Encountering Cheryl Moore - Her Art, Her Words... A Review...

Her Art, Her Words




Cheryl Moore













Encountering Cheryl Moore through her art and her words is like coming into direct contact with our feelings, our emotions. Hers, yours, those of her characters! Like a swimmer that had somebody come up from below and pulled me under, I feel submerged--drowned in the words and visual sights that exist thousands of years into the future. I have visited the time period 3987 through 4020 and met many fascinating people in countries such as India, China, Poland and the Sahara Desert...and even visited a prison ship, a Floating Asylum.


And you can too! I highly recommend you click the title of this article when you've finished reading and start following Cheryl Moore' blog! Cheryl is the author of a new series entitled, Unbound Boxes Limping Gods, which at present has not yet been published. I'll be privileged to read the first manuscript, so look for my review of the novel in the near future. Even if you never read the novels, however, you will find a treasure-trove on Cheryl's blog! Using what she terms micro-stories, Cheryl presents each of the characters appearing in her novels. Her art is original, unique and strangely beautiful, even in those that depicts characters that are flawed, affected by the grim lives they've lived or, sometimes by what other characters have forced them to bear. I admit that, at this point, her artwork pulls me in more than her words...but only because I want more of her words!

Alexand is the main character and, admittedly, Cheryl's favorite. Her picture above shows Alexand after she has been released from The Floating Asylum. Obviously affected by that trauma, she has withdrawn from her family, even while there at home with them. Before she has fully recovered, however, her husband is murdered and two of her children are kidnapped! Using what she terms, disconnected stories, Cheryl introduces each of her characters to readers of her novels. I followed a part of Alexand's story chronologically on my blog this month. For me, the glimpses were so enticing, that about midway through the month, I started hinting about reading the novel! Tragedy, often grim, terrible acts are presented. Or the sorrow and love of a husband, trying to help his wife recover from unbelievable trauma and depression, is provided. The stories are taut, precise in wording and full of such emotion that readers are captured immediately, no matter what particular life story they have entered.

I hope you have already read my interview with Cheryl that appeared yesterday. She talks about how she entered the world in which she now feels so much a part of her at the early age of 17! Her intimacy of this world is revealed in each story and drawing she shares with her followers--it is provided with love, tenderness and an awareness of humans that I have not seen in the work of many writers. Her ability to complement her characters' image in art is a truly fascinating addition, but it is clear from her words that she not only loves the world she has created, but craves to introduce her world and the characters to each of us so that we may come to know them as she does. Whether she achieves that in her novel is yet to be seen, but I can guarantee that if you begin to read her micro-stories, you will develop a "taste" for the world where limping gods live...

With a touch of the supernatural, fantasy, and futuristic science fiction, Cheryl Moore's fiction falls into the speculative genre. It is clear from her micro-stories that Moore cannot be pigeonholed--she stretches the boundaries of this world and takes them into a future that perhaps is not totally plausible, but created within a scientific framework of imagination that results in readers' believing that, for her characters, anything is possible. Dean Koontz has the same intensity, but rarely writes series, so that readers don't achieve intimacy and connection... I have read only one other author that competes with Moore in this regard...Ruby Moon-Houldson's Guardian Series, with over 10 novels, constantly blows my mind with the scope of creative genius she exhibits. I have every confidence I have found another of her ilk in Cheryl Moore!

Readers, if anything about Cheryl's work interests you, it is my recommendation you start watching! This author is "setting the standard" for books of speculative fiction and the use of graphic complementary imagery to accompany fiction novels in the future. She is only prevented by the limitations of today's computer graphics capabilities... In my opinion, the future holds nothing but "possibilities" of how Moore's books will reach readers... hopefully long before circa 4000 where we'll find Unbound Boxes Limping Gods!

Mother's Land

Characters from left to right: Ancille Merevija, 

Alexand Merek, Samuel Merevija and 

Eldenath Balsara. (Takayama, Japan 4041)

GABixlerReviews

Starting to Read: The Guild Master's General by Cheryl Moore

Unbound Boxes 

  Limping Gods: 

 

The Guild Master’s General

Cheryl Moore

Best to click over to Cheryl's blog for easy reading!

Time Line: 3987, India

Unbound Boxes Limping Gods: Disconnected Stories. Issue # 9: The Guild Master’s General

February 20, 2011 by cherylmoore

The Guild Master’s General is a mysterious man, who appears throughout time and place. Not much is known about him, apart from the fact he has created a lot of chaos in the lives of many.

The Guild Master's General's back story, set in India (3987)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note that for each character, within her blog, Cheryl allows you to click to read about the spotlighted character (illustrated in the top right hand corner here at BRH. I'v added one of Alexand, acquired from Cheryl's collection, which seems to me to represent her being hurt..."crumbled" Is she alive?

My thoughts: The key issue is that the General is after our main character, Alexand Merek, and steals blueprints...

