Krista Corner Havre Daily News kcorner@havredailynews.com
Another local author is born. Ron Haley, creator of “Two Miles Deep to Survive” said his first published text is about what might really happen at the end of the world for instance, what could have happened if Bruce Willis in the movie “Armagedon” had not been able to stop the meteorite. “I was watching Armagedon, and I thought about what you could do if a comet actually hit the planet,” Haley said. “What could you do to survive because the surface would be uninhabitable.” Haley said he added another twist in his novel that is not typically featured in movies about the end of the world. In “Armagedon” mankind pulls together in their effort to save the world. In Haley's book teamwork is not an option. “There’s a complete breakdown in social order,” he said of his story. “The bigger the city the worse it was.” Haley added that he thinks in bigger cities, people tend to not know their neighbors as well as small-town folks do. “Two Miles Deep to Survive” was published in September and can be found locally at Creative Leisure and is also available via Amazon.com, www. Booksurge.com and www.barnesandnoble. com Web sites. Haley said to write the novel, he considered what kinds of things humanity would need to survive and then went from there. “I would need food, water and electricity to survive,” he said, adding that how his characters would get electricity was a large part of the plot, among other issues. “(They) use geothermal energy and just pipe it up from a couple miles down,” he said. He said after he had figured that part out, he realized the characters would need tools, which his characters locate from various resources througho u t Mo n t a n a , Wyomi n g a n d Washington. “Living underground you could pretty much do it,” he added. “I looked into it. (Around here) it would be about two miles down before it would be hot enough to generate any electricity. It’d be about 100 degrees. Basically you drill two holes, pump water down one and steam comes out the other and that’s how the energy is created.” Haley said he performed a great deal of research to help in his quest to pen the novel. “Yellowstone National Park is the perfect place,” he added. “You wouldn’t have to go that deep.” As far as a book signing or celebration, Haley said he hadn’t planned on anything. “I don’t know what to do,” he laughed. “(Writing the book) was something I wanted to do, I did it and now it’s like, Now what? I just wondered if somebody would read it. It takes about two days to read. No swear words and very little violence.” Haley said he has no immediate plans for writing another book, but it is an option. “I wouldn’t mind trying another one. (But) I don’t think it will be a sequel ” he said, adding that if readers want to know why, they’ll have to read the book. ”I just wanted something to do for the winter,” Haley said. ”I just wanted to see if I could do it.”
