The Lottery by Ivor W. Hartmann
'What are we now? Can we really call ourselves human any more? What of our souls, heaven, and hell?'
- Emergency Online Transference FAQ's.
Israel Sabula was a newly transferred and he did not like it. He had awoken from death in this white chair, to this white room and its barren smooth lines. A far cry from the bubbling and whirring room of machines wired into his dying body, which saw his lonely departure from that mortal coil. There was an utter silence in the room and even though he continued breathing from habit, there was no breath, no air, no sound, not even a deafening silence from real world ear feedback. He snapped his fingers and heard the click and then that weird silence...
I have taken this down because I'm working on it :). Maybe some day you'll see it in print.
Ivor.
The Lottery was written by Ivor W. Hartmann.
Copyright Ivor W. Hartmann 2008.
.jpg "Ivor W. Hartmann")
Ivor W. Hartmann, is a Zimbabwean writer. He is the author of Mr. Goop (Vivlia, 2010), and was nominated for the UMA Award (2009), and awarded The Golden Baobab Prize (2009). His writing has appeared in African Writing Magazine, Wordsetc, Munyori Literary Journal, Something Wicked, and Sentinel Literary Quarterly, amongst others. He is the editor/publisher of StoryTime, and co-editor/publisher African Roar, and on the advisory board of Writers International Network Zimbabwe.
7 comments:
Merry Seasons Greetings 2008 to all of ST readers and authors.
The Lottery is actually a novel I have been working for a while now, but I decided to release it as a chapter serial on ST. So I hope you enjoy it and please do let me know your thoughts on it.
Have a great holiday!
Ivor,
Thank you for this story. It creates a world of its on, and as a novel, it promises to supply the readers with information that will makes them understand the new world they have travelled to. I like the naming of the gadgetry, and the unique terminology in this world view (earth-side, phat, etc). You are creating an inventing, which makes yours a work of pure imagination. An equally imaginative readers is required for such a story.
You seem ready to take Zimbabwean writing to genre experiments, and I would label this story sci-fi/fantasy, yet I also see all the elements of the literary in it.
I like too the length of time these beings can exist on one life form (180 years would be fantastic here too).
I look forward to reading the rest of the novel
Thanks Emmanuel, yes, I did not originally write it for a serial release, things just happened that way. So it does take a more leisurely pace in the reading to reveal this future world.
At this point in my writing I'm into any genre or even cross genres that fit my original concepts. I would class The Lottery as sci-fi/fantasy too, but more so as speculative fiction, which is quite a broad genre, but is certainly one of my favourites. I do love the freedom it gives me to dynamically imagine and then extrapolate new future fictional worlds.
Yes living to 180 would be too cool. Like a lot of my spec-fic tales it's set in a near-ish but indeterminate future. And a bodily lifespan of 180 seemed about right given the (known only to me) real world time-line for The Lottery.
As do I, to not only gradually posting the chapters I have written so far, but to finally finishing the novel as well.
I also feel that speculative fiction (due to its forward-looking) already embraces hope, promise.
Certainly I think spec-fic can be hopeful and hold promise, but it can also be the negative.
As you know, in general usage it covers science fiction, fantasy fiction, horror fiction, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, alternate history, and magic realism. The idea being broadly, it's whatever is not, nor has been, this real world experience as we generally know it. So for me spec-fi is a freedom, to breathe deep and strike out in virtually any direction your imagination can take you. Though like any other literary genre, all the same golden rules/good common practices of character, plot etc. still do apply.
Thanks for the clarification. I think I have a few horror pieces to experiment with.
Have Fun :) It's always great to probe the depths and see what stirs. I can be such a mean author, in this respect, I always giggle away, a lone madman in the quiet night, when hatching a new particularly gruesome scene or fiendish scheme to waylay or torture my poor characters with.
Post a Comment