Passing by a garage sale a few weeks ago, I bought (as in my wont) a few miscellaneous old paperbacks. Among them is a 1997 (note the date) bestseller by Dean Koontz called Sole Survivor.
The novel is science fiction set in the present day (of 1997) and ultimately involving some rather implausible plot elements involving psychic superpowers and proof of God and and afterlife. But most of it is a thriller where the civilian protagonists, while dealing with their past personal traumas, end up investigating a mystery while fleeing from mysterious assassins. The usual stuff, basically.
The mystery they're investigating has nothing to do with any (real or false-flag) terrorist attack. But it IS about an airliner crash with no survivors whose real cause is being covered up at the behest of a secret government agency.
So here's the interesting (though trivial) bit. About halfway through the book, the trail of clues the protagonists are following leads them to a place where a witness of a witness of the plane crash lives. That information finally puts them on the right track, and the place also serves as a temporary refuge. That place is an isolated ranch called Loose Change Ranch. It's one of those humble traditional friendly all-American households, the kind where the housewife is already in the middle of baking cookies when the protagonists arrive.
There's no proof that's where Avery or one of the producers of Loose Change got the name from. But it would be quite a coincidence otherwise. Consider:
- The phase Loose Change never made sense as a direct reference to anything about 9/11. Some (but not Avery, as far as I know) interpreted it as an imperative sentence, as in to loose (release) political change into the world. But it's far more evocative of pocket coins. We got used to it with familiarity but it's always been a weird title for a documentary.
- As used by Koontz, however, the name has a more elegant double meaning. It's a fitting name for the folksy unassuming ranch in the novel ("Shoestring Ranch" or "Small Potatoes Ranch" would have similar implications of not quite poverty), and its other interpretation as above of changing the world also works with the novel's motifs.
- I haven't found any other instances of it being used as a name, in fiction or anywhere, besides the Koontz novel and the 9/11 film (and other works derivative of the latter).
- The novel is about a secret government cover-up of the cause of an airliner crash. That wasn't very common subject matter, before the 9/11 conspiracy theories revved up in the 2000s.
- Avery, as an aspiring thriller scriptwriter, would have been likely to read Koontz's recent novels around that time.
I think it's plausible-to-likely that the conspiracy film's name was intended to be a reference to the Loose Change Ranch, or at least was inspired by it. Perhaps Avery was surprised how few people read even bestselling genre novels, or that no one (as far as I can tell) got the reference.
The novel is science fiction set in the present day (of 1997) and ultimately involving some rather implausible plot elements involving psychic superpowers and proof of God and and afterlife. But most of it is a thriller where the civilian protagonists, while dealing with their past personal traumas, end up investigating a mystery while fleeing from mysterious assassins. The usual stuff, basically.
The mystery they're investigating has nothing to do with any (real or false-flag) terrorist attack. But it IS about an airliner crash with no survivors whose real cause is being covered up at the behest of a secret government agency.
So here's the interesting (though trivial) bit. About halfway through the book, the trail of clues the protagonists are following leads them to a place where a witness of a witness of the plane crash lives. That information finally puts them on the right track, and the place also serves as a temporary refuge. That place is an isolated ranch called Loose Change Ranch. It's one of those humble traditional friendly all-American households, the kind where the housewife is already in the middle of baking cookies when the protagonists arrive.
There's no proof that's where Avery or one of the producers of Loose Change got the name from. But it would be quite a coincidence otherwise. Consider:
- The phase Loose Change never made sense as a direct reference to anything about 9/11. Some (but not Avery, as far as I know) interpreted it as an imperative sentence, as in to loose (release) political change into the world. But it's far more evocative of pocket coins. We got used to it with familiarity but it's always been a weird title for a documentary.
- As used by Koontz, however, the name has a more elegant double meaning. It's a fitting name for the folksy unassuming ranch in the novel ("Shoestring Ranch" or "Small Potatoes Ranch" would have similar implications of not quite poverty), and its other interpretation as above of changing the world also works with the novel's motifs.
- I haven't found any other instances of it being used as a name, in fiction or anywhere, besides the Koontz novel and the 9/11 film (and other works derivative of the latter).
- The novel is about a secret government cover-up of the cause of an airliner crash. That wasn't very common subject matter, before the 9/11 conspiracy theories revved up in the 2000s.
- Avery, as an aspiring thriller scriptwriter, would have been likely to read Koontz's recent novels around that time.
I think it's plausible-to-likely that the conspiracy film's name was intended to be a reference to the Loose Change Ranch, or at least was inspired by it. Perhaps Avery was surprised how few people read even bestselling genre novels, or that no one (as far as I can tell) got the reference.
