Richard C Hemingway and the novel Past Twilight:
Mainstream fiction stirred with Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Action/Adventure and more than a
smidgen of Science Fiction and humor. And yes, all served up by a hard boiled detective.
Past Twilight the back story
About that smidgen of
science fiction.
Some of the reviewers said that they would
like to see some more science fiction, especially the alien that appears at the start and end of the adventure
part of the novel. Basically, I am not a science-fiction writer but for those interested I will provide a little
background story about my alien. In my novel, the alien is needed to solve the major plot problem of the novel.
How do you get someone to address a problem that happened years ago and require that person to go back in time
to address that problem? My solution required an alien with advanced technology to send someone back in time. I
also didn’t want the alien to distract from the major theme of the novel: a person on a journey who gets a
second chance to confront the leading problems that have ruined his life.
The alien’s main function was
to manipulate the main character into going back into his past to resolve the issues, he had spent a lifetime
thinking about. I wanted as little personality and background out of the alien as possible. So I created
my alien to be a reflection and conscience of the main character. In other words, I stole from Freud and made
the alien the super ego of the protagonist’s ego.
“According to Freud's
psychoanalytic theory of personality, the superego is the component of personality composed of our
internalized ideals that we have acquired from our parents and from society. The superego works to suppress
the urges of the id and tries to make the ego behave morally, rather than realistically.” From
About.com psychology
If I was a science-fiction
writer, I would have put a different spin on the alien part of the novel. My alien would be a very
deranged person who is obsessed with his hobby. His hobby would consist of his solar system tank (sort of looks
like a fish tank). Of course, this fish tank would be several thousands of miles in length, width and
depth and the alien would be hundreds of miles tall. Of course, this sounds pretty farfetched. But that is
because we see everything from our own perspective where someone 8ft tall would be way to tall. But suppose we
and our planet are Lilliputians compared to other planets outside of this fish tank.
Remember when most of the
people on this planet thought that the world was flat. Today, we laugh at that and think those people were
pretty stupid. But if you lived during that period and looked at the far horizon on the ocean, it looks like the
world is flat. If enough smart people tell you that the world is flat, you are going to believe that the world
is flat.
Today we send people out into
space, send out un-man probes to mars and have some super telescopes that look into space and see things
millions of miles away. But at this point no one has figured out how to travel millions of miles away. So if
some madman had us, all in his fish tank and inserted holograms at the ends of the fish tank so that it looked
like stars millions of miles away, how would we know whether we have been duped or not? Maybe some day we will
be able to send manned space ships to the end of our solar system. Will these space ship's crash into the end of
this space tank or run into a gigantic bug sapper –no one really knows for sure? I know that any space ship I
plan to fly in had better have a good set of brakes.
Of course in my maybe
fictitious plot the alien causes this big bang which shakes and bakes all the ingredients needed to create our
earth. Of course, he makes a mistake and some how humans evolve from lower forms. At first, our alien is
horrified but eventually because he is a very sick person and enjoys watching humans do the things they do best:
murder, rape, stealing and finding all kinds of ways to screw people while finding even more ways to explain why
they are not really doing bad things. Of course, there are a lot good people in his planet doing really good
things, but my alien finds them too boring to watch. My alien enjoys being called a god and sometimes he
even does special effects like setting a bush on fire and speaking to someone who really wants to believe he is
talking to God. Later he figures out how to get into people heads to convince them that they have been
captured by an alien, probed and let go. Yes, this guy is really sick. He’s also into young girls’ sun bathing
on roof tops and created a face book page, so he can keep in touch with his followers who refer to him as the
Anti-Christ- yes, I told you he is one sick alien.
Of course, there is a
fascinating sub plot. My alien brought his fish tank as part of a solar system hobby kit. The kit has some neat
features like a special engine at the earth’s core that is used to rotate the earth. This is important because
without gravity caused by the rotation of the earth, humans would be floating all over and messing up the fish
tank. Unfortunately, the rotator can only last so long. This creates a problem for the alien who dearly loves
his kit but can’t come up with enough alien money to pay for another one. Hence, the real reason for the alien
contacting the main character wasn’t the reason given in my novel – the real reason was to keep sending people
back in time until enough recourses and technology had been developed to fix his earth rotator
machine.
On the other hand, my alien
knows that my main character is a messed up person who is obsessed with a woman and harbors a longstanding
grudge with another man. The alien also knows a lot of bad things are going to happen once the main character
goes back in time and this is the type of entertainment this sick alien, an inter-galactic peeping Tom - craves.
For the alien, this is a win-win situation get some entertainment and hopefully get his rotator machine
fixed.
If this novel evolved into a
series, the protagonist would eventually have to deal with a larger issue. How do you get around someone who has
all the powers of a god, but is really not a nice person? Eventually, someone will find a way to solve this
problem and figure out a way to do some serious alien butt kicking without destroying the earth – good
luck.
****!!!!!: I have made a shocking
discovery which may change our entire concept of the world we live in. Apparently, all this time the alien has
been in contact with me via the thought control gadget that he paid extra for when he did an upgrade on his
solar system tank. He has decided that I will be the one to help him get his message out to the other little
germs on our planet. He has revealed the following:
-
Yes, he is indeed several hundred miles tall because his cells are thousands of times bigger than the
cell in our puny germ like bodies. And he looks exactly like any other human on our planet. He also was
upset that I referred to him as a very sick person. He said watching a solar system was very stressfull
and just because he self medicates all day doesn't mean he has a problem.
-
He also confirmed that he does spy on young girls sunbathing on roof tops, but he insists that
his interest is scientific in nature. He said that he uses birds that he has built using nano-bots to
observe earthlings. And contrary to popular belief, he is not able to see everyone all the time. Much
too expensive and boring. Note to young girls sunbathing on roof tops: If you should see a bird
looking at you. Take off your top and see if the bird gets excited.
-
He also apologized for global warming. He said that he used to spray the earth everyday. The spray is
supposed to lesson the effects of the greenhouse gases on the earth. Unfortunately, his government has
put a ban on the spray because people are using the spray to get high. He now only sprays once a month
and he can see things are getting hotter on earth.
If you have a web site please list your site's url. It is a good way to improve your SEO
via links from other sites. Also if people like your content they may click on your site and like your site's
content. If you are a author, maybe they might even buy a copy of your
novel.
|
Click to login
Click to login