Apparently the General is a shape shifter (or worse since he does report to somebody and has supernatural skills)

The author has successfully pulled me in...I'm interested and wanting to know more. Already I hate the General and am worried about Alexand's being hurt... Will she live? Or...will we be left hanging with this story...will the next story take up where this one ends? I'm feeling a sense of anxiety...I'm one of those individuals who seeks closure...

~~~~

Cheryl lists her work as fantasy, feminist. science fiction and speculative fiction. I'm now quite sure I know about the last, so...out to Wikipedia (If you wish to read about this too, please click the link since I have not attempted to verify highlighted link uses here...the following helped me understand the term.

Following its coining, speculative fiction as a category sweeps from ancient works to both cutting edge, paradigm-changing and neotraditional new works of the 21st century which cite their stories and images from ancient to future times.... the creative design and generation of lore, regarding such works as J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Such supernatural, alternate history and sexuality themes continue in works produced within the modern speculative fiction genre...

In its English language usage in arts and literature since 20th century, "speculative fiction" as a genre term is often attributed to Robert A. Heinlein. In his first known use of the term, in editorial material at the front of the 2/8/1947 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, Heinlein used it specifically as a synonym for "science fiction"; in a later piece, he explicitly stated that his use of the term did not include fantasy...

The Internet Speculative Fiction Database contains a broad list of different subtypes. In the 2000s, the term has come into wider use as a convenient collective term for a set of genres. Academic journals which publish essays on speculative fiction include Extrapolation, and Foundation.

Distinguishing speculative fiction from science fiction

"Speculative fiction" is sometimes abbreviated "spec-fic", "specfic" "S-F", "SF", or "sf"^[24] but these last three abbreviations are ambiguous as they have long been used to refer to science fiction, which lies within this general range of literature....

The term has been used to express dissatisfaction with what some people consider the limitations of science fiction, or otherwise to designate fiction that falls under readily stereotypical genres so that it can be pigeonholed within such categorical limits as "fantasy" or "mystery".For example, in Harlan Ellison's writing, the term may signal a wish not to be pigeonholed as a science fiction writer, and a desire to break out of science fiction's genre conventions in a literary and modernist direction; or to escape the prejudice with which science fiction is often met by mainstream critics.
                                                                             ~~~

Cheryl, you've chosen to consider your work speculative fiction...obviously setting the stories far into the future must be part of that. I note that this is sometimes used to "signal a wish not to be pigeonholed," could you tell us (1) did you decide to write "speculative fiction" or did you start writing and later find that your work could be considered that genre...and (2) what caused you to conceive of your world of speculative fiction as opposed to, say, the mystery/suspense genre?

Tony Thorne Takes Readers Into Strange, Sometimes Weird, Places!

You'll never know by looking at him,
but the fly that runs across your computer screen
might have been infected...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_fly

Macabre Tales:
A Collection of
 Speculative Stories


By Tony Thorne, MBE






Tony Thorne sent a book of short stories, plus one...I thought that was an interesting marketing maneuver, don't you? So, in addition to reading the 18 tales, I also got "Washout" which, according to the author is "a parting quirky tale about some strange visitors" to an old lonely house...  Indeed, I thoroughly enjoyed this extra gift, and am wondering if I could arrange a visit from the same guests. I loved the ending of this one!


If you stop to think about everyday things happening in your life, and then turn a speculative. scientific, but definitely weird glare on that activity, you would begin to understand the type of stories written by Thorne. For instance, his parting tale, hidden between the pages of his book, describes how a man one day found his wife frozen in place by fright, holding a knife. She stands near the washing machine. Now the man had already been frightened by a strange creature on the way home, so immediately he wondered if another was in the machine...After all, something was causing the glow and the strange wailing from inside his washer...


Another author described Thorne as having the mind of a scientist...[with] a brilliant flash of black humor. Indeed many of the stories you will read deal with the potential use of science. Consider the cell phone... Do you carry yours everywhere you go? Might you even take it to the grave with you?  After all, you might want to, say, call your spouse and share a little...

Have you heard much about nanotechnology? It is the future for medical surgical procedures according to some individuals... Thorne poses the question: What if one of those nanophytes decides to take up residence in...your head?

In these days of hacking, identity and information theft on the computer, Thorne postulates that we might have to fight fire with fire, as the old saying goes...or, rather, fight with anything that is in range of a computer screen--even a fly?

A futuristic thought--individuals may become trained to work at Euthanasic, Inc. You'd probably never be out of work, right? Don't count on it...

We are all warned about having radiation therapy except in short bursts; it's dangerous so even workers don't stay around when the machine is on. But if a mouse should crawl way up into the internal parts of that equipment...

Or consider the weight-loss clinic who hosted free operations to those qualified, with guarantees...

I found Tony Thorne more droll than truly gruesome. His concepts are clever, his writing sharp and quickly to the point and he closes with a quiet flourish... He delves into personal areas, our daily lives and asks you to consider the alternatives that are conceivably possible, if only... But then, again, there really might be a bit of truth just waiting to be scientifically researched and created! Explore our potential future with Tony Thorne. You just never know how and when death will call...Recognize that some tales are indeed possible right now!

For myself, I found the perfect reason not to further explore bypass surgery for weight loss... Sorry, folks, I just had to add a little dark humor of my own. Readers, you know who you are...Highly recommended for a true exploration of the macabre...

Book Received
Via LinkedIn


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