The Invisibles, by Bernhardt J. Hurwood

I guess it was about a yearandahalf ago, I did a google search for "Grant Morrisson" "Invisibles," and one of the hits was this journal entry, which...well, go read it, then we'll continue. OK, you're back? And you're probably drooling over the prospect of this perfect-sounding book already, right? So I immediately began hunting the used bookstores for this thing, to no avail, although I did find several copies of a sequel entitled The Mind Masters. TMM is pretty awful (the villain is named Prof. Moriarty), but entertainingly so, and short enough at any rate. I finally found a copy of The Invisibles on eBay, and I just finished reading it. It's...well, it's pretty awful, but way better than the sequel. It's not quite the pulp-ier version of Philip K. Dick or Robert Anton Wilson you might be imagining, but it deals with the same ideas. As actual writing, it's biggest weakness is that it's written as a series of journal entries, memos, and newspaper articles. When Hurwood is writing as his protagonist, Larry Conrad, he's alright, but the voices he comes up with for his absurdly-named female characters (love interest Petra Valentine and femme fatale Felicia Crompton) are laugh-out-loud ridiculous. I won't go into a full, snarky review, because I think that RoBotNik cat did it better than I possibly could, although I will note that his promises of softcore sex scenes are hollow (there's more of them in The Mind Masters, actually). BUT...the day after I finished the book, an envelope showed up in my mail, with this printed on the outside:

1972 - The CIA begins development of a method to train spies to use the extra-sensory ability to see across space and time.
Code Name: PROJECT STAR GATE

1996 - One Psychic Agent breaks the silence and brings this training method to the public for the spiritual advancement of humanity.
His Name: DAVID MOREHOUSE

NOW - The time has come for YOU to learn to use this amazing power...

See inside to begin now.

Synchronicity!

(Even funnier: printed on the back of the envelope is the name of the company: Sounds True.)