23 December 2017
My best Sci-fi books in the USA:
Ebola in the Garden of Eden
Green
Starturn – Intergalactic Rockstar
Sorting The Future
My best Sci-fi books in the UK:
Ebola In The Garden Of Eden.
Sorting The Future
Green
Starturn – Intergalactic Rockstar
This was a fun book to write. It did have a lot of darkness though.
Setting the 60s a few centuries on within an intergalactic setting was straightforward. Putting in the dark overtones of Big Business, the Mafia and the Establishment added intrigue. There were the usual scenes of sex, drugs and excess as well as the social and political mix. It made for an interesting setting for the story to run its course.
Zargos Ecstasy was the main character. I wrote this prior to the rise of ecstasy as a popular drug so that was an interesting development that gave me a bit of a laugh. He, being a larger than life character, was very much based on an amalgamation of Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Mick Jagger and David Bowie with a bit of Bob Dylan and John Lennon thrown in. I had to have someone who was supercharismatic and a great showman, an excessive personality but with a social conscience.
If you are interested in reading one of my Sci-fi novels (Digital or paperback) I have provided some links below:
My best Sci-fi books in the USA:
Ebola in the Garden of Eden
Green
Starturn – Intergalactic Rockstar
Sorting The Future
My best Sci-fi books in the UK:
Ebola In The Garden Of Eden.
Sorting The Future
Green
Starturn – Intergalactic Rockstar
This was the first Chapter of the book. I envisaged a super Rock Performance taking place in Space with the Moon being used as a stadium.
The beginning
Hilan Hilzar sat back into the posture form of his couch seat. He was so full of tension that the living contouring did little to reduce the tightness of his muscles. He could not relax. The huge effort of holding back the excitement was making is body rigid. His mind was clamping down on his torso so that the pressure welled up inside him. His heart felt swollen up inside him, writhing around in his chest. His flesh was actually jumping and twitching as if some high voltage current was flowing through his veins. He was worried that it would trigger the seat’s resuscitation unit. It might consider him at risk.
For weeks now his whole existence seemed to have been building up to this climax. At first it had all seemed unreal – an eternity away. It had crawled towards him at a krank-snail’s pace; like it would never arrive. It had devoured his concentration leaving him unable to think of anything else. Then it had simply rushed towards him and the impossible day had arrived.
The journey here was a haze of unreality. He had spent the entire time peering around himself in disbelief. It could not really be happening. Reality was divorced from his body.
He sat back into the seat and took a deep breath as the seat rippled calmingly around him. His mind refused to operate properly. Only fragments of the journey were registering. It was a wonder that he had got here at all. He had vague recollections of boarding the ship and then the jump. Somehow the surge had only barely registered at all. Who could believe that? He had burned through the colour shifts with all the interest of a veteran traveller or some spoilt rich kid to whom hyperspace was a regular event. Instead of being astounded by the brilliance he had just wanted it to end. His mind had not been there at all. Even the re-entry was just a dream that washed over him. It was almost forgotten. It meant nothing. His mind was already ahead of him, dancing at his destination. In his mind he was already there. This entire journey, no matter how amazing, was a necessary nuisance to be endured. The terminal was awash with a multitude of beings as aliens mingled with humans and he was wafted along with the flood of the crowd. They were borne along on a babbling sea of excitement that engulfed them all. It was like he awoke when he entered the arena and he at last dared to let himself believe in the reality. He allowed himself to look around as he was conveyed and deposited into his allocated seat. He was in a trance.
The excitement welled up inside him. He bounced to his feet and found himself jumping up and down madly waving to the various groups of friends in his immediate vicinity, the same friends he had not even registered on his journey here.
After a while he had calmed down sufficiently to settle back down into his seat. He could barely contain himself. There were still hours to wait.
A sun was up casting hard sharp shadows. The sky glowed with a deep violet blue bathing the audience with its soft gleam. It would be nightfall before anything happened. He forced himself to calm down. His body would surely give out if it continued at this pitch. He did not want to burn out before it even started.
The sun set below the curved horizon leaving a crystal clear void sprinkled with a billion stars like fine salt on black obsidian. They hung like a pall of smoke over the crowd. There were no gaps between the specks just differences of intensities. It was so clear that one could imagine there was no air or Plexiglas between them. They were made aware that this was a moon; no planet could possibly have created such clarity.
Hilan decided it was time to drop his tablet of stoma.
