Simon of Space: A Blook by Cheeseburger Brown

PostScript 6: Beyond Ephemera

2008-08-14T10:00:00.000-04:00

Good news, everyone!

Now that we've reached the end of availability for the limited edition Simon of Space hardcover from Ephemera Bound, I'm pleased to announce that the complete novel is now once again accessible via the Web to read for free.

Of course, if squinting at a computer display isn't your 'druthers, a brand new softcover third edition is also on sale now, featuring a freshly edited manuscript and all new cover art.

Finally, the highly creative experimental electronica combo Syntax Error has released an overture and complete symphonic suite of incidental music composed to accompany your read. All tracks are available as free MP3 downloads.

If you enjoy supporting independent artists, please buy my book. If you simply enjoy a thrilling, engaging and amusing story, please read it online. If you like to bop while you read, please feel free to download and share the new musical score.

Yours,
Cheeseburger Brown

PostScript 5: Publication

2008-02-16T14:31:00.003-05:00

Ephemera Bound's hardcover edition of Simon of Space is available now via Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

This new edition was re-edited by Marsha Rogers, and features original cover art by Ashley Bosch. Many thanks go out to Derek and Deanna Dahlsad for pulling everything together.

Please buy my book. In return, I'll trade you a story-world suitable for full imagination immersion without any assembly required; narrative hooks are included at no additional cost. Order now.

Yours,
Cheeseburger Brown

Post Script 4: Hardcover, Ho!

2007-10-21T16:09:00.001-04:00

Post Script 3: Revisions Rendered

2006-12-28T20:54:00.000-05:00

Hi friends. You know me. I'm your befuddled typographic host, Cheeseburger Brown.

A lot has happened over the course of the past year, including but not limited to the birth and subsequent colic of a second child, starting a new job at a bigger studio, an exciting lawsuit over water drainage, the launch of a new storytelling blog, and a load of tribulations automotive, fiscal and familial. Whee!

Despite all that hooplah, I've finally managed to finish revising the manuscript of Simon of Space for the publication of the second edition. Just moments ago I sent off the last attachments to my cheerful and charming editor, Marsha Rogers. I wish her good luck and godspeed in sorting my muck of tweaks back into a coherent novel.

I just thought you might appreciate an update. Publication details will follow as they're made available to me. Stay vaguely tuned.

Post Script 2: The State of Simon

2005-09-30T21:13:00.000-04:00

Simon of Space has been picked up for publication by the nice people at Ephemera Bound. As a consequence, the first edition of the book self-published by me is no longer available for sale. A heartfelt thanks goes out to everyone who troubled to buy a copy. You sweet people are keeping me out of debtors' prison.

The text on this weblog has won a stay of execution, and will remain on-line and freely available for the time being. (You are safe, do not panic.)

As requested, I have set up a discussion board for announcements about the progress of the hardcover second edition, criticism and speculation, fanfic and inspired artwork, and general chit-chat. It's a bit experimental right now -- a bit bare bones. User registration isn't yet automated, for example. If things go well I'll upgrade to the commercial version of the discussion board software, which has niftier features.

Don't forget to check out Simon of Space: The Merchandise. You know it never really happened unless you have a T-shirt about it. Or at least a mug. (And who knows? In a few years you might be able to eBay it for a dirty sum. Keep your fingers crossed, friends.)

This post concludes the Simon of Space weblog.

Thank you, and good night.

[ Curtsy & Exit ]

Post Script 1: On Publication

2005-09-26T18:58:00.000-04:00

Dear readers,

Yes, I am negotiating the fate of Simon of Space with an actual publisher. If everything proceeds the way we all hope, the manuscript will receive the attention of a professional editor to help me polish up the rough spots and bang out the worst dents. The book will then be re-released with broader distribution and some attempts at real marketing.

A further consequence of the agreement would be that existing versions of the novel would cease to be available.

Thus, for those of you who planned to buy a copy of the current printed edition but have not yet done so, don't procrastinate too long. It may disappear without warning, along with this weblog's archives.

Such is the way the winds of commerce blow.

A big thank you goes out to everyone who troubled to purchase signed copies of the first edition of Simon of Space. Your books are being printed now. Unfortunately, no further orders for signed copies can be accepted at this time as the volume has become unmanageable and I don't have a secretary.

