The Nature Preserve novel is here.
The Nature Preserve novel is here.
THE NATURE PRESERVE serial novel is sci-fi. It's fantasy. It's satire. It's fully posted. Read a short blurb about it here.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mr Swan. She doesn’t exist. And you do not go to the Cloudscape.” She pointed to her head. “The Cloudscape simply appears here. There’s a difference, you know.”
“But somebody… a person, might use her body.”
“Mr Swan. You’re so deluded it’s pitiful.” Dr Escobar frowned. “Your devices have become your vices. The first thing you need to do is go outside.” Her tiny black pupils glittered as her voice rose. “You need to spend time with living human beings. You do know some, don’t you?”
In the virtual world, Swan sees himself as an intrepid explorer of a vast, seamless metaverse where his fantasies are always fulfilled. In the real world, he’s a sick and emaciated 19-year-old afraid to leave his room. Finally realizing the disastrous state of his physical and mental health, he seeks out the world’s last psychiatrist who prescribes “environmental therapy.” Thus begins Swan’s daily visits to the Nature Preserve, a 369-acre plastic therapy garden meant to represent living nature at a time when plants and animals no longer exist. He encounters Ottala there, a four-and-a-half-inch-tall fairy dancer and brave conceptual artist, who quickly becomes his heartthrob and muse. Is she real or another of his hallucinations? As a result of his struggle to find out, he gets expelled into the wastelands beyond the last city. Hopeless but full of hope, dragging his few possessions in a rolling suitcase, Swan’s greater, more perilous, real-life struggle begins to unfold….
“Frenetic paintings of animals and naked dancers were splashed over every wall. Catwalks made of planks and string crisscrossed the darkened hollow. Teensy lights and bits of mirror dangled. The town defied gravity. It defied everything. It was as precarious as Swan’s own reality, about to come crashing down at any moment….”
Please note: As of 10/31/23 Real Voices is discontinued. I am hoping to complete the novel and publish it elsewhere. ONLY THE FIRST TEN CHAPTERS ARE AVAILABLE HERE.
In a San Francisco office building, circa 2011, Neville Furman toils away at a big-time ad agency, overlooked and unseen. So does his cube mate, the acid-tongued, unrestrained and sexually-frustrated Myrna Phelps. After they’re both involved in a terrible “accident” during a lunch break on the waterfront, their fortunes quickly change. Myrna meets her soulmate, and Neville is able to see into a disturbing parallel reality that’s influencing the behavior of everyone around him. The root of Neville’s misfortunes is suddenly made clear. The question remains: will his newfound ability to see into this other world help him realize his hopes and dreams? And if it does, will he be able to use his secret insight to affect the lives of others?
“So a pattern is emerging: The behavior of people on earth is modified by the personalities of the beings that cling to them. Whether these are ancestors or reincarnations, you have no way of knowing. You can’t hear them or speak with them though it’s clear they talk among themselves. You can only observe their behavior, their body language, their gestures. You can see their lips moving and the expressions on their faces.”