Black Obsidian - Ridler, Mark

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Résumé :
This book tells a fictional story of an organization known as Black Obsidian, based in the USA and UK, tracking down a substance called negative mass. The properties of negative mass range from antigravity to total annihilation. It is found in a small portion of the population. Carriers of negative mass are known to be telepathic and can affect the weather. After some initial action in Oxford and Exeter in the UK, the main characters are in place, known as the Mongols. Kingsley Khan is the inventor of the electromagnetic EM machine. Henning Horlicks is the inventor of the quantum-entanglement (QE) machine. Theofanes Raptor is a physicist and software engineer, and Julia Barnes is their boss. They follow Leather Jacket Man or LJM, who is the star carrier of the show, and Patsy, known from Blue Crystal times, who becomes his wife. Then a USA-wide hunt for carriers is instigated, which ends up focusing on New York. The use of the EM machine lands the protagonists in jail. They are subsequently freed of terrorism charges when the president becomes implicated in giving orders to Black Obsidian. The QE machine is used to establish two-way telepathic communication artificially. In the end, Henning is able to both send and receive. Some carriers meet an untimely end due to the black market for negative mass. The final chapter focuses on the issue of racism, which is inherent in the hunt for these people.

Biographie:
Mark Ridler was diagnosed with unipolar disorder (depression) in 1998, following the death of his first child. He spent 3 months in Wonford House in Exeter, receiving cognitive behavioural therapy and a series of antidepressants. He fought to come off the drugs and was basically fit and well for the next 15 years. Then after divorcing and remarrying, he experienced a sequence of very stressful family-related episodes. These led to increasingly manic behaviour with psychotic symptoms too, throughout 2013. In 2014, he was admitted to The Cedars, diagnosed with bipolar disorder and prescribed mood stabilisers and anti-psychotics. The mania continued, resulting in a Section 2 detention, a criminal conviction and divorce for the second time. In 2015, Mark was admitted to mental hospital once more with continual delusions and hallucinations, believing that Madonna wanted to marry him. He was only able to make progress when he realised that the voices in his head were fiction. Once he'd made the decision not to hear them, then normality returned. Mark has subsequently achieved good health, albeit with an ongoing underlying depression.