|
This page is redirected from: www.shipofwonder.com
Explaining John Argo
ARGO, BRONZE AGE SHIP OF WONDER: While my nonfiction and thriller fiction appear under the pseudonym1 John T. Cullen, most of my Speculative Fiction (SF or SFFH) and some suspense fiction has appeared under the pseudonym John Argo. And there's a very special story behind that.
Sense of Wonder 1996. I've been a professional writer, poet, and editor most of my life. Back in the mid-1990s, enabled and supported by my talented friend Brian Callahan (webmaster, author, artist), I started publishing my material online. At the time, the Web (Internet) was such a breath-taking new experience that I decided to adopt a very special pseudonym for my online stories. John is obvious. So what about the Argo part?
Argo was the Ship of Wonder (coincidentally, as in modern SFFH Sense of Wonder) that sailed the primordial Aegean Sea in search of adventure during the Bronze Age over three thousand years ago. That civilization collapsed right after 1200 BCE due to a severe climate change event.2 After a long dark age (about 1200 to about 800 BCE), a new Aegean (ultimately Hellenistic) civilization arose that included Classic Athens and later Rome, to name a few big players in the name game.
Historical Fiction and Mythology. Audiences in Fifth Century BCE Athens were hungry for grand epic tales from the long-ago, mythological Bronze Age, filled with superheroes and goddesses and amazing tales. By then, the so-called Homer was already ancient history also, dating to the mid-700s BCE. The Iliad and the Odyssey were historical fiction and myth recalling a long-lost Bronze Age by then already half a millennium lost. My how time flies.
Those epics or myths included Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. They also included stories about Jason and the Argonauts (lit. 'Argo Sailors,'aboard the Ship of Wonder Argo, which set out in the mists of long ago on the Aegean and Pontic Seas in search of the Golden Fleece and other adventures. Those stories are so hot that still today, Hollywood has been making wonderful movies about them. So you see why I chose the pen name Argo in this new Age of Wonder (the early Internet, before e-commerce, before hackers and other slime balls, before cyber crime, during a still-innocent time of endless possibilities for good and heroic deeds).
Thanks for visiting. I think of myself as a world citizen. I hold U.S.-E.U. dual citizenship, speak several languages, and have three college degrees (B.A. English/History University of Connecticut; B.B.A. Computer Information Systems National U in San Diego; M.S. in Business Administration from Boston University, earned through its Overseas Div while serving six years as a U.S. Army soldier stationed in Cold War Germany). I've lived in Europe and North America both for many years, and have a tolerant, open, progressive understanding that people everywhere are the same (good and bad like any place; mostly just fine folks). And yes, Black Lives Matter, as do those of Native Americans, and more generally all living people and life on earth (Matthew 7:12, Leviticus 19:18, and other great advice we should follow).
1 My actual (European) birth name is Jean Thomas Cullen. I use John T. Cullen in the Anglophone world for clarity. I've been publishing some Big Romantic Adventure novels as Jean T. Cullen of late.
2 Yes, climate change is happening today. Climate change has been a steady reality on earth for over a billion years. In the 21st Century, our ongoing climate catastrophe will be the worst in at least thirty million years, because today's disaster is a combination of natural cycles and horrific human mismanagement. The Bronze Age collapse c1150 BCE was due to a complex of circumstances, including geo-tectonics and a severe, super-regional drought.
|
