Prepare for launch!

After months languishing on the launch-pad, The Fictional Aether is now only one week from a proper take-off...

Ok, everyone — here's the plan for the next few weeks.

When I made a sputtering start to resurrecting The Fictional Aether as a shiny new Substack, my unwritten goal was to publish at least twice as much fiction as non-fiction. Now it's a written goal, but that doesn't make it any easier to achieve: fiction requires some actual creativity, or at least the delusion thereof, and it turns out to be much easier to spout half-formed opinions and incoherent rants on whatever topic has randomly popped into my head. Strange, that.

Hence the lack of posts.

Let me explain. There has been no shortage of opinions and rants buzzing in my head, screaming to get out to the waiting world, but they have been restrained by iron discipline. "No!" I've told them. "You have to get in line behind all my fun and captivating stories."

"What stories?" they ask.

Good question. And the answer is not going to be good, so long as I'm preoccupied having these petty arguments with my subconscious.

Eventually my subconscious beat me down, and I made a deal. I agreed to pick the most interesting of the non-fiction topics and write some pieces on it. But — and this was the part where I really outsmarted myself — I would not publish them until I had some fiction as well. If I was so dead-set on putting out those thoughtful little pieces that I was so proud of, I'd better get cracking and cook up some little stories as well.

Guess what? It worked!

Next week I have a story for you. It's in four parts, and it's inspired by a real life event. I should add, though, because I know people can get confused about these things, and I don't want to be besieged by angry complaints: it is entirely made up. The story is written in the first person, which means that it's told by a narrator called "I". But I am not "I". I just want to make that very clear.

After that I have written some pieces prompted by a book I recently read, which is all about the scientific study of consciousness. The book is "The World Behind the World", by Erik Hoel, in case you want to do some preparatory reading. It gets into all sorts of deep intellectual questions, not just on the search for a scientific theory of consciousness, but also the philosophical problem of whether we have free will and, indeed, the very nature of science. You might ask yourself what I could possibly hope to usefully contribute to such weighty topics? Or, of more concern to your precious reading time — how could my scribblings on such topics possibly be anything other than pretentious pseudo-intellectual wankings, let alone the fun sprinklings of brainy joy that you expect from me?

To you cynics and sceptics and naysayers, all I can say is: just you wait!

But that's not for another month. Next week I'll kick off a story about a professor planning murder. (No, it isn't me. Really.)

Until then, make sure you’re subscribed…

… and tell all your friends about it:

I think I’ll post every Saturday. How does that sound? Or do you prefer some light reading for a week-day lunchtime?

See you next week!