Hilan peered round. The arena was filled with diffuse light so that he could see the mass of people stretching all the way from curved horizon to curved horizon, twittering in their seats expectantly. It was incredible to think that only days before this had been a barren wasteland of little import – just dust and rock, airless and unexciting. Now it had become the centre of the entire universe.
Hilan slumped back into his seat in a state of emotional exhaustion. He absently dialled for another drink from the servo-unit. The seat billowed around him to accommodate his new posture and the drink sachet slithered out of the dispenser. He sucked on the nipple and allowed the sweet juice to soothe his nerves and energise his weary mind. The stoma was kicking in, exaggerating the colours and opening his mind up.
A huge grin spread across his face like an early sunrise. He still could not quite believe it. He’d landed the best place on the whole fucking moon! All 900 credits of it! It had taken a lot of sweat and luck to pull this one off. Three months of planning and saving, three months of waiting. This was it! This was finally it! It was actually happening. It was going to be great! MEGA!!!! The greatest thing that had ever happened to him! He was central equator! Fuuuuuuuuccck!! It was the only place to be!
He’d pulled it off. Heeeee’d done eeeeeeet!!! Hilan banged the armrests in delight.
Nothing had gone wrong – all the million and one things that could have gone wrong; all those worries and fears. He had made it. He was actually here. Nothing could go wrong now.
The tension was so great that he could hardly breathe. His chest felt like someone was tightening a pexi-band round it or a whabon was sitting on him. He forced himself to relax and took a couple of deep breaths. He sucked on the juice and savoured the sweetness. The soma sure brought out the flavour. The last thing he wanted to do was to pass out. That would be terrible. The very thought frightened him and sweat broke out on his brow. He wiped it with the back of his hand. He loosened the scarf around his neck. He couldn’t stand this very much more. Please – just let it begin. Part of him wanted to jump up and shout but the rest of him just wanted to collapse into hysterical laughter. The time for doing had passed.
All around him the crowd were beginning to quieten down. He sank back into his own cocoon with his heart swooshing in his ears. Peace and calm settled on him. He was alone in the midst of an ocean of people. Everything slipped away. It was a full house of 10 million.
They could all feel it. The background swell of whispered conversation died away as if in response to some subliminal cue. A pregnant hush settled over the huge gathering. Everyone was focussed poised, with every nerve strained to catch it. The excitement was locked up just waiting to explode into hysteria. Twenty million eyes were busy darting out into the milky darkness hunting for the firs speck of action, straining to see it. Mass psychology was at work. All those minds had melded and were straining with every fibre. Senses pierced the vacuum and massed wills urged it to begin now.
Somewhere out there it was about to begin and they all wanted to be the first to glimpse it. Ten million lungs drew breath and held I captive in anticipation. The excitement was bottled up to bursting point.
There was total silence.
It began.
It started as a mere pinprick of light in the centre of that starry night. It was barely visible among the crystal stars but was suddenly growing and expanding in a great rush. It was a great flash of energy that hurled its way through the whole sky and obliterated a zillion worlds in a great explosion of light.
Ten million sets of lungs gave forth in a baying scream of primeval ecstasy. Ten million legs thrust their owners into the air with hands straining towards the sky, swaying like wheat before a breeze in what looked like rehearsed synchronicity. The roar rose to an intensity of total washout as loud as absolute silence. The energy burst forth from those lungs like a tsunami.
RRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The sky which had turned gleaming white peaked in intensity and then faded to luminous blue. For a moment it held and then shattered into a mass of flashes and billowing colours. They were caught in a cosmic firework display as the universe exploded around them and galaxies collided in their heads. The whole spectacle rushed around them and through them and washed their cells with fingers of delight and they shrieked their delight back up at it as if daring it to become even greater.
It was not possible but somehow over the top of this crescendo a huge chord began to strum. It began as a soft drone but built into a steady resonating pulse that throbbed through their guts and groin seeming to emanate from within them. It worked its way up to their ears.
The crowd noise rose even louder. The pulse grew and deepened then waned.
A voice rang out as clear as a bell in the centre of their heads; from the centre of space, overpowering the roars of the multitudes.
‘Welcome! – Zargos Ecstasy and the Terminal Brain Grope!’
