Novels: in the works . . .
Philisophical Sci-fi & Surrealism
Of all things I’ve started these are the ones that obsess me completely.
Sky so Blue
Synopsis: To save his lover’s life, an unwitting time-traveller becomes willing to destroy himself.
Beware the god that manifests as time...
Sky so Blue is a philosophical sci-fi novel about human meaning lost in cosmic timescales.
A spacetime paradox has doomed Jacob to forever meet the death of his lover, Leah, our solar system’s post-exodus future and the annihilation of Earth.
During a gallery exhibition of Leah’s work, hallucinations are experienced around a particular painting. Jacob and Leah experience premonitions while obsessed collector, Harcourt, becomes unhinged and threatens Leah. Harcourt later arrives at Leah’s home demanding the painting before a mysterious explosion kills them both. Shocked into a fugue, Jacob encounters strange technology: a spacesuit that pulls him two-thousand years into the future.
Temporal-shock shatters Jacob’s mind. The luna AI, Qsenn, discovers him near death under an abandoned dome and saves his life by augmenting his brain. Amnesia plagues his recovery but his perception expands. He senses an unstable, artificial singularity orbiting earth, and learns it caused the mass exodus of humanity from the solar system. After experiencing hallucinations and making an accidental spacetime jump, the Martian Keeper, Vanteltash, summons him to Mars for study – concerned his arrival suggests a paradox that could destroy them all. On Mars Leah’s painting is discovered emitting the same radiation as the spacesuit, among a collection of artefacts. Tash exposes Jacob to it. Overcome by memories, he’s pulled to return and save Leah.
He returns to the night of her death, but he’s unable to control his augmented mind and causes the explosion. Desperately, he attempts to kill Harcourt before he can attack Leah, but fails. And he’s flung three-thousand years into the future. Tash meets him and confirms the paradox. He returns to warn Leah, but causes the premonition that inspires the painting. An unguided jump infuses her canvas with the spacesuit’s radiation. Eleven-thousand years pass. He seeks Qsenn and pleads to be destroyed to collapse his loop. Qsenn is curious and drops Jacob into the singularity. One billion-years pass. Jacob’s arrives on earth moments before its annihilated. Temporal-shock afflicts his mind, and he’s unable to hold against the pull to return.
Sky so Blue plays with time and meaning like Stories of Your Life, holds existential reflections like Roadside Picknick and interweaves human stories like Ministry for the Future.
TV in 98
Synopsis: When Barry, an undiagnosed-autistic man living in a share house in Perth, 1998, starts receiving visitations from an alien through his share house TV, his life begins falling apart, and before long abduction seems more enticing than life in Perth.
Sometimes, being human can be so alien …
TV in 98 is written for an adult readership of 25- to 45-years, who enjoy science fiction novels, films and series that can be viewed through a philosophical or surrealist lens.
Barry’s an undiagnosed-autistic man, long-term unemployed and confused by his life and how people live. He’s started waking at 2:00AM to static in his living room TV; through which, he’s started receiving communications from an Alien named Endon. His housemates, Marcus and Lilly, threaten to evict Barry if he doesn’t seek help. Barry fears becoming homeless. Things get worse when he assaults a cop in a Centrelink office, due to an ill-timed communication from Endon. Barry then fears going to jail.
Endon exists 500-years in Barry’s future, orbiting the solar system, stealing Earth’s history via its multitude of transmissions. She’s perplexed by humanity, so communicates with Barry, and others like him, in an effort to understand. Barry is just as perplexed and asks Endon to abducted him. He admits to his housemates he’s been talking to an Alien. Marcus has Barry sectioned. Endon then devises a process to transfer Barry to her realm. Barry’s unsure what awaits, but is so confused and distressed he’s willing to leave Earth and never return.
While Barry’s in a psychiatric hospital, Endon tries to contact him but communicates with Lilly. Having met Endon, Lilly gets Barry released. With Lilly’s help Barry is abducted by Endon. He travels across space and time to Endon’s spaceship where he awaits his transformation to a new state of being. Endon has constructed a temporary environment for Barry that resembles a sterile version of his share house. Endon allows Barry to view the past five hundred years of human history. Little of it makes sense to him. He contacts Lilly, finding her ten-years in her future. She has a good life, she tells him about people he knew; some have died, most live suburban lives. Barry lets go, ready for transformation.
TV in 98 has a sense of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy meets the surrealism of Kafka on the Shore, and the other worlds of Exhalation.