Origins

Reproduced from http://Gaddy.gather.com

First Entry: Origins

October 28, 2007 01:24 AM EDT (Updated: November 10, 2007 01:48 PM EST)

Well, here it is. My first blog entry. I'll start by letting you in on what's going on with me and my writing.

I am the author of the new series of novels called The Feral World, published by Flying Pen Press. The first book, Migration of the Kamishi, was released in June 2007, and the second edition will be available before the end of the year. The second book, Trials of the Warmland, will be on sale in January 2008. I am currently writing the third book, Riders of the Mapinguari, which is due for release in September 2008. The Feral World takes place 3,000 years from now in a post-apocalyptic setting, after an asteroid has destroyed civilization in the year 2036 - only twenty years from now. In this future, people live as primitive nomads who subsist as hunter-gatherers.

In Migration of the Kamishi, a rival tribe decimates the people of Kamis in the northern Great Plains. The only survivors are a young man named Blake, his best friend Manosh, and his two dogs, Saamu and Rita. They flee their homeland and embark on a quest to find the mythical Warmland far to the south. A woman named Lana soon joins the group, and Blake and Manosh find themselves competing for her hand. Together, they cross exotic landscapes, confront fierce wildlife, and face other hostile tribes in search of a new home.

In Trials of the Warmland, the Kamishi reach their destination, but find that their quest is far from over. Now, the group must combat even more dangerous animals, and even
survive an encounter by the Lunari - a strange, wicked people rumored to hail from the moon itself. Even when the Kamishi locate a tribe they'd like to join - the Corpushi - they still must prove themselves worthy of acceptance into this elite group. When a hurricane strikes the village, the entire tribe is in danger, and Blake and Lana must work with the Corpushi simply to survive. The Kamishi's skills and adaptability are put to the test in this second book of The Feral World series.

InRiders of the Mapinguari, the Kamishi have become Corpushi, but their peaceful life is threatened by an entirely new enemy. An invading army from the south is sweeping through the Warmland and annhilating every tribe they encounter in a campaign of conquest. Their secret weapon is a horde of mapinguari: strange, giant beasts, once thought to be extinct, capable of crushing anyone who stands in their way. The Corpushi are evicted from their territory and now face extinction unless they can devise a way to reclaim their homeland.

How did the idea for this story come to me? Well, I guess it all goes back to when I was about eight years old or so, watching my mother pulls weeds from her garden.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Pulling weeds," she said.

"Why?"

"So they don't choke out the flowers," my mother replied.

I thought about this for a moment, and then asked, "Well, why don't you just grow weeds then?" Thus, the idea of just letting things be, just letting nature take its course, has always been extremely appealing to me.

Later, in college, the inspiration for The Feral World came to me while I was doing my organic chemistry homework. I was studying biology, so I had taken many courses in ecology, evolution, and other sciences, as well as writing. I was also learning more about religion and the history of religion, including my own, Judaism, despite the fact that I was (and still am) a basically secular and nonobservant Jew.

One Friday afternoon, while I was sitting at my desk, I suddenly got this vision of a small band of people trekking across the plains. They were primitive, but not stupid. They were spiritual, but not fanatic. They respected the natural world around them, and they knew how to use it. And they lived not thousands of years ago, but rather, thousands of years from now. These people were the Kamishi, and they lived in a new, feral world. I was so inspired by this vision, that over that weekend, I wrote 68 pages - the beginning of the novel that, over the coming years, would become Migration of the Kamishi.

So that, as they say, is that. And now I hope that you will enjoy my stories, articles, and ideas. My objective is to inform and entertain. My purpose is to provoke thought, and to bring people together in discussion and inquiry. When you read The Feral World books, you will find that the story is eclectic. It draws on both scientific and religious knowledge to form a unique, new story about a very familiar, and yet very strange, new world. These two things may seem very different, and indeed, they are often mutually exclusive. However, what I find fascinating is the instances when they actually agree, and this is also part of the inspiration for The Feral World.

Here on this blog, I will be writing about my experiences and thoughts as a writer. I will also be referring to new articles in the news that deal with the life sciences, religion, education, and literature. These things may seem disparate, but they all come together in one way, namely, how they affect the quality of our lives.

You'll find that I don't believe in the concept of "progress." Where others see progress, I often see simply change. I am not moved by claims that our lives have been improved by this gadget, or that technology, or this new idea. Our quality of life has as much to do with our inner world as with our outer world. I intend to make people think about what is meant by concepts like improvement, advancement, and progress, and I hope that people will decide for themselves whether or not to go along with someone else's ideas about these things. Well, that's all for now. I will delve more into these topics in the entires to come.

Gaddy Bergmann
http://www.GaddyBergmann.com