Some Simon of Space stuff is now available through Cafe Press, including shirts, mugs, and a poster. I hope to offer other illustrations as posters in the future...as soon as I get some time to draw I'd love to render a version of the Neago, for instance. But for now it's just the familiar profile of Jeremiah and the slogan of Fellcorp Mercy. Send me your design requests -- all suggestions will be considered.

Announcements relating to the release of the second edition will be posted here on this weblog, along with bits of new Simon of Space-universe content exclusive to the Internet. Stay tuned.

Love,

Cheeseburger Brown

I Am

2005-09-22T04:57:00.000-04:00

Dear reader,

This is your dactylographically ambitious host, Cheeseburger Brown. I'm delighted that you've been enjoying Simon of Space enough to push through the prior forty-four chapters on-line.

I hope your interest is sufficient to propel you to purchase a copy of the book, to see how it all concludes.

Now now, I know what you're thinking -- what a cruel bait and switch. To be candid, I kept all the chapters available for free for as long as I could but, in the end, a man has to pay bills.

So, if you've derived forty-four chapters worth of enjoyment from this story, I do hope you'll consider taking the final plunge: buy the book, and help support more projects of this kind. Thank you.

The Trial

2005-09-20T13:02:00.000-04:00

I am starting to feel quite at home here, despite the daily march of witnesses the prosecution calls to describe me in the worst possible terms. Did you know Boss Preen is a law-abiding Samundran importer-exporter whose employees I butchered without provocation? Me neither. But I didn't lose too much sleep over it -- that night Duncan made steak.

The worst came first: the widows and widowers, the tortured and barely sane, the stunned soldiers and sickened journalists. Almost all of them were moved to strong emotion by their own testimony or the prosecution's deft stoking. Several times the procedures came to a halt while the witness regained themselves, wiping at their eyes and swallowing.

Master Barrister for the Prosecution: "Please describe in your own smells the events following the transmission..."

Kamari Forever

2005-09-18T23:49:00.000-04:00

The office Greskin Mile shared with the Master Barrister for the Accused was divided in two by a pane of glass. The air in Greskin's partition was clear, while that in the Master Barrister's partition was hazy and faintly yellow. Beyond this there was no differentiation: on both sides of the glass were mountainous stacks of dataplates in vaguely furniture-like mounds, screens covered in dense text, and discarded disposable cups and bowls strewn about the floor.

"I know, I know," said Greskin as we walked in, "it looks like a tornado blew through here, cha."

"What's a tornado?"

Salutation By Meal

2005-09-16T11:14:00.000-04:00

The pedestal upon which I stood rose.

I was lifted up through the floor of the Pegasi fumatory and then the pedestal clicked into place with a faint shudder. I was positioned in a well surrounded by dozens of white Pegasi and hundreds of their scuttling staff. The Pegasi scarcely seemed to take notice of me, though many of their staff pointed their brown, cow-like eyes in my direction. The air was thick with talk.

The language management device built in to the intelligent plastic skin I wore seemed confused by the dense whorls of intermingling babble, and offered only surreal poetic snippets of what it could suss out from the miasma. "Frenzied locution," it said into my ear. "Predisposition for aggravated your plumage has silkened wonderfully good daycleft my estimable numerous counts of a new shampoo."

Greskin Mile slithered out of the crowd and stood beside me. A Pegasi who turned out to be the Master Barrister for the Accused bounced calmly into place on my other side. I was having some difficulty distinguishing one Pegasi from another, particularly as they seemed to wear no clothes and have no given names. Greskin explained that they recognized one another by scent, and that maps of their familial relationships involved model trees whose individual leaves exuded a distinct musk upon being tickled. Greskin added that business cards were even more tricky...

A Succession Of Cells

2005-09-12T08:31:00.000-04:00

I spent many hours in a small white room, sitting on a narrow cot with my back against the wall and talking to my little blue plastic diary. "Your Majesty, I said," I said, "I am Terron Volmash." As I recited a lump formed in my throat around which I worked the words.

I was quiet for a few moments, and then roused the effort to conclude. I pushed the bauble back into the hip pocket of my tattered pants, their original grey lost under a patchwork of stains and grime.

