A BOY AND HIS IMAGINATION...
LETTERS-TO-THE-EDITOR #1
Hello, my name is Dylon and chances are that you don't know me.
Today I turn half a century young and feel like sharing a passion project that I've been building for the past year as a 50th birthday gift to myself and my world. (Which is amazing considering that I almost died from Cancer 4 years ago.)
For those who don’t know, I am a professional dreamer who specializes in turning dreams into reality.
When I am not busy helping clients bring their dreams to life with art, books and consultations, I enjoy collaborating with other creators, spending time writing stories and bringing my own dreams to life.
One such personal dream is MECHA MESSIAH, my new Science Fantasy Anthology on Substack.
I honestly don't know what first ignited my passion for speculative fiction, but I suspect it had something to do with my Mom. After all, she already had a passion for computers and technology back in the early 1970's. She also somehow deduced that Darth Vader was Luke's Father (sorry for the spoiler) and that Star Wars would someday become a trilogy of trilogies, back when all we had was "A New Hope." Unfortunately she passed away before I had the opportunity to ask about her esoteric interests and their possible connection to my own childhood obsessions.
I do have one memory of hacking out my first speculative fiction story on my Grandfather's manual typewriter when I was 6 or 7 years old, but the full narrative is somewhat fuzzy 44 years after the fact. However, I do recall that the plot involved a young boy who had the unprecedented ability to visit another world where time moved faster than in his reality.
The story opened with this boy diving into a swimming pool at his public school, which at the time seemed like an extravagant concept for someone living in the wilds of rural Ontario. Before his body hit the water he chose to travel to this other world and ended up on an adventure with 3 companions before returning to the "real world" and finishing his dive into the water. He then returned to the other world for another adventure before surfacing and taking a breath of fresh air.
Imagine my surprise years later when I encountered the BBC version of "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" on a snowy PBS channel and discovered that I wasn't the first budding sci-fantasy author to envision the concept of time dilation. Little did I know that this particular plot element could be traced as far back as humanity’s ancient folk tales which warn of spending time in "The Fairy Realm" where a day could easily become a decade.
Reflecting on those days as an innocent creator-in-the-making I find it remarkable that my mind was already incorporating ideas of parallel realities long before I was introduced to the concept of an Objective Imaginal Realm through pop-culture.
Just what was 7-year old Dylon tapping into?
If nothing else, exposure to the solid Space Opera elements of Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica cemented my love for science, fiction and fantasy along with Doctor Who and later Star Trek the Next Generation. Although for me, both Star Wars and Trek will always fall solidly into the fantasy category because they ignore basic concepts such as relativity. You know, that little phenomenon discovered by Einstein which results in actual time dilation?
Too bad Interstellar, which is a truly dreadful watch, is one of the few modern pop-culture references to acknowledge the awkward actualities of space travel.
There are a couple other references that I can think of as well. One is a graphic novel I read a few years ago, “Lightstep: Holy Purge” from Dark Horse Comics. The other is a lost title called “KR_IME” by Andrew C. Broderick that I once had the pleasure of reviewing when I was writing Speculative Fiction on Fiverr. While not tackling time dilation directly, its story does point out the inherent complexities encountered when actually travelling to other worlds, even within our own solar system.
I suppose this is why I prefer travelling to other worlds in my imagination. In fact, it is my fervent feeling that Earth is an Island of limited resources within the vastness of the Universal Ocean. Travelling within the imagination is much more efficient than the complexities of actual interstellar travel and I simply can't imagine why any other sentient life as we know it would bother attempting such insanity. Especially when imagination is a perfectly reasonable and accessible alternative.
This is the prime reason I fell in love with crafting science fantasy which simply ignores all the ugly truths of reality in order to explore existential, philosophical, metaphysical and other bizarre concepts of the living imagination.
Being born on the eve of the Personal Computer revolution has afforded me an interesting perspective on technology. For instance, the first computer I used relied on an audio cassette drive for storing a few kilobytes of program data. Today, we take for granted the fact that our smart devices have access to near infinite storage locally and via The Cloud.
The same goes for instantaneous connections afforded by modern Internet and its truly endless avenues of entertainment. Especially when compared to growing up with a rotary phone for communication, paying long distance fees to connect with Bulletin Board Services and the choice between three clear channels on our Cathode Ray TV, if we were lucky.
Heck, the first time I operated a video camera in the early 1980's we had 20 minutes of battery life and had to carry a portable VCR alongside the shoulder-sized monstrosity that was the camera just to record a fuzzy analog video signal.
Now most smartphones boast at least two cameras capable of incredible resolution along with many hours of battery life and the ability to instantly share stories.
I have another fond childhood memory of playing chess with my Grandfather in the earlier 80's. He was well aware of my love for comics and giant robots and once noted that how “in just over 25 years it would be the year 2000.” In his opinion the technology of the 21st century would be incredibly advanced. Which makes sense for someone who was born just after the turn of the 19th Century and had lived through most of the 20th.
However, having worked as a freelance I.T. Consultant from 1995 onwards, I was less than impressed with the turn of the millennium. I mean, Cable Internet was cool and all, IF you lived in the city. "The Net" was certainly the place to be back in those days, but none of the the tech present in The Naughties ever struck me as particularly "advanced" or as "amazing" as my Grandfather had promised. Just faster, with increased storage, greater resolution and significantly more problems…
Always more problems...
In fact, I would postulate that technological progress has created far more difficulties than it has ever supposedly solved.
So, what is there to do in a world of complexity?
I honestly don't know, which is why I write crazy science fantasy stories.
Or, more precisely these days, I create story outlines that I explore and illustrate with the help of Artificial Intelligence. (Perhaps the first time that technology has felt even remotely as sophisticated as promised by my Grandfather.)
I now have the pleasure of sharing these stories with you here on MECHA MESSIAH, the sentient Science Fantasy Anthology, which makes them much more real. After all, if you write a story and nobody reads it, is it actually a story?
Anywho, I just finished The MECHA MESSIAH Release Schedule for the rest of January and February with a wild selection of episodes loaded in the breach including some of my all time favourites. There’ll be extra special episodes for Valentine's Day and Leap Year Day, which happens to be my 4th full anniversary being married to my partner (who kindly agreed to guest edit this premiere episode of Letters-to-the-Editor) for the last 16 years.
MECHA MESSIAH may even have something special cooked up for Ground Hog Day, but we wouldn't want to be too cliché as those kinds of stories tend to be overdone again and again and again these days...
In conclusion, I invite you to delve into the extreme early 21st century weirdness that is MECHA MESSIAH and I look forward to including your Letters-to-the-Editor next month!
NEVER THE END!
Dylon
Aka THE EDITOR
P.S. Paid subscribers keep MECHA MESSIAH alive. Now accepting all major payment methods including souls (no human or android sacrifices though.)