SOMEWHITHER is here!
It is finally here, dearest beloved readers!
EPUB and Kindle formats. No DRM. 590 pages.
- http://www.amazon.com/Somewhither-A-Tale-Unwithering-Realm-ebook/dp/B010XWRSVS/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8
- http://www.castaliahouse.com/downloads/somewhither/
Best cover ever. I am very grateful to the artist, Mr Humphries, whose page you can see here http://j-humphries.deviantart.com/
In lieu of posting the real and honest description of the book over which my publisher, with acute eye and furrowed brow, so long slaved, let me instead merely quote myself from some mailbag questions I answered concerning the classification of the book, asked by a concerned reader, who perhaps was more concerned when he heard how freakishly odd this book was.
Keep in mind that the description below is entirely bogus, but the real book is almost something like this. You can read the serious announcement of what the real book is like by clicking through the links above.
So how would I classify SOMEWHITHER? Is is high fantasy, sword and sorcery, scientific fantasy, space opera, or elf opera, or what?
It might be called an urban fantasy, in that the the tale stars a modern American boy, indeed, a Boy Scout, son of a secret agent of the parallel-world traveling Knights Templar secretly working for the Pope, who pops through a rabbit hole or Moebius wormhole, and ends up in a parallel world ruled by the Tower of Babel. Except he is from Tillimook, Oregon, which is rural rather than urban.
It might be called sword and sorcery, on the grounds that he is armed with his grandfather’s katana, a prize brought back from Japan after World War Two, so there is a sword involved, and there is definitely enough sorcery to choke a horse.
It could be called high fantasy, if we meant it reads like something inspired by a muse who had ingested a hallucinogenic drug. It is high in that sense.
SOMEWHITHER is a Christian Rock Opera, like JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, but not so blasphemous, but just as stupid.
So think of SOMEWHITHER as more like GODSPELL, but if they decided to instead of using clowns in makeup to portray Our Lord and His apostles, ninjas and vampire-hunters.
The long answer is that SOMEWHITHER will be in the same category as THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE but if, instead of being a good fairy tale and well written children’s book, the author was an anime-overdosed ex-lawyer who decided it would be way cool if Aslan wore power armor and swelled up to giant size like Ultraman to fight Godzilla, who, in this version, is the Beast from the Sea called up by the Whore of Babylon; and if the Dark Lord were a determinist materialist astrologer who is half-senile; and if Nimrod still owned the shining robe given to Adam and Eve by Jesus after they discovered they were naked, and this robe made him invulnerable; and if Serafina Pekkala from GOLDEN COMPASS were a babelicious busty blond dimension-sailing storm-witch teenager from Slytherin House, which, in this version is at the school on the Island of Roke, which is also in the dimension of Charn ruled by Jadis the White sister of Saruman the White, but her pet bird was not her familiar but instead was her horcrux; and if Ramses from Anne Rice’s THE MUMMY showed up as Black Lensman of Boskone; and if there were a plumber named Pally working in Barad Dur to fix the backed-up toilets in the Dark Tower; And if John the Baptist showed up as a character who could fly like the Nazi-punching ROCKETEER from the Dave Stevens comic of the same name; and if King Edmund were Connor McLeod the Immortal from HIGHLANDER; and if instead of a thoughtful, and funny and moving parable about the nature of sacrifice and the beauty of forgiveness, CS Lewis were a fan of pulp novels and samurai movies, and threw in a bunch of stupid extraneous junk, including The Shadow, who has the power to cloud men’s minds, and, if there were some way to swing it, end up with John Carter, Warlord of Mars and Robur the Conqueror fighting a air-to-sea duel with Captain Nemo.
I have already written the Cup of Jamshyd into the plot, and Kai Khasrow from the Shahnamah of Fardusi. Since this story takes place in a Christian background, Captain Nemo survived the Great Deluge of Noah aboard the Nautilus, with the Nephilim called Og, King of Bashan, swimming along side in the deep, his warehouse-sized lungs holding hours of air. Nemo has explored up the great river Euphrates, and has found where the Four Angels rest far beneath the waters, were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, awaiting the Sixth Trumpet of the Apocalypse, that they might arise for to slay the third part of men.
In other words, I consider the book to be, as Lewis considered Narnia, a ‘metaphysical speculation.’
His speculation was what if Our Lord appeared in a world where our legends are real, but the Sons of Adam are but legends?
My metaphysical speculation is what if Saint Ignatius of Loyola were bombarded by cosmic radiation during an experimental rocket flight, along with jolly Saint Nicholas, Saint George, and Mary Magdalene, which gave them Way Cool superpowers, so that, instead of founding the Society of Jesus, he founded the Justice League of Rome, and made their headquarters in the Baxter Building, and fought vampires, werewolves, mummies, Viking Berserkers, Paynim Genii, Albigensian Gnostics, Sauron the Great, and Galactus?
In other words, this book will be the worst book ever, unless a miracle happens, and it somehow turns out to be good. That is how I would categorize it.
I am exaggerating slightly. Well, very slightly. I cannot think of a way to fit the submersible ironclad dreadnought Nautilus into this book yet. There actually isn’t a Godzilla. Most of the rest of the stuff I can stuff in.
I am trying to keep the background basically inside the lines of what a Roman Catholic might think is theologically sound speculation, but keep in mind that, unlike Mormons, Roman Catholics are allowed to get drunk.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
