Fearsome Fight For Far Fetched Freedom
Hi there. I'm joiless, and I write A Book.
Just one, mind you. I mean, I've got a couple other things that could eventually be books, but I've got A Book. It's a science-fiction book set in a crime-ridden undefined future that I will give no specific dates for. It is set on the moon. I will talk about it now.
My story is called Heart of Io, which I will abbreviate to "HOI" from here on in. Yes, it's fun to say aloud. HOI! Yes. Anyway, HOI has been in the slow painful stages of writing for years now. I started writing this novel on a whim one night SIX YEARS ago, and it's still only on the 13th chapter. Chapter 13. The evil chapter. The chapter of the beast.
I call it "the Evil Chapter" because I have been trying to finish - okay, sometimes I've just been trying to start Chapter 13 for two years at least now. I work in a purely digital medium. It actually would feel weird to write Heart of Io by hand, to be completely honest about it; and I can't write by hand the way I used to anyway. My hand cramps three hundred words in until I can't fucking use it to pick my nose, let alone hold a pencil. This actually makes my writing somewhat vulnerable. Let's just say I have some kind of demonic aura which turns electronics against me. Not only do my computers tend to savagely self-destruct while I own them, but also, I tend to actually lose computers. How do you lose a computer? How many years was I actually, for all intents and purposes, homeless? Yeah.
Anyway.
What is it really about? Well, HOI is told from the perspective of a central character, Black Rabbit, an armed courier in a futuristic city called Neu Babylon. He is accompanied in his various misadventures by three other characters: fellow armed courier Mr. Church, freelance gunslinger Agneta "Bad Luck" Adelheid, and savvy madam Mythoi. Rabbit is a superlative gunfighter, his abilities augmented by injections of the highly addictive substance known on the street as "Drive." Drive gives Rabbit superhuman reflexes, highly augmented senses including proprioception and kinesthesia; it also alters his vision so he can read the electrical impulses in living bodies, allowing him to react to a potential movement before it happens. He is tormented by his addiction to Drive, which makes him more aggressive and causes savage headaches, while leaving the albino even more sensitive to bright light and also sound.
Rabbit has fractured memories of his past, when he worked for the Jade Moon Syndicate. Neu Babylon is virtually controlled from the ground floor up by the Syndicates, powerful incorporated criminal enterprises which are one part Mafia, one part corporate conglomerate. As far as he recalls, he quit on bad terms, met Church shortly after and eventually met and became romantically involved with Bad Luck. While they didn't make it as a couple, Bad Luck continues to work with Rabbit, and along with Mr. Church is one of his closest friends.
The story opens with Rabbit describing the inside of a nightclub while experiencing apparent sensory shock. A job to deliver diamonds results in Rabbit, having been administered a massive dose of Drive at some point, nearly getting killed. He retreats to a nightclub his friend frequents to meet up with Mr. Church. There, he is again attacked, this time by men he identifies as being Syndicate button-men, and after fighting their way out, Rabbit passes out in the alley behind the club due to Drive shock.
He reawakens at his home, a modest modular home, with Bad Luck concerned about his condition. From there, he is pursued, attacked, and attacks the criminals of his city, trying to figure out why everybody suddenly has a list ending with Kill Rabbit. He has occasional clashes with the eerie and relentless Paladins, black-garbed, masked law enforcement agents that Rabbit describes as being zealots who worship the law itself. He also encounters Mythoi, a devastatingly beautiful woman who becomes the cool-headed brains behind the gang of four, and is confronted by a past that he can't seem to properly remember. This includes realizing that he is somehow "haunted" by one of his old partners in crime, and that said partner's sadistic twin sister whom Rabbit believed dead is not only alive but very active in recent events.
An important aspect of HOI is Rabbit's voice. His philosophical musings on his life, his chemically-distorted view of people, and his relationship with the city itself, which he views as a living, voracious and in some ways maternal figure form the backbone of the narrative. The other major aspect is capturing the action.
I write HOI to be read the same way a heroic bloodshed movie is viewed. It is a violent story, with frequent incidents of graphic death occurring. However, people just dying is kinda boring, so instead I find ways to make the violence interesting, being in first person from the perspective of a character who witnesses the violence in terms of reflexes he cannot really control and in temps mort; when Rabbit's Drive-altered physiology gets a spike of adrenaline, his experiential perception of time slows drastically, and he sees the world through the eyes of a person who is moving incredibly fast. It's hard to keep writing it in such a way that it remains interesting each time.
I'll come back later maybe and add more to this, I just suddenly lost focus.
