Darwin's Eden

Cave Buddha, final version for now.

Making good progress ...

Cave Buddha. Blocking out the new setting.

Kasper climbing the Buddha. I feel like I've pushed this version as far as I can. I'm sure someone with better graphics skills than me could do a lot better. I will try to make amends by trying a different setting, perhaps a mysterious, dark cave with a shaft of light coming down through a hole in the ceiling.

I now have a title: "Kasper climbing the monument."

Vegetation and flying parrots added. Still more work to do on this blockout before trying another camera angle and setting.

Starting to block out the scene, put some trees in for scale. Will experiment with different camera lenses and lighting over the next few days.

The old man is taking shape. A few more days work and he'll sit in the jungle lost to time.

Close-up of rock texture and damage. This is medium to low poly believe it or not.

Starting to take shape. A lot of work still to do but the really hard part is over, figuring out how to give it a worn look without breaking the computer.

Starting work on replicating the Buddhas from Ankor Wat.

I invented some glyphs and etched them into this stone block in Blender.

Testing some Blender assets, creating mist fade and getting the desert sand to look right. This is not for any project just sharpening my skills.

Looks and feels like a regular pocket fiction you might pull off a bookstore shelf. It doesn't try too hard, it is what it is.

Darwin's Eden hard copy (pocket fiction format) has arrived!

Old battered Corona type writer textured in Blender. Next step is to put some blood splatter over the keys ... as a step towards creating the cover art for my new novel, The Hack.

From Ursula Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness:

'… you cannot think of a Gethenian as “it.” They are not neuters. They are potentials; during each sexual cycle they may develop in either direction for the duration of that cycle. No physiological habit is established, and the mother of several children may be the father of several more.'

I searched through her book, looked for words like - gestation, womb, pregnancy, birth - and almost none of these words occur, and when they do, they are decoupled from any biological discussion whatsoever.

In 1969, when she wrote the story, Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards first fertilized human ovaries in a test-tube. You’d think she might have known about this and referenced it.

No.

My assessment of her writing: sociological twaddle (i.e., let's just make up any s**t that suits our infantile emotional desires). Well, if that's true, then let her readers be what they are.

Magical thinking about physics is not limited to just fantasy writers. Here is an excerpt from 'Without Fail' by Lee Child:

"They used their usual method to get past security and set up a hundred feet from where he was speaking. They used a silencer and missed him by an inch. The bullet must have past right over his head. Maybe even through his hair, because he immediately raised his hand and patted it back into place as if a gust of wind had disturbed it. They saw it over and over again, afterwards, on television. He raised his hand and patted his hair. He did nothing else. He just kept on with his speech, unaware, because by definition a silenced bullet is too fast to see and too quiet to hear."

First of all, 100 feet, and they missed. That's 33 meters. It's impossible to miss at that range. Given that these were supposedly professionals, even if they weren't, a novice couldn't even miss at that range. And the Vice President (the target) didn't even perceive a bullet had gone through his hair! LOL. Speed of sound is about 1125 ft/p/s. A typical sniper bullet travels at around 3200 ft/p/s. Nearly 3 times as fast. So the Vice President wouldn't hear the bullet. That's correct. But they would feel the shockwave as it went past. It would not be like a gust of wind. It would be more like a physical pulse, pressurizing the ear drums. And it would have duration, a split second and feel unnatural. A more realistic reaction would be "What was that?" And then the realization that someone had tried to shoot him. And security, at 100 feet away, they would be onto the sniper in a split second, seeing the Vice President's reaction. The entire scene is unbelievable. How it got into print, is anyone's guess.

I imagine spacex happily blew up its booster to thwart would-be treasure hunters. Which makes me think, actually, the booster popped like a balloon at 90km going pretty fast, but could an engine, or perhaps some other part survive and still be found? What do we know about the effects of the flight termination system on the rocket structure?

The mantra for fantasy writing is: "Internal consistency, not realism, is the benchmark of a believable fantasy world" - and so there is a belief that so long as you set all the rules of your world out properly, everything will be ok. If we take this to Harry Potter, we can see that broomsticks can fly. There is a broomstick industry just like we have a car industry. Wizards use broomsticks just like real world youths use cars to get around. But in fact, When teachers of fantasy say your world has to be internally consistent, they mean it only superficially. There is no discussion in Harry Potter about the broomstick industry like there is about car industries. Fuel sources, fuel efficiency, safety, market niches (design), recycling etc. None of this is present in Harry Potter. If a piece of wood can defy the laws of gravity, where does this other force come from? It is not discussed or present because all the reader has to know is the emotional connection between the wizard and their broom (= magic). Will he fly well? Will he get whatever goal he is seeking? These are the questions readers are asking, not how wood can invert gravity. So the rule of "internal consistency" is not so much a rule of consistency but one of compartmentalization. The defying of gravity in a broomstick is compartmentalised to the relationship between Harry and the broom and whoever is affected by it in direct relation to Harry's actions. The true consequences of a physical world where wood can defy gravity is ignored - and it must be so, because if wood can defy gravity, then it would be possible for entire forests to float in the air, but we don't see any of that in Harry Potter. Thus, compartmentalisation, not consistency is the actual mantra of fantasy fiction. This suggests cognitive consequences ... which I will not delve into here as it gets disturbing.

Darwin's Eden is now available at Amazon as an eBook. The paperback is coming soon!

Darwin's Eden They murdered his father because he discovered the secret that could destroy them. Now, the son must find out and finish what his father started. Thousands of years into the future, a colony of humans is established on the planet Natchator. The colony grows into a civilization with nations, polit...

An excerpt from Lee Harvey Oswald, 'The Collective' circa 1962, wherein he writes about his experience working in the Minsk Radio and Television plant:

Meetings last anywhere from 10 minutes to two hours; usually the length of "Political information meetings" held every Tuesday is 15 minutes. An amazing thing in watching these political lectures is that there is taken on by the listeners, a most phenomenal nature, one impervious to outside interference or sounds. After long years of hard fi**ed discipline, no worker allows himself to be trapped and called out for inattentiveness by the ever present and watchful party secretary and members of the Communist party. This is mostly seen in political information of Central Committee party directive readings. At these times it is best to curb one's natural boisterous and lively nature. Under the 6' by 6' picture of Lenin, founder of the Soviet State, the party section secretary stands. In our section a middle aged poched man by the name of Sobakin, an average looking man wearing glasses, his wrinkled face and twinkling eyes give one the impression that any moment he's going to tell a racy story or funny joke, but he never does. Behind this man stands 25 years of party life. His high post, relatively speaking for him, is witness to his efficiency. He stands expounding from notes in front of him, the week's "Information", with all the lack of enthusiasm and gusto of someone who knows that he has no worries about an audience or about someone getting up and going away.

I will say, Ingram Spark is a very inconsistent POD service during the setup phase. I could complain about a few things, but the most frustrating is they simply stopped accepting my updated interior file and their support staff is taking ages to fix the problem. The file is practically identical to the others that were accepted up till now; I have only changed a few words. Basically polishing. So I am currently held hostage by Ingram and cannot get a hard copy printed off to see how it looks and feels in my hands.

Thank you to everyone for visiting this page, i hope to put up some interesting posts soon!

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