LAST OF THE CATHEDRA by Hertzan Chimera available now in trade paperback.

CHIMERICANA BOOKS PUBLISHING NEWS: my latest novel under the writing name Hertzan Chimera is available today via Amazon in your area. 250 pages. 6" by 9" trade paperback format. Cover art by yours truly.

 

 

 

Yes, it's sci-fi. 

Yes, it's apocalyptic. 

Yes, it's A LOVE TRIANGLE.

 

 

Hertzan Chimera 2019 Short Stories #1: A FRIEND LIKE ME...

He sat down beside me. That day. Just a random fella. Big beard. Big coat. Asked me if I'd like to share his three cans of beer, he didn't call it that.

"Three into two won't go," I nearly said. Instead, I politely declined his offer of 'beverage' with a barely raised hand.

So he continued to drink. Sat next to me. He'd slurp on his cans. One and then the next. Wipe his beard with a greasy backhand, "I knew you once," he cracked open his final can of beer.

"Knew you once," he said again, hand to beard. Called me 'Captain'. It wasn't here, of course, he added with a sly look in his eye and a subtle shake of his head. It was some other place, he added, quite a long way away.  That was how he put it 'quite a long way away'. Then he left it like that, in the air, for a few shared moments. The Christchurch bells rang across town. The clouds moved slowly, in the sky.

I could smell his beery breath. It took me a while to realise he'd sidled up a little closer to me. Squinting right into my face, he was. His left eye screwed up into his cheek in a grotesque mask of analysis.

"Yup," he'd know that face anywhere. But he didn't say anything further. Got to his feet with a long groan like the years had truly taken their toll upon his body.

"I'll not tell anyone I've seen you," was his final parting shot. And then he was gone.

And I continued to sit there, underneath the Martyrs Monument in central Oxford, haunted by the knowledge that I'd just witnessed the passing of the Leviathan and I'd lived to tell the tale. For the moment, I was safe. But for how long?

Last of the Cathedra - the new writing phase begins - six leagues and all's well

2019 cover

After a slightly abortive start in August 2018 (where I spent too much of my annual holiday time reading Haruki Murakami's KILLING COMMENDATORE) and got most of the characters the wrong way round in the first three chapters but with books of hand-written notes to fill in the narrative gaps, I'm back writing the 2020 Hertzan Chimera sci-fi novel "Last of the Cathedra".

As of this morning, prior to my jog, I a) have a fully-fledged 24-chapter structure b) the three main characters in this 'love triangle' suitably re-motivated character-wise c) a full Sunday-to-Sunday week off work to really hammer this baby good and hard for a sustained period.

I'll report back next Sunday to let you'all know how it went and what the book turned into. I can feel it in my bones, some narrative high-jinx is curdling the fungus of my writing feet.

Yes, I write with my feet. Tsugi no nichiyoubi made... ciao bambinos.

LAST OF THE CATHEDRA - updated cover - close to beginning the DOC

final cover concept

August, it'll probably begin in August when I have a week off from work, the writing of the new Hertzan Chimera novel LAST OF THE CATHEDRA.

I've been 'letting the novel stew' since completely filling the delicious notepad I bought a month or so ago. It's like this thing now has a life of its own, and instead of adding my notes to the already-busy earlier draft of this book spanning the last three years... I'm gonna start a NEW DOC and revel in the real new moments of narrative and character discovery that 'writing this damned thing' will undoubtedly introduce to the mix.

ALL PLANS ARE OFF, now it's just a case of 'going back to basics' and enjoying the dance of fingers on keyboard... oh, here's a new (stripped back) cover design to illlustrate the New Start. Split the name in three because RA but not just that... it's also to reflect the 'three main characters' of the serial narrative, on both planets of the tale.

The third planet's right at the end but we don't talke about that, it's a magickal secret between myself and the reader.

Hertzan Chimera novel - LAST OF THE CATHEDRA - three faction chapter headers

LAST OF THE CATHEDRA
triple chapter headers...

I did this in my 2008 novel Planet of the Owls, where each alternate chapter had either a graphic human_header or an owl_header.

