Type 2 & Type 3

Asimov typing - by Rowena Morrill

I've been having fun imagining the literary careers of three characters in the Exode Trilogy. First, I made Isaac Asimov a character in Foundations of Eternity. To the right is one of Rowena Morrill's gorgeous paintings of Asimov.

For The Foundations of Eternity, I have the pleasure of inventing a version of Asimov in the Foundation Reality, the Reality in which the Foundations actually existed. He becomes a science writer, documenting the amazing pace of technological advancement during his life, from atomic bombs to positronic robots to hyperspatial travel. In that Reality, truth is stranger than fiction and he never has time for anything as mundane as a career devoted to writing science fiction.

However, when the Huaoshy finally figure out how to travel through time, they recruit Asimov to go on a time travel mission. He must travel into his own past, meet his younger self, and alter the course of history.

As a time-traveling Interventionist, Asimov helps to create the Ekcolir Reality. In the Ekcolir Reality, things go terribly wrong and during Asimov's life the world is confronted with a global environmental crisis: a relentlessly rising sea level. In that Reality, Asimov splits his efforts between science fiction writing and crusading against carbon dioxide pollution.

Thomas

Type 2: the precocious Thomas. (image source)

Within the Ekcolir Reality, Trysta and Ekcolir have a son named Thomas. Thomas starts writing stories at a very young age. As the hybrid offspring of an Asterothrope and an Ek'col, Thomas has a unique genetic endowment. In addition, his brain's development is guided by a swarm of zeptites.

The lives of Thomas and Asimov become tangled together in the Ekcolir Reality. Their relationship morphs strangely in the Buld Reality, the world as we know it.  In the Ekcolir Reality, Thomas writes science fiction such as his novel, Miners of Earth.

cover for an imaginary book

In our Reality, Thomas first becomes a patient of Asimov's future wife, Janet. Through his relationship with Janet, Thomas tries to make contact with Asimov, but he is rebuffed.

Asimov thinks that Thomas is a crazed writer of bizarre fantasy. Asimov is irked by the fact that Daveed the Luk'ie can be read as a spoof of Asimov's own writing.

Ivory
My third character in the Exode Trilogy who I depict as a fiction writer is Ivory Fersoni. Unlike Asimov and Thomas, who both grew up in the age of the typewriter, Ivory is from the word processor generation.

Ivory is trained in scientific writing. As a scientist, she has little time for writing fiction until she is brought back to her birth place, a node in the Hierion Domain that is jokingly called Atlantis.

imaginary magazine cover
This image: by Auto Awesome

When Ivory discovers that her clone sisters, particularly Angela, can access information in the Sedronic Domain, her writing skills are adapted to telling the secret history of Earth. Unfortunately, book editors all think that she is writing science fiction.

Type 3: Ivory (image source)

I've rather jokingly imagined a number of books that might be written by Ivory.

How might Ivory try to explain hierion physics to the world? Her training is in biology, not physics, so she has trouble understanding what Angela tries to explain about hierions and sedrons, fundamental particles that are unknown to Earthly science.

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The magazine cover to the right is silly, because Ivory has no interest in telling the world about her "sisters", the "Atlantis Clones". For years they reside inside the Hierion Domain, safe from ignorant Earthlings who would not understand their odd genetic background and their mysterious capacity to tap into the Sedronic Domain.

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After the Buld come to Earth (briefly) and then depart, Ivory becomes rather desperate to find someone who can interpret the strange stories being told by Angela. At the same time, "the editor" is trying to cope with the zeptite endosymbiont that he received from Thomas. Angela, Ivory and "the editor" are able to collaborate to confirm that the information obtained by Angela from the Sedronic Domain matches the information he received from Thomas and Izhiun.

The Huaoshy

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For completeness, I must mention one more author who readers are introduced to in the Exode Trilogy. When Asimov is take to the Moon he reads a story called  The Legend of Uvadekoto, which he interprets as a science fiction story. Actually, this story is a fairly good account of first contact between two humanoid species in a distant galaxy who went on to become the Huaoshy.

As told in Foundations of Eternity, when Asimov has his first contact with a positronic robot, much of the memory from that robot transfer into Asimov's brain. Later, in the Ekcolir Reality, the zeptites that carry those memories migrate into the brain of Thomas. After receiving those zeptites from Thomas, "the editor" was finally able to create a written account of The Legend of Uvadekoto.

more imaginary books written by Ivory (visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers)