A friend of mine said, "Rosetta 6.2 is a cross between Tom Clancy and C.S. Lewis." I thought he was too kind. Then, a recent reader agreed enthusiastically, "a techo-thriller with a C.S. Lewis twist."

"I am very glad to have bought and read this book, and that comes from a guy who doesn't read fiction much.  It's an excellent story, a relatable background and heavily stamped in metaphor.  There's a stamp of Christian culture that is excellently imposed on Rosetta 6.2 driving the whole novel."  From reader Shaun Kenney.

 If you read the Preface, you will get an idea of what is behind this book - and what, hopefully, springs from its pages.

Preface. The motivation to write Rosetta 6.2 began on a snowy Bradley Fighting Vehicle gunnery range, Range 214 at Grafenwoehr, Germany,on the Ides of March 1987. I had an extraordinary experience,an answer to seven years of prayer, where I was told, “You will read and write.”

I finished this book, for the last time, 18 years later.It’s a long way from March 15th, 1987 to January 7th, 2005. I don’t know if I was too slow or the Lord was taking His time to make sure I did ‘right’ in His Will. My prayer from the first time I put pen to paper through the publishing of Rosetta 6.2, is that this work in my hand be in His Will, not mine. Consequently, whatever is good about Rosetta 6.2 is to the glory of my Savior, Jesus Christ, and whatever is wrong is mine, James Atticus Bowden.

In March 1990 I had two years to go to U.S. Army retirement but it was time to get on with the reading and writing after duty hours. I asked God what should I write specifically. From that moment on, I never had writer’s block. The ideas and words just came to me. Sometimes it was hard to keep up and get the thoughts on paper as they flooded into my mind. I wrote the book in my head, made a detailed outline, and created a large file of scraps of paper with ideas, dialogue, and key events between March 1990 and December 1992.

In the first week of December I found in my daily Bible reading what I took as my personal covenant for my life, Isaiah 59:21. Armed and energized, I began composing Rosetta 6.2 from front to end on my new PC in January 1993. It took me six months to finish Chapter One, writing in the hours after children’s bed time and before sleep overtook me. Over the years I took lengthy diversions to read about different subjects, like illegal drugs, computer science, the Koran, Islam, Jesuits, Martin Luther, etc. And to think. And listen.

Some of the ideas that seemed like science fiction in the early ‘90s became science facts. I imagined computer programs flowing on common electronic current and facial visual identification software. I read about optical computing and imagined the nano-technology for the rose cinquefoil computer chips. Interactive voice navigation systems, software ‘spiders’, and personal communicators like today’s ‘blackberry’ came to my imagination for fiction before I learned, years later, they had become real.

I projected the future global, ideologically-based struggle from my job as a military futurist. In the Army After Next (AAN) war games, playing the enemy ‘Red’ team, we discussed using commercial airplanes against targets in the United States. I developed an international, non-nation–state enemy based on Islam, like Al Qa’ida, for the AAN 1997 Fall War Game. I participated in an intitial ‘Homeland Security’ seminar in 1997 to prepare for the AAN1998 Spring war game. I expected an attack before 2010, so I was surprised only at the timing of the attack on 9–11–01.

I wrote in earnest throughout 1998 until I finished in June 1999. My first draft had too many details and distractions. I’ve rewritten the entire book three times. Rosetta 6.2 morphed over the years from dealing with the one evil of drugs to the conjunction of the evil of drugs and Islamist terrorism, simultaneously, within the Great U.S. Culture War. The CultureWar is known as ACW II (American Civil War II) in the op eds I write. I came upon the idea of illegal drugs and Islamist Terrorismserving as the catalyst to bring ACW II to a head. My first op ed, a response to 9–11, ‘One Front: Two Wars’ (See Reading Page this web site) suggested how our unity would evaporate over time. So, it has.

I finished up to the last chapter by Labor Day 2004. I waited for the outcome of the election of ‘04 to decide if I would use a real politician as the 2012 Presidential incumbent in Rosetta 6.2 or a fictional one. 2005 and 2006 were given over to an agent to get published and to develop my art concept for the cover. I think it was a time for Rosetta 6.2 to lie fallow. After enough time passed I had the distance to look at the words for one last time before printing and edit the last. I pray it went well in His plan.

If Rosetta 6.2 serves properly, someone will come to know the Lord or someone will find a deeper, personal relationship with the living Jesus Christ. Other insights, if they happen, are merely interesting. I understand the suffering drug abuse and Islamist terror cause and write against them. I’ve seen the power of prayer to save and heal. I give praise to Lord Jesus, because God is good, all the time—no matter what.

From the Back Cover: America 2012: The Islamist Terrorists and Illegal Drug Lords are allies and gaining strength. The President’s response to terrorism and crime is a growing police state. The government is corrupt. Jack Tillman, a NASA computer security analyst, stumbles on a secret plan – Rosetta 6.2. Jack is pulled into the plan with six very diverse, courageous people to defeat the Islamists, the Drug Lords and win the Culture War. They face their fears trying to live long enough to find answers to the vital questions. How can Rosetta 6.2 work? Can Rosetta 6.2 really crush the Narco-Islamist Terrorists? How can the Drug War be won – really? Will it push the U.S. Culture War into a Second American Civil War? Who wins? Sharing the danger, Jack learns why these people of faith are compelled to do what is right. Jack Tillman must make his own lifetime and eternal decisions.

James Atticus Bowden is a military futurist. Rosetta 6.2 is his first novel. He has specialized in inter-disciplinary, long range ‘futures’ studies for over 15 years. Bowden is a retired United States Army Infantry Officer and a 1972 graduate of the United States Military Academy. He served in five Divisions. He earned graduate degrees from Harvard University and Columbia University. His frequent op eds are carried on many e-zines, websites and blogs. Bowden lives in his beloved Virginia.

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