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Introducing Meta-Visionary Fiction Part 2 – Gordon Kierle-Smith

In the first article introducing Meta-Visionary Fiction two weeks ago, we briefly presented the multiple facets of Meta-Visionary Fiction and how its precepts were initially applied in Genesis Antarctica (GA) and now fully developed in Revelation Antarctica (RA).

The concept behind the genre is to create works that are “as real as you need them to be”. This means adding additional “authentic” material to the multiple storylines presented as newspaper articles, website pages, interview transcripts and several other formats. These are supplemented by regular narratives, dialogues and verbatim transcripts as well as more than 180 documents, visuals or illustrations.

Revelation Antarctica begins with a two page article explaining “How to Read This Book” (see below). It summarises the key insights readers need to get the most out of the book and its 12 diverse parallel storylines. It is perhaps worth mentioning that fortunately, bringing this book together did not involve a great deal of pre-planning. “Items” (rather than “chapters”) came to mind in what seemed to be a largely random order. In view of this, it appears logical to give readers the option of experiencing the reading process in a similar way.

This is why the two page “How to Read This Book” guide was almost one of the last items to be written.


Excerpt – Revelation Antarctica

How to Read This Book

You may find this a rather strangely titled preface to a book. How to read it? You just start at the beginning and carry on reading until you get to the end. Then, you close it and put it down, don’t you? All very linear. Like “time” itself.

You can do that, of course…

But you don’t have to.

The complex theories associated with quantum physics put forward over the years suggest the linear way we experience the procession of time may be an illusion. For everything we believe to have been, to be or to become may all “happen” at once. While every incident within each happening can also have an infinite number of origins and/or ultimate outcomes.

Understanding this is a key element in the changes we must all undergo to acknowledge our ability to shape reality as we define it. Accepting we are the gods of our own universes… setting our own agendas with everything we do and every thought we think.

Therefore, if we claim to defend the concept described above, it would surely be totally inconsistent to present a book requiring you to start at page 1 and read all the way through until you get to the last page.

Particularly when a whole book in itself is such a beautiful metaphor for the aspect of quantum physics that states everything happens at once. Just holding an unread book is like having a whole universe in your hand. Everything is possible. It is there, all at once, “sleeping” on those pages until you quicken everything, just by reading them.

Any attempt at representing the infinity of variations to every thread is, of course, impossible in a physical book with a finite number of pages. However, we can get a glimpse of the “time is an illusion” aspect of quantum physics and its “all outcomes are possible” potential by removing a book’s conventionally linear “one page after another” structure.

This allows you to create your own reality by drawing on its entire content and discovering what kind of revelation it generates. One thing is certain; it will have the potential of being highly individual and meaningful for readers as they discover the true meaning of the epithet “as real as you need it to be…”

How it works

In fact, there are 4 ways of reading Revelation Antarctica:

N° 1: Sequentially. This means reading the 99 Items one after another, from cover to cover.

N° 2: Storyline sequences. These are 12 sets of Items allowing you to follow the major storylines running through the books plus several additional “Background” items.

N° 3: Pick and Mix. This involves following your intuition and reading the Items in whatever order feels right for you.

N° 4: Random sequencing. This is the ultimate “quantum” experience. You can determine the order in which you read the 99 Items in a variety of different means.

The book explains how to do all this, but whichever approach you choose, it is rather humbling to bear in mind there are:

933,262,154,439,442,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000

possible permutations of the 99 items! 

A truly astronomical result reaching almost 7 quadrillion!

In due course you will discover even more ways of delving into these personalised reading experiences.

But when you read Revelation-Antarctica for the first time – straight or at random – just watch how the storylines interweave with each other, triggering insights as you go along… Ranging from the obscurity of Quantum Physics and Transcendental Illumination to Mave and Dave from Coventry who suddenly notice the Moon has started rotating

End of excerpt


About the author

Initially a compulsive writer of poems, dramatic monologues and radio plays, from 1967 – 1973, Gordon Keirle-Smith was a visionary artist, producing highly symbolic paintings. Everything changed when he met Johfra and Ellen Lorien, two founder members of the Dutch meta-realist visionary art movement. He desperately wanted to emulate them… but lacked the formal training needed to come anywhere near their technical mastery… He therefore decided to start painting with words rather than oils and brushes. In 1973, he moved to France, where he drafted the first version of Zandernatis incorporating all the symbolic and visionary images he would never have had the time – or the skill – to paint. After a series of contrasting careers, Gordon founded his own communications coaching, copywriting and transcreation business in 1994, allowing him to hone his journalistic, creative writing and copy editing skills in an incredibly diverse range of fields. Perfect grounding for what came next. In 2013, he unearthed the original typescript of Zandernatis and began updating it, adding the innovative aspects of the work he was now able to introduce. Two years later, all three volumes of Zandernatis – Where Legends Were Born – a definitive “meta-realist allegory,” had been published with translation into French underway.

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4 Comments

  1. Gordon, your description of how to read your book reminds of those books I read as a kid where you chose the ending – ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’. In a visionary novel’s case, it could be called ‘Choose Your Own Destiny’. Thanks for introducing us to this very interesting idea of meta-VF!

    1. Hello Saleena,
      Many thanks for your comment. I think I can remember books like that. But you only had a finite number of outcomes to choose from, whereas here the outcomes are infinite. Actually, some people are using the book as an oracle because of its broad scope. An interesting “by-product”. If you would like to try, just send me 3 numbers you feel attracted to between 01 to 99 and I will send you the 3 corresponding items (“chapters”) with a few comments…

  2. This alone as an item for further contemplation was worth the price of admission: “Just holding an unread book is like having a whole universe in your hand. Everything is possible. It is there, all at once, “sleeping” on those pages until you quicken everything, just by reading them.” It is a stunning concept with parallels for the definition of Life in some disciplines.

    I hope you will keep us posted, Gordon, on reactions you get from readers. Your ideas seem beyond what we normally consider VF, but it has the scent of a credible innovation. I have some reservations about the intelligence and persistence of an audience with this type of material.

  3. Thanks Victor.
    You are right that some people get bewildered by these concepts early on… I think I’ll have to do some rearranging and put more things into “The Vault” at the end, only hinting at what is to come in the preview material rather than being too explicit. Also, by adopting this scenario, the book stays well within the VF boundaries…

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