Unified Terran Community

As a meagre gesture of thanks for continuing web support and for sending so many visitors, the Unified Terran Community is once more deeply proud to display some more samples of Hot Wax Arts & Crafts excellent encautic paintings. The featured work today is from a highly collectible, unique series of small pictures. All are signed and never to be repeated! Grab them while you can!

Prices and further details can be found at Hot Wax Arts & Crafts, along with many other fine products.

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Fragile Things is a collection of short stories and verse from multi award winning author, Neil Gaiman. Originally, I was going to give a brief review of each piece in the collection. However, as there are twenty seven stories and poems in total, I shall limit my review to what I consider the highlights of this collection, as well as some general observations.
The introduction to the book is written by Gaiman himself, and explains the origins of most of the work. All but one of the stories have seen light of day already, in a variety of different places, ranging from other compilations to being published online or appearing in tour programmes for Tori Amos. The never-seen-before piece is entitled ‘How to Talk to Girls at Parties’ and is a typically surreal offering. The narrator recalls an incident from his youth encapsulating the the awkwardness of young men trying to talk to young women but with Gaiman’s distinctive, otherworldly spin.
A number of the stories in this book were commissioned for various sources, which gives a rich range of content. The story ‘Goliath’ was written for the website associated with the film ‘The Matrix’. The story is inspired by some of the concepts used in the film trilogy, but uses Gaiman’s own backstory rather than being a story set in the Matrix universe. If anything, the story is more reminiscent of the stories of Philip K. Dick in mood and atmosphere, particularly the Dick short story entitled ‘The Adjustment Team’.
The short story ‘A Study in Emerald’ is a marvellous pastiche of Doyles’ Sherlock Holmes and Lovecrafts’ Cthulhu Mythos. As always, the narrator of the story is the stalwart Dr Watson but there is little else about the story that is traditional Holmes fare. Gaiman has taken both of the sources, mixed them expertly and made the darkly comic result his own. I imagine there are a few people who have pondered how well the Great Detective would fare against the Mythos, I must admit I had never considered what would happen if Holmes worked for the Mythos…
Another of the stories which draws upon another authors’ universe is the intriguing ‘The Problem of Susan’. The Susan in question is the one from the ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ series by C.S. Lewis. Readers of that series may recall that Susan was no longer considered a ‘friend of Narnia because she’s too fond of lipsticks and nylons and invitations to parties’ [Fragile Things, p244]. Essentially when the other children went to Heaven, she was left behind. Gaiman offers us his insight on Susan’s life after this display of cosmic inequality, does a fondness for lipstick preclude a place in Heaven?
The award for Most Sinister Story in the Collection is hereby awarded to the tale ‘Closing Time’. Told as a story within a story, it is another anecdote from the weird-childhood-events part of Gaiman’s imagination. Another commissioned story; this one was requested to be in the style of M.R. James, something the author achieves admirably without merely cloning James’ writing style. Distictly chilling, this is one of, if not my favourite story in the collection and is a worthy addition to the genre of the ghost story.
The last story in the book, ‘The Monarch of the Glen’, is a treat for fans of Gaiman’s novel ‘American Gods’ as it continues the adventures of the protagonist, Shadow. The story is set in Scotland and is a reimagining of a key sequence in the saga of Beowulf. As Shadow has already been identified with elements of Norse and Germanic mythology in ‘American Gods’, the story works effortlessly, drawing on the ancient connection between Scotland and the Scandinavian countries for background colour.
The story ‘Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire’ is a hilarious gem, which according to the author’s notes has been lurking around for a number of years. It is cleverly constructed with the action switching between a baroque, gothic story and the author of said story, as he attempts to avoid the pitfalls of sterotyping and cliche.
To come to some sort of conclusion, then, this is a very solid collection of work. To be candid, I really have to be in the mood for poetry and I really wasn’t when I read this, so I just skipped them. They do, after all, take up only a few pages and Gaiman himself suggests they be considered a free bonus. To paraphrase, the book wouldn’t cost any less with the poems removed, so your not being ripped off ;-] As I say, among the stories there are no duds whatsoever, this is vintage Gaiman and I defy any fan not to enjoy this collection.

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The Unified Terran Community will now be hosting its own book reviews. The first one will be up in the next couple of days, so keep checking back!

