The Story and How It Began |
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Many Years ago, while doing research in Russian History at UCLA, I happened upon some documents in the medical library there that described the existence of a major parapsychology project undertaken in the Soviet Union. In the US Dr. J.B. Rhine had been doing work in parapsychology since the 1930's, but by 1965 at Duke University the intensity of his work increased as Duke, UCLA and other entities got into it. A cold war rivalry had developed between the Russians and the Americans in most areas of science, so we can be reasonably sure one developed in parapsychology, too. I tucked all this away in my head for those many years before I found time and perspectivve to write about it. A few years ago I began, and this fictional account is the result. As you probably already know from your own personal mysterious experiences, there's more to this.
In retrospect of six books, the first four of which began as and really are one story, I see now that even the fine granular detail of the story — the sites, cities, countries, arguments, even the people themselves — are not dispensible. Auckland, New Zealand, was chosen because Isaac Asimov had chosen Terminus. Southern Virginia was chosen because it is a little backward compared, say, to Cambridge, Massachusetts, or Palo Alto, California, and there is a reason for this, which I will leave to the commentators to discover. I chose Tobolsk, Siberia, because it is big enough, yet isolated enough. I chose Singapore as a setting because I want to make a point about the kind of civilization that is there. I chose Auckland and the most of the others partly because I was there once. The characters, particularly the protagonists, arrived in the arms of my muse, who decided one day as I struggled through the opening moments of the beginning of the story to reveal herself. Each one is a fiction, yet a composite of people I have known or know of. Their names are from my family tree, largely. Their points of view are not always mine. One character dropped into the story completely unexpected ... and gave rise to a theory that pervades the metastory. I see the first four books of The Few as the increasingly less naive realization that humanity has backed itself into a probably fatal corner. The sequel Seagull presents the situation as an opportunity, if we have the good sense to take it. The sequel Waterhole presents a context which asks us to reconsider virtually everything we have done since we ambled off the savannahs and occupied the planet. There is more than one theme, of course. The inevitable one is Cooperation, and in this way I hope to supercede anything Ayn Rand wrote about the nature of humanity. The Few Series is a near-future history entertaing the major themes of human progress within the context of a metaphor. It is only partly science fiction.
In Part One —Something Green— Nathaniel Robinson Searles a professor of psychology at a small liberal arts college in southern Virginia discovers through his unique research that telesentience (the immediate awareness of the thoughts of others) is far more wide-spread in the population than anyone expected. His results become known and soon the 21st century national security implications of his work engulf him and his research. He becomes aware of the world-wide but opaque organization of telesentients, which they call "The Few." Then with CIA, NSA, and State in agreement he accepts an invitation to a scientific conference in Moscow, where the Russian telesentient, Kirsanov, veteran of the Soviet parapsychology project, creates the makings of an international incident. Writing The Few presented several problems, not the least of which was to explain the word "telesentience." The meaning fills in as the novel and the series progresses. I dislike the word "telepathy," because of the connotations of the "-pathy" part. There is nothing pathetic, malign, afflicted, about it, and the pathos part has no bearing on it, either.
In Part Two —The Foundation— The Few have provided immense financial resources to Professor Nate Searles and his associates to create a public Telesentience Foundation in Auckland, New Zealand, presumably to continue their work helping telesentients to come out of hiding. Melissa Sandridge joins as CFO. Sydney Mitchell Searles expresses concern about the opaque Few and their reasons for remaining that way. Ed Garcia's description of the state of the planet galvanizes them into action, while Yevgeny Kirsanov under several aliases seeks the Lithuanian woman in Copenhagen, but meets a young telesentient German woman in Berlin with whom he must escape the pursuing Russian security services.
In Part Three —Ragnarök— the Foundation's initiatives create widespread hostility. Kirsanov and the German woman fly to Auckland, but encounter viciously hostile telesentients. A small group attacks the Foundation. The Russian Orthodox Church pays a visit to New Zealand. Yevgeny Kirsanov departs and begins a devastating odyssey among, spies, counterspies, moles, and the world's most notorious and infamous, ending in Australia and the strange beginnings of a new mission. In the background, the Few organize themselves and reorganize world finance, leaving Dr. Searles the burden of explaining a fait accompli to the President and world leaders.
In Part Four —Naked Truth— Dr. Jennifer Taylor remains in Singapore buying property and building relationships. The long awaited deadly attack on the Foundation personnel in Auckland takes place. Kirsanov completes his readjustment therapy and with Darya Goryeeva begins his mission. After the Germans try their terrorists, Washington attempts to stop the telesentients, but Searles turns the corner in court. Kirsanov begins his epic trek from Pokrovskoye to Moscow.
The first sequel to the Few Series is called—Seagull—and is a free-standing novel with characters from The Few series, focusing on Möwe Anton (aka Martina Siegel Windhome [Mahutonga]), but with a direction that is much less about the fortunes and misfortunes of the Telesentience Foundation, but rather the evolution of artificial intelligence. The novel crosses a new boundary in literature by discriminating between "mere" AI and the emergence of cyber intelligence, an overt life form with objectives of its own, which humanity may or may not recognize and respect in time.
The second and penultimate sequel to the Few Series —Waterhole—is also a freestanding novel with Möwe Anton once again at the pivot point of events. The situation is that cyber intelligence is now plural and with implications for a chaos that would rival the existing chaos of global climate change ... And then we receive a signal from outer space, from beyond the solar system. Waterhole is a "first contact" story with very different assumptions, different tone, and unexpected outcomes.
The third sequel and conclusion of the Few Series —Founding Mars— is a novel about ideas being pursued by Manaia Windhome, Möwe Anton-W's daughter and others. It has a gaunt but not superficial plot, almost no violence, almost no romance or sex, loads of characters, lots of speaking, story-telling, lots more of narration. We are motes of dust, lost —for all intents and human purposes— in an "infinite" universe, and yet our region of our galaxy is known to have many sapient, telesentient species. We have emerged, learned that we can create AI life, lived with it, made first formal contact with alien species, been estimated, under-estimated we fear and sometimes hope, but are discovering the essense of what we are. It tells he story of the end of one epoch and the beginning of a new one for mankind.
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