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WORK IN PROGRESS
'The Compendium' is a collection of science fiction stories from the run of the mill to the bizzare,
encapsulating various cultures, ideas, narratives and styles from the attempts of a group of
'chosen' survivors to flee Earth in a high tech spacecraft as a global killer meteor hurtles towards the planet
to the comical attempts of a group of bumbling freemasons to travel back in time to renact miraculous
events after Satan deletes God's work from history, to the pains of a young girl struggling to overcome a drug addiction on a train journey across South east Asia where nothing is what it appears to be, to the fast paced diary of a mid Twenty firt centuary
environmentalist keen to avert the threat of overpopulation to an exotic retelling of Shakespeare's Macbeth
in a Rapa Tanui tribal guise.
This is not a collection of short stories. 'The Compendium' presents these and many more sci fi tales
not one after another, but as a set of intertwining, interacting plots which though initially appear
to be unconnected, are tied up in one unexpected finale.
'The Compendium' uses both traditional science fiction ideas and totally new concepts, and combines
the technological and the spiritual to create a vivid concoxion of colourful characters and
storylines which may or MY NOT pan out the way the reader envisages. Shaped by both Eastern and Western influences, 'the Compendium', if it were a movie, would resemble an interfusion of traditional sci fi and Japanese manga with a wholesome pinch of outlandish philosophy and a virtual casarole of knotted plotlines. Contorting twists
lurk around every corner, as do humerous, unexpected and occasionally disturbing ties with
other stories contained within its pages.
And just what IS 'the Compendium'? An urban myth? Supersticious nonsence? Or something altogether
more sinister?
Sneak peak first draft chapters
CHARACTER PORTRAITS FOR CHARACTERS FROM 'THE COMPENDIUM'
Mail me at gabriel.hartnell@virgin.net
All material on this and connected pages are protected by general copyright. Please do not thieve anything from these pages without my consen