Miguel Conner's Blog, page 2

Excerpt: Byron Learns About The Vampire Takeover During His Exile

After being defeated during his attempt at a coupe, where he joined the human resistance, Bryon finds himself discarded in the wastelands far away from the Stargazer capital of Xanadu. The damage sustained against his foolhardy battle against the MoonQueen herself should have been fatal, but he is rescued by another exiled vampire called Proxos Commodore.  Proxos is actually a disgraced former ruler of Xanadu, an ex-Elder, who has built a safe haven in the radioactive desert. After healing, Proxos and Byron become close companions; and Bryon begins to learn how exactly Lilith and her vampires were able to cause the Holocaust--the revolution that put them as stewards of a ruined planet. And much more...including how to eventually reignite a second insurgence:



That's how I basically started my stay as a guest, a companion to the Heretic in his hidden home away from the home we once had. "It's not so bad," he would say often. "Stargazers are solitary creatures by definition, though they're quite possessive when they attach to something. This civilization idea we had has its merits, but I wonder what it does to our psyche."          Proxos resided in a chain of caverns several feet underground, away from the brutish climate still castigating the earth for its sins. He didn't live like animals: furniture, apparels, and artwork adorned the place, besides the clean water and the Rukas roaming below us.          The ex-Elder was right about the banal existence of a Heretic. All he did, and soon all I did, was learn how to breed the wild Ruka population, find trivial hobbies, and tend to the place. Occasionally we went on walks or flights in the night, aided by certain insulating suits he owned that shielded us from the radiation's shifting heat.          And we talked a lot, sometimes rehashing the same conversation, trying to anchor each other and our situations. It's too bad he didn't smoke.          "How did you locate this nifty little abode?" I asked him one night, collecting stalagmites, another one of those hobbies to smother loneliness.          Proxos held up a cone of ruby pastels, brow crinkling as he wondered whether to add one to his medley. "I had a few of these places before and after The Holocaust. Being a noble granted me freedom to purchase certain properties outside Utopia, in case of a rainy night. I'm sorry, Byron, that expression means an emergency."          "I guess the rainy night came," I commented, wondering what rain might look like, sitting in front of him, also hiding a stalactite, this one of bright bone-pallor.          "They always do."          I didn't say anything, concentrating on my object.  This was sure boring, but it seemed like a good way to pass the time, to lose yourself in the mundane. Proxos liked it.          Something caught my eye. I had to blink several times to pinpoint the slight refection on the smooth surface of the spike.          "Proxos."          "Mmm." He slid another one into a leather bag by his sandaled feet.          It hit me I hadn't seen my reflection since that night of self-pity, and that memory had been quickly flushed away. "What color is my hair?"          "It used to be brown when you were a Warm One, a shade darker than mine. Did it change afterward?"          "Not to my knowledge."          He buckled the bag and eyed me, a smile threatening to burst from thin lips. "Well, my dear, it looks like it certainly changed after I found you. It's bleach white."          I laughed or coughed or both, running my hands though what must have been milky tresses.          "It can happen to…" And he went on that tirade about times of stress or damage.          "Just like Shib," I whistled, shaking my head.          "Yes," he said softly, "I do believe my old colleague had an experience like that once, sometime during the Burning Time in Bavaria."          I didn't know what he was talking about, but I certainly disdained sharing a quality with old Master Shibboleth.
2
Our conversation didn't span any depth for the first year or so. I was still healing and didn't want any stress. Proxos, I believe, was content with another of his kind here and perhaps wanted to extend our communication for as long as he could.In addition, I had to get used to feeding on Rukas, a process that left me in sour moods.Communication centered around the long walks we took in the middle of the night. There, wrapped in metallic clothes from an unknown material, we spoke and trundled through the dunes and whetted rock, against inflamed wind or sandstorms. Sometimes we reached the base of the mountains and halted, Xanadu just the other side; other times we skirted shaven ruins of pre-Holocaust times to look for baubles. Proxos knew all the ways, this, his stomping ground for a hundred and more years. My stomping ground now, too, forever and ever, amen."Hey, Proxos," I mentioned on evening, both of us standing on a large mound of always-hot sand, admiring scarves of lavender clouds flowing in the sky that tarred Luna into a sanguine sphere. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you supposed to be dead? They'll have to change the name of the station, oh Elder."He snorted and leaned on his staff, an object he carried to be dramatic."They have changed the past on more than one occasion, Byron," he said. "Aren't you also supposed to be dead, Revolutionist? Wiped out from memory for the health of our progress?""You're right," I said with a chuckle, sitting down on the sand.  "I guess we're both dead now."He joined me on the ground. "We've been dead. Better make the best of it. I have for thirty-two hundred years.""Damn," I said. "Did you ever think you'd end up this way?""Never," he said. "I never thought of anything but how to fulfill my hunger. It's your head that always has to go in different directions except where you are now. Believe me, I knew about your fate back then, even though I was already banished and deceased for all purposes. I heard about you on occasion, from other Heretics running madly in the night, from rare intercepted transmissions, and from other sources. I knew you'd brew trouble. They should have destroyed you back then, but Lilith obviously had a warm spot for you in that icicle she calls a heart.""Lilith?" I echoed."That was her name back then, at the beginning, when the mad-god created her and tossed her to some horrible limbo she was able to escape from.  She's been called many names—Ki, Inanna, Soph…uh, and others. Some legends say she is a white witch who actually escaped from another world of endless snow and mythical beasts such as satyrs. You know how folklore can warp itself, and somehow her past is as fickle as she and history tend to be. I knew her as Hecate when she gave me new life.""And you followed her all this time?"He pondered for a moment. "Back then, if I can still recall, I was nothing more than a slave with a penchant for sacred geometry to some sodomizing king. I wasn't going anywhere, and the other gods were punishing my civilization for silly reasons. My people's time was all but over—a flash for others to remember. I visited her temple in an island called Argos for advice and succor. I was chosen for no other reason than luck, if you believe in that. She made me a god and morality was different back then, so I didn't have too much of a problem. I didn't actually server her completely, though. We ran into each other here and there, and I followed whatever whim she had at the time.""So there haven't been these great Elders serving her as acolytes from the beginning?"He laughed, a hearty one. "Dear, no. Just a few fellows who crossed her path when she was having galactic p.m.s. We were rewarded nicely, though, but that's about it."I was having trouble understanding some of his remarks, not a first, but my curiosity told me not to worry about it."Why did you do it?""Do what?""The Holocaust, Proxos."He didn't answer then, different expressions etching on his face."I don't know," he said, for the first time realizing I was watching him attentively. "Survival, I guess. Maybe boredom. Amusement? Vengeance? I don't know. It just was, so go ahead and get your little cynical opinion ready if you want. It's hard to explain why you helped destroy a few billion lives and Demeter's kingdom just like that, you know.""Do you really think The Killer of Giants would have wiped out the whole world?" I pressed."I don't know. Nobody really wanted to find out.""Maybe you were just following orders," I said, giving him my cynical opinion.He stood up. "And maybe I could have let you perish in the sand when I happened to hear you by accident, Byron, especially for basically stabbing me and my cause in the back after our truce.""I was just giving orders, Proxos," I said with a wide grin.  "Whatever. At least your first comment worked for the Nazi troops. Come on, we better head back before Sol decides to fry us."
3
As time continued I learned more while trying not to challenge Proxos that much. I actually enjoyed his company and grew fond of him. He was more down to earth than his old associates, less eloquent or pompous than Shib or some of the others. He wasn't political like many of the rising Stargazers, like Mephisto. He was just a Heretic.          "I've met a few through the years," he would tell me, only really getting talkative in our treks or perhaps when we ate by a fire (a habit he had as a Warm One way before electrical light was invented). "I've also me Warm Ones, scattered around the land. I've eaten a few of them, but most are grossly deformed by the radiation, basically mutated savages. They taste rather foul, so I would advise you not to chomp on any if you run into one. I hadn't had gas in millennia, but it happened."          "What about the Heretics?" I asked him that time, while thinking the warped Warm Ones had to taste better than Ruka juice.          "Oh, just fools who got in the way of The Elders' revolution," he answered. "The MoonQueen sometimes prefers just to rip them apart herself for sport. You know, her mind is Tiffany twisted." He started laughing (nothing like people who laugh at their own jokes). I repeated the question.          "Most of them are as much victims as me, more or less," he said. "Sometimes they're just a random pruning of our ranks in order to create new ones or proportion food supply. Usually, by the time I reach them, they're insane with despair, ready to dig themselves into oblivion. They never take my invitation, especially the times I made the mistake of telling them my name."          "Superstitious Stargazers," I whistled.          "I assume they go raving mad and probably don't survive, not taking any care in this weather. The few who do eventually become as mutated as the Warm Ones, monsters lurking in the sand or scavenging the ruins. It's rather ugly."          "So, you're basically the only civilized Heretic?" I asked, taking another pungent swig from my cup. "Aside from me."          "I was the only prepared one," Proxos said. "Like I said, I had these little hideaways all over the world. I came to this one after they expelled me."          "They didn't like your hairstyle?"          "Not exactly. They were extremely upset at the fact that I had a faction dealing with the revolutionaries. They thought, and rightfully so, that I had some weak spots for your kind—after three thousand years most of us tend to mellow out. When the Ozone Processor rose in flames and caused a small nuclear detonation, they destroyed my allies, tried me quickly, and made me a martyr. They threw me out into the wilderness and named a station after me."          "Nice," I said. "And then you came here."          "Yes," he hissed, "and then they brought you in to be tried. The rest is history. I would have loved to have left you drying in the dunes, Byron, but when I saw you, when I thought about what they did to you—"          I finished his sentence.          "—you knew that was punishment enough."          He sipped on more blood, admiring the fire.
4
The MoonQueen had remarked about chess, so Proxos explained it to me. Weeks later, he brought in a dusty box from his cellars and asked me if I wanted to play.          I'd been sitting by the basin, trying very hard to suppress all the memories overwhelming me. I'd learned so much in so little time, trauma dislodging traumas in a bedlam of recollection. Now I spent much effort covering it all up, playing the Heretic. I'd vowed not to think about my Warm One existence, my feats, and even her. Medea. The name brought pain, the acerbic taste of failure. It also brought the taste of Clannad, the Slaughterhouses. I wanted to forget it all, dissolve it in ambiguous contentment. Proxos had done it, perhaps several times. Even Lilith had mastered it, hadn't she?  I was Byron, the Heretic.          Forever and ever, amen.          It didn't take me long to master the game, and I became a challenge after the tenth time he beat me. Chess was great to loosen his tongue. Whenever mammoth sandstorms ripped the area or the radiation count heated the wastes, we would play strategy on a stone table he carved himself.          I soon learned of another strategy: The Holocaust, the greatest covert strategy in a world unbelieving of Stargazers.          Apparently, The MoonQueen's idea sprouted when the Warm Ones mastered the might of atom-splitting. It dangled on her thoughts for years, as she spent her time in her beloved winter kingdom somewhere in a place called Antarctica. She passed it on to some of the older ones through her thoughts, but it was still only an idea.Twenty, maybe thirty years later, The Killer of Giants began to spread across the world. It was then that she made those thoughts potential. The other ancients, different creatures with different powers roaming the world, did not seem to care. Stargazers really cared. Thus, The Elders were formed and great machinations given birth. It took them time to understand, infiltrate, and embrace all the technology. In fact, one of The Elders, Balkros, had been a high-standing military Warm One in the former empire we now abide in. He was also a dangerous and perhaps psychotic person, whatever that meant, so when we turned him into a Stargazer, it was not a problem to make him see Our Mistress' vision. No problem at all. By then, on different corners of the earth, as nation warred against nation, as Warm One killed Warm One, the web was woven and the noose tightened. Several thousand cobalt-salted warheads, an infiltrated silo, a blip on the radar here and there, and the sky burned for nights."I was in charge of taking over Utopia," Proxos said, moving a piece. "Getting everything in order for the new world.""Sounds familiar.""And fortunate, at least for you. By the time New Town was ablaze, a group of Ravens caught your ally, Wendy, and her friends and ripped them to shreds.""So I guess she decided to stay in the tunnel after all." My hand shook.Some of The Elders perished during and after The Holocaust. What mattered is that The Queen of Darkness and her vision lived.Of course, no conspiracy is clockwork, no vision fully sees the curvature of karma. It seems some miscalculations were made. The nuclear winter was only meant to last a decade, perhaps only a few years. No mortal or immortal scientist ever imagined that the ozone layer would be shredded to the point it might never truly mend, leaving the planet in a continual maelstrom of recycling radiation, from above and below, and an atmosphere that was less than conducive for major life forms. But I had crunched my own numbers and worked on my own scientific models during my curious yet productive episodes, often exchanging formulas with both Mephisto and Archimedes. All of us agreed that Earth should have healed long ago. I had mentioned this to Proxos a few times; but he simply said that if great minds had not foreseen the lasting damage to the ozone layer how could three idiots like us predict when the stars and Luna would once again take court in the heavens.I knew Proxos well enough by then to know he was lying.Something else prolonged this never-ending apocalypse.  My intuition told me it had to do with the secretive city of New Atlantis…and also with Lilith herself. What could have so much power than even now Proxos wouldn't speak of it? Then again, no conspiracy is clockwork, no vision fully sees the curvature of karma.  Thus, the victors write history as they go along, while those like Proxos and me who are left behind sometimes just want to forget the whole damn thing and find time for a game or two of chess until eternity finally ends."Oh, yes," he added, "and we had to keep confidential the secret of creation, leaving that to Lilith alone. After all, our kind needed leadership in the form of a deity, not to mention population control. Those with the knowledge and big mouths were quickly destroyed right after The Holocaust.""And I'm sure those unfortunate enough to hear about the secret of creation met the same fate," I continued sourly.He raised an eyebrow. "Ignorance is bliss, Byron, as an ancient saying goes, but knowledge is power. You figure out the rest."Proxos also told me that it was very likely that not all of earth was ravaged by the atomic gales. One of The Elders' secrets was that eventually they would be able to find those areas of the world and reap the Warm Ones there. Then the true empire would grow. But first to wait, to build, to consolidate power in creatures that preferred chaos to order."Checkmate," I said. Proxos regarded me quizzically because the game was not even near being over. He was right.
5
 "Proxos?"          "Yes?"          "Have you ever thought about destroying yourself, ending it all? There isn't much purpose in our lives."          "There's that head of yours going again. No. I've existed long enough to not worry about time. Only the moment."          "That's my problem. The moment. I feel I never had the moment. It was taken away when I was just savoring it. Why? Your move."          "If you never had it, it never was, Byron. Get over it.  You're probably mad you failed twice, but at least you tried.  Good move."          "I still miss, though…"          "That's the existence of a Stargazer, Byron, and if I can still remember, that of a Warm One. We miss, we yearn, but with our kind it is much more severe. We miss life, we miss death, we miss satisfaction. I, for one, just miss missing, Byron."          "Then it's all over…"          "Forever and ever—"          "Amen."          "Unless you wish it to be all over, Byron, then wait till Sol arrives and end it all. I tried it a few times throughout the centuries. Never had the nerve, though, but I think it would have been beautiful."          "So, you don't remember what it looked like."          "We miss, my dear, we miss…check…"          Amen.
6
Two years passed. We existed. By then, I was comfortably numb, an expression Proxos enjoyed using. We talked. We walked. We existed.          Once a week, what my companion called Saturday night, we had a treat. I had thought I'd almost learned everything about the caverns and the surrounding areas, but I was obviously wrong. He walked in holding a bottle, while I was attempting to fit some loose wires on one of his hard drives."Here," he said proudly, "it's a treat for us, for your good behavior."          "Excuse me?" I looked up from the prehistoric CPU.          "It's Warm One juice," he explained. "I keep a secret cache in a supercool freezer. I only use it on special occasions."          "What's the special occasion?" I questioned, fangs already dripping.          "Why you're good behavior. You haven't betrayed me or started any Ruka revolutions."          I laughed, he poured, we toasted.          "Oh, yeah," I purred. "This is so good."          "B-negative," he agreed. "Tart but with little aftertaste. Could have thawed it a little longer. Don't drink it too quickly and don't expect it too often."          "You're the master."          "And get ready to dream," he added.          "What?"          He explained the Ruka juice never induced the visions Stargazers had during Moratoria. Warm One blood, on the other hand, granted broad imagery.          "At first, during the revolution," Proxos said, "I thought that the only way to sate our kind was with direct feeding. That, of course, changed. After all, I've heard that the Dark Instinct is an eater of souls, that we mollify ourselves on the passing of their lives, make them part of our tragedy. But symbolism is more important than substance. It's meaning, Byron. Their juice is just that. Eaten away from their receptacle, while it's cooling, doesn't give us as much of the meaning, the hunter meaning, which perhaps is one of the reasons why our society is so brittle."          "I've heard other theories," I said, eyeing a mirror by the door. I'd let my bleached hair grow long, usually leashed by a black ribbon. The features were harder. Two years. But it still was me.            "I'm sure you have. It's still all so new, this collective society. All theory. Perhaps I'm wrong, maybe we just need the nutrients to fuel our undead bodies, our shells no longer able to re-create blood cells, our hearts a useless muscle. But I believe the juice, the blood still symbolizes the life we perhaps crave.  It gives us meaning. I know one thing, though: Warm One blood is our dream, now more than ever."          "You're making my head hurt, Proxos."          "Good. If anything, Mr. Solsbury, don't forget this.  We're notable creatures. Hunting for prey, flying, changing shapes. Bah! Mere apprentice shit! We have the gift of the Goddess. Yet Lilith has kept a shroud over us for such a long time. We're notable creatures, our potential so undiscovered in our blind hunger.  What we can do…"          I rolled my eyes, cursing myself for letting his tongue get free again without much challenge.          "You've had plenty of time to discover this 'potential,' Proxos.  "Why aren't you in charge of some creation?"          He shrugged. "Perhaps for the same reason I couldn't end it all, Byron. Just drink your juice, damn it. And get ready to dream."          "I can't wait," I said sourly, but wouldn't stop sipping on what he called a wineglass.          We, then, shared a bit of moody silence. I knew it wouldn't last, Proxos' contemplative expression already wrestling with something new.          "What's funny is that I can't recall dreaming until The Holocaust occurred," he said. "Perhaps it also has to do with the fact that we all lost something we now try to make up in Moratoria. Before, it was like just being…dead, you know."          "Like drinking Ruka's blood," I said.          He didn't say anything, musing in his own silence. But I had read all of his warnings, or perhaps they were just mine.
7
I did dream. I dreamt of so much. The city burning, me rescuing people, running madly with my mortal family…the little girl on my lap…Clannad, eat your dinner…Tina pouring pints in glossy surrounding…and…and…Medea.Medea!Through the tunnel of simmering memories, a voice called me, distant, a faint echo in a storm of revelations. For a moment, I thought I could go there, ethereally anchor myself to my thoughts and slide toward it.  It called me.Suddenly, I thought of fire and ice, and shivered backward, knowing who it might be, who it likely was. My creator. My destroyer!Ripples of panic filled the images, and the voice shouted with more strength.Never…amen…I struggled upward, and away from the tunnel, and reality exploded before me.Suddenly awake, I found my bed open with the covering slab on the ground in pieces, and I was standing ready to jump into the basin.I didn't jump. I went for answers.
8       I had overslept Luna's ascent by about an hour, which is very rare for my kind. If anyone would have even said that 'stress' thing I would have slugged them.            The cavern seemed different. It was still dank, but the sounds had changed. The usual whistling that snakes throughout the tunnel and crevices was replaced by a deeper, faltering moan. I felt the ground hum.          I found Proxos in one of the smaller chambers, a section of natural balconies where he had all his machines. He was in front of one of them intently scanning a primitive radar that worked only half of the time.          "Commodore," I said, floating to him. "I think Lilith might have tried to contact me, I—"          "It's coming?" I asked, blinking.          He looked at me, as if for the first time knowing I was here.          "It's coming! Get your suit on, Byron. Hurry!"          "Proxos, what are you—"          "Hurry, fool!" He imploded in mist and swept into one of the rifts on the floor.          I thought about shrugging or just staying there with my jaw hanging, but found myself doing exactly what he told me.          Knowing his style, I met him at the entranceway, the end of the uneven tunnel. I started questioning him, but he started on his tracks. I followed, annoyed, thinking about my dream. That soon ended.          The first thing that took my attention was the pulsing wind. The land was usually covered with such currents, wiping forces that could take a Warm One off his feet and severely mangle him. To us it was merely tough walking or flying. This dwarfed it. We walked practically slanted against the flow of air.          We trudged for about a mile or so in a haze of sand and rock fragments, barely looking up. I wondered how resistant these suits were, even though the heat from the radiation appeared less than it usually was. We headed away from the mountain range to the flatlands.          "It's a tornado storm," he yelled through his screened mouth-opening. "A big one, probably the biggest I've ever seen."          "A what?" I shouted back suddenly recalling some research I'd done back in Xanadu for one of the guilds.          "They hit open areas once in a while," he said, stumbling against the increasing gusts. "Rare, but sometimes you can find one."          I thought about asking why anyone would want to find one, but a sheet of air nailed us from all sides. We teetered in place, and I pointed in terror at the sky. The gales, clothing themselves in debris, took shape before us, dozens of them. They took the form of massive funnels, whirling in the heavens, pruning the land.          They headed in our direction.          "Get down, Byron!" he screamed, words barely discernible through the rising concert of perceptions.          "Down where?"          "Anchor yourself!" I saw his silhouette drop and begin excavating into the loosening surface. "Go deep. If we get hit directly, we're done for, but you'll see…" That's the last I heard of him. The sky blasted in fury, the funnels wobbled monstrously toward us.          You'll see how I rip you to shreds, I thought, but I mimicked his actions.          In my greatest Stargazer arrogance, I would have never challenged this. Digging a few feet in a matter of seconds, I braced myself from wave upon wave of heinous wind, each time stronger. I heard ground ripping close by and felt the storm aggressively challenging gravity to pull me away. I clenched my jaw as a million objects struck me, as reality was absorbed into a sound so loud I thought I might go insane. I wanted to place my hands over my ears, but knew that risked taking to the skies in a flurry of brutal pummeling.          All around me, the ground shifted, no, it practically was pulverized by the beating of the funnel's drum. For a second, I dangled in nothing, suspended with hundreds of pounds of ground, a bubble in a sea of compressed air. Then, so quickly my senses didn't register it, I was tossed into the air, crossing an expanse of gust and rubble. I heard Proxos scream, but then he was drowned in a detonation of basso rumbling.          I thought about screaming, too, but my body couldn't obey. Like a marionette, I flopped along the contours of a large curve, gaining dangerous momentum. Shards of everything pelted me from all sides.          This is it, the god-soul told me. Shit, fuck, shit, it's not even Sol, for hunger's sakes.          Or was it me, I wondered for an instant, momentum taking solidness. Once again I was missile on a seriously downward trajectory.          "NOOO," I objected in the celestial roar, but this time I wouldn't give up.          My first instinct was to rise, but that would have been useless. Instead, I surfed on the overbearing current, bouncing on the arms of the gusts. I was still spiraling the wrong way.          This is it…          Immediately, I was motionless. I did it. I landed safely. No movement. Nothing. I did it. No sound. I see…          The second bubble burst, and I smashed into the ground along with several tons of dirt and a loud BOOM!Not again, a voice inside told me, and it pulled a dense curtain over me.      

