I’ve been a teacher, journalist, poet, novelist, computer game designer, futurist, author of archaeology novels-as-textbooks, grandparent, and sometime urban rambler (modern and ancient). I continue to be one or more of those, and still hope to unlock the secret of consciousness.
“The best books that blend science with fiction yet are not entirely either” – Five brief book recommendations on Shepherd.com.
Interview about gaming with Soraya Murray:
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Latest News: Portal for Virtual Reality. In 2023 students at Washington State University in Vancouver created a Virtual Reality reanimation of Portal, a game developed in 1986. This new demo is called Data Entry: Portal. You can watch the video or download the demo and try it out.