If the scream of the crowd had seemed maximal before, well now it rose to unbelievable heights. If they had been relying on auditory input eardrums would have been ripped to bleeding shattered shards. Fortunately they were honed into the neural net bypassing such rudimentary biology. Layer upon layer of intensity fused to drive the kids from hysteria into senseless catatonia.
The red suited resuscitation crews scanned their screens in search of customers, dispensed medication to the needy via their servo connections, and were poised to intervene. I was going to be a long and busy day.
From the midst of the swirling, flashing colours four silhouettes separated themselves from the billowing background and stepped forward into full prominence. Explosions tore through these giants and crashed out through the audience as they stooped to pick up their instruments.
Everything slipped away as the sky filled with their presence.
For a moment they stood motionless absorbing the crowd’s psychic momentum and projecting themselves into those millions of minds. The empathy meshed.
The scream built to such a crescendo that it threatened to tear the planetoid apart.
The two characters on the right suddenly swung into action and a pulsing beat ripped through the heart of Hilan and pounded into his brain. The shrieking swelled. The two musicians stepped forward while the other two stood motionless. They swayed as they laid down their primitive beat with sophisticated rhythms. It touched something primal within them. It reached down to the most primeval areas of the brain.
The two weaved their magic and hypnotised those cells drawing the crowd in and getting them moving in time. The subtle interplay began merging in their heads in colourful helices and interlocking lattices not merely heard but experienced, engaging all their senses. It thrilled their cells so that their bodies became instruments. The kids brains were the instruments the musicians played and their cells thrilled to the manic creative wills of the performers in mesmerised ecstasy.
When the merging was complete a third player swayed into action and they shared the stuttering, wailing rise and fall of the xyllostrope – now harsh and angry – now soft and teasing. It played their moods and toyed with their emotions.
The whole sky was full. Galaxies appeared and swirled through the performers in time to the notes of the instruments. They crashed together in kaleidoscopic madness and danced through the performers. The performance resounded through the bodies of the audience. Energy flowed both ways to and fro between the performers and audience in total shared rapport. Inside their skulls each mind peered out and simultaneously looked down upon themselves. The three figures merged with the millions of minds and they became the music.
From the midst of the rapturous eternity Zargos’s eyes flashed and ten million head turned to register the painted mask of his face as he swaggered forward to the front. He stood poised and his mouth morphed into a dangerous grin. ‘Hey, step inside this skull – if you dare!’ it seemed to suggest. ‘This is where the trip begins – step in!’
Every bead of sweat, every pore and crease of his face enfolded them. They were being sucked into the vortex of his trip. They were poised on the event horizon of a journey through the electric, scintillating coiled snake of his slippery cortex.
This was Zargos – the mighty Zargos – never a dry seat in the house! He plucked them out of their bodies with his piercing arrogant eyes and drew them to him with a curl of his lip so that they thrilled with every movement of his face and sinuous body.
This was Zargos Ecstasy – the mighty Zargos – The best! You could forget the rest!
The teeth glinted and the mighty throat conjured sound and words with poetry in snarling fury, gentleness in metred love. The voice growled and purred, soared and resonated as he intoned the words that were vehicles for ideas that he pounded into the depths of their cerebral cortex. He spat bile into their minds, exhorted and challenged. They merged with the music to become the song and he played their minds.
This was Zargos Ecstasy – the greatest Rock ‘n’ Roller the universe has ever known.
They knew ever word. They understood the message. All they needed was Zargos to screw it into them and imprint it in their souls so that it seared through them. It was so good it hurt. This was Rock ‘n’ Roll – the new revolution!
‘Marc, yeeeaaah! Fantastic! You were really motorin’ there. They loved you. I’ve never seen you better,’ extolled Stiffen Drossberg, Marc’s manager, sticking out a podgy little hand to grab hold of Marc’s limp arm, patting him on his head with the other while staring admiringly straight into his eyes with her bulging beady eyes like black marbles. Stiffen’s face was split in an insane grin that was not shared by his eyes. The hand guided the exhausted Marc to a nearby chair. ‘You were fantastic!’
Soon all four of them were slumped exhausted in their seats, ragged with sweat and desolated of all feeling. They were drained of every last vestige of strength and emotion. Their eyes were glazed and nothing was registering.
The door edged open and a young face timidly peered around it with wide eyes.
‘GETTOUTA Here!!!’ Stiffen roared. ‘Doncha know better than ta poke ya head in here! SCRAM!! VAMOOSE!!’ He waved his be-ringed hands angrily in a shooing action. The startled face darted back out of sight and the door slid shut.