Once or twice I gasped and looked over at my uninjured shoulder, certain I could feel the Nightmare Cannon alighted there. But it was gone. I was alone.

I was startled when a slot along the bottom of the wall snicked open and a tray of hot food was ejected, skidding across the floor. It bumped into my bare, raw feet and stopped there, the cup of water threatening to spill. I leaned down and caught it, then drained the cup into my mouth...

Aurora My Witness

2005-09-08T11:11:00.000-04:00

I awoke to chanting. I opened my eyes and sat up. A few snoring pilgrims slept on around me, but most blankets were abandoned.

The predawn light was grey and meagre, the plaza beneath the temple in which I had slept suffused with an unsettling, inconstant green cast from the slowly boiling aurora overhead. Dozens of people knelt in neat rows along the plaza, all pointed in same vaguely south-westerly direction, and sang.

I pulled on my longcoat and went down the steps to the ground level where a toothless crone with a wide smile handed me a steaming bowl of broth. I accepted it gratefully, sipping at it as I walked. I met Utopia, who had her own bowl of broth. She crinkled her nose at the contents. "You like fish?"

"Sure."

"Not me. Except octopus. Have you ever had octopus?"

"I don't know what an octopus is."

"People say you shouldn't eat them, because they're clever," Utopia said thoughtfully, stirring her finger absently in her bowl. "But of course I expect to be eaten when I die. It's only proper. And sometimes some people say I'm clever."

The Pilgrim Way

2005-09-04T22:01:00.000-04:00

"Callicrates," breathed Utopia, reaching up to touch the glass through which shone a sharp crescent of blue and white, edging one side of a massive round shadow occulting the background stars. "The entire world is one great city. Can you believe that, Simon? You can see the lights shining on the nightside."

I squinted. "Those orange blurs?"

She nodded. "Each one home to millions."

Amalasthuna

2005-08-31T10:35:00.000-04:00

Terron Volmash had been a paranoid man.

His tunnels ran endlessly beneath the fallen city of Thallos. It seemed to me that a thousand thoughtless days and dreamless nights passed while we trudged those dim corridors, my strange family and I.

I was given fixers and water, medicinal wafers and an emergency ampule of wine. Glory worked in the dark beside me, milling about in a Fellcorp Mercy first-aid pouch. "So this fornicated bird is the faecal thing?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Thought it'd be bigger...you know -- badder."

"Common mistake," I assured her. "It seems, however, that this Volmash character had quite a thing for birds."

The Clouds

2005-08-29T15:39:00.000-04:00

I stood alone at the centre of Volmash's phantasmagoric underground phrontisterion, my loyal companion and sworn enemy a green-plated superman masquerading as a slave now fed bodily into a great black gun two storeys high presided over by a twittering flock of brown-flecked sparrows. I paced in circles, stepping over a smashed silver robot when necessary.

I heard footfalls and looked up to see the girl in white and two pale, unarmed soldiers stopping at the threshold. One of them was cradling a wounded arm. I levelled the Smith-Shurtook at them. "No fancy soldiering, please," I said. "Just stay where you are."

Minotaur

2005-08-26T08:26:00.000-04:00

At the bottom of the elevator shaft we found the lift car, smashed. Jeremiah helped me over the debris and we came out into a long corridor dimly lit by little yellow lamps. At intervals their light was aided by white orbs on metal stands, connected to the thick cylinder of cabling laid by engineers of the Citadel of the Recovery. Jeremiah strode down the silent corridor and I followed him, still chilled by his latest revelation about the untamed galactic wilderness beyond the borders of the Panstellar Neighbourhood...

Unto The Hegemon

2005-08-23T14:35:00.000-04:00

The world of Metra turned beneath us, an ocean veiled in bands of cloud reflecting winking speckles of orange from the fat, dim orb of Kamari Star. A diffuse band of irregular flotsam girdled the planet, metal fragments glinting as they spun. Before the pocked face of Metra's moon floated a massive derelict spaceship, its scarlet plating rent aside exposing twisted decks and clouds of spinning kipple.

The space around Metra was a graveyard for warships.

Flight Of The Neago

2005-08-21T22:45:00.000-04:00

I woke up feeling very hot and stuffy, so I blindly kicked away the blankets.

They burst into flame.