This book, there are three factions embroiled in a Classic Love Triangle... Cathedra, Human and D-reamer.

There'll be a relevant chapter number above each of these serial icons as the book unfolds its chapters. It's currently the plan that chapter 1 and chapter 23 will form the prologue and the epilogue of this book, written by (or from the perspective of) the Last of the Cathedra.

Hertzan Chimera novel - LAST OF THE CATHEDRA - narrative update and new cover

enhanced cover concept

you're right, this is how I plan and execute my novels...

No, this is not a new novel. 

As you'll see from the subtle update of the last cover this new novel had, it's the same novel. Well, it's a content output from the last three years of notes leading up to the writing of this novel.

"The story started to resolve itself very successfully today and I now understand a lot more about the two central characters of this inter-galactic love story and their pivotal roles within this universe of words."

Hope it continues to write itself in such an emotive way.

Hertzan Chimera novel - CARRIERS AND CATHEDRALS - narrative update and new cover

inspirational cover concept

So, I'm back from my relaxing holiday and I think I have the basis of certain story elements that will sit happily within the alien-prequel-esque structure of my new my INTERGALACTIC SLAVETRADE novel Carriers & Cathedrals.

 It's gonna be pure romance; pure lovely, love! 

Since the pre-holiday Happen announcement, the book has concreted around certain key narrative threads and while it conveys itself across this intial plane of the narrative process the cover and title of the book have changed.

Here's the best way to describe this book, "Alien Prequel That Never Was."  I know there are many people out there who were disgusted with how Ridley Scott butchered Gigerworld with his terrible Alien-prequel i.e. Prometheus. This book isn't that pile of steaming corporate bullshit, believe me. This book is how we get the perky inhabitants of Gigerworld onto the planet LV-426 without all that space-jesus black-goo ass-cracker-crew live-forever-like-a-robot-called-David nonsense. 

Not sure if cover/title will stay this way but it's 'illustrative' of where the current path of the INTERGALACTIC SLAVETRADE vector is going.

Fuck off, HC, it's a mainstream romance!

QUICK-FEEDBACK UPDATE: while the 'new' title Carriers & Cathedrals sounds like an implied narrative amalgamation between Military and Church, the 'carriers' aren't really those kind of Carriers and the 'cathedrals' aren't really those kind of Cathedrals. It's great that I'm getting such feedback so early in the day of this post going live suffice to say, "You're all gonna be surprised (I hope) and delighted to see where this strange-prequel-lovestory narrative goes."

Or went...

Hertzan Chimera novel - HAPPEN - about to...?

On the back-burner since late 2015, this proposed 'new novel' from Hertzan Chimera has been through several title revisions already. I always do this during a book's life-span, as the thrust of the book resolves itself over various phases of narrative revelation.

And a new title lends itself to new cover art, added.

But with this one (so far) it's all been under-the-radar of the usual real-time writing process. I literally have hundreds of pages of notes and no desire to ring-fence the story... just a feeling that the psycho-morphic slave-trade world of HAPPEN (as it's currently called) is about to awaken from its long-distance inter-stellar stasis.

Is the writing proper about to begin? Feels like it might...

Alien Covenant - deleted scene - David explains his research and future plans for a Queen

I mean, "I'm not sure if/how the following deleted scene from Alien Covenant could have been woven into the plot somewhere..." it kinda puts a long-stop to the action (derivative corridor airlocking ret-con that it became) of the last reel. It certainly couldn't have come before the scene where the Facehugging begins...

This David-speech needed to be said, "Somewhere," in the final moments of Alien Covenant. Or maybe as an edited GENESPLICE into the flowing climax of the narrative, somehow. Building and revealing the details of David's encroaching mind-mutiny.

It's just too good to have been neglected... you know, if you have any faith at all in the fact that 'David designed the Xenomorph' as a genetic warrior i.e. weapon for Weyland-Yutani.


Personally, I still think the SPACE JOCKEY or GANESHA-LIKE TRUCKER from Scott's original Alien should have been a genomorph hailing from a planet/race of such who trade the human genome across the developing galaxy, such is its fantastic potential for CANCEROUS mutation.

Make (what we now call) 'humanity' the star of the show, would have been 'my interpretation' of any Alien Prequel -- man among the giants of the universe. Make it Giger-sexy, a Caligula space opera. Don't bother with 'a Queen' as the xenomorph can clearly BE all it wants, make all it wants. Thanks to the captive human genestrokes...

Make it an aeons-running human-trafficking story that ended with a 'space trucker' SCHINDLER'S LIST-LIKE hyperspace-unfolding and soft-landing his eggy-cargo exodus/legacy of human DNA on LV426. And have it done with. Fuck it, I'm gonna write this re-timeline Giger-nostalgia into my next Hertzan Chimera story CUNTLAND CHRONICLES. It's gonna bite! Sordid-tasty, real nasty!

Hertzan Chimera - Bukkakeworld and Planet of the Owls - tenth anniversary editions?

 

Released simultaneously by Silverthought Press of NY, I'm very tempted to re-issue the 40,000 words novels Bukkakeworld and Planet of the Owls via Chimericana Books in these special TENTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION covers some time in 2018.

Hertzan Chimera novel - Drivers passing in the night - mainstream romance product?

DRIVERS PASSING IN THE NIGHT....
you know, the other day, I nearly (seriously) thought about writing a straight i.e. mainstream, romance novel using the writing voice of Hertzan Chimera.

For it was to be
About partial/sporadic reincarnation
And the retention of the LoveDrive across
Billowing aeons of spatial race...

Still might...

Free Planet - eradicate profit - reverse ownership

"Over time, those things that we own tend to own us..." Wendy the Renegade, in Hertzan Chimera's novel Cuntland Chronicles.

The dreams begin again:

If you wait for something long enough, your unconscious brain will start telling you how you should get on with it.

And this has happened every novel I've written. Since the early works such as The Fountains Institute trilogy, through the 00-ies novels Yoroppa, View From A Stolen Window, Bukkakeworld and Planet of the Owls, right up to the latest Free Planet and War World dual/duelling trilogies, dreams have been the way these books have been structured.

After three years of structural and thematic thinkage on the subject of the next Hertzan Chimera novel, the dreams have started again, in earnest. Now is the time to be getting on with the next part of HC's literary journey across the ZenSual universe. One must listen to this inner, dreaming, consciousness - it's how and why we got as far as we did in such a short (historical) time frame.

Your semi-conscious brain knows what's good for you - it's a survival mechanism - like renouncing the ridculous top-down or insidious reverse-ownership mentality of For God and Country. The brain just knows, deep inside its electric collagen, what's right for You The People and what's right for You The Free Planet.

It's too easy sometimes, once you cut out Profit via Patent from your planetary diet, to remain a cheerful healthy and creative race of individuals well into the future.

Fuck those arbitrary borders.
Fuck those arbitrary rules.
Fuck secrecy in all its forms - information is your friend.

forthcumming Oxford novel - from Randall Revisited - to Cuntland Chronicles

best cover concept to date... :)

gah, I always liked the concept of re-visiting the (United States-era) dream-planet of Randall.  And finally I decided to get on with it...

But was I really happy with the proposed title of Randall Revisited?

Did I really want what might be my last Hertzan Chimera novel to come across like some sort of soft scifi loosely based on an Evelyn Waugh homo-romp aka The Sacred & Profane Memories of Charlie T Driver?

Was I happy that Hertzan Chimera's lasting legacy would be mispronounced around the book-review world by some camply lisping podcaster to Wandall Wevisited... I mean, we've all seen Monty Python's Life of Brian, right? Woger?

A Hertzan Chimera novel about cars and fucking and intergalactic mind-fracture needs a meatier title, right? Hence and therefore. From this day forward. Til death do us part. The next i.e. forthcumming, Zensual fiction Hertzan Chimera novel is to be called CUNT LAND chronicles.

Let the reading world take heed... and beware.