Browse Delaware Authors: Bartley, Jack

Two hundred years in the future, the isolated domed city of Hilo, Hawaii is one of the few cities to have survived the Great War, a global nuclear holocaust. Nathan Ohana, a teenager living in Hilo, is having trouble fitting in at his school. He doesn' t look like anyone else, and he is unable to speak. He does, however, possess a special sensory capability similar to ESP. A blessing and a curse, this ability enables him to discover a disturbing and possibly dangerous plan by the government of Hilo, one that would threaten the existence of the Ferals, the people who survived the radiation and are living outside the dome. When it becomes evident to others that Nathan knows something he should not, he is pursued by the Hilo police and is accidentally swept away by the Wailuku River into an alien and frightening existence outside the dome. Kayli Pahinui, a Feral, rescues Nathan and brings him home with her to the village of Honoli'i. Puzzled by what he sees at first, Nathan comes to find he belongs in this very different world. However, a peaceful existence in a beautiful village is not to be. A new threat arises from the leeward side of the island that could mean the downfall of both Hilo and Honoli'i. Nathan, Kayli, and Kayli' s father, Sam, face incredible dangers and challenges as they try to warn the citizens of Hilo and unite with the people who shunned them so many years ago before the war. By working together, it just may be possible to overcome this new and deadly threat.

In 1971, the war in Vietnam still rages. Jason Conley, a recent college graduate, finds himself paying the price for the "free" university education a NROTC scholarship provided and now owes the Navy four years of service. Not wanting to go to war, he devises a scheme to serve on an oceanographic research support vessel in Hawaii, thousands of miles from the battle zone. A brilliant plan, if it works. And it does-at first. Through a series of events and miscues, some of his own making, Jason is transferred to a new command, a destroyer escort that deploys on a WestPac tour to Vietnam the very day he sets foot aboard. How will he reconcile his feelings about the Vietnam War while at the same time directing a destroyer escort on the gunline supporting US and South Vietnamese troops? How will his personal life be affected by the dictates of the Navy? And more importantly, how does he come out of this alive?
Smoke on the Water is based on real life events. It is a coming-of-age tale that occurs in less than four years' time, spanning events from the East Coast to Hawaii to Southeast Asia. It encompasses journeys and adventures in foreign lands, loves found and lost, humorous situations, and a maturation process within one man compressed in the pressure cooker of an unpopular war.

The dark humor of Public Ed reveals some of the hidden problems inherent in public education through the eyes of Ed McCleary, a high school biology teacher, and those of his colleagues in the beleaguered Inanow High School.