‘JEEZUZ’ Stiffen snarled. ‘Fucking security round here! Ya pay der earth an’ any bum can buy der way in! Wot iz dis?’
Stiffen proceeded to settle himself back into his seat where he beamed round at his boys – his band. He surveyed the bedraggled quartet with great fondness. He had adopted them when they were unknowns and steered them through the long slog of the back alley days. Now they were big – Really big!! They were the biggest in the whole fucking history of Rock! There was no limit. They had hit he wave and mastered the technology and now there was no holding them back. Ten million today: a billion tomorrow. It was uncharted ground. Nobody had ever done anything like this. This was the stuff of legends. They were already bigger than anything had ever been. They were gonna make him the King.
Jeez it made him feel good. He was riding it too. He was guiding the ship. You couldn’t help but grin. If only his parents were alive. Who would have believed this?
A frown crossed his brow. Maybe he was pushing them a shade too hard. They were looking ragged. Behind the waxy greasepaint he could see the skin was decidedly yellow and tight. He couldn’t afford to kill the golden goose. They’d better last the course. He didn’t want them cracking up on him.
He pushed the anxiety to one side and while he continued to study them anxiously he took comfort from the knowledge that they were young and hence resilient. They could take the pace.
Marc Grabchick, alias Zargos Ecstasy, the superhuman, sneering, strutting mega-idol was looking a little worst for wear. He was completely out of it. And as for that chick Agony, well she didn’t look strong enough to pick up a xyllostrope let alone tote it through one of their marathon epics and she’d been flinging it around as if there was no such thing as gravity. Agony Sexrush – yeah it looked like they’d have to rename her. But the other two looked a little bit healthier. Gazmo Thrust and Phallo Climaztik were already beginning to come out of it. They were visibly recharging. Gaz was beginning to look around and muttered something to Phal.
Stiffen cast another peep at Zargos and Agony. They looked shit. But hell – that was par for the course. They always looked like that after a big gig. It was just the come-down after the show. In an hour or two they’d be bouncing around, off out to hit the town and burning off all that pent-up adrenaline. Despite their fatigue he could see their pupils were still dilated with the excitement of performance.
He grinned to himself. Life was good.
‘Jeez, guys,’ he rumbled, shaking his head slowly and beaming round at them. ‘That was offa diz world! You’re hotter than hell and rollin’.’
All four of them swayed round to focus on the little fat man beaming over at them like some manic owl. Their eyes registered the suit and the huge Terran cigar he was pulling out of his jacket pocket. They skimmed over the rings, hanging jowls and belly. All they saw was Stiffen Drossberg. He was the man who opened all the doors and was busy powering them through the universe. He oiled the wheels. They could forget about business with Stiffen around.
My best Sci-fi books in the USA:
Ebola in the Garden of Eden
Green
Starturn – Intergalactic Rockstar
Sorting The Future
My best Sci-fi books in the UK:
Ebola In The Garden Of Eden.
Sorting The Future
Green
Starturn – Intergalactic Rockstar
I’m not sure I like the cover notes anymore. I don’t think they capture the book. I might redo them. But anyway – here they are:
The 1960s was a decade of great change. There was social upheaval and a generational split which is unparalleled. It is characterised by a naïve idealism, euphoria and optimism in the young and a reactionary conservatism in the old. Those who are familiar with the 1960s will recognise the time of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, the Beatles, Stones, Jefferson Airplane, David Bowie, Captain Beefheart, Cream, Doors, Who, Joni Mitchell, CSN, Grateful Dead, John Lennon, Joan Baez, Roy Harper, Pink Floyd, Janis Joplin, Neil Young, Country Joe and Bob Dylan and others as Rock Music played a major role in unifying Youth and reflecting the social changes manifesting themselves in society. This was the time of the 1960s Counter-Culture with its Underground Press (IT, Rolling Stone and OZ), Fun, Freaks, Acid Rock, the Black Panthers with Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, George Jackson and Angela Davies, Sex, Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights March on Washington, the Grosvenor Square anti-Vietnam War March, the Kent State Massacre, Hedonism, Paisley patterns, People’s Park, Merry Pranksters, the Assassination of the Kennedy’s, Medgar Evans and Martin Luther King, Les Cousins, LSD, West Coast, Pot, Segregation, Festivals