READ MORE EXCERPT FROM STARGAZER

Two of my Recent Interviews that Discuss Gnosticism, Stargazer & Vampires

An old picture of me when I used to work for 'The Master' in El Paso as a guardian for his demons, back in the eighties
A bit late, but we are in the timeless realm of the Virtual Alexandria (and Strawberry Fields forever!). You can find my second interview at The H20 Network with the Tethys of Podcasting herself, Dia Nunez. Our first half dealt with the Divine Feminine in Gnosticism-- Mary Magdalene, Sophia, Barbelo, Norea, Eve, and all her avatars, ranging from where she is found in the Nag Hammadi to where legendry has misplaced her throughout history. Our second part we sizzled by roasting the modern Gnostic/Occult/Esoteric movement. Let's face it-- Orthodoxy ignores us when just years ago we frightened it. We are becoming a New Age joke, and rightly so. This is a call to reformation before we're buried under a sea of self-important misinformation. We had some good questions from callers and chat-room peoples; and Tessa Dick joined us towards the end. Heresy shouldn't be this much fun!

Listen to it at the link provided, at our main player, us just down below:






Also, here is an excerpt from my interview in the latest issue of The Gnostic Journal 4 . The tables were turned, and Andrew drilled me goodly. And yes, in correspondence with the writing of Alan Moore and Stephan Hoeller found in this issue, there was roasting of the modern Esoteric movement once again.  In both interview, we do eventually discuss Stargazer and vampires. If you ever cared about how I came into Gnosticism and Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio, here is part of it:


APS: You're best known as the host of Aeon Byte, formerly Coffee, Cigarettes & Gnosis, an Internet radio program devoted to Gnosticism. How long has that been going?
MC: It will be five years this May. So I've been at it for five years.
APS: How many shows have you packed in in that time?
MC: If you include the Schroedinger's Diary series with Anthony Peake, and some other lateral stuff that I've done, I would say at least, at this point, over 200 shows, and I feel I have just scratched the surface. That's the exciting and frustrating thing.
APS: So you're planning to go on for a good while yet.
MC: I have no idea. I never planned to do more than eight shows when I started. I never planned to go more than a year. Every time I tell myself it's time to hang up the hat more interesting revelations keep happening.
APS: So it was meant to be eight shows at the beginning. Why did you decide to do an Internet radio program?
MC: Well, at the time I had just started delving into Gnosticism. I had found myself, in a story that I don't want to give too much detail to, excommunicated from a Gnostic church—believe it or not, but it did happen! I also found myself under some sort of weird on-hold for esoteric secret organisations, and I said, "Well, this is ridiculous. I'm tired of this secretive stuff and I'm here in no man's land." So I decided I would take the proverbial bull by the horns, and do something about it, make public what so many people insist on being secret, which is ridiculous. At the time I was listening to Freethought Media, which was a humanist/atheist Internet station, and it was a great place. Robert Price used to have a show there. The Rational Response Squad was broadcasting there, which was famous for debating on CBS Kirk Cameron and his banana theories. Dangerous Talk with Staks Rosch was there, and that's a very popular show with the atheist community, and they had a lot of other cool shows. I proposed to the owner, how about if I do just a quick series on Gnosticism, since at the time the Gospel of Judas had just been released, and the whole Da Vinci Code machine was still very strong. Yet at the same time nobody knew who the Gnostics were. So I proposed to the owner—and he had this attitude that the enemy of my enemy is my friend—and he gave me some spots and I put out the first eight shows, and then I realised that the rabbit hole went a lot deeper than I'd ever imagined.
APS: Did you have any background in broadcasting?
MC: No, absolutely not. I do have a degree in communications, and I've done some journalistic work. But the other thing that inspired me too is that at the time I felt that I'd gotten on the right path, and I decided that the show would be my way of tithing or volunteering to the Gnostic cause, since again I was sort of homeless and didn't know how else to do it. That was really another one of my drives for creating the show.
APS: I can't resist asking, but you're presumably not going to tell us which Gnostic church it was that you were kicked out of.
MC: Not publicly, but privately a lot of people know about it. It was really a bizarre situation because somehow I got accused of casting magic or being some kind of sorcerer in this church, and at the time I had never studied any sort of magic. But somehow this slanderous thing got turned around towards me, and I got quickly booted. It was kind of hypocritical because this church was known to practise a lot of magic behind the scenes. It's an old story, but I guess it worked out well.
APS: I have some sympathies with atheism myself, as long as it's not too aggressive—I'm not an atheist. But what was the ongoing reaction to your program, which isn't rationalist in tone?
MC: It was mixed. You had the atheists who found it fascinating on a scholarly level, you had atheists who said, ah-ha, I have a new weapon against the orthodox, because now I can beat them up with another stick, the stick of the Gnostics and their views, and of course you had the fundamentalist atheists, the jihadist atheists, who just attacked me viciously from the start. What is the proof? What is this, what is that? So it was a mixed bag, but it's like anything in life, there's good people and there's a lot of jerks. 
APS: How long did you last with Freethought Media?
MC: I lasted a year. Eventually it went down because some of these shows were springboards to many ventures that were very successful, and they started branching out, and in a sense they started cannibalising Freethought Media with their own websites and blogs and so forth. So eventually Freethought Media just collapsed, and I found myself once again an orphan, so I just had to set up my own home page, and perfect it, thegodabovegod.com, and just start broadcasting directly from there. 
APS: So you were thrown out of a Gnostic church for supposed magic, and you were thrown out by the atheists for Gnosticism.
MC: Yeah, the story of my life. When I do wrong it seems nobody cares, but when I don't do wrong that's when they nail me. It's not that uncommon of a story when you think about it.
APS: After a year you had the feeling that there were enough people interested in it to continue, and you were finding enough people to interview too.
MC: For the first few years I still had that mindset of tithing and volunteering. This was my gift and I thought that this was something that would be eternal. You have to remember that when I started doing this the word podcast didn't even exist, so I wanted it to be a place where I could give a lot of alternative views, not just on Gnosticism, but on anything esoteric or occult. Because it was the Internet I knew it was something that would be eternal and everlasting, at least I hoped so. Now it seems that Obama has this kill switch on the Internet. It looks like governments can turn you off at the drop of a hat. But it was altruistic. It's always been a bootstrap venture and nobody has to worry about me making a lot of money from this. Even back in Freethought Media I was competing with some big names—Robert Price and the Rational Response Squad and the Infidel guy—and the owner kept calling me and saying, you know, you get the second highest ratings in Freethought Media, so I thought, "Wow, that's great. So there is an interest out there." 
APS: So we have to mention it: Voices of Gnosticism.
MC: Isn't this a kind of nepotism, Andrew?
APS: It is, but we have to do it. It's the modern world, self-promotion and all that. So we collected a good collection of your interviews with scholars for Voices of Gnosticism. You wrote introductions to each of them. It's a great selection of perceptive interviews with the best scholars of Gnosticism and early Christianity. Which of these scholars did you enjoy interviewing the most?
MC: For Voices, I would say that they are all extremely enjoyable. What I found, and wrote in the introduction, was that they were all very passionate, almost to the point of being eager, and always very friendly and helpful through the whole thing. Some of us still keep in touch. We talk here and there, exchange ideas, and so forth. So I can't say that there's one who is more favourite than another. At the time I remember I could call up Bart Ehrman and say, "I have this little podcast, do you want to come on the show?" Back then he was already a bestselling writer who was appearing regularly on TV and documentaries, and he simply said, "No problem, let's do it." So all of the scholars have been great, and very graceful, and I can admit that I have not met one big ego in all my years of doing Aeon Byte. Apart from myself!
APS: And that's the one you want to meet and understand.
MC: Yeah, that's the one I'm fighting to the very end.
APS: Then I'll phrase it another way. Out of the scholars that you've interviewed, which do you find the most stimulating and most appealing in terms of their work?
MC: I would have to say that it would have to be April DeConick, because I see her as someone who will take risks, but still within the field of scholarship and sober history. I guess she gets that from Jeff Kripal who's the head of the department at Rice University. He's an amazing scholar, but he goes to places which most people would find shocking, but again he couches it with sound scholarship and ideas. I also feel that April DeConick has an instinctual way of understanding the Gnostics. Her work on understanding how much the Sethians were dependent on astrology, or astrotheology, and Egyptian magic and theurgy and so forth is something that other scholars have tiptoed around. And the way that she was able to go against the grain when the whole world was having an orgasm over finally finding their heroic Judas beyond the Last Temptation of Christ and Jesus Christ: Superstar, I thought that was really great, and she brought a lot of insight into the Gospel of Judas. I've interviewed Jeff Kripal, and he was wonderful too, because his book The Serpent's Gift, is really part of the spirit of Aeon Byte, which is to distil Gnostic wisdom in a way that is not only understandable but helpful to our modern world. And Jeff Kripal does an amazing job at it.
APS: And I would guess that you have a favourite out of the scholars who didn't appear in the Voices book?
MC: Yes, which one?
APS: Robert Price?
MC: Well, we all remember the time we lost our maidenhead, Andrew. Robert was my first interview, and it's one that I can't forget. I had nothing. No credentials, no experience, and I simply called him up and he said, let's do it. Within a week we had conducted the interview, and he gave me an hour and a half of gold. Beyond that, we have become friends, and I can relate to him in so many ways. He is considered on the fringe, since he's no longer a professor because he'd rather go on his own. He's a mythicist. He has a great passion for the protestant Christians and the radical Dutch schools of the nineteenth century. He is always up to date on the latest biblical scholarship, he's extremely passionate about Gnosticism, and like me he's a big fanatic for science fiction, comic books and Japanese anime. So we tend to connect very well.
APS: Thanks to you, he has an article in this issue of The Gnostic.
MC: Although he considers himself a skeptic, I've always told him, Robert, you're a closet Gnostic. Why don't you just come out? His just laughs and stays silent. He won't deny it or accept it.
APS: Probably only about a third or a quarter of your interviewees or academic scholars. Which of the other guests have you most enjoyed interviewing?
MC: I can only say that I really enjoy all of them. As an author of both fiction and nonfiction, I respect anyone who writes a book. I know they have put their heart and soul in it. Sure, there's a lot of scholarly Ed Woods out there in the field, but they really have a passion for their ideas, and even if most listeners reject the ideas outright as being foolish, this may cause other the listeners to at least start thinking along other avenues, or at least reinforcing where they already knew. So I pretty much treat every guest equally. A lot of them are very grateful because often people will just scan their guests and do just a little cursory research, but I really delve in. I will read every book that I get, I will do as much research on them as I can, and eventually I want to become a single white female to them. I want to get right into their heads so the interview goes well, and most of my guests are very grateful and respect what I do, regardless of my personal views.
APS: Some of the people you've had on seem a bit wacky in their theories. We don't have to name names here. What's your attitude towards that, and how do you select people to interview?
MC: At this point in time, they come to me, and even back then they came to me. But a lot of times it could be something that's going on with society right now. Often it's simply looking at the shows, and saying, okay, this area should be explored, this other area should be explored. So eventually everything ties in. One day I should have this vast Jorge Luis Borges library that never ends, that would be a dream come true. I don't see a problem. I know that sometimes people say to me, well, why do you interview all these conspiracy theorists. I think that the word "conspiracy theory" is a sophist argument. It's a term people use to marginalise you just like the words Gnostic or Manichaean were used to marginalise people in the past. And of course I have to add the Gnostics were quite probably the original conspiracy theorists. That's why people who are in secret societies have such a fascination for them. The Gnostics were the first ones, as far as I know, who stood up and pointed at their own supreme being and his agents and said, "Oh my God, they are the cosmic BP Oil or Monsanto Corporation or Rothschilds." The universe is really a prison, and it's not some sort of Pythagorean wet dream. It's a badly built prison, a house of cards that will crash on us. And like many conspiracy theorists they were mocked and disdained by Jews, Pagans and Christians alike. Being paranoid sometimes means that you've been paying attention all along, so I like to leave all options on the table. With the variety of my guests, I even have guests that are completely diametrically opposed to the Gnostic worldview. Most people should definitely download this one, but I had Peter Jones, the author of the very popular The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back, which basically decimates the ancient Gnostics and the modern Gnostics, and he's a Presbyterian Calvinist minister. I decided that he needed his chance, or the other side needed their chance to give their case, and I called him up, and he said "Yeah, let's do it," and we had a great conversation. He knew more about Gnosticism than 95% of modern Gnostics did, and since he was a Calvinist there was no pressure as I'm sure he believed that I was going to Hell and he was going to Heaven. There was no worrying about anything. We already knew what was going to happen! So that was another great interview that I enjoyed. There's no reason to despise the opposition. I would have thought that the ancient Gnostics didn't think that the opposition were bad people or immoral people, or anything like that.  They just thought they were wrong.
APS: This is something that's emerging a bit as a theme in the current issue of The Gnostic, partly because I asked Stephan Hoeller the same question and I have about twenty pages of blather that I need to boil down into a column. But how do you view the relationship between the academic research into Gnosticism and the attempt to practise as a modern Gnostic. I don't call myself a Gnostic, so I manage to sidestep any . . .
MC: Responsibility?
APS: Right, any responsibility! But there's a lot cooking in the academic community with the deconstruction of Gnosticism, and there seems to be this reconstruction emerging that integrates it back into second-century Christianity, and seeing it as contributing in its little way to the development of the church. Everything's being shuffled around, people say that Gnosticism doesn't exist, we're misreading the context, and all of that. But people are trying to practise as modern Gnostics, and there is a Gnostic worldview. How do you see the relationship between these two separate endeavours?
MC: Well, I definitely see a big divide between them. I wish it wasn't so, because each has a lot to offer to the other, there's no doubt about it. When, for example, in Voice of Gnosticism, these scholars have spent a good part of their lives studying the ancient Gnostics. As historians they're not just interested in data. They truly want to walk where they walked, they want to feel the culture that was around these mystics. They actually want to know what these ancient heretics were feeling and experiencing at the time. And when you read some of the parts of Voices of Gnosticism, what they say sounds better than any Gnostic priest I have seen at a church, and I have been to many of them. When Marvin Meyer begins to talk about the Gnostic Judas, and what the Gnostics stood for, it's very uplifting. The same when April DeConick talks about the Sethians and their views on God and their views on the universe, or Einar Thomassen when he starts to speak about different ways the Valentinians saw Jesus Christ, it's extremely educational and inspiring at the same time, and it should be! These scholars know the Gnostics better than anyone. As far as the other side goes, I would probably have to be critical of them because I feel they haven't really gone far enough into really understanding what Gnosticism is, or what the Gnostics were really trying to convey. I can understand because, let's face it, the Gnostics were never really allowed to mature, and maybe that's not a bad thing. So you maybe have to create a God of the gaps with the Gnostics, and people have started inserting Daoism or Chaldean theology or nineteenth century occultism into it; but now that we have all this data and the scholars have done such great work, there's no reason to not start getting into the true essence and ethos of the Gnostics.  It's all there! 
APS: There is quite a difference between the ancient world, or the time of late antiquity in which the Gnostics lived, and the modern or postmodern world in which we live. For most of us it's difficult to take the gnostic myths too literally. We might find a core of ideas that maybe accurately represent the way that the world is. How do you approach that? What is your Gnosticism?
MC: I would say first of all, you've got to know your material. If we expect a Muslim to know the Qur'an, and not just know the Qur'an, because we don't want them to take it literally, we want them to understand and see it in a historical perspective, but also read the Hadiths, also find out how scholars have interpreted it, and how their theologians have been able to fit the essence of Islam and make it work for their specific time. The same goes with the Christians. A Christian is expected to know his Bible, and is certainly expected to know the thinkers around the Bible, and their heroes, and their theologians, and their martyrs. So why Gnostics are not expected to know that is beyond me. Scholars are to blame in a sense for that too, because everybody seems to get stuck on the "greatest hits" collection of the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Thomas, Thunder the Perfect Mind or the Secret Book of John, but that's not all of it. Would you ask a Christian or a Muslim just to stick to a few passages? No. So I think we need to go deeper into the other Gnostic texts. And it's my experience as we go through it, and I'm sure also yours, and the scholars admit we have a long way to go, you do find almost the complete worldview, and a great framework for the Gnostic spirit. And you can certainly put it to work in a modern context. No one has a problem with William Blake, or Philip K. Dick, or Carl Jung and their adaptations. So why not do it ourselves?
APS: And how are you doing that yourself?
MC: Well, this is another key and I think why, in my estimation, why the Gnostic spirit is so important these days. I'd been reading Gnosticism and studying it, and it was just kind of curious to me. In a sense it was a little bit boring until I got into the fun stuff, like the Sethian mythologies and all the cosmologies, and all the science-fiction, almost Lovecraftian stuff. It was when I started reading Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion, and LeCarrière, The Gnostics, these books didn't show a mirror into me, they actually showed a mirror into society. So you begin to study what the Gnostics were going through in those Greco-Roman times, and you see that the social-political atmosphere is so similar to what humanity is going through in the last hundred years, it almost becomes simple to translate Gnosticism into a modern context. Philip K. Dick does it very well, and so does Philip Pullman, Alan Moore, William Burroughs, Jorge Luis Borges, Carlos Castenada. They haven't had a problem with it. They've done it very well, and made it very impactful into seeing what we are and what condition we're in. I think that they're right in getting into what the Gnostics thought 2000 years ago.
APS: What's your take on things like the pleroma, the demiurge, aeons and archons and the makeup of the human being? How have you digested the Gnostic ideas and to what extent do you, for instance, see there being a force that corresponds to the demiurge, or a being that corresponds to the demiurge? Maybe I'm being a little bit literal, but do you see what I'm getting at?
MC: I think Stevan Davies put it in his book The Secret Book of John: Annotated & Explained, Gnosticism "is a developmental psychology, a descriptive Middle-Platonic philosophy, and most importantly, a cosmic mythology all rolled into one." So in a sense you can almost go up these levels and mix and match them. I've never seen a lion-headed snake talk to me so far (well maybe when I was doing acid).  I haven't met an archon. But as principles of the universe I think that they're pretty much right-on. And I always tell people, please take this as literally, as mythologically, as psychologically as you want. Whatever works for you. I'm very agnostic about what's on the other side of the material world, but I do know that for me the Gnostic framework fits the best. I think the proof is in the pudding. We are in a prison, we are separated from our true selves, and we've got to be honest with ourselves. When I was doing a lot of shopping around for religions, what they offered me was coping skills, or promises of happiness and peace, and so forth, all based on the material world. But what happens to most people, and what happened to me, is that you turn a corner and you get a frying pan in your face. Things crumble, or you can just gird your loins into denial and just stand there. But to me Gnosticism was just great, it was because it was so honest. It didn't say the Titanic was sinking, it said, no, the Titanic already sank. We're floating in an ocean of despair and suffering with our little whistles, and we're just hoping for these apostles of light to catch us and pick us up in their boats. I think humanity needs to become honest with itself, because the truth is there is an ultimate duality that should have never mixed together, you can call this flesh and spirit, or you can call this information and the material world, or you can call it consciousness and unconsciousness, or you can call it whatever you want in whatever age you are. For Blake Gnosis was Imagination, and to Jung it was obviously psychoanalysis, and so forth. Philip K. Dick gave it a very technological vocabulary. I think we need to start becoming honest that as humans we can't cope with this world, we never have been able to cope with this world, we truly don't belong, and in this place called a soul there are two forces, spirit and matter, that are always going to be allergic to one another. As soon as we accept that, I think that's when we are going to start making improvements in our inner personal lives as well as in humanity in general. Mani himself gave a very basic concept. He said Gnosis is separating light from darkness. I think that's where we need to go, in my personal opinion.
APS: You talk about the Gnostic spirit. I presume you would admit that other religions and worldviews can also provide a way. Would you see them as lacking some truths that Gnosticism possesses? 
You can find the rest of our interview by purchasing The Gnostic Journal 4 (and a whole lotta more amazing articles). While the Master is away, let's all walk like Torgo!

True Blood Begins New Season & Stargazer Offers Original Alternatives

Another season of the very popular True Blood begins today. I have watched it from the first season, both a fan of Alan Ball and vampires in general. The combination has worked and failed for me; but it's still better than most of the living dead programs on television. I enjoyed the darkly quirky, occult eclectic, and magical realist world we were presented in True Blood . Ball's penchant for dysfunctional yet ultimately transcendental interpersonal relationships worked perfectly in a world of undead and demigods. I think its culmination was with the Dionysus sub-plot, which I thought was very well executed. Anyone who listens to Aeon Byte knows these are themes that are predominant in the show.

Unfortunately, spiritual and psychic adrenaline can only last so long in a series (as they did in Six Feet Under). The werewolves were lame, the relationship between Bill and Sookie has not only jumped the shark but Mobi Dick himself, and many of the other characters are continually recycled in eternal-recurrence situations that would even tired Nietzsche or Ouspenski. Hopefully, True Blood can bring new blood this season. Northman still rules, though.

So why not run a promotion for Smashwords ?  Simply use the coupon code 'JC79C' and get Stargazer at 60 percent off in whatever e-book format you want.

As I've written before, Anne Rice brought us the vampire bar concept, but Stargazer (as The Queen of Darkness ), brought blood packaged and commercialized for vampires, in a very noire/cyberpunk atmosphere instead of southern Goth. True Blood borrowed from this, albeit with synthetic blood.

Here is the introduction to Stargazer, to give you a hint of vampire in bars motif. And many of us have been in the situation where we just wanted to get away, enjoy a cocktail at some pub or tavern, and our lives were never the same:


    All I had wanted was a drink. That's it. Some nourishment and off to satisfy the mind next. A drink, and I would have left.  I never knew that would be the most important drink of my existence.
     I was starving after waking up. What else was new? I always thought Moratoria lasted too long this time of the year, with summer ebbing.
     After dressing, I left my cupola and took the shaft in normal form up to The Citadel. The walkways and tunnels were already filling with Stargazers trying to get started on the nightly rigors of existence. I had my rigors, but a stop at Lilac's Bar was my first chore. I was hungry, and a certain loneliness had settled on my shoulders like old dust.
     The bar had just opened. The sound of humming vacuum cleaners devouring mildew interrupted the fresh sizzle of igniting television and registers, all unnoticed by scurrying barbacks carrying glass-racks and clean napkins.
     "Good evening," Tina, my regular bartender said, as I nestled on a bar stool. "Hard Moratoria, Byron? You look wasted."
     I snorted and fingered my pockets for a cigarette, a rare habit for Stargazers and usually frowned upon by The Elders.
     "I keep having odd dreams," I said, while Tina slid a square ashtray in front of me. "Keep dreaming I see Sol. Can you believe it?"
     "That is odd, Byron." She wiped the glossy amber-surface of the bar, for more Stargazers entered.  Never heard of that one. Believe me, many tell me their dreams after Moratoria. What did it look like?"
     I kindled my smoke and blew out milky curls almost as pure white as our skins. Tina had an advantage, though, her long, obsidian locks contrasted well. I thought she was one of the few who actually looked well dressed in tight jeans and a thin muscle shirt, all black—a fashion that hadn't left Xanadu since forever.
     "That's the odd part," I said, chewing my lip, another habit The Elders also disdained—it many times caused Star-gazers to puncture them with the canines. "I don't know what it looks like. How could I?"
     "I don't know either," she said. "No Stargazer has ever seen and survived our only enemy. That is why we escape it at night."
     "Exactly," I said in full agreement. "It doesn't make any sense."
     "Maybe you saw some old archive or movie and it stayed with you."
     I shook my head. "There are no images of Sol in our society, Tina. We've made sure of that. Even the mere image of it is said to liquefy our minds, our sanity. No, it's different.  It's like I can almost remember…"
     Tina frowned. "Remember, Byron? What are you talking about?"
     I sighed and shook my head at the same time. "Nothing. Don't listen to it. You've got all night to hear people's whining. How are you?"
     She smiled. "I'm fine. Would you like something to eat?"
     "You know what I like."
     "Type A-negative on the way." She turned and walked to the large, crystal containers lining the back of the bar. Just as I was getting to see her fine workmanship, filling the pint glass from one of the copper tubes leaving each urn, somebody tapped me on the shoulder.
     I rotated my head and did some of my own frowning. "I didn't know it was last call already."
     The figure encased in imitation jet leather before me growled as he usually did, letting eyes glow in enough crimson just to let me know his mood.
     "Byron," Lord Crow acknowledged tersely, towered at each side by two of his Ravens. Rumors always quietly circled The Citadel on why The MoonQueen had created Crow with such short stature and stocky physique when we were a species of grace and beauty. It didn't matter, I thought, for the vicious head of the Ravens had held his post since I lost it.
     "What can I do for you, Crow?" I questioned. "Care to join me for some nourishment or a video game? I hear the Scientist Guild has recently put out some amazing Virtual Reality software."
     "No, no, and yes, Byron," he said. "Actually I need to have a word with you."
     "No problem. Pull up a seat."
     He shook his square head. "Not here. I was thinking of doing it at The Council."
     Crow must have satisfied at the faltering of my confident façade. "The Council? Why, there are more important matters transpiring there. I'm sure any of the—"
     "And it's not just with me," he said, grinning. "It's with one of The Elders."
     I was able to turn for a second when Tina placed the filled glass before me. She offered the trio a round, but they declined.
     "I think this will be all, Tina," I said. "Upload it to my Credit Account, which I think is still healthy enough to buy a snack."
     "No problem, Byron." She winked at me and gave a quick glare at the Ravens.
     "I'm glad you're being so cooperative," Crow said with a mild chuckle. "It's not one of your more known qualities, Byron."
     "Hey, might as well start the night on a high note," I said and slammed the cocktail. Viscous liquid gushed coldly down my throat, immediately filling my body with tingling vitality.  "Whew! I needed that."
     "Let's go." He grabbed me by the arm as I wiped my mouth with a moist napkin.
      Before I walked out of the metal doors of Lilac's, I  glanced back at the containers, for a taste remained in my mouth, not true taste but more like a dangling feeling on my lips. The source was inside the transparent urns, floating slowly in some chemical I couldn't care to remember but which kept the carcass preserved for the bars around The Citadel. The only thing keeping the body from bouncing wildly against the surface was a tube stuck to a neck, its lost face uncaring it was being drained and fed to Stargazers.
     And as we walked out into the vast Mall Zone, I realized the feeling was a certain, nagging embarrassment that stayed in my mouth, similar to the certain, nagging embarrassment I felt when I couldn't remember my dreams completely.  Embarrassment? At feeding?  At worrying about that ball of hot gas beyond the stratosphere? Now that's odd, I thought, joining the traffic of perfect beings, gods in a new era, for Sol had never seen and how could one feel anything concerning animals?
     Maybe I should as the leaders of our society, I thought sarcastically, since that's where I was going.

Stargazer: The enduring influence on the vampire genre

The Rose is the symbol of ruling class of vampires known as The Elders
As shown at my homepage and several reviews , and by the very book itself, Stargazer has indeed been the fountainhead for both the traditional and futuristic vampire saga (or "space vampires", as it's referred to). I am by no means completely original (no artists is); and I doubt the concepts in the novel were directly borrowed (the book sold decently in its first edition of The Queen of Darkness under Warner Books, but it was by no means a cultural phenomenon). Sure, Anne Rice introduced the idea of vampire bars, but I added a whole economy and mass production that True Blood, Blade and Daybreakers ran with. I am Legend brought us the vampire apocalypse, but I weaponized it with themes of revolution, social engineering, and deep philosophical undertones of Orwellian speculation. And the examples are legion when you read it.

Here is a  perfect illustration, from a new book by Lean Hillbrand called The Superiors .  Here is the synopsis:

Two hundred years after a stronger, faster, nearly invincible race takes over the earth, the Superiors rule humanity with scorn and an iron fist—or iron fangs. Though Superiors raise humans simply as livestock to sate their hunger and sustain their immortal lives, Draven Castle, a discontented, lower-class Superior, will never have the funds to purchase his own human.

One night Draven captures Cali, a human runaway, and defies society's strict laws by feeding on her. The continuing consequences of this one small criminal act forever alter the course of his mundane life. Draven returns Cali, but she has already ensnared his interest. He tries to protect her but finds himself helpless to stop other vampires from feeding on her, so he vows to purchase her, no matter the cost. Soon he begins to take more and more risks to ensure her safety and gain possession of her. But can he risk everything for the chance to own one human girl?

The story in Stargazer occurs 200 years after the vampire hostile takeover, humans are farmed, there is a caste system within the undead society, and the protagonist finds himself questioning his own existence by being transformed by a connection to a human being. I doubt Miss Hillbrand has read Stargazer, and sometimes the same stories lie in the collective unconscious Carl Jung wrote about, but it's interesting to point out.

Here is the backdrop of Stargazer, directly from the novel, in an interaction between the hero Byron and one of The Elders--sending him on an infernal quest that will ultimately cause his betrayal of his own race and war against Lilith, the godly ruler of the vampire race:


     The office was plush and elegant, but that is not what caught my attention. Most of the wall, curving upward, was ambergris glass, giving a striking if not haunting view of the land: Clouds of purple and sparkling pink scraping golden mountains of torn rock, endless desert streaming in and out of this valley, lovely Luna perched above it all. The northern gust must have been kind this night, taking away some of the dust from the sky. Furthermore, she appeared to us in full form, not in her crescent or other aspects. We could almost see her firm contours, almost notice a less potent shade of orange, not the blurry mess she had been since the nuclear winter ended after The Holocaust.     Crow and I were so awed by it, we didn't hear the other occupant rise from his desk of fake-oak and brass. He greeted us a second time.     "Uh, Master Shibboleth, greetings." Crow bowed at the handsome Stargazer with milky-hair, extremely pointed ears (more pointed than most of us), dressed in gray robes. His face reminded me of my own features—tapering, savagely noble, but with eyes that always seemed to mock everything. I owned dark hair that people said had deep red streaks in it.      "Greetings, Lord Crow," he said with a musical, yet sonorous voice. "And you, Byron. It has been a while since I saw you."      I walked to him and extended a hand, not caring to be formal. He took my hand confidently, though.      "Greetings to you, Shibboleth," I said. "When was that, last year at the Equinox Festival, Master Tsing-Tao party?"      "Yes it was." He motioned for a decanter on the desk.       "How about a refreshment? It's A-positive from a young stock, a small privilege The Elders have in our arduous duty.      Crow was already salivating and licking his fangs. Shibboleth poured us a round and told us to have a seat. We sipped the wonderful food from cordials in silence for a few seconds. Then The Elder informed his secretary through the intercom that he was not to be disturbed.      "Oh, this is tasty," I remarked. "As good as any reason to come and visit you."      "This is not the reason you come to visit me,"      Shibboleth said, second in rank out of seven Elders. He held his glass up, at the same time patting his lips with a handkerchief. "But it is very connected.  And very important."      "What do you mean?" I asked, and Crow elbowed me, only to get a disapproving stare from The Elder.      "Please, Lord Crow," he said. "This meeting is as important as it is secret. Matters of security are at stake. Every-one in this room should feel free to express themselves and ask any questions."      I sneered at the Raven and took out a cigarette. The look on Shibboleth's face was precious.      "I agree," I said, "but why am I here? There are definitely more important power-players in Xanadu than me."      Shibboleth leaned back in his chair, touching his long nails in contemplation.      "I'm sure you're not the only one in The Tower who thinks this, Byron. But the word has been sent from the top."      "The top?" Both Crow and I questioned.      "The top," he echoed calmly, although his eyes shifted murkier for an instant.      "You mean," I said, but he was already nodding. "Our Mistress?"      "Yes," he hissed and stood up, pacing by a window as if admiring the view he could see every worknight through eyes needing no illumination.      I sucked on the smoke and thought of my dreams.      "Byron," he said, hands behind him, back to us. "Most of The Elders know of your past. You were once of the greatest children of Our Mistress. We are all equal in this new age after The Holocaust when the Stargazers overthrew the Warm Ones. But…" He paused, as if for the first time noticing the smoke saturating the room (Xanadu was not known for its filtering qualities). "You were the prototype of something greater perhaps. You have wondrous talents that have been, how would you put it, wasted throughout your many careers in the last hundred years."      I looked down, wondering why I didn't feel any shame. Not even embarrassment, that taste, that feeling, that topic I felt this conversation was leading to—they always did when it came to me.      Shibboleth waived at Lord Crow. "At first you served as a Raven, making sure security was impeccable in The Citadel and The Farms in the nights when we were still domesticating all the Warm Ones. You were expelled for terminating another warrior. Do you recall why?"      "Vaguely," I mumbled.      "Over what, Byron?"      "A friend," I answered flatly.      "But you weren't punished even if Stargazers are not al-lowed to destroy one another, the second greatest crime after transgression against Our Mistress, both punished with immediate extermination. But you were somehow forgiven and moved onto other areas. And how you excelled, Byron! You wrote the first true Stargazer classical piece, you sculpted award-winning statues, you designed great graphic interfaces that aided Xanadu. But each time, you somehow let your bravado sabotage your potential."      I felt like defending myself, but all I could do was put out my cigarette and watch smithereens of golden ash quiver to nothingness.      "And believe me, we have worried about it and pondered alternatives to your, let us say, disgraceful existence." He paused again, to make sure the words sank in to my cha-grin and Crow's pleasure. "But we are civilized; and The Elders and The MoonQueen only wish the best for our civilization."      Enough was enough. My legendary short attention was already kicking in, which was usually followed by my legendary boredom.      "That's really great, Shib. But what am I doing here? Most of my disciplining has been carried out by the Ravens or other guilds. Not a superior of your stature."      He grinned, but his eyes turned putrid orange. I heard Crow gasp, but my sight would not falter. "It's simple, Byron. We wish to offer you another chance. The MoonQueen wants your aid, to prove her infinite wisdom is just that. You were birthed the perfect Stargazer, Byron, now prove it. Or else."      "Or else?" I took out another cigarette.      "Or else." He sat back down, this time offering me a light. Another privilege of The Elders.      "Since you put it that way, Shib," I said, leaning over to catch his illumination. "I guess I'll be at your service. What's going on?"      "Lord Crow," he said, slowly swinging his chair left and right.      "We believe there are certain, potential instigations in Xanadu," he explained after clearing his throat.      I frowned. "Instigations? From whom? Stargazers?"      "No, of course not," Crow spat, eyeing The Elder's decanter. "From the Warm Ones, in one of The Farms."      "Don't these happen all the time?" I asked, remembering my nights in those dreary places.      "Yes and no," Shibboleth said. "They do, but they are of little concern. Many times we allow them to give the Ravens and scientists a change to sharpen their fangs, pardon the expression, or to prune the volatile parts."      "But this one is different?"      "We believe so," said Crow, "especially since one of our own was found…"      He glanced at Shibboleth for help at the lodged word.      "Fallen," The Elder said calmly. "Destroyed."      "Destroyed?" I said. "And you think it was a Warm One?"      They watched the shaking of my head. That had never happened in this city, as far as I knew. Not when I was the head of the Ravens, not even with Crow.      "If our intelligence is correct," Crow said. "It might be more than just a very isolated event, perhaps a collective insurrection."      "What exactly happened?" I asked, still unbelieving.      "You will be detailed once you get there and then you act quickly."      "I still don't understand," I said. "Why me? Why not eliminate a few hundred of any potential troublemakers and be done with it?"      Again, he looked to Shibboleth for words. The Elder was glancing to his side, lost in his own churning thoughts.      "As Shibboleth informed my Ravens," Crow said. "The MoonQueen doesn't just want a massive squashing of the rebellious element. One, our food crop has lessened in the last ten years—spilled juice is not desirable. Two, the Warm Ones are covering up very well. Our Mistress wants somebody with a good eye." He glared at me. "Someone with a very good eye."      "Not just that," Shibboleth added, "but someone who understands the ways of places away from The Citadel, some-one who is sensitive, who can perhaps look at the Warm Ones and read them better than most."      "Sounds like me," I said acidly in a low tone. The Elder stood up again, as if not getting enough of the scenery. "It is you, Byron. You will be an example and you will be redeemed.  Small feat for someone like you."      "And example?"      The Elder sighed. "Yes, an example, Byron. The MoonQueen told me personally that she believes that we, as a species, are growing soft. Not exactly soft, but perhaps complacent, lacking in dynamics. It's been almost a century and a half since The Holocaust. When the nuclear winds settled and the endless ash blotted out hateful Sol for decades, we rose from the rubble of what we caused as the supreme species. The new offspring of Our Mistress, who gives birth to all of us from her black womb, almost starved but were able to find the Warm Ones, those who survived."      I felt a speech coming but this one struck me with a certain melancholy.      He turned his head and regarded us both. "And thus came the city-states, wondrous metropolises in the wastes where the Stargazers could thrive with new technology. Of the five built, how many are left, Byron?"      "Let me see," I said slowly. "Two failed, disappeared; we believe a massive radioactive surge or an earthquake on the west coast obliterated Rice City and New Tenochtitlan. Hard to tell, long-distance travel and communication is so hard. Then there was Utopia, New Atlantis, and Xanadu…"      "We know what happened to Utopia." He leaned on the desk to make sure I heard him loud and clear. "The first of the city-states, our cradle."      "At least we know the rumors," I commented.      "Blasphemous idiot!" Crow snapped. "The MoonQueen, who originally dwelt there, told us what happened. It was the Warm Ones who revolted and sabotaged our facilities. I ought to—"      He was silenced by Shibboleth's risen hand.      "Please, Lord Crow. We are not here to prove Mr. Byron's character. That will be proven very soon. And then it will be judged."      "By whom?" I asked, for the first time feeling like a prisoner of some didactic ploy. "Our Mistress? The Elders?"      "You will be judged," he said firmly. "Our civilization, new as it may be, even though Stargazers roamed the earth since the beginning of time, must evolve unhindered. We have lost much, Byron, we have much to gain. You must understand that once, some of the wiser ones hunted in the open, underneath the stars and a naked Luna. That is why we baptized our kind with a name that makes sure they always remember, hope for, and seek that time when they can hunt under stars and a naked Luna. One of these nights, the atmosphere will cleanse itself and the land might grow. It's taken much longer than we had theorized, but when that happens, when we can see the stars again, it is our intention to have as many city-states, separate yet united, ready to converge in the greatest empire this planet has ever witnessed. And morale and example are good ways to begin. We do not want to grow lax, for nature is still harsh and ingenuity is scarce. We will not become soft as the Warm Ones did in the end. We will move forward! That is my duty as an Elder." He pointed to the silver rose pin that all Elders wore. "We are like a rose—beautiful, enigmatic, but ready to prick anyone if their growth is disturbed.  Do I make myself clear?"      I wasn't looking at him. My gaze was fixed on Luna, a bloated tangerine dangling between veils of sickly clouds, always watching the land, always filling our kind with hope, with hunger.      "Perfectly clear." I matched his sight, and raised him infinity simply to show him that his speech hadn't worked that well on me.

Bryon has no choice but to accept the task, eventually leaving Xanadu and investigating one of the Farms, where he will meet human Shaman called Medea, who will change his existence forever.

Priest Vampire Movie Is Out So Why Not A Promotion?

This weekend Priest opens, an apocalyptic vampire movie, or 'the vampires in space' sub-genre as some casually call it. Needless, to say I hope it does well since it is in line with Stargazer (it came in 1998 in its first edition, titled The Queen of Darkness from Warner Book, and many have borrowed from it).

Here's a synopsis:

PRIEST, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller, is set in an alternate world -- one ravaged by centuries of war between man and vampires. The story revolves around a legendary Warrior Priest from the last Vampire War who now lives in obscurity among the other downtrodden human inhabitants in walled-in dystopian cities ruled by the Church. When his niece is abducted by a murderous pack of vampires, Priest breaks his sacred vows to venture out on a quest to find her before they turn her into one of them. He is joined on his crusade by his niece's boyfriend, a trigger-fingered young wasteland sheriff, and a former Warrior Priestess who possesses otherworldly fighting skills. Written by Screen Gems

I'm not expecting a grandiose epic full of pathos, since these movies are mined for their action and gore.  I'll write about Priest as soon as I see it, but I doubt it has the same balance of meaning and violence that Stargazer has, or that it will come close in literary quality (the reviews prove this, and  Stargazer  was nominated best new novel by the Horror Writer's Association).   IMBD has given is 5.7 out of 10 and Rotten Tomatoes gave it a pathetic 19 percent!

Regardless, it's my hope Priest at least keeps the vampire genre going. There is no doubt Stargazer would make a far superior film. But don't take my word for it. As a promotion for the release of Priest , I'm offering at half price at Smashwords , where you can download it in any digital form your blood-thirst will like.

Just find Stargazer at  Smashwords  and enter this code:

EN44W

Check it out and let me know what you think (and Priest as well).  Promotion lasts until Friday May 20.

Stargazer Is Back in Print Edition & At Smashwords

After a small interruption dealing with some Archons that needed to be dispatched like Warm One rebels, Stargazer: The Dark Instinct Series Book 1  is available again in print edition . Currently, you can purchase Stargazer at Amazon.com, but soon it will be available at other retailers. In addition, this greatest of vampire epics is also in digital form at Smashwords , sold in various versions for your favorite e-reader (Epub, PDF, RTF, Mobi).  In time, you'll be able to obtain it directly through the various digital outlets like I-Pad, Kobo, Sony Reader, etc.).

No excuse not to go out and buy it, and if you don't believe me read some of the reviews .

Here is an excerpt, to wet your appetite for destruction. Enter Byron meeting The MoonQueen in her frozen Hell kingdom, in what seems to be for the first time during their war. A war that has actually been transpiring for lifetimes:


    Now she made herself present in her kingdom of frost.
    Yes, she was blue and beautiful and ancient, wearing gowns of light, jewels of liquid energy. They were real this time, as real as I could understand. She was very real, she was reality, towering above me, surrounded by clouds of dusty ice, a morning star of a thousand forbidden desires, Our Mistress, The MoonQueen. She did not quote any dream sequence, she did not speak through cerebral invasions or celestial gatherings in a stadium. No, her gorgeous, metallic lips spoke with the almost timed voice of a young maiden, hiding little of her sardonic demure, her old sharpness.
     "Bravo," The MoonQueen said, regarding me through cobalt eyes. "Bravissimo! C'est magnifique, Mon Cheri. You have done it!"
     I tried to escape the deity's glamour, the hypnotic, astral gauze of her being. I pictured Medea and the war I had just arrived from.
    "I have done it?" I questioned. "I have done it? That's all? All of this was some field study to you? To see me betray my species and uncover the Warm One's plans, to witness another Stargazer cursed with your Dark Instinct?"
    She clapped her hands and held them in delight, eyes shifting to cloudy indigo. "Byron, Byron, Byron, sweetest of my offspring. You don't understand, do you?"
    "Unless somebody tells me and stops asking me that, not really." She hovered closer to me. I had to hide my eyes from the brilliance.
    "I am old," she said, her voice a cutting gale. "Older than you know.  A hundred times your life span is but a fleeting dusk to me. When civilization was young, I was already menstruating worlds. I have been here since the beginning of time, Byron. My motives and those of the other Giants are perhaps beyond you, but I wonder sometimes."
     "What motives?" I asked, resentment bubbling like a geyser. "The Holocaust, this little civilization in the wastes?"
      She nodded. "Everything, Dearest.  You could say it was a little experiment, a little move of the pieces in creation's chess game, if you know what that is. We existed well before, Byron, but a change had to occur. I grew bored little child, and boredom is the death of gods. Maybe it was just my destiny."
     "Well, I'm glad I could be of some service," I said sarcastically, lowering my head. I felt so tired, all of a sudden.
     "But you were." I could feel her resonant, silky speech in my head, her breath all over my skin. "You always have been. Now, I know the extent of the Warm Ones' powers, faith which only grew stronger after we enslaved them. Such a pity. I preferred crosses and ankhs than this malignancy that not only hurts us but our handiwork. But adjustments must always be made, and I owe it all to you, Dearest."
    "You disgust me." I tried to match her gaze, but found phenomena obfuscating.
     She tilted her head. "Careful, Mon Cheri. I created you, not the Warm Ones."
    "You did, all right." I barked. "You gave me such a great ride, Mistress. Thanks for the sham. I'll leave the puppet strings on the way out."
     Her tone seemed genuinely honest, but I knew honesty or truth were also playthings to this being. "But you weren't a puppet, Byron. You're still my greatest one, my favorite. I wouldn't have allowed you to attempt creation if I didn't adore you."
     "So what was I before? What was I when I lived and breathed normally?" I asked. Hollowness filled me instead of anticipation.
     She smiled, revealing perfect fangs, glowing, almost translucent. "Don't you remember your dreams?"
     I opened my mouth.  Yes, I do, a voice told me.
    "Of course you do," she said, "and you must have known I can enter any Stargazer's mind, for I give them immortality. You must have known."
    "Damn you." I looked away, more tears leaving me in heavy globs.
    "Your dreams, Byron, what do they tell you?" I felt her hand on my face, forcing me to watch her...


