Blurb
Imagine
your entire life is available for review.
Imagine
each day any event can be watched over and over again - your birth,
your first kiss, your recent shower, that private itch - all
replayable from any angle. Now imagine these can be viewed by anyone
at any time.
Is
a world where there is far less ego, little crime, and even the
smallest moments are recorded and available publicly through the
‘Grand Archive’ a Utopia or a Dystopia? Traumatized by memories
he does not want to recall, artist Ben Tinthawin is recruited by the
enigmatic, Grand Archive creator Dr. Mamon, who seeks help for his
nextgen designs to enhance the world. Ben stumbles across a secret
revealing the doctor’s true scheme in all its surreal splendor and
questions whether the doctor really is the benevolent soul he claims
to be.As the paths of a broken man and a brilliant revolutionary
cross, the world shifts and cracks start to appear. Even our most
fundamental codes can be encrypted – or corrupted. If the wrong
information is discovered, more than Ben’s life will be in danger
of total shut down.
Prepare
yourself for full exposure.
Excerpt
Someone
put the wrong teeth in my mouth last night. The canines poked at the
back of my lips as if they didn’t fit. I wanted them either buried
deep in the gums or all removed. I hate teeth.
Trash
trucks moan like suburban whales while they back down my cul-de-sac.
The truck eeping irritated me more than the sharp light. Wallpaper
images of two windows beamed sunlight onto my head. BUD programmed
the walls and sounds from archives of the room I had growing up for
today’s alarm. I needed extra help waking most mornings but
especially ones like this.
“Shall
I turn the alarm off?”
“Yes.
Thanks, BUD."
My
prominent sense of teeth in my mouth dragged me back to the memory of
my disturbing dream—another in the monster series.
“Would
you care to dictate your dream, or will you be typing today?”
“In
a minute.”
Lying
among the pillows for the rest of the afternoon would’ve been nice,
but morning bladder ousted me. A glass-horn urinal emerged from the
wall when the bathroom slid to a greater diameter. A glimpse of
myself as the mirror flipped revealed the monster – although I
guess there’s nothing new about my dark circles and bedhead hair.
The sight prompted me to dictate last night’s werewolf dream while
the concern for my mental well-being drained away with yesterday’s
juice.
Damn
teeth! I could use a drink. The canines still felt glued to the
inside of my mouth. In the mirror inspection, my little porcelain
cleavers appeared normal. Gross, but normal. Most of the time, it
only took the image of lips separating a fraction to think of an
opened wound. Beyond the teeth, disgust stemmed from dripping saliva,
hordes of bacteria, and raw flesh waves of the palate. It all made me
question the stability of dentists.
Review
by Lisabet Sarai
Some
science fiction books feel like mysteries. The author pitches you
headlong into a foreign world, with technology, history, assumptions
and problems very different from our own. As a reader, you have to
follow the clues and figure out the rules in order to understand how
the author’s imagined universe works. The process can be both
frustrating and exhilarating. Each step you take toward comprehension
provides a special kind of satisfaction. At the same time, the effort
required to figure out the remaining puzzles sometimes makes reading
as exhausting as it is pleasurable.
Bradley
Wind’s novel BULB definitely fits this description.
As
the story begins, we meet the protagonist Ben Tinthawin, a twenty
nine year old “neuronal artist” who has been suffering from
horrific dreams in which he becomes a monster. He is the guardian for
his artificially created, conjoined twin brothers, Ed and Francis.
The twins can wreak a lot of havoc, given that they have the minds of
seven year olds but adult-sized bodies.
Ben’s
father died in a horrific accident that left Ben both physically and
emotionally scarred. His friend and therapist Laurel urges him to
review the recordings of the event in the Grand Archive in order to
work through his trauma, but Ben resists. Gradually, we come to
understand that the Archive retains the records of everything that
happens, to everyone on the planet, wherever light can reach.
The
existence of “Informed Light” and the Archive it supports have
revolutionized society. Anyone can view any instant in their own
lives, or someone else’s. A terrible loss of privacy, some might
argue, but with the openness of the Archive, society has become far
more egalitarian and crime has almost ceased to exist. The supposedly
unfalsifiable Archive serves as the gold standard of truth.
But
then, what about the Faux Life Movement? Somehow, the members of this
shadowy organization manage to fabricate Archive sequences that
border on the absurd, pieces of performance theater which can’t be
traced back to their antecedent events. No one understands how the
FLM manages this. Intrigued, Ben and his best friend Lenny engage in
their own outrageous masquerades, trying to attract the attention of
FLM members.
