrill us with delicious goose-bumpy delight, or sheer terror, depending on your point of view, (or point of reference).Daily life is a grind at times, even if it’s more fun than mundane, it leaves plenty of room for the imagination to stretch limits and break boundaries. Creative people require mystery to maintain a balance between the known and the perceived, the learned and the suspected. Writers thrive on it.
Just look at the popularity of the latest Dan Brown pulp fiction, “The Da Vinci Code.” Here is a book that struck a nerve in the popular consciousness and opened thousands of minds to a reality that’s been discussed and debated since the Dead Sea Scrolls were first discovered and independently translated by John Allegro and Edmund Wilson. The subject is hotter than an afternoon in Hell, but it is a mystery that begs thorough investigation - outside the bias of the Catholic Church, even if it never finds a resolution.
All people love a good ghost story. And a ghost story is one of the biggest mysteries there can be. What is a demon? What makes it different from a poltergeist? Or is it?
What crashed in the New Mexico desert in 1947 and how many of them were there? How many visits have there been before and since then? How long had governments in the west and behind the then Iron Curtain known the truth behind UFOs at the time, and why is it still being withheld from public consumption decades after the fact? Are we still being buzzed, prodded, abducted and bred by extraterrestrials?
What is lurking in the depths of Loch Ness? What giant, hirsute biped treads the overgrown forest paths of British Columbia, Washington, California, Alaska and the Himalayas?
Who and what, were the Tuatha de Danann? The Pict-Sidhe?
See? There are plenty of mysteries to fill those gaping holes in our imagination. All that’s needed now, are writers, like you, to fashion scenarios marrying those mysteries with creative legend or convincing explanation.
Create your own mystery or write a new back story for an established mystery that has baffled mundane mankind for generations, or perhaps forever.
While you enjoy this Drive In Issue, take notice of the Call For Submissions in the Table of Contents. Perhaps your story will grace the pages of our next Drive In issue or, if you hurry, you can be chosen for our Annual Hallowe’en Special. The deadline for Hallowe'en is September 10th.
Take in our latest offerings, There's A Planet in My Soup, A Snare in Vellum, Remembering Roxanne and A summer by the Sea, and have fun rediscovering reader- and editor-favorites from our famous summers past. Visit again, if you will, Tweaking the Twilight Zone, Trains of Thought and Out of This World.
As always, enjoy.
Robert Liberty,
Publishing Editor
Past Editorials
June/July 2004 August/September 2004 September/October 2004 Hallowe'en 2004 Winter 2004/5 Spring 2005 July 2005 August/September 2005 Hallowe'en 2005 Winter 2005/6 Spring 2006