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For your reading pleasure, there is now a button attached to each post and story which will allow you to view/download them in handy .pdf format. Hope you find that helpful, see you around!

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Afternoon folks, I’m pleased to say the second episode of the ‘Travellers Tales’ series, featuring Maeldune and Eris, is now up on the site. As always you can either find it here or, you can find it in the ‘Stories’ section on the right hand side of the homepage. Enjoy and feel free to leave comments!

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Evening folks, I am very pleased to say the conclusion to the story “Panic, Frenzy and Madness” Part 2, is now posted on site. As always you can find it in the stories catagory to the right of the homepage or, you can click on its name in this post. Read, enjoy and feel free to leave comments.

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Evening folks! I have posted a new short story called “The Nameless Man”. You can find it by either clicking on the name or by looking in the ‘Stories’ section to the right. This one is set in the dark final days of twenty first century society, although it is connected to the greater Unified Terran Community story arc. There will be at least another couple of these, hence ‘Part 1′. Read, Enjoy and feel free to leave comments!

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Although the Unified Terran Community has no single leader, as such, they were initially guided by the vision of a cabal of scientists, philosophers and philanthropists. Pre-eminent among them was the man known as Heru Seleem. The precise origins of the man are shrouded in mythology, it seems, however, that Heru Seleem was the first human to retain full memory of his previous incarnations every time he was reborn. Heru was believed to have been born in Egypt near the end of the period referred to, by twenty first century scholars, as the Early Dynastic Period. It is thought that Seleem was a member of the Egyptian priesthood on several incarnations, as well as living diverse other lives serving as advisor to several Pharaohs, as well as developing numerous agricultural and alchemical techniques over several lifetimes. Many of the advances in agriculture which made food readily available Egypt were methods pioneered by Seleem. For Seleem himself, his most useful discovery was an alchemical recipe, ancient even then, which taught him the skills required to create living, but soulless simulacra. He used these vessels to reincarnate himself into an adult form, so that he could continue whatever work was consuming him at that time.

As the centuries rolled past, Seleem wandered the planet, exploring the rise and fall of a multitude of civilisations. As Seleem travelled, he began to see a pattern emerging from the history of ages. He began to take note of what aspects of a culture caused its initial growth and prosperity as well as taking note of the characteristics of cultural degeneration. He slowly began to conceive of a society where mankind could truly prosper. The main obstacle to overcome was the implementation of this massive cultural change. Seleem swiftly realised he would require considerable time and help to realise his plan and began to seek out certain individuals who he felt would see the value of his scheme. As preparations slowly built, Seleem was saddened and frustrated by the loss of his comrades to the inevitability that was death, and subsequent loss of memory upon reincarnation. Seleem understood the cause of the phenomena, and began to dream of a method of crossing the Lethean Barrier, while retaining recollection of past events. Employing principles conceived of by Pythagoras, Seleem began to work on the prototype of the Mnemosyne Device during the sixteenth century, aided in his work by Dr John Dee, advisor to the English Queen, Elizabeth I. During this period, Seleem also had frequent contact with Francis Bacon, whose ideas, he strongly influenced. When the first Mnemosyne Device was finally constructed in the seventeenth century, Dr Dee was the first soul to employ it as a means of incarnating into a simulacrum. Seleem carefully hid the Device from world at large, and began to approach the people who eventually become the founders of the Unified Terran Community.

Meanwhile, the endemic violence of the human race continued. Despite not actively fighting, Seleem was killed sixty three times during the Second World War. By this time, Seleem had seen thousands of years of conflict and strife between the nations of man and had concluded that a truly fundamental change had to occur. Seleem gathered his technologist allies and, in the dark days of the early twenty first century, they made their move. It took the rest of that incarnation for Seleem and his allies to stabilize the Community. As he approached the end of his incarnation, Seleem announced that he would not return immediately, but instead planned to explore the spirit world and return once he had learned the ‘wisdom of the distant shadows’. That was a little over two hundred years ago, and no one has seen or heard from Heru Seleem since.

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Hey folks, I’ve posted the part one of ‘Panic,Frenzy and Madness’. Part two will with you soon! You can find the story by either clicking on its name in this post, or by looking in the ‘Stories’ section on the right of the page. Read and enjoy!

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