Meanwhile,
Mamon, the brilliant scientist who invented (or discovered) Informed
Light, recruits Ben to work at his Center, where he pursues research
that he claims will liberate humanity from error and suffering, and
reveal the fundamental truth underlying existence. Ben works with the
Saints, individuals who have voluntarily signed up to live their
lives in a coma, generating energy to fuel Mamon’s studies. Using
their journals as a source, Ben composes images to make their endless
sleep happier and more comfortable.
At
this point in the book, I had dozens of questions. How did the
Archive come into existence? Why were the twins created? What is
Mamon really trying to achieve? Who is the mysterious Susan, the
woman who contacts Ben out of the blue to “talk about books”?
What is the true mission of the Saints?
The
journals provide the first solutions to some of the book’s
mysteries. I thought this was a brilliant literary device, to help
the reader tease out some of the threads in this complex story. Ben
uncovers more clues as he wanders around the Center, trying to find
his brothers, who seem to play some as-yet-unknown role in Mamon’s
plans. Then he visits Susan in SkyCity, only to encounter shocking new
information about his own life, the Archive, and Mamon’s ultimate
objectives.
I
wish I could say I completely understood the dramatic climax and the
unexpected conclusion of BULB. Unfortunately, many aspects of
the plot remained obscure to me. I don’t know whether this can be
attributed to my own lack of comprehension or the author’s failure
to effectively communicate all his ideas.
It’s
probably the former; Bradley Wind writes very well and has a
powerful, visual imagination. The book is studded with startling,
creative scenes and vivid descriptions. Imagine, for instance, a
“sport” in which people can catch a ride on a tornado, or a
nightclub where you immerse yourself in a lake of intoxicating drugs.
Furthermore,
my confusion didn’t stop me from enjoying this original and
thought-provoking novel. It offers creepy moments worthy of a
horror story as well as slapstick humor. Mamon turns out to be the
prototypical mad scientist, ultimately consumed by his own visions.
Ben is sensitive, brave, broken and believable. Lenny provides comic
relief as well as stability. And Laurel, the mother goddess, brings
true light into the darkness generated by Mamon’s twisted
ambitions.
If
you enjoy science fiction that makes you think, consider trying this
book. It’s not easy, but it has its rewards.
About
the Author
Bradley
Wind was born and raised in Pennsylvania. He is a prolific visual
artist whose work has exhibited in the 20th-century wing of the
Philadelphia Museum of Art.
He
worked as a toy designer for K'nex Industries, a manager of IT for
Pearl S. Buck International and is currently a director of IT for a
child-focused non-profit. He raises chickens and two lovely girls
with his wife in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
BULB
is his latest novel.
Author
Website: http://www.bradleywind.com
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/bwind3/
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/BradleyWind
Bradley
Wind will be awarding a $15 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner
via rafflecopter during the tour.
10 comments:
Thank you for sharing your review of this book, it sounds like a very great read and I'm glad I got to hear about it.
How long did it take you to come up with the story in the book?
Sounds like a great read.
Sounds like an interesting book, thanks for sharing!
Sounds amazing, really cool to learn about this book.
The cover is just weird enough to be really intriguing. The color combination is amazing!
Sounds different I like it!
[this is from Bradley Wind - he is having trouble getting Blogger to accept his comments...]
First I want to thank Lisabet for her terrific review. So kind. I wish readers were always this generous with their comments. This book is a good deal surreal and some difficult passages that I can imagine the readers of this blog might enjoy. Without giving away too much I'll say the ending is a way to talk a bit more about the power of nature. Humanity has done a number on the planet as we all know and should fear...if tech doesn't continue to grow and go as it has. Sounds contradictory maybe but we're in our adolescence with tech and as it matures it'll become more integrated and likely heal most of what it's harmed. I believe that. Nanotech/AI - think of what our lives were like back when I started writing this book in 1998...cell phones weren't even smart then. The internet was just taking off. - in 20 years...well...it's nearly magic. What will we be in another 20? So yes, we've caused harm and changed our environment but our lives are a blip, mother nature is beyond, so complex...its silly to try to write it in brief...but we still don't know our own bodies, still don't understand dark matter. Surreal? I think we've barely scratched the surface of oddity and the unknown and it's fun to think what she might bring.
Bernie...I guess it took me 20 years. But really I wrote it from 1998 to 1999 and that original 140k was whittled down by my first agent Luke Janklow and then again when I reworked it after it was on the Authonomy.com website and then again when my wife said I needed to finally put it out in 2018. So here we are...20 years later and I guess I was on to something. Hope this book isn't too disturbing or dark for you...I wove in what I thought were fun and provocative ideas but a world where everything is being recorded calls for some difficult/unusual imagery, no?
Thanks again. -=Bradley Wind
This sounds like a very interesting book.
Thanks for sharing. Your book looks like alot of fun.
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