like Monterey, Woodstock and Altamont, Kaftans, the Tet Offensive, Napalm, Mods, Cambodia, LBJ and Nixon, Kissinger, Isle of Wight, the Yippies with Phil Ochs, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, the Oz trial, Radical Politics, the Poet Allen Ginsberg, Flares, Speed, Eastern Philosophy, Mao, the Fugs Levitation of the Pentagon, Middle Earth, Drug Busts, Psychedelia, Happenings, Hippies, Turn-on, Gathering of the Tribes, Street Theatre, Heavy Metal, the Cold War, the Roundhouse, Beads & Scarves, the Electric Cinema, the Draft, Acid Tests, J. Edgar Hoover, City Lights, San Francisco, Face Paint, LA, London, UFO, Hyde Park, Love and Peace, the H-bomb, Blues, Communism, Hell’s Angels, Long Hair, Tune-in, Sexual Liberation, the Pill, Black Power, Women’s Lib, Mini-skirts, Racism, Squats, Peace-signs, Ecology, Light Shows, Chicago riots, Sit-ins, Peace Marches, the Anti-segregation Marches, Bus Boycotts and Protests, the Klu Klux Klan, Gandalf’s Garden, Drop Out, The Olympic Games with Black power Salutes – Tommie Smith & John Carlos, the Lynchings, Bob Dylan’s Motorbike Accident, Albert Grossman, Elektra, Abbey Road, Electric Ladyland, Mississippi and the Murder of Chaney Goodman & Schwerner, Emmet Till, Detroit Riots, Greenwich Village, Student Rebellion, and then later Watergate and the end of the Vietnam War. Imagine all that mixed up and placed a hundred and fifty years into the future in an Intergalactic setting?
If you would like to have a read of this book or one of my other Sci-fi novels I have put some links below:
My best Sci-fi books in the USA:
Ebola in the Garden of Eden
Green
Starturn – Intergalactic Rockstar
Sorting The Future
My best Sci-fi books in the UK:
Ebola In The Garden Of Eden.
Sorting The Future
Green
Starturn – Intergalactic Rockstar
I designed the cover using one of my own paintings.
The painting was entitled ‘Warhead’. I had envisaged a malevolent face in a nuclear explosion. The embroiled flames of the mushroom cloud was a livid red brain with the sulci and gyri of the folds of the cerebral cortex. Two eyes peered out from under the umbrella of the mushroom cloud. The funnel of superheated gas was a nose and the lips were the spreading ground explosion.
I felt it was an appropriate image to use for this Sci-fi novel. The book was explosive – about rebellion, the underworld and the establishment. Big Brother was watching and there was money to be made.
I was happy with the way the cover worked out.
If you are interested in having a read of this novel or others of my Sci-fi books there are some links below:
My best Sci-fi books in the USA:
Ebola in the Garden of Eden
Green
Starturn – Intergalactic Rockstar
Sorting The Future
My best Sci-fi books in the UK:
Ebola In The Garden Of Eden.
Sorting The Future
Green
Starturn – Intergalactic Rockstar
Introduction
I guess you would call me some kind of survivor. There’s not too many of us left these days, leastways not in any form that you might recognise. The rebellion died out a long time ago. I’m a little bitter. It just shows that for most of those that took part it was all just skin deep. But then it had its moments. For a time it looked as if everything was in the balance. There was no way of telling which way it was going to fall. We could have pulled it off. It still makes me feel good to think that we had those bastards ‘shitting bricks’. That Maliss must have had a few sleepless nights. Not too many Presidents have had to live through something that could have turned into a civil war. She must have been blowing blood vessels like popping party balloons.
Who would have thought it – Hilan Hilzar the rebel; scourge of the status quo; the ravager of law and order and potential overthrower of the entire system? I exaggerate. My role in the heady days of revolution was merely a walk-on part. I was just a bright-eyed naïve young kid who couldn’t see far enough into the future to see the inevitable. But I believed in the revolution. I still do. My beliefs survived the cynics and the sell-outs.
I still wonder if it was possible that it could have turned out differently. But I’ve always been a dreamer. I am still only just beginning to wake up to the reality of the modern world. There were always too many powerful factors stacked up against the revolution. It could never have worked. That doesn’t stop me dreaming about the impossible. Who knows? There has to be something that can be done. You can’t put up with injustice for ever. Something has to be one to put it right. I still want to believe that there will be a time and a leader who could make it happen. Hey, you’ve got to be a dreamer if we’re going to make a life that’s worth living. Where would we be without dreamers? Right in the middle of Maliss’s nightmare I suppose.