Forget You Ever Saw Me,
the world is a lot like a bordello
Just one, mind you. I mean, I've got a couple other things that could eventually be books, but I've got A Book. It's a science-fiction book set in a crime-ridden undefined future that I will give no specific dates for. It is set on the moon. I will talk about it now.
My story is called Heart of Io, which I will abbreviate to "HOI" from here on in. Yes, it's fun to say aloud. HOI! Yes. Anyway, HOI has been in the slow painful stages of writing for years now. I started writing this novel on a whim one night SIX YEARS ago, and it's still only on the 13th chapter. Chapter 13. The evil chapter. The chapter of the beast.
I call it "the Evil Chapter" because I have been trying to finish - okay, sometimes I've just been trying to start Chapter 13 for two years at least now. I work in a purely digital medium. It actually would feel weird to write Heart of Io by hand, to be completely honest about it; and I can't write by hand the way I used to anyway. My hand cramps three hundred words in until I can't fucking use it to pick my nose, let alone hold a pencil. This actually makes my writing somewhat vulnerable. Let's just say I have some kind of demonic aura which turns electronics against me. Not only do my computers tend to savagely self-destruct while I own them, but also, I tend to actually lose computers. How do you lose a computer? How many years was I actually, for all intents and purposes, homeless? Yeah.
Anyway.
What is it really about? Well, HOI is told from the perspective of a central character, Black Rabbit, an armed courier in a futuristic city called Neu Babylon. He is accompanied in his various misadventures by three other characters: fellow armed courier Mr. Church, freelance gunslinger Agneta "Bad Luck" Adelheid, and savvy madam Mythoi. Rabbit is a superlative gunfighter, his abilities augmented by injections of the highly addictive substance known on the street as "Drive." Drive gives Rabbit superhuman reflexes, highly augmented senses including proprioception and kinesthesia; it also alters his vision so he can read the electrical impulses in living bodies, allowing him to react to a potential movement before it happens. He is tormented by his addiction to Drive, which makes him more aggressive and causes savage headaches, while leaving the albino even more sensitive to bright light and also sound.
Rabbit has fractured memories of his past, when he worked for the Jade Moon Syndicate. Neu Babylon is virtually controlled from the ground floor up by the Syndicates, powerful incorporated criminal enterprises which are one part Mafia, one part corporate conglomerate. As far as he recalls, he quit on bad terms, met Church shortly after and eventually met and became romantically involved with Bad Luck. While they didn't make it as a couple, Bad Luck continues to work with Rabbit, and along with Mr. Church is one of his closest friends.
The story opens with Rabbit describing the inside of a nightclub while experiencing apparent sensory shock. A job to deliver diamonds results in Rabbit, having been administered a massive dose of Drive at some point, nearly getting killed. He retreats to a nightclub his friend frequents to meet up with Mr. Church. There, he is again attacked, this time by men he identifies as being Syndicate button-men, and after fighting their way out, Rabbit passes out in the alley behind the club due to Drive shock.
He reawakens at his home, a modest modular home, with Bad Luck concerned about his condition. From there, he is pursued, attacked, and attacks the criminals of his city, trying to figure out why everybody suddenly has a list ending with Kill Rabbit. He has occasional clashes with the eerie and relentless Paladins, black-garbed, masked law enforcement agents that Rabbit describes as being zealots who worship the law itself. He also encounters Mythoi, a devastatingly beautiful woman who becomes the cool-headed brains behind the gang of four, and is confronted by a past that he can't seem to properly remember. This includes realizing that he is somehow "haunted" by one of his old partners in crime, and that said partner's sadistic twin sister whom Rabbit believed dead is not only alive but very active in recent events.
An important aspect of HOI is Rabbit's voice. His philosophical musings on his life, his chemically-distorted view of people, and his relationship with the city itself, which he views as a living, voracious and in some ways maternal figure form the backbone of the narrative. The other major aspect is capturing the action.
I write HOI to be read the same way a heroic bloodshed movie is viewed. It is a violent story, with frequent incidents of graphic death occurring. However, people just dying is kinda boring, so instead I find ways to make the violence interesting, being in first person from the perspective of a character who witnesses the violence in terms of reflexes he cannot really control and in temps mort; when Rabbit's Drive-altered physiology gets a spike of adrenaline, his experiential perception of time slows drastically, and he sees the world through the eyes of a person who is moving incredibly fast. It's hard to keep writing it in such a way that it remains interesting each time.
I'll come back later maybe and add more to this, I just suddenly lost focus.
Forget You Ever Saw Me,
the world is a lot like a bordello