Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
"Communion of Dreams"
“Homegrown American kooks,” said Gates. “Take your worst nightmare right-wing Christian fundies, breed ‘em with ecological extremists, let the mix simmer in isolation for about twenty years, and you wind up with the Edenists: eco-terrorists who think that it’s God’s Will that mankind return to a primitive, pre-industrial state.”
Johan looked confused, and more than a little frightened. Jon thought he should clarify. “Jackie’s got the gist of it, but let me try and explain a little more completely. No one is really sure exactly when or how it happened, but sometime during the chaos of the post-flu, when the US almost completely disintegrated, there were two marginal groups that got together. One was the heir of something called The Order, a reactionary offshoot of the old Aryan Nation.”
“Ah, neo-Nazis. Yes, we had much difficulty with them, ourselves.”
“So I recall. Anyway, the other group was a splinter of the radical environmental organization Earthfirst!, sort of like the far-left fringe of the Greens. They managed to create a hybrid belief system: that true adherence to God’s natural law would bring man back to a state of grace, suitable to be readmitted to the Garden of Eden. To promote this belief, or to make it possible, they want to see a complete restoration of the Earth’s biosphere to a natural state, with humans having almost no environmental impact.”
That's an excerpt from my novel, Communion of Dreams. Last December 20, in my tribute to Carl Sagan, I made a promise that I was going to get the manuscript of that book tweaked and see about getting it published. Since the first of the year, I have been working on just that.
And now, I have 11 of the 19 chapters done and uploaded to that site for anyone who wants to read it. There is also a link to a blog for discussion, if anyone wants to throw brick-bats anonymously. Since the book is primarily about the struggle between religion and rationality, I thought folks here at UTI might be interested. I invite you to stop by and have a look - I hope to have the rest of the manuscript revisions done and posted there within the week, but we'll see how it goes.
Jim Downey
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Update.
In case anyone is interested, I just finished the final revisions on the last two chapters. They should be posted this afternoon. Whole project went a lot faster than I had expected - but then, I'd been thinking about what changes I would make for the last several years...
Jim Downey
"Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering."
- R. Buckminster Fuller
eBook?
Any chance of making that available as an eBook? Perhpas Microsot LIT? There's a free converter for Microsoft.
vern
vgblog@thegillfamily.us
http://vernsblog.thegillfamily.us:8180/
I'll look into that.
Thanks for the suggestion, Vern. I'll look into it.
Meanwhile, got three more chapters revised and uploaded today. Just 5 left.
Jim Downey
"Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering."
- R. Buckminster Fuller
Danke...
Thanks, Brent, I hope you enjoy it. That excerpt is from Chapter 9 of the book, and as I was doing the revisions I thought that it might make the perfect teaser for this crowd. ;)
As you might gather from the excerpt, things are not, er, 'normal'. But if you enjoy SF/speculative fiction, you might give this a go. Full explanation on the site.
Jim Downey
"Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering."
- R. Buckminster Fuller
Cool!
Very cool Jim. I'm going to try and give it a read this next week.