Yet we don’t know who is behind it all – pulling the strings. What faceless megalomaniac presses Maliss’s buttons? Who was it who pulled the plug on the revolution? I guess we’ll never know. What really happened to Zargos? Was it merely a question of selling out to the highest bidder? Did Zargos take the money and run? Or did they, whoever they were, set him up for a fall? We don’t even know if he’s alive. I for one, don’t think that shambling fool is the Zargos I knew.
It all revolved around Zargos.
If he is still alive I wonder what he thinks. What’s going through his head?
He had the opportunity to pull it together. He had the power. Maybe he couldn’t handle the pressure.
We were so close to having a revolution. He almost pulled it off. He was the only one who could have knitted us all together. We were a tidal wave that he’d set in motion and was deploying to crush the establishment. I often wonder if that was the way he saw it. Or was he just doing his own thing and getting off on the adulation?
Well now it’s all just conjecture isn’t it? There’s no way of telling. It’s not important. It’s only of consequence to me. It was everything to me! And it still is? It plays like a loop in my head. Life could have been so different now.
A part of me still believes that those ideals and values still live out there. They’re just waiting for another Zargos to wake them up with a vision of a new utopia; a new Zargos to give them hope and make them believe again.
I told you I was a dreamer!
Anyway, at least I can tell you all about it, can’t I?
It all began in 2165. Some would point to various signs of a change well before that but 2165 was when it is generally accepted that it began to get weird. Some say that the Galaxy whirled its way through an invisible cloud of hallucinogenic dust that only affected young brains.
Whatever it was there was some unexplained zeitgeist. Simultaneously throughout the inhabited worlds of the union, and large parts of the confederation, youth went mad. All those with minds still malleable enough to stand back and reflect on the status quo became aware. They looked at themselves, their parents and the lives that were mapped out for them. They did not like what they saw. It was all nailed down. It was all safety and boredom and that was nowhere; at least nowhere they wanted to be. They wanted something better.
Seemingly without a focus or a leader youth started dumping their nice smart city purp-suits, gave up their self-maintained city apartments, super-sharp image and began sprouting hair from every pore in their body. They donned rags that resembled strips of ripped up rainbow and began looking like mobile multicoloured rubbish dumps. They wanted something more meaningful. Matters of Species or Race became irrelevant. It no longer mattered what body type a being might conform to, or the fact that no two ragged freaks looked alike, they were all easily identifiable.
The older generation had no trouble in seeing them as a bunch of scruffy, no-good drop-outs who obviously needed a good scrubbing. As far as they were concerned the kids needed a strong dose of military discipline, and the Troman war would soon knock some sense into them; either that or a good beating. They didn’t much care which. It made their older, wiser betters want to spit. The ungrateful spoilt brats had everything and were throwing it back in their faces. What was wrong with life? They had their sopa, their holos and every comfort you could want. If you wanted to be happier you just took a second dose. Who was counting? It was free. The government dispensed it for nothing. There was no need for anyone to be unhappy. Yet these ingrates were not content with that. They needed a good hiding and many a bashing was handed out as a warning to any of those who might be nurturing similar ideas. Yet it didn’t seem to make any difference. Everywhere you looked the dirty commie bastards seemed to be dumping their soma and crawling out of the woodwork. They were intent on trouble.
The old guard were miffed. Nothing was sacred anymore. The younger generation shucked off the old values like reptilian skins. It was infuriating. These young fools were grinning as they chucked out the old beliefs. It was insulting. They were supposedly looking for some purpose, some meaning, better relationships, and some new rapport with nature. It was all bullshit. You couldn’t trust commies. They were up to no good. You could count on that. They’d preyed on all those young minds, still wet behind the ears. Maliss’s troopers would soon beat some sense back into them.
The oldsters were mad. So what if a few of the good ol’ boys got a little carried away. Those peace-queers deserved everything that was coming their way – unpatriotic traitors – arrogant reverts. You couldn’t upset the apple cart without a few apples getting squashed. They were in for a good squashing!
