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Novelist Dominic Trimboli imagines a new role for Earth
‘The Destroyer of Worlds’ is the first in a series combining history and science fiction.
Combining history with science fiction takes a certain kind of novelist, one who has not only done exhaustive research but is in possession of a fertile imagination. Having the courage of one’s convictions, i.e. the belief that such a tightly knitted jigsaw puzzle can be successfully assembled, is also a big plus.
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That’s the key to St. Petersburg resident Dominic Trimboli’s The Destroyer of Worlds, the first of three novels set at pivotal moments in 20th century American history. A central character is James Forrestal, who was the country’s first Secretary of Defense (under Harry S. Truman).
According to popular legend, Forrestal formed, by order of the president, a top-secret group of scientists and military strategists called the Majestic 12. Their job was to investigate “flying saucers” and possible alien arrivals on Earth in the mid-to-late ‘40s.
“I wrote a book that I would love to read,” explained Trimboli, a native of Australia who emigrated to the States in 2005. “I wrote it for me! And if someone likes it, that’s great.”
His inspiration was Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. “I loved that story. I loved that we don’t know a lot about our own planet.”
In The Destroyer of Worlds, Forrestal is contacted by a highly advanced humanoid civilization that has been living, for millennia, deep under the surface of the planet in a beautiful “Sacred Realm” called Agartha.
The Agarthans are intelligent, peace-loving and not at all interested in what humans do on the surface.
Until the United States drops the atomic bomb on Japan, that is. The Council of Elders votes to intervene to warn the topsiders that they’re risking the destruction of all earthbound civilizations.
Truman, scientist Werner Von Braun and Admiral Richard Byrd are among the complicit historical figures populating the novel. Also in play: The 1947 incident in Roswell, New Mexico, in which – conspiracy theorists believe – an alien craft crash-landed on a remote ranch.
Still, insists Trimboli, “I made this story up. I wanted to write it in a way that when you read it, you would think ‘Could this actually have happened?’ That’s why I mixed the historical elements in the book. I didn’t want to have an alternate history – I wanted to make the audience interested and bought-in to the story.”
And the picture keeps getting bigger. As the US government is secretly dealing with the Agarthans, and not too successfully, Forrestal learns that Agartha is a central player in a cosmos-wide federation of civilizations. Visitors often travel across the universe to confer in the Sacred Realm, which is accessible through a secret entrance at the South Pole.
“In astronomy,” Trimboli says. “we have this view that we’re so small in the universe. But I wanted to make us important as well. There’s that saying: You’re a drop in the ocean, but also you’re the ocean in one drop.
“I wanted to make Earth important. And I wanted to make it this destination for other civilizations to come and visit, to learn something. To learn how not to destroy themselves in the way that we’re facing that now, with artificial intelligence. Because it is powerful enough to destroy us.”
Former IT executive Dominic Trimboli has lived in St. Petersburg since 2023. Photo provided.
Trimboli was an information technology executive for decades, mostly in the Seattle area. “I spent nearly 20 years at Microsoft, and nearly eight years at Amazon Web Services,” he relates. “Fantastic companies to work for, but my role became redundant in 2023. So I started contracting.”
He formed Boston Private Equity Partners, to continue his contracts with Google and Amazon. That same year, Trimboli and his wife Lucy left Brevard County (they owned a spacious home on Melbourne Beach) for Florida’s west coast.
“The problem with Melbourne Beach is that it’s isolated,” he explains. “We were the only idiots that lived there year-round. Most of the people that bought houses there, they’ve got houses somewhere else.”
The couple, who have two grown sons, longed for more of an urban lifestyle; after rejecting Tampa as a bit too urban, they discovered St. Petersburg and purchased a home in the Old Northeast section.
Another major change was in the wind. “Once all my contracts finished, I was talking to a neighbor, and I said ‘I just want to have a job where I can help people.’”
Four months ago, he began working at Regions Bank in downtown St. Petersburg. His title is Senior Small Business Banker. “I get to talk to businesses in St. Pete now,” Trimboli says. “I love it. I’d never done banking before.
“I’m probably going to work for the next 10 years, but I could be retired, if I wanted to. I wasn’t going to sit at home and do nothing.”
The Destroyer of Worlds was followed by Sky Without Stars, which was itself succeeded by The Fire From Heaven. Trimboli calls the series The Akkadian Meditations.
Sitting home and doing nothing? Hardly. Coming soon is the fourth volume, The Templar Conspiracy.
“Here’s the thing: Once you start, you cannot stop,” he enthuses. “I’m serious. Writing becomes an obsession. It consumes you. In a good way.”
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