The Gold of Scapa Flow: Ideals Restored (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781534666313)

Don Fairburn retired as Professor Emeritus of Systems Analysis from Miami University of Ohio, having once served as Scholar in Residence for the Miami University European Center in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. It is not surprising that, until recently, his writing efforts were limited to technical topics on mathematics. Since his retirement he has done some non-technical writing as a hobby. This includes unpublished stories on religion (The Jerusalem Incident) and a biographical novel on his work experience as a young engineer in the Bahamas (A Bowl Full of Sky). Previous to his historical novel, The Gold of Scapa Flow, he published a short story, A Flat and a Half with Porch, in which he describes his life as a boy growing up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Now, readers have asked him to continue writing about his experiences as a soldier, civil engineer, plant engineer on a Bahamian island, and university professor. His work has taken him to six different countries, and he has traveled in twenty seven others. The Gold of Scapa Flow is focused on the shameful self-destruction of seventy four interned warships of the German High Seas fleet in 1919. This amazingly dramatic event, involving eleven battleships and thirteen heavy cruisers, took place at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands north of Scotland, but it generates a story that takes in much of Europe. Don is a strong proponent of what he calls a "tight" story line. By this, he means that a plot should avoid contrived and unlikely gyrations that are required to undo a Gordian knot carelessly fashioned by a negligent writer. As a reader himself, he finds this to be a disappointment which he hopes never to impose on his readers.