The generation gap had opened. The grey fogies, with their bland lives were scathing about the new hipsters. They despised them and their free-and-easy lifestyle. So they weren’t looking or new meaning, were they? It was an excuse. All they wanted was to screw each other silly and smoke that stinking droma-weed. It was that brain-rotting crap that was screwing up their minds. They couldn’t think straight with all that smoke floating round their head. What use were they to society? Didn’t they have any responsibilities? They were a no-good bunch of scroungers – free-loaders! Everyone knew that they had all those wild orgies with all those young girls, our own Terrans, our daughters dammit! They got themselves so befuddled they let themselves get screwed by those ugly fucking Draaguins! They put out for any fucking alien that fancied a bit of Terran nookie! I ask you? How would you feel if your daughter was coming home full of some stinking alien slime?
They deserved everything they got – unpatriotic commie bastards!
It didn’t worry the kids. They shrugged it off. They rode the worst and learnt to handle anything they couldn’t get out of the way of. There were things that were tough but it only served to bring them together. It added spice. They even felt sorry for the old red-neck bums, trapped in their dreary little existences. They felt sorry for them ensconced with their three-dees, holos and mind numbing soma. They were experiencing life through a pixel. Violence was what you got from such a repressed existence. With all that soma and soaps who wouldn’t go crazy? If they started on you it was best to smile, friendly like, and ease on by. It was best to throw a bit of love in there to oil the wheels. You had to try to forget the dead. There was no hope for them. They were too far gone. It was just their pointless existence, all that pent-up frustration at the waste of their lives, which was fucking them up. They were sad cases. Just slide on by and smile. They couldn’t understand; they couldn’t touch you.
What the kids had discovered was a universal empathy. It was like a laser that had sliced them off from everything that had gone before. It was contagious. You caught it from your friends. This new consciousness brought objectivity. It gave them eyes that saw things as they really were. It brought them together into some cohesive force that had brought them together into some cohesive force made up of diverse parts. The scales had dropped from their eyes. The social machinery that held their elders in place was exposed and it was twisted and ugly. They were horrified by it. They felt as if they were surrounded by stunted lives, people whose lives had failed to germinate and blossom, who had blindly struggled into shrivelled husks with all the selfish greed and fear-ridden formalities of their respective Races. They were hollow, blank corpses wandering off to the office, to contrived social events, to their clubs, to their soma-ridden home life. They filled their time with incessant burbling; their empty minds ranting and railing about nothing. They did not even know that their pointless little lives were over before they’d even begun.
Something had to change. Life had to mutate into something worthwhile. It was either that or a living death; an eternal whimper.
Something had to kindle that dormant spark in the seeds of those minds. The universal water had to gush from somewhere and awaken those sterile seeds so that they could explode into the light of infinity. That water was provided by anger. That anger came from questioning what life had become. Who was controlling this mess? Why was it all so meaningless? Once you started it was like a snowball heading downhill. Fuck work! Fuck ritual! Where’s the fulfilment? This social experiment wasn’t living; this was merely existing. We’d become glorified ants in one huge multi-planetary ant-heap. Where was the passion?
As far as youth was concerned it was time to live again. Who wanted to just exist anyway? It was time to live or burn out. It was there for the taking. You had to reach out and take it! It you weren’t out there you weren’t living.
The Freaks were here. They were walking among you. They were deliberately not looking like you. Their eyes shone with Blake-like visions. They cackled as they watched the Holos playing on the screens of their skulls. They did not want to be part of this moribund culture. They knew you’d never understand. They wanted something far more than you’d ever dreamed of. The thirteenth world war was raging in your own homes and you had not even recognised it. When your own kids looked into your eyes they were looking right through you. That war was busy raging in their own heads.
Through a chink in the curtain of reality life was peeping through and beckoning to them. It told them they had a life that needed living. There were things to experience, things to achieve, and passions to fulfil. Who needed the boring shit – Drop Out!!
If you’d spoken to them they might have told you: ‘Hey man, nature’s all around you! There’s nothing in this Plexiglas grey world you’re living in. There are colours and we’re all part of it. We’re connected to it. Living is easy. It’s about loving and sharing. So share it and feel it. Start giving ‘cos life’s too short for boredom. Come and experience every little thing. Absorb it all. There’s peace and harmony to be had. Soak up the trips, man. Just relax, man. There’s no need to grab. Every moment is different. Just share it man. There’s nothing to lose except pointlessness.’
You didn’t ask so they didn’t tell you.