"Simon!" screeched Glory, scrambling backward across her bed and pressing herself into the bulkhead. Her wide eyes were fixed on the circle of bright white light crawling across the cabin, leaving everything in its wake a blackened ruin. As the air filled with smoke it illuminated the shaft of blazing light all the way to its origin at the view-port.

"The shade is fornicated!" Glory contributed astutely.

The door slid open and a medical robot rushed inside.

"I don't feel safe," I shouted to it. "Is this a good time to panic?"

Jeremiah's Secret

2005-08-17T01:07:00.000-04:00

I awoke. This, in and of itself, was surprising.

I inhabited a hazy world of white light and soothing voices, defocused and meaningless. Nurse Randa patted my cheek at one point, and I tried to turn to kiss her hand but I was too weak. Nurse Wennel was laughing at something. A machine went ping!

Though I did not notice the transition, it became apparent to me that Nurse Hiwai was straddling me. I wondered if we were having sex. She was thrusting down upon my chest, her face pinched in effort. "Stay with me!" she sang. "Come on now, Simon -- don't let go!"

"Okay," I agreed, and the machine went ping! again.

Mass Of The Halcyons

2005-08-15T07:52:00.000-04:00

A white-skinned naked man with a shaved head appeared at the door of our cell and bowed low, his pale forehead actually touching the smooth stone floor with a muted thud. His drawn, expressionless face turned up. His eyes looked like they were made of glass, and I shivered. Before the prostrate naked man could say a word Brother Phi grinned and claimed, "He says he's here to escort me to the Halcyon Hall."

He then stared at the naked man, who stared back.

The Flying Citadel

2005-08-10T15:27:00.000-04:00

"I don't feel any different," I said.

Dr. Pemma snapped off the little light she had been shining into my eyes and nodded to herself, tapping quickly on the plate she held in her other hand. "That's good," she pronounced.

Lick A Bet Outta Hell

2005-08-08T00:05:00.000-04:00

I was back in the hospital, about to catch scent of Nurse Randa.

And then I wasn't, but the dreamy aftertaste inspired me with the will to open my sleep-stuck eyes without dread. Though I saw no sunlight, my body was telling me many hours had passed -- perhaps more than a usual night of sleep. For the first time in days my brain did not feel as if it were working through a haze, and my chest did not ache with worry.

The canopy of hard stars shining through the port was slowly revolving. I was in space.

An amber lamp glowed in the alcove above my bed. There were three other lamps, in a row. Thus eight tiny pinprick reflections gleamed in the eyes of Jeremiah, standing sentinel by the door. Now more familiar to me than Nurse Randa ever was, I took a moment to consider how the robot had ended up both my and Pish's keeper.

Corinthia Tag spoke in my ear, making me jump.

You Are Safe, Do Not Panic

2005-08-05T22:43:00.000-04:00

I won't leave you in suspense: Glory found a washroom.

But she was still crossing her legs and grumbling as the Neago grew before us against the spangled velvet: a great rounded wedge of gleaming white metal with a slowly turning torus embedded in a midship cavity, like a canine tooth run through by an ivory ring. A set of blue formation lights winked on and off patiently at the extremes of the wings and nose, on which were painted the image of a human hand in red. We had just drawn close enough to discern the orange glow from the turning ring's port-holes when my telephone buzzed in my ear.

Conference With An Incorporation

2005-08-02T00:42:00.000-04:00

I dreamed that a bird, a terrible raptor, was eating my eyes. Needless to say I awoke somewhat discomfited.

Thus it was with a feeling of great relief that I looked around to see orange dappled light playing across the ceiling, and smelled the moist, hot air of Maja's equatorial balm. I was not blind, nor dead. Life chirped and whinnied beyond the windows. I heard the screech of a large bird and shuddered, gooseflesh rising on my arms. I sat up. I looked around the bed, in which I had slept alone.

What morning was this? And why did it smell like afternoon?

A Curious Malady

2005-08-01T16:23:00.000-04:00

I crossed the hall in a blink, and took the stairs three at time. I threw open the doors of the master bedroom and strode over to the dark bed. I pawed through the covers savagely until I found Jia's arm, and then jerked her upright with a brutal thrust.

She let out a little scream and pulled the covers to her chest. "Simon?" she whispered, blinking.

"Who are you?" I roared.