With the completion of Vampire Story (now named The Chosen), I have begun brainstorming for my next project while seeking out agents and all that crap. All I have is a rough premise of the storyline.


Arnett Tanner wants to die.

Due to the ability to store and transfer consciousness, and goverment owned and controlled servers holding the back-up "minds" for every citizen, no one has suffered true death, the loss of consciousness for several hundred years.

I haven't really thought about, or worked out all the kinks yet. Several questions arise, do people still raise children, at what age is consciousness transferred after the death of the physical body, etc.

My initial thought is that children are cryogenically frozen (or something) after birth, maturing to whatever age someone wants to start living their life from.

Idk, I think it's interesting, haha.

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Kind of goes along with the Matrix/brain-in-a-vat philosophical theory. I dig it

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I think it sounds interesting. You could have a pretty good story on your hands.

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Throughout the next few days, I'll be ironing out some of the kinks by asking all the why questions. Why does this happen as opposed to that, etc.

One of the more daunting tasks is coming up with a future world that is (hopefully) frighteningly possible, and at the same time doesn't copy anyone.

One of the key elements (I think) will be that, without a fear of death, religion has become very much obsolete, if not altogether extinct.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

Interesting angle. In the new Battlestar Galactica series, the Cylons had resurrection technology and basically eternal life, yet their religion was a central theme to the story. Of course, it also got magnified later when they lost that technology and became mortal.

Hmm, I've never seen any Battlestar Galactica. I'll have to think about it some more. I think with no real afterlife, any thoughts towards satisfying a supreme being become somewhat secondary. Especially since laws are so complicated now that religion no longer serves as the moral basis for society.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

It sounds like a world run on logic, and no feelings. For that, I give the book a thumbs up.

However, that also makes me wonder what you did with all the women, and that makes me give you a thumbs down

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This idea was core in the re-imagined BSG universe.

A form of organic memory transference, aka resurrection technology, was developed at a certain point of the story. When someone died, their consciousness was 'downloaded' into another body, as long as they were within range of a resurrection hub .

Throughout the story, the Cylons did things that resulted in their own deaths, but without fear since they knew they would simple wake up in another body. Many plot lines revolved around this fact. Much later on in the story, all of the resurrection hubs were destroyed, forcing the Cylons to confront their newfound mortality.

Even if you don't enjoy sci-fi, the BSG series is an awesome story, and told very well.

Hm, sounds more like a story about "Big Government" wanting even MORE control of their populace. Where is ETC to warn us of the dangers we're facing!?

Ok, seriously, I really like the concept, although I could only really see it being a sort of, indirect storyline...like, that in and of itself wouldnt make much of a story, it would obviously have to be about someone (or multiple people) and how this affects them, or society, or..whatever. It is a very interesting backdrop for a story, when you get writing and have some material you should update us.

Well that's where Tanner comes in, the protagonist. He wants to die, but is unable to since his back-up memory is stored in some government building.

Thinking about it further today, I think the government will mandate yearly uploads (like physicals) so everything is always relatively current.

I believe that since Tanner will have attempted suicide before (only to wake up in a new body) he will have an assigned suicide watch officer (like a parole officer) or something.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

This book sounds cool, but it's way too complicated for a simpleton like me.

Kinda like, matrix meets 1984. Very cool idea; I think you should run with it.

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"She's like plan C after an 18 pack"

Squanto 7/27/2010

Alex, this is a strong as hell concept you can run with. Which way are you planning on taking this - Tanner hooks up with guerrillas who want to restore mortality to the human race (Mortalists?) kind-of thing, or moreso Tanner becoming the voice of an underground movement to make the human race human again?

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mechaphil

That sounds great, no sarcasm lol. I would definitely read a book like that, and I am not as big a fiction person outside the classics as I used to be.

That'll be a nice piece of work if you get around to writing it... and by "piece of work" I mean a big pain to sort out all the details so they're not woefully inconsistent. Do it, though. It's a really good concept.

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Miles to go before I sleep

‎"Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation."
-Khalil Gibran

Certainly there are a lot of different directions you can take this. But I think no matter what, it'll have to somehow center around the concept of "what makes life worth living?". It's sort of like what I tell my students sometimes when they say they just want to have fun. I tell them there would be no fun in life without hard times or boredom, because if you were just having "fun" all the time, fun would be normal and would become boring because you have nothing to contrast it with. Likewise, death makes life special and forces you to value moments because they are fleeting. Take away death, and where to you find joy in life that stretches out before you endlessly. I envision a world where people look even more desperately for an escape from life (substance abuse), and where the respect for life of any sort is almost completely missing.

fertile literary ground indeed. Good luck.

Started writing the first chapter. This will be tough. Considering it's set several centuries in the future, EVERYTHING will be different.

A sample:
Note, I haven't proofread anything and I'm still working with a very loose idea so it may well be crap.

Arnett Tanner blinked his eyes a few times, his mind not fully registering where he lay or how he got there. The room was starkly white with a red stripe running along the center of the walls. As things slowly came into focus, he began to take stock of his other senses. There was the smell, one he knew all too well, the vaguely medicinal scent of the hospital, intermingling with whatever concoction that passed for food that his neighbor was enjoying.

There was beeping, but that came from outdoors. Some sort of construction occurring on the blacktop below. His vital signs were being shown on a series of projections on the wall next to his bed, the grey mechanical sleeve over his wrist monitoring his stats with a near imperceptible hum.

"Didn't think you'd pull through this time, barely made it." The voice came from a large broad shouldered man sitting in a chair in the corner by the window. Lars Hanson stroked his stubbly black goatee, giving Tanner a smile that in time past wouldn't have been remotely sincere. As he'd come to know Tanner better, having been his Suicide-Watch Officer for at least three cycles now, he had to admit he was becoming endeared to the man, in spite of his morbid obsessions.

Tanner gave him an amused stare. Of course it wasn't true. Since the ability to be "reborn," np one had died for centuries. Data storage and biotechnology had long since progressed to the point where entire consciousnesses could be stored on small black wedges. At first it was simply a tool of the rich. Pay millions, and you don't have to die. Your mind and memories can be stored, waiting to be accessed.

In the early days, an existence as a communicative computer terminal wasn't much preferable to death. Still there had been those that had clung to any last vestiges of life that they could get their intangible hands on. Quickly the technology progressed from computer terminals to more anthropomorphic robotic creations. Of course, with only a bastardized programmatic re-creation of the five senses, that option hadn't been terribly palatable either.

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