Baja Clavius

“Baja Clavius is more than out of this world—it evades comparison.” — IndieReader.   This novel explores how time travel can bring about literal resurrections of men from the dead. Imagine what deep psychological damage a man might suffer if he routinely is brought back to life and can remember all his deaths? Would being brought back from the dead motivate men to form a new religion to celebrate their immortality? Baja Clavius examines these subjects unflinchingly and vividly unmasks the men who travel in time and live to be forever young.   The author and illustrator of Baja Clavius is Madeira Desouza. His storytelling is similar in style and tone to the works of Russell T Davies of Doctor Who, Torchwood, and Cucumber and Banana fame on the BBC.   Download a free illustrated preview of Baja Clavius.     Gift Card Winner Announced Congratulations to Christina Azariadou, the winner of a $20 Amazon Gift Card in our June 2019 drawing.

You can usually figure out if you want to read something by first checking out how it opens. So, here is the opening paragraph:

 
Five cowboys wearing only tight blue jeans struggle desperately to free themselves from individual nooses pulling them up, up, up by their thick necks. Their wildly kicking legs extend downward trying to touch the floor to prevent—if only temporarily—the slow, humiliating, suffocating death that each man inevitably will endure from this suspension hanging party.

Previous Versions Baja Clavius builds and expands upon characters and adventures presented in sci-fi novellas that I wrote in the past. Two worth mentioning are Dare Not Ask The Dead (2010) and Lost Cowboy Moon Time (2012). I experienced censorship of those works when I posted them on Smashwords.   So, I removed those and other previous versions. Several outdated titles, covers, and details continue to be listed on Goodreads, however.   The paperback version (700 pages) never attracted sufficient audience interest compared to the eBook versions, yet you might still find that print version online. Be aware that the paperback version has not been updated and therefore it does not match the content in the 2019 remixed, rebooted eBook version.   In addition to censorship, I also experienced discrimination motivated by anti-gay prejudice. From the very start, as a gay male author, I accepted that I would invite challenges by writing science fiction for gay men.   For one brief moment, I even considered that I should write science fiction for straight readers. My thinking was that readers who are gay—particularly gay males—are fewer in number compared to the population of straight readers of both genders.   If I were to proceed with writing for my intended audience of gay men, I knew that I likely would generate very little revenue by targeting that particular segment of the population. I went ahead and wrote science fiction for readers who happen to be gay and male because that’s what I am.

Set in a near-future society a few hundred years from today, this story transports you to a world where gay men are valued for the work they do to save our species by changing events in the past, even though their sexual behaviors definitely would be considered immoral and illegal in the real world in which we live. Here you get plunged into a universe in which there is no almighty creator who intervenes in the lives of human beings on planet Earth. Time travel makes it literally possible to resurrect from the dead. So, of course, a new religion must be created to fill humanity’s needs.

Hundreds of years from now, a ruthless agency manipulates time to make sure yesterday turns out the way it was supposed to. A secret base deep inside the moon sends young gay men on time travel missions to change history by using sensual tactics to gain power and control over men. Baja Clavius contains scenes of a sexual nature between adult males. This explicit material is intended strictly for people who have reached the legal age of consent.

Yes, I do believe that some day in the future time travel will be possible. I’m not so sure that time travel will, as I have depicted it in my storytelling, require a lunar base. There’s a practical reason you’ll learn as to why time travel takes place beneath the lunar surface But, more importantly, I chose to set several episodes of my time travel adventure on the moon under the crater Clavius because I believe science fiction should take risks in telling stories that will be of interest to readers. I chose that particular crater as a way of honoring Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick. In the late 1960s, they situated their fictional lunar base at Clavius for the motion picture 2001: A Space Odyssey.

At its most simple level, my book is about repairmen. My fictional repairmen have a fairly unusual job, however, compared to repairmen who fix washing machines or computers. They are repairmen who use a time machine to travel on missions back to the past to fix timelines.

In my story, the main reason for the existence of time travel is not to take the reader on a showcase of dazzling technology that produces grand and sweeping high concept adventures. No, not at all. My time travel agents are repairmen whose secret missions are to change people and events in the past to keep timelines from becoming worn down and generating chaos for humanity.

What matters most is the human adventures that they experience as men—not that they are on top-secret time travel missions from the 23rd century. Their moral code in the future differs greatly from how we gay men of the 21st century are. My characters do not believe in an almighty creator who intervenes in the lives of human beings on planet Earth. The moral code of the time travel agents is a most unusual aspect of my storytelling that will leave your mind reeling!

At the core of the story is technology that enables time travel. The MMDI base beneath the lunar crater Clavius maintains several circular chambers that each is made of a transparent blue compound. Each chamber is shaped like a giant hockey puck turned on edge and is large enough to fit one seated man inside when the chamber is sealed tightly. In order for the technology to work, time travel agents must be completely naked when they sit inside the chamber. Their bodies need to be drenched by a thick, milky liquid which enables the technology to work.

I gave the narrator, Ted Avila, the capability to remember multiple events and outcomes even after he goes back in time and changes the past. I knew that this would be controversial since the human brain is locked within the one timeline, so to speak, that we each inhabit. Time travel stories usually do not deal with what happens to the memories of the time traveler so I ran with this concept wholeheartedly.

As far as I know, the human brain can only process memories from within that one timeline. But, having a character with brain damage that somehow enables him to preserve and recall memories from multiple timelines that he visits proves to be a very compelling storytelling aspect!

One of my main characters is a young Navajo male named Vincent Wauneka. (See this website’s page on images to see much more of this character.)

I created this character out of the great respect I have for the Navajo people and their culture. Unlike the often stereotypical way that Native American Indians are depicted in fictional storytelling, in my time travel trilogy the Navajo character will never remind you of the cardboard Indian characters you’ve seen in a lot of Hollywood movies. Within the Navajo Nation is the famous Monument Valley, the site where many iconic Hollywood cowboy movies were filmed, including works by Clint Eastwood and John Ford. Monument Valley is way off the beaten path—no interstate freeways or major airports are nearby. So, most Americans never venture to this remote area. I have consistently found that being there in person in Monument Valley always is an experience of great spiritual and emotional impact.

Because of the personal attraction I have for Monument Valley, I visit this special place in my storytelling. Las Vegas, Nevada (where I live year-round) is also a prominent locale for what happens in the story.