Presenting

The Google Earth Animated Tours!

Locales of DIE FASTING

Locales of GREAT MISCHIEF

Locales of IF TWO ARE DEAD

Geography lovers, rejoice! Google Earth is an exciting free computer application that smoothly shows you recent satellite photography of everywhere on earth! It allows one to add or subtract details as needed, and to see the photography from different virtual heights and angles. Quite amazing!

It also allows one to save one’s private “placemarks,” and to compile a group of placemarks into virtual "tours," which can then be shared.

Your author was unable to resist creating tours of his novels as the scenes exist today. Readers who are unfamiliar with Google Earth (and who have the requisite computer horsepower—PC or Mac—and the broadband internet connection that makes it work fluidly), may well be delighted to allow their curiosity regarding the books to introduce them to a 21st Century marvel.

Rest assured, the tours take pains to avoid spoiling the plotlines of the stories for anyone who hasn't yet read the books!

Download Google Earth (723 KB). A standard installation process will be required.

Play with it a bit, it’s engaging and fascinating!

Next, download the tours themselves. If uninterrupted, each animation will take approximately seven minutes to run. (But interrupting it is the idea!)

	Download the (New! Improved!) DIE FASTING Tour (108 KB). NOTE where you save the tour on your system!
	Download the (New! Improved!) GREAT MISCHIEF Tour (101 KB).
	Download the IF TWO ARE DEAD Tour (240 KB).

You’re welcome to save these tours to your hard drive. (They have been created as a “public service.”) However, saving the files shouldn’t be necessary. If Google Earth has been fully installed, your system should recognize the files’ *.kmz extensions, and the tours should open Google Earth and run automatically (whether from the Internet or from your hard drive).

The tours will run at this point. However, by virtue of the defaults of Google Earth, they will not run optimally. Specifically, too much modern information will be shown, creating visual confusion. It is recommended that you take a few minutes to change a few options (which can of course be changed back for other Google Earth applications). Hint: Windows users can use the Alt-Tab combination to toggle back and forth between the directions on this page and Google Earth.

First, set the Touring Options:

Next, restrict the Places and Layers to those needed for the tour(s).

Note that the Layers, especially, are meant to be toggled on and off, even as you go to any place or go through any specific tour.

Finally, note these suggestions for optimal enjoyment of playing back any Google Earth tour:

Individuals whose reading speed is no faster than your author’s will want to keep the mouse cursor hovering over the tour controls, to Pause the action in order to finish read the information in the “balloons.” While paused, you can also investigate nearby locations—or the other side of the globe if you’re so inclined. Layers can be toggled on and off. The whole point of Google Earth is that you can investigate whatever you find of interest! To resume the tour, hover over the tour controls again, and press Play.

A last note: A simple convention of the Thomas Dordrecht tours was the following:

KNOWN historical sites are named in GREEN

APPROXIMATE historical sites are named in YELLOW

FICTIONAL historical sites are named in RED

You're on your own from here on out (although I'll gladly respond to e-mail queries).

JONATHAN CARRIEL

Notices – Ordering – Author – Contact