It was all easy when you dropped out and slowed it all down. There’s no need to get so uptight. If you allow yourself to see that we are all really the same and life can be wonderful, full of discoveries and fun. If you open yourself up and share your feelings and insights with real people. There’s no need to possess every new three-dee box or numb your mind with soma. Who needs a three-dee anyway? Life’s real and it’s all around us. We’ve got a whole fucking universe to play with. Who needs shit and hassle? This whole crazy society is on the wrong track. It’s vicious, divisive, greedy and selfish. It creates war and poverty and exploits people. It’s plain wrong. Drop out! Share what you’ve got and smile – fucking smile – smile while you’ve still got the chance.
This was a new age. This was the age of equality and freedom. This was the birth of a new utopia.
The next fucking utopia, I hear you say. That’s all we fucking need. It doesn’t sound much like any utopia to me; just another bunch of stoned kids staggering around with their glazed grins; just another excuse to splatter semen and disconnect synapses in the name of freedom. Meanwhile who picks up the fucking bill? Who’s bringing in the money? It’s all naïve idealistic claptrap, juvenile stupidity. All they’ll end up with is an epidemic of crutch-rot and a generation of scrambled zombies sponging off the rest of us. Big deal. Who needs it? Who needs a sizzled cortex? Peace and love and all that crap. Shit.
We’re humans. We’re animals. We’re survivors. All of us. We’re here because we’re killers. We’re the nastiest mother-fuckers in the whole damn swamp. It doesn’t matter what race we are, what swamp we crawled out of, what sun shone on us, our ancestors fought like fuck. It was tooth and claw and murder all up that whole damn beach. Nobody’s innocent. We all did it the same. Forget your fucking peace and love. We still carry those killer genes. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Draaguin, a Stilph or a Human, we all carry that DNA. It’s twisted up in every cell in our body. It spells out what you are. You can’t change nature. When it comes to it there’s only one way. It is whatever it takes – gouge, destroy, torture, be first, kill and fuck everyone else. At the end of the day it’s down to you and yours against the rest of the fuckers. You stand up for your own kind; if we didn’t have that we’d never have gotten off that beach whatever the colour of that sun and you’d better not forget it. If you let your guard down they’ll fucking eat you alive. Peace and fucking love – where would that get us? Fucking idgets! We’re all blood and guts and bottled hatred. We’re all looking out for number one; looking for the edge. Without the rules of civilisation it’s a jungle. We just have to make sure that the rules favour us and not them. We’ve gotta watch our backs. We gotta keep them fuckers in their place. Once they get ideas they’re likely to try to run the show. Those fucking freaks could spoil it all.
Yeah, sure, we’re social animals. But that’s for our own sort. The real world is screw them first because they’ll fucking screw you if they get half a chance.
‘No man, you got it all wrong. It doesn’t have to be like that. Things can change. We’re not on any beach anymore. We’re not just a bunch of chemicals. We have intelligence. We can think. We don’t have to fight and kill. We aren’t trying to get our head’s above the surface. We can make a better life for everyone not just the super-rich few. We can chuck away the soma and start to really live. It’s beautiful. Everything’s possible. This universe is far out. It’s time to explore it. It’s time to share it.’
The old ways of fear, dogma and division were being challenged by a bunch of ragged freaks who were no longer high on paranoia. They were not running on lies. They believed no-one and would not be told what to buy and how to think. They chose more enlightening drugs to the numbing of soma.
It was absurd. They were just a bunch of naïve kids. Yet for all that civilisation would end up teetering on the brink of all possibility. There was a new opportunity to cleanse the spirit. There was the possibility of an evolutionary jump to a new level of compassion.
Unfettered eyes saw the possibilities and feasted on the mystery.
It was far out!
It was awesome!
At least that was how it looked to me. Civilisation was split into two warring factions. Each was looking at it from their own side; neither was trying to understand the other point of view. It sounds negative but it didn’t feel negative at the time. We felt we were really blowing away the cobwebs and laying down the foundations of a new, better world.
Fuck. It was exciting! But, unseen by me at the time, there were bigger forces at work.
Hilan Hilzar – 2193 AD.
My best Sci-fi books in the USA:
Ebola in the Garden of Eden
Green
Starturn – Intergalactic Rockstar
Sorting The Future
My best Sci-fi books in the UK:
Ebola In The Garden Of Eden.
Sorting The Future
Green
Starturn – Intergalactic Rockstar
