About Faster Than the Speed of Light
by Lucius Parhelion
270 pages / 60600 words
ISBN: 978-1-61040-091-6
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Frank Mackenzie didn't foresee meeting his young prodigy of a professor
during a police raid on a seedy bar. Doctor Col Courtland didn't expect his
brightest new graduate student to be a blue-collar widower scarred by the
Battle of the Bulge. Neither of them anticipated the complications of
academic careers conducted beneath the unsympathetic gaze of the F.B.I.
Life in experimental physics may have grown much more exciting for everyone
at Clarence Tenn Polytechnic since the Manhattan Project, but Frank and
Courtland share illegal desires that make exciting lives dangerous. As the
race for the H-Bomb begins and the Red Scare looms, the pair's intellectual
triumphs and strengthening friendship are both threatened by the attraction
growing between them. They will need to be brilliant in new ways if they
expect to overcome the one threat that moves faster than the speed of light.
Review
Sue Brown, author of Twisted Creature, writes: This wonderful story
begins with college graduate Frank and his new boss, young physics
genius Doctor Courtland, in jail after a raid on a lavender bar. Set in
post-war America, this is the tale of widowed Frank, back from the army
and just about to take up a post-graduate position under the watchful of
eye of his genius boss and half the F.B.I. The G-men are watching Doctor
Courtland, Frank is watching Doctor Courtland and Courtland is most
definitely watching Frank.
As he negotiates his way through the minefield of being homosexual in
the forties and the politics of working in physics post Hiroshima, Frank
finds his life becomes more entwined with Doctor Courtland, from
co-authoring articles, to debugging his office and dealing with the
other senior staff.
I adored this tale of the complexities of life in post-war America. The
scene is skillfully set, so evocative of the era, with the suspicious
politics and the need to be discreet about not only being homosexual but
also Frank and Courtland's growing attraction to each other.
I was drawn into Frank's world, the people he worked with in the college
and the way they all revolved around their young department head, Doctor
Courtland. What made this book particularly good for me was the way the
two men used language of physics to talk when they weren't sure who was
listening.
The sexual tension between the two men is evident from the beginning and
I loved the way Frank had to gently and constantly remind Courtland that
he really shouldn't be flirting with his junior. Courtland, however,
doesn't pay too much attention and he certainly managed to get under
Frank's skin.
I found myself cheering on the two men to throw caution to the wind and
take that final step. I really wasn't disappointed.
Sample
Courtland really didn't have to hold on so tight during
the trip. He also didn't have to eye Frank with such interest in the hotel
elevator. And he sure didn't have to look so disappointed when he examined
the elegant room's twin beds. If Frank hadn't distracted the bellboy with a
healthy tip, there might have been trouble. They had already come close,
trying to check in to a fancy pile like the Desert Inn without luggage. The
rucksack Frank carried for his overnight kit had been a poor substitute.
Having finished his inspection of the furnishings, Courtland turned and
inspected Frank some more. Frank inspected the professor right back.
Red-brown hair, pleasantly forgettable features, a strong chin, easy on the
freckles. Tall and skinny but in shape. Only the off-green eyes, somehow
both dreamy and sharp, gave away that you were dealing with anyone more
interesting than the boy next door. Although the boy next door had never
given Frank a once-over like Courtland's or there might have been even more
excitement in Frank's youth than he remembered.
Frank felt like shaking his head. He didn't know how many shave-tails fresh
from O.C.S. he had needed to teach their jobs over his years in the service,
but he had never learned to like the process. Still, he had better say
something before Courtland said something else that might get them both into
trouble.
"Look, Doctor Courtland. I can tell where this is going. And you seem to be
a nice character for a rich guy. You're even okay-looking, if a fellow would
make a play for Penrod all grown up, which I wouldn't." That was a lie, but
a necessary one. "However, you're also the newest of the five, count 'em,
five physics professors at Clarence Tenn Polytechnic, and I'm the
department's pet ape-man. That means, even if I wanted to, I couldn't jump
your bones without ugly complications ensuing."
Courtland went very still. His lips tightened and his jaw set. For a moment,
Frank thought he would blow. Then his gaze drifted to a point somewhere
behind Frank's forehead. After a few seconds, he said, tone wondering, "I
was flirting, wasn't I?"
"Uh." Courtland's words weren't any reaction Frank had expected. "Well,
yeah."
"Crap." The word sounded weird coming from those lips. "Runaway
subconscious. I need to work on that." Then the eyes refocused and narrowed.
"Pet ape-man?"
Now Frank knew what to say. "Sure. Tarzan of the Inland Empire. As seems to
be widely admitted, I'm not dumb. But I am coarse. The department's
accepting me, one of their own undergraduates, as a master's candidate so
that they can finish polishing me up. Once I've learned to drink my tea with
my little finger crooked out, they'll try to ship me off to some place like
Cornell or Columbia for my doctorate." Frank shook his head. "If I'd turned
out to be an experimentalist, I'd be on my way already. But, as it stands,
I'm too much of a roughneck for theoretical circles."
"Actually, from what I've already heard, you still need a bit of
supplementary tutoring in advanced statistical theory. And it won't hurt you
to start your graduate work under the stewardship of those who comprehend
what you can do. Your senior thesis was, by all accounts, brilliant."
Courtland screwed up his brow in thought. "You are also right about my older
colleagues wanting to smooth a few rough edges off of you. However, the
slight but constant air of belligerence is what worries them, not your
working-class manners or badly scarred features."
Fu-- Damn him, anyhow. Every once in a while, a green officer had been smart
enough to snap off a shot that hit home. Those guys usually turned out to be
the biggest pains with which to deal of all the brass. But Courtland didn't
seem to know he had scored. He just got glum and kept talking. "I'm afraid
that you're also right when you say we can't dally together."
Frank told himself to be firm. "A night in the sack wouldn't have worked
anyhow. I'm not your boyhood fantasies about the gardener come to life."
"No, you're a very bright physicist-in-training with a gardener's
particularly appealing, outdoorsy kind of body. And I already favor brunets
with blue eyes even before factoring in the mind and muscles. Greed: but
that's my problem, not yours."
Oh, for-- Sometimes too much honesty and self-awareness was as bad as too
little. "Doctor Courtland. Sir. Knock it off." Frank delivered the last
three words with a top sergeant's snap.
For a moment, Courtland's eyes lit up with mischief. The expression made him
seem even younger than his twenty-three years and as tasty as a hot-fudge
sundae after a week of stringing line in the Mojave. "All right, Mr.
Mackenzie, I am knocking. Nonetheless, I reserve the right to admire
whomever I will, even if I must learn to hide my reactions better."
Frank sighed. "Yeah, keep your eyes -- and your taste in 'em -- to yourself,
okay? Otherwise, someone's sleeping in the bathtub tonight, and it's not
going to be me."
"Aye aye, Mr. Mackenzie."
Great. Now Frank was a squid, and an officer, to boot. Things just couldn't
get any better.
Of course, that was before the F.B.I. showed up the next morning.