Gaia Wakes In Mankind.

A few threads which I want to comment on in my Focus Plan for the novel, Gaia.

First: it has a number of utterly horrible events in it. The level of horrible-ness in what happens to these characters is quite beyond anything one normally reads. I will not give examples because the shock of the notions themselves is something I want to preserve.

Second: there is some extremely strange science occuring here. It is subjective or freeform. It is not what we now know of as science. It is quite strange.

This is easily explained. The original inspiration became what is now book two, a still-to-be-written sequel, and its science is more than strange. It is whimsical, weird, perverse and monstrous. It is gothic science. It is dream-and-nightmare science. So many years of exploration of this peculiar world have resulted in a first book of merely odd notions. VERY odd notions.

Third and finally is the apparent flouting of convention: events occur through one viewpoint character then another viewpoint makes sense of them in the following chapter. The sense is not of multiple independent threads but rather of a single comprehensive consciousness emerging through the characters. Again, an unusual sensation, but aligned overall with the intent.

The central idea - that Gaia, or the sum of all living systems, tends to become more conscious through human technology and culture - is explored fully and satisfyingly. In fact I have managed to boil it down to four words, which perhaps would make an excellent title, if they did not remind one of new-age mystical fictions. Those four words are:

Gaia Wakes In Mankind.