Byron learns the truth of who he really is...how the war began against The MoonQueen.



DOWNLOAD THE FIRST FOUR CHAPTERS!

Stargazer Review

Publisher, author and all around Occultist extraordinaire David Rankine has written a great review of my fiction novel, Stargazer , in his Blog .  Here it is:

"If you like vampire novels which actually question preconceptions and push the boundaries rather than simply regurgitate the standard formula, then you will love Stargazer.  As I read through the story, it brought a number of other works to mind, but in a comparative manner as I noticed similarities in richness of language or challenging the genre.  Thus on one level Stargazer made me think of Colin Wilson's Space Vampires and A.E. Van Vogt's Supermind as all being works which bring innovation and then twist it on its head in places to spin the plot into dark and unexpected complexities.  On another level Connor has captured the atmospheric detail found in classic vampire masterpieces like Freda Warrington's Taste of Blood Wine series, and the hero-antihero angst of the lead characters found in Brian Lumley's Necroscope series.

However, to the details of the book itself – it is a book which moves at a good speed throughout, with no lapses in pace or excitement, and yet still manages to reach a breakneck climax.  Miguel Conner has created a new vampire antihero in Byron who goes beyond the 'vampire with a soul' characters found in contemporary television series.  Instead Byron is the best of antiheroes – with a huge capacity for selfless action and a dark past which lurks like an iceberg through the book, slowly surfacing until his collision with the powers that be in the climax.

The idea of a post-apocalyptic world created by vampires, now calling themselves stargazers, is indicative of the intelligent use of the genre the author has demonstrated, with layers of symbolism throughout the work awaiting discovery by those interested in spirituality and Gnostic symbolism.  This is definitely a must-read book which stands out as one of the best vampire novels I have yet read, and I am eagerly awaiting the sequel, Heretic."

Stargazer Excerpt: Byron shows Medea the human Slaughterhouses

Byron knows that the MoonQueen is monitoring his mission from her icy Hell-kingdom, and that failure will mean his destruction


 Byron continues his investigation in The Farms for the death of a fellow Stargazer and a potential Warm One insurrection. Part of his scheme has been befriending Medea, the aspiring leader of the humans, in a back and forth game of understanding each others races (vampire and human). Byron knows that Lilith, The Queen of Darkness, is running out of patience in her frozen-Hell kingdom and thus makes a risky move--offering Medea a tour of the Slaughterhouses in order to shatter her resolve and defenses, make her betray herself or some information. He suspects the Shaman is the source of all the Stargazer troubles in that particular Farm. But there is more to his intentions, as well as Medea's, as both begin to not just understand each other but feel something deeper, deep within themselves and deep within their respective pasts. But their fate of becoming mortal enemies seems just as written in bloody stone as their fate of becoming something else.


Enter Byron spying on a Warm One religious ritual:

A ceremony was being held. From what I heard from the Warm Ones entering the temple and the hundred left outside because of space, this was just one of many before the new Shaman took on the Blood Circles. And that was Medea. My Warm One pet.
    Hiding over the rafters of the temple, I harmonized in the shadows without a sound. I knew my eyes burned with reddish tints, a reaction at being in the company of so many prey, but none saw me in the candlelit shrine. Most of the time heads were vowed in prayer, as the Shaman spoke loud supplications to The Blood of Circles and its Liberator.
    "Infinite Eight, Blessed Circle, we ask you to lead us to The House of Tomorrow," the Shaman bleated at his congregation. "We know that evil is good tortured by its own hunger and thirst, we know good comes from being one with the self. But The Den of Thieves, The Womb of Hell, does not under-stand this, separated from time and the gardens of innocence. It only knows to drink from dead waters, to steal in the night…"
    Medea was always by his side, dressed in the same beige, circle-painted garments, praying with the rest, assisting the gnarly man who seemed too ill to finish his didactic tirade.
    "We ask that you arrive, Liberator, and lead us to the House of Tomorrow. We know that death is but to stand in the wind and melt with Sol; we know we have turned our back from God as much as The Den of Thieves. We ask your forgiveness, your return, your eternal blessing!"
    I listened to it all, to every dripping word. I heard the prayer of each Warm One. Any other Stargazer would have laughed, scoffed at this. I just listened and, after a while, en-joyed its poetry, its foolish meaning, savoring a little peace at the same time, the first since being woken to Sol's raging javelins.
    I took time to grin when I saw Clannad, bored at the ceremony, elbowing another pup at his side. How peculiar, these Warm Ones, that they should breed from themselves, grow and grow old. They had no real power, obeying physics. What they ate many times was expunged in waste. Eventually, they wasted to dust, all but worthless if we weren't around to consume them. How odd.
    I slapped my forehead, forcing my legendary short attention span to concentrate on any clues from his speech or the crowd.
    Byron, you're worse than Clannad and the other pup! Listen well, but don't worry about their words. They don't mean anything as much as the Elders' words. They don't mean anything to you. They're just words from animals. They're just words.
    We created you.
     When it ended, the Warm Ones left quietly with satisfied expressions. They would go to their rest with hope, while a few would be snagged before reaching their homes. Crow had ordered the area cleared, but we had to feed civilization.
     While workers hid the benches and some of the artifacts downstairs, I listened to Medea order a Warm One to escort the Shaman to his abode, saying she needed to prepare for the passing of the Blood of Circles. It was tomorrow.
     As soon as she was alone, getting prepared for her nightly duty of maintaining the basements, I descended and landed with a small bow.
    "Byron!" she exclaimed with outrage, rapidly moving away from me. "You heard it? You were here!"
    "I'm sure any Stargazer in the vicinity heard all of this, Medea."
    "But you are not part of this!"
    "Yes, I am. You've showed me. Like you said, you've got nothing to hide from a monster like me."
    Her eyes widened and collapsed to that glare. I felt that few comments ever halted her pugnacious anger, and none could temper her edge.
    "What are you doing here?" she asked, one arm sliding inside her robe. "Have you decided it was time for judgment?"
    I snorted. "Not yet, if I decide there is to be one. There are still a few things I need to know."
    Medea dodged my gaze. "All the answers that you need I have given them to you. And now you come with the same questions."
    I paused, admiring the eight sculptures over the altar.
    "Not exactly. I'm giving you the option to learn more about us, Shaman to be."
    Her brow crinkled. "What do you mean?"
    I shrugged.
    "A tour. The place you wouldn't even fathom, remember? Commodore Station."
    "Commodore Station? You mean The Den of Thieves? Hell?"
    I shrugged a second time, this one chaperoned by a chuckle. "Sure, anywhere you want."
"I don't know," she said slowly. "Perhaps you have been…civil, Byron. But your kind…in there?"   
    "No one will harm you, Medea. I promise you that. I'm doing this out of fairness. Let me return the favor. What do you have to lose that you really don't have?"
    "Fine," she said. "But this isn't about fairness, Byron, no matter what you think."
    "Then what's it about?"
    Her defiant look had arrived again. "Strength, perhaps?"
    I laughed. "Oh, you are entertaining, Warm One. Let's go."
    "Wait for me outside," she told me. "I must arrange a few things and lock this place. Make sure you are not seen. I cannot be seen consorting with—"
    "I'll wait outside," I said, going to the exit.
    It took her less than half an hour to join me. A good amount of it, I heard distantly, was spent performing the act of prayer. She didn't use the fermented fruit this time. Once outside, Medea scanned the area, until I detached from the darkness.
    "One thing I don't understand," I said casually, "is that you don't seem to have the Shaman's flair for gab. I think he would have told me the same lines about houses and dens if I had encountered him."
    "You are right." She half smiled, taking a step toward me where she stood in her fear. "I know all the holy words of The Circle, Byron, but I was chosen not for my eloquence but—"
    "Because of your demure attitude, your pacifistic persona."
    Her smile became full. "Yes, Stargazer. And why were you chosen?"
    I held out a hand to the Warm One.
    "It has something to do with a sensitivity and a good eye."
    She held out her hand to me.
4
Everyone takes things for granted, even gods. I suppose. Medea had not truly wanted to enter my arms when I told her how we'd get there and she groaned when my feet divorced the ground. Soaring high above The Farm, I couldn't help but enjoy her expression of pure joy. Her face cringed in delight at the raking wind, at the world left underneath us.
    "Blood of Circles!" I heard her say through the bawling air. "We're fly—"
    Her sentence was terminated by her own scream, as I swooped in a loop, waiting to see her myriad of expressions deepen. Yes, we were flying, in my arms, two different creatures in, you got it, two different worlds.
    I sailed around The Farm twice, ignoring several Ravens chasing me until they saw who I was. For a fleeting instant, I climbed over the cliff, edging dangerously close to the Ozone Field. Medea's eyes absorbed more wonder, clasping a quick flash of The Citadel many miles away.
    Rice City had been carved from a massive cliff overlooking a wild ocean, New Tenochtitlan once thrived in a savage desert in the form of pyramids, New Atlantis existed in the form of a steel carapace in the ground, while Utopia was built from the skeletons of a Warm One city. Xanadu wasn't like any of them—it was The City of Domes, an emerald gem in a caustic valley. Medea saw this, and I felt a certain pride at showing it to her, just briefly.
    Then I took off for Commodore Station. I asked Medea what she wanted to see first.
    "Take me to the ruler of this age," she shouted, holding me tighter. "Take me to confront your evil queen."
    "I don't think so." I laughed. "Something closer."
    Her determined expression remained. "Take me to the Slaughterhouses."
    "Are you sure?"
    She didn't answer. Her grip tightened. I changed course, heading for the massive cranes on the north side of the canyon.
    And tried my best to ignore my rising hunger for her being.
    I knew of certain defects in the station, old tunnels and cracks I'd used decades ago in my black market ploy. Most were still there. I zoomed into a large crevasse above the rocks and descended through narrow shafts. I almost forgot that some needed access in mist form, changing direction several times. When a Stargazer melted to gas, anything touching skin joined him or her in that state. I wondered if Medea would transform with me, but I didn't want to put her through the shock. She had her own when we arrived at a high ledge overlooking the Slaughterhouses.
    She left my grasp immediately, leaning over the edge, trying to peer over the smoke of the furnaces and machinery. The floor of this place was always well lit, lamps tended throughout the maze of walkways in the middle, for the guests of honor were none other than her species, here in but one of the three massive hangars comprising the Slaughterhouse.
    The other two were used to package the food for businesses and private galas, nothing more than a process of immediately drowning their bodies in chemicals. This one, the main one, served to make distribution more economical for the population.
    Standing by her, I chased her vision, followed every twitch of her face. Medea sweated, shook with vigor, but her sight would not falter. I felt she was hot in here, perhaps in danger due to the unclean air that swirled in oily tendrils.
    Down there, she was something so common to us, so necessary. The cranes appeared at large openings, tossing Warm Ones into metallic corrals. In each, a Raven with an electrical prod commanded them to strip and continue in a single file through slime walkways. Those who did anything silly, such as beg, fight, or try to return to their cages, were swiftly shocked into submission. A few passed out, and the Raven threw the bodies in the corner. When the soldier had a break, he'd strangle them, dragging the bodies directly to their destination at the end of the shift. Leftovers, we used to call them.
    Nude males and females and some pups walked, silent with bowed heads, turning several corners, where hygienic sprays doused them in case they were needed for a more festive purpose. If that was the case, a Raven would open certain doors at a specific interval and take the Warm One to holding barns next to the Slaughterhouse. The flow and choosing was regulated by scanners set at every ten feet, counting heads and the tattooed numbers for inventory. Again, if some Warm One faltered in terror, a Raven would be notified from control rooms and depart the many terraces on the high walls. The soldier would land over the iron mesh encasing the walkways. They could keep walking or suffer the same fate as the disobedient ones at the entrance.
    Then came the end, which Medea witnessed many times, as a cargo had just been unloaded.
    In my times, the glory nights of Xanadu, the Slaughterhouse was open all night. Out of laziness and the fact I thought we Ravens were below this, I'd even used Warm Ones to aid in the process, a calming effect for the chosen. Their reward, I lied, for working as guides was to be absolved from the end. The Elders banned this after a few years. These nights, Ravens were lucky to get a six-hour night load.
    The walkway forked to three different portals. As soon as three Warm Ones entered, a red light flashed and a door slid shut. The next ones waited for the door to open, their spirits and hopes going up with the silky smoke. After a minute or more, perhaps only hearing a faint groan from the other side, red shifted to green, the door opened, and three more went in.
    They probably knew what came next. Medea had heard. In a small, circular chamber of stainless steel, seemingly without features except for a few speckles of juice here and there, they stood with heavy breathing. Sometimes they had to wait minutes, as the machinery was old, a century old. Then they might hear a humming noise, followed by a clicking sound. Before they could react, steel clamps disjoined the walls and pinned their necks, waist, and arms down. Fear replaced desperation, one last time. Metallic straws half an inch in diameter, much like the ones Meph and I used, but much longer, thrust from the walls from invisible openings at a blinding speed. Some engineer in a boot overlooking the maze had quickly set the right coordinates for the tubes, or Gutting Syringes. Two plunged into each side of the neck, one in the chest, one in the stomach, two in the thighs. Many times a tube would miss the specific location, but it didn't matter for the others would take care of the job. The animal twitched in what must have been incredible agony at first, skin and flesh ripping slightly in different areas during the struggle. Then their juice was drained. They couldn't even scream for the tubes crisscrossed to block their air pipes. Probably feeling dizzy, perhaps tired, all so rapidly, pain and light dissolved before them. Then it was over. The tubes and clamps regressed, their juice poured to large vats beyond the high walls to be treated then catalogued.
    The carcass had little time to fall, a trapdoor opening at its feet. Medea, tears seasoning her perspiration, would not see the empty husk fall on a cart a story down in small tunnels that led to the furnaces. When the cart was full of broken corpses, a worker would drag it to be emptied. The workers were called Lickers, I recalled, and they were Stargazers that had committed minor infractions such as theft or fraud. Their punishment, besides the debased work, was to survive by supping the remains of juice left in the receptacle. I was threatened with this discipline a few times, but someone at the top always had mercy.
    Then it was off to the fires, destroyed, forgotten in the fumes meeting the indifferent sky.
    Although I was thoroughly fascinated by her interaction with her grimmest nightmare, I couldn't help but admire my pet. She watched without a flinch, taking the view of something so ghastly to her species, so wrong…so evil? Medea was stronger in will than any animal I'd ever seen, any Stargazer. Yes, this was about strength, and she had shown mounds of it.
    At the same time, I wondered about Medea's comment about having to end them for nourishment. Did we really have to slay them? Couldn't we simply drain their juice in proportions? They would live, making more juice for us, reproducing, perhaps creating a labor force for our needs. It made more sense. I felt this debate had happened before, that somehow I'd been in the middle of it.
    Utopia.
     Flames…smoke…judging…judging me…running away from her…her justice?
    My feet shuffled away from her, for the sound of the Shaman's words returned from the expanse of my memory.
    We know that evil is good tortured by its own hunger and thirst, we know good comes from being one with the self. But The Den of Thieves, The Womb of Hell, does not understand this, separated from time and the gardens of innocence. It only knows to drink from dead waters, to steal in the night.
    Medea suddenly started to shriek, raising her fists at the Slaughterhouse. I'd heard Warm Ones shriek through the years, but not like this. It was curled in hate and defiance, so pure yet so pain-filled. Her hands fumbled inside her robes.
    "CRAWL YOU!" I heard when her voice took on words. "CRAWL ALL OF YOU, IN THE LIGHT OF THE TRUE LIBERATOR AND THE HOUSE OF TOMORROW. YOU BASTARDS, YOU PATHETIC, EVIL, THINGS. CRAWL!"
    Admiration turned to envy for an instant a very small instant, and I placed my hand over her mouth, pinning her body with my other arm.
    She struggled without success. I could see Stargazers flutter toward us, knowing something was amiss in this place, this most important place of our civilization but which few Stargazers gave much thought to.
    Fanged monsters with swiping talons surrounded us in the air. My people. They recognized me and growled in warning. I growled back with such vigor the walls shook. They paused in their flight. They saw my own warning flaring in my eyes, so bright the whole chamber lit in sulky red. I fell with the animal over the ledge until smoke engulfed us. Then I darted toward the entrance. At my heels, they followed cautiously.
    I increased my speed, bolting out of the canyon. My people stopped at the entrance, knowing their territory was secure, perhaps understanding that it was just Byron and his little pet.
    I felt Medea quivering erratically, suddenly recalling that Warm Ones needed that thing called oxygen. My hand abandoned her face. She gasped, still full of anger.
    "I want to see more," she rasped. "Take me back, Byron, damn you! I want to see more!"
    I didn't change my direction. I flew back to The Farm. She kept on repeating the same line. She hit and elbowed and kicked me, but I felt nothing.
    I took her back to the temple. When we landed, still screaming, she tried to run back. I grabbed her again, taking her down to the basement. Tossing her on the floor, I stood guard at the stairs. As Medea fell, a small statue of the eight painted males, which she had hidden in her robes, popped out and shattered on the ground. She started weeping, legs folding under her, covering a face I realized was almost precious to me. The hunger, tamed by my sly plan, returned fortified by the vast juice I'd smelled so recently.
"Maybe this wasn't such a good thing," I offered rolling my eyes in admittance. "Not a good trade-off, Medea."   
She shook her head, lips twisting and aching. The aching was also reflected in her gaze, scanned the fragments of the statue. Then she swallowed hard. Then she wiped the odd moisture off her eyes.   
    "Yes it was," she said between sobs. "I…I…had to see it… Byron…I was—"
    "No," I said. "Maybe I haven't been entirely fair with you." She hinged her stare to mine, slight fear echoing behind defeated features. Two different worlds with so much distance. And there I was…
    "I knew you would want to go there," I said with tightness in my voice. "You're so full of hate, and you wanted it to consume you. I understand. At the same time, I wanted to see you with the rest of the animals and their fate, show you our world and the reality you won't accept." I shrugged. "Maybe I just wanted to punish you for your comments that might have slightly bothered me…break you down a little." I laughed. "That's all."
    Medea lowered her head. Her lips quivered. Yes, I had broken her down. She had seen reality. But was that fair of me?
    "I…" My words stopped briefly, for I realized I was about to do something no Stargazer had ever done. I closed my eyes. "I apologize, Medea."
    I heard the rustle of her clothing, gentle footsteps toward me. My eyes opened, surprised to see that her expression had cleared up. Medea tilted her head, breathing leveling, pinkish eyes looking at me with a certain newfound interest.
    "It wasn't just that," she whispered. "Why I wanted to be there. But it doesn't matter now, does it? Maybe you are right. The world is the way it is, and perhaps I cannot change it. Only one person can. But know one thing: I have said things not to 'bother' you but to show you the truth. I have concealed and I have been indirect, but I have never lied to you, Byron, for your kind has shown me that lying is worse than death."
    "Did you kill the Stargazer?"

(continued)



DON'T FORGET YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE FIRST FOUR CHAPTERS

Stargazer

Before The MatrixBefore True BloodBefore TwilightBefore DaybreakersBefore Morrigan's CrossBefore Blade
There was only




The fountainhead of so many modern vampire & science fiction epics is once again available!
Originally published as The Queen of Darkness, the classic saga has been rebooted and revamped second edition to further take its place among the greatest vampire tales ever written.

Five hundred years ago the Stargazers, led by their immortal MoonQueen, sparked global nuclear war, blotted out the sun, conquered the world, and rewrote history. Now humans are cattle whose blood feeds the master race, the glorious rulers of high-tech cities. And no one calls Stargazers by their true name. 
Vampires. 
Yet some impulse is stirring in the slave farms, an echo of a forgotten pride. Byron, a rebellious young Stargazer, is assigned to investigate the'Warm One's--in other words, destroy any threat. But when a beautiful human shaman shows him unbelievable truths about his past, his origin,and his destiny, a vampire will discover that his immortal enemy is his living Goddess, The MoonQueen.

"Conner creates an inexplicably touching hero both as man and monster."
Publishers Weekly

"For me, there are only two classic vampire novels: Bram Stoker's Dracula and Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire…now comes Conner's Stargazer which deserves so much of our attention for all the differences it brings into the genre."
Science Fiction Chronicle

"Classic vampire mythology redefined in the most exciting and original way.
Science fiction at its finest!"
Samuel Benavides, award-winning writer & director of Mansfield Path and
Phantom Senses

"Rarely has a book of fiction made such an impression on me as Miguel Conner's Stargazer. I originally read its first version edition years ago. It was an experience that has remained alive with me through the present. Don't expect from Conner the usual vampire fare. His book is original, suspenseful, great story telling and most of all, forces us to think and draw parallels with certain ethical realities confronting us now. If one is looking for the best vampire and science fiction in the last twenty years, Stargazer is not to be missed."
Rosamonde Miller, author of A Strange Vocation and the vampire series Tales of Shandolphin

"If like me, you're an avid fan of the vampire race, you must not miss this first time novel.  Miguel's notion is so stark and disturbing that it will stay with you for a long time."
Barnes & Noble Explorations

"Twilight needs to get some of this. Truly a fantastic story providing a new gripping take on Vampire story telling."
Keira Ligertwood, author of Journeys of The Shadow Tracker


A profoundly Philip K. Dick/Gnostic/Alchemical saga couched within a Dystopian Vampire Epic (and romance)!


DOWNLOAD THE FIRST FOUR CHAPTERS!!!

Look for the sequel, Heretic, coming out late in 2011

Live Televised Interview on Spiritual TV

I will be interviewed tonight at 6PM/8 PM/9PM live for Spiritual TV with George Lewis.  We'll be discussing, of course, Voices of Gnosticism and hopefully other heretical sundries.  It will be live and callers can chime in and give me hell or heaven.  Hope to see you there!

THE SPIRITUAL BUT NOT RELIGIOUS SHOW

One a side helluva note Media Bistro's Galleycat has mentioned Stargazer as one the releases this month, and will probably be followed by a review. They get hundreds of requests and only pick a few!  The  revolution in the name of Hypatia of Alexandria continues, and heresy shouldn't be this much fun!!!