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'

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Mail me at gabriel.hartnell@virgin.net

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