The Bumbly-verse

Pinning down that timeline

As I get further into The Hunt for Pierre Jnr and the piece I'm working on for the upcoming Sci-Fi themed Seizure magazine, it was time for me to get the timeline of the Bumbly world under-control.

So I've started a page that I can update and access when I need to, tis more for my reference than anyone else, but thought readers might like to have it on hand also.

Below is what I have so far, but I'll keep the Timeline page updated from now on.

• 2084–2105 : "Second Dark Ages." End marker of which is generally agreed as the date Orj and his colonies were imprisoned on the hulks (space-freighters converted to prisons) 
• 2151 : The Psionic development project is shut down, Pierre Jr is born
• 2159 :April 7: First manifestation of Pierre Jr
• 2165 : SIB control
• 2186 : Gustav Fermat returns from 50 year long journey to Fomalhaut
• 2193 : Lucius Gregg publishes treatise on laws of diversity (incorrectly dated in Bumbly Goes Forth)
• 2201 : Ernst Lorret passes (born 2134)
• 2209 : first recorded homo sapien digitalis
• 2234 : The Weaver rewriting/uprising.
• 2277 : Teleposting revives the teleportation technology
• 2280 : Rahj Hadid reaches edge of galaxy (hundred year journey)
• 2321 : GONN created
• 2327 : GONN destroyed
• 2338 : February 6th, Parity Day
• 2365, first successful human teleportation
• 2375 : Mangotan development halted
• 2383 : First successful Homunculi breeding
• 2460 : Museum of Unnatural History is destroyed by inferno
• 2465 : Bumbly and Sveldt leave Earth
• 2480 : Casket of Hieronymous T Bumbly to reach Earth

 

A moment of illumination

Felt the need to be creative last night. I started with abstract shading and perspective bending before identifying the organic flower-like thing I was drawing.

I thought to myself that this would fit with the Illuminati that make an appearance in the next book of Bumbly.

 

Imagekind for posters and prints with frames

I'm trying out a new service called Imagekind for putting artwork up and out to the world on the off chance that anyone is inclined to support the museum :) 

   
 

I've been looking for a place that offers a higher quality product and interface, and Imagekind could be it. Please report back on any findings.

You can find my gallery at Bumblyverse.imagekind.com

Ideas and nightmares

In answer to one of those perpetual questions, "where do your ideas come from?". While usually best left unanswered, or rationally explained as the natural process of digesting the sensorium one soaks in, sometimes, just sometimes, one has a nightmare. I have learned, overtime, to embrace them, though I may wake clothed in sweat, visions of places I've never been fading from my mind as if they were never there. When they happen they are often some of the strangest thoughts, the most bizarre twistings of my waking reality that one tries to remember as much as one can. Nightmares are not rational, not afterwards anyway. 

The following dream was quite narratorial and I hope one day to develop it further into a story of intergalactic warfare. I wrote this straight after waking and, as is becoming common for me, much of the wording passed through my mind as the dream progressed, internal monologue style.

The first explosion didn't shake us. 

    I noticed a curious zephyr of orange-coloured dirt fountaining into the sky. This was joined by rocks and I pointed for my lover to watch. The rocks grew bigger, one by one, and the dirt stopped and only blocks rose and flipped up. It started about 200 metres away, behind some trees and a row of two-storey shops. It seemed to slow and we, along with the crowd around us, thought it would stop before it reached us. Of course, it did not. The slowing was only relative, each block became distinct from the source; landing and crushing what was beneath it. We started to run, but a flyover was crumbling above us, we did our best to dodge the fall of its fractured pieces. I held her and shielded her as I do when she is cold.

    That part ended and we looked back from whence it had begun. A rattle spread out, fast as an explosion, a clackety metal sound that came at us and went past before we could react. There was no reaction that would have saved us. I wanted to whisper, "don't move," but doing so may have meant my death. I tried to communicate this though, by squeezing her tightly, making it clear I wouldn't let her go. I wanted to whisper, "traps," so she knew what was happening. 

    I recognised the attack, we had simulated it happening many times; although I couldn't be sure what restrictions the traps would impose. They merely lay themselves through me, one filament at a time, cutting without cutting and threading their tension over my organs.

    It seemed Earth had, at last, come to reclaim us.

A pictorial explanation of my week in Melbourne

Fun was had by all. Some great folk met and great foods eaten.

Pierre Jnr: the first hunt reached final draft. Now it goes to the Bumbly committee.

Pierre and the Punctuation zeitgeist

Spent all day yesterday ploughing through my Pierre Jnr re-read. One of my main complications with this series is the multiple kinds of dialogue, and communicating each one through text formatting. Let me give you an example.

'Normal dialogue is in single quotation marks,' the author said. 

Even though I prefer double quotations marks, but the punctuation zeitgeist is against me on this one, he thought. Thoughts and telepathic messages are in italics; as are words which need extra emphasis.

Messages that come in through symbiot are more like today's text messaging or email, so I've done them up like a play script.

Author: Messages like this have a more deliberated feel.

That's all for now, though will update this post once I've sorted out the two kinds of section breaks.