How the Flight of the Maita Series Came to Be



  How the Flight of the Maita Came to Be

  Background for the

  Flight of the Maita SciFi Series

  with short descriptions of the works and the ideas behind them

  © 2003-2007 by C. D. Moulton

  © 2013

  all rights reserved: this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information retrieval system, so long as it is left in the name of C. D. Moulton

  Contents

  Background: Flight of the Maita

  Book 1

  Book 21

  Launching the Maita

  Ideas for the series

  About the author

  C. D. Moulton has been everything from a rock musician to a high steelworker, from a junkyard manager to a commercial fisherman. He has traveled over much of the world, both with the music and as an importer/exporter.

  He started writing SciFi and mysteries in 1984 and has written more than 90 books as of this publishing.

  CD is “opinionated and obnoxious” politically, in his own words. He is outspoken against “greedy corrupt politicians and those who consider the environment and its destruction in terms of money” and a few other social issues. He is “extreme in my dislike of extremists” in any field.

  CD now resides in Bonita Springs, Florida, where he does research with orchids (three of his books are about orchid culture), jams with old friends from the music business and pursues his favorite occupation: Beach bum.

  *Since published CD has moved to Bocas del Toro, Panama’

  About the author

  CD was born in Lakeland, Florida. His education is in genetics and botany. He has traveled over much of the world, particularly when he was in music as a rock rhythm guitarist with some well-known bands in the late sixties and early seventies. He has worked as a high steel worker and as a longshoreman, clerk, orchidist, bar owner, salvage yard manager and landscaper – among other things.

  CD began writing fiction in 1984 and has more than 200 books published as of this time in SciFi, murder, orchid culture and various other fields.

  He now resides in Gualaca, Panamá, where he continues research into epiphytic and medicinal plants. He loves the culture of the indigenous people and counts a majority of his closer friends among that group. Several have “adopted” him as their father. He funds those he can afford through the universities, where they have all excelled. “The Indios are very intelligent people, they are simply too poor (in material things and money. Culturally, they are very wealthy) to pursue higher education.” CD is involved in fighting to protect their rights. He is also involved in fighting the rampant corruption in the courts and politics there. (E-book, free download Fading Paradise) CD loves Panamá and the people. He plans to spend the rest of his life in the paradise that is Panamá

  Launching the Maita

  Background of Flight of the Maita series

  I suppose it would be best to start with a condensed rundown of my bio. Perhaps that will help explain where I get my ideas for the stories.

  I was born in Lakeland, Florida, in 1938.

  The family moved to W. Palm Beach, Florida, in 1939 and we remained there until 1940, when we moved to Tampa, Florida. My father was a head bookkeeper for Swift & Co. and we moved to where he was needed. We would vacation sometimes at my mother's parents’ place on the river out of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

  We moved to Lake Thonotosassa, Florida, in 1949 and remained there until 1961, when I moved to Eureka Springs, Florida. During that time we spent vacations at Sarasota, Florida, then at Englewood Beach, Florida. There was a Midnight Pass in Sarasota at that time, which is the location where I had Z abducted in the first book, but a hurricane closed it in the late sixties. John D. McDonald had a home there and I met him, but had no idea who he was. He was just another person who lived on the beach who we talked to when we were fishing in the pass. We met again later.

  I began traveling all over the Americas (with side trips everywhere else) in 1959 and continued that until 1966, when I moved to Brandon, Florida, where I worked for, first, a landscape nursery, then a camellia grower, then to Hudson, Florida in 1972 after living in San Francisco, California, from late 1966 – 1972 (The hippie/flowerchild era). While living in SF I became involved with the rock music business and went a number of places as a songwriter, arranger and sometimes guitarists for a number of bands (under various assumed names, which was the norm for the time). I became friends with several of the people who were soon to be very popular protest, folk and rock performers and a few still are. Pearl (Janis Joplin) was a friend. While in SF I also worked for a very large and prestigious orchid grower.

  I attended The University of Tampa for three years ('56 – '59), but left when the opportunity to travel came up. I had done some import/export business, mainly in orchids (During the orchid wars!) from the time I left Hillsborough High School (Tampa) in 1956, mostly during the summer breaks from UT.

  I remember how in Vo-Ag classes so many of the other who were raising cows and pigs and so forth made fun of me for raising orchids. They seemed to get jealous when it came to dating because I could always bring the girl a whole bouquet of orchids, which tended to make me popular. They generally couldn't bring anything unless it was a prom or something when they had to buy an orchid corsage – from ME! (Guess whose girl always had the best corsage.)

  When I got out of high school and headed for Central America at someone else's expense the week out of school they laughed from the other side of their faces!

  My last two years at Hillsborough High gave me my first taste of the music business, as Robert Whitman, brother of Slim Whitman, was a classmate and friend who came to our place for duck hunting season. I hung around Nugget Studios, an independent record company in Tampa a bit and ran across a couple of the people from there later in music. It was during that time when I formed my basic theory of what the universe actually is. It is also the time I trisected the angle (supposedly impossible using only a compass and straight-edge – according to Pythagorus or some such garbage). I also noted a part of my omniversal theory that seemed to have an application best described as scary. I made a little device to test. It seemed to work as predicted. A little thing that was easy to make from things found around the house and garage that could shoot a hole through even steel. I promised myself I would never make another, but things have changed and are changing that may prove it to be the only thing that could stop it. Stopping it might make a very much worse situation in some ways, but could lead to a better future.

  But that we could have what evolved in the later books of the Maita series! Something like that could make the initial horror worth it. That would mean one of those “End justifies the means” things – which I find a very unlikely answer from me.

  I finished my education at this time, attending two prestigious universities. I studied botany and genetics. My ideas were the hippie thing. A degree was a joke, but would make it easier to make a living in the future. I have never used the titles. I have seldom found use for the material studied except in working with the orchids in the more personal ways. I did use the genetics-based ideas on some crosses when working for the orchid growers. C’est la vie.

  Upon returning from the rock music/SF experience I took a job with the original landscape nursery from before I left, becoming manager of the orchid range, but also doing some landscape work on such places as Busch Gardens in Tampa.

  In 1976 I opened my own landscape business and did jobs in the US, Bahamas, Mexico and Honduras. I also became involved with a man who owned a small bar
and was there when the place expanded into a large live rock nightclub. I kept the landscape business until 1980 and closed it because I'd been out of the country doing a job and the local part went down to nothing. The job lasted for several months and I got screwed out of most of what was supposed to be paid to me for the work – but getting the short end was as much as a part of the rock business so I was used to it. It was a great vacation. The man who screwed me out of the wages was developing a golf course community. When I left, so did his source of plants at wholesale prices. In addition, he was trying to arrange financing for selling the parcels on the course. My sister was office manager for just such a brokerage company. It was almost set up, but the way I was treated made the company take a closer look at him and his company. It seemed he didn’t have quite the good reputation he had led them to believe. They refused the deal. I figure his duplicity cost him about forty times what he owed me in only the first three months since I left. For many years since that time, everyone who was dishonest with me about such things lost at least ten times what they cheated friends of myself of.

  Note: What has happened here in Panama has cost me most of my retirement. It is still not over. I intend making that loss to such people apply here. The Panamanians in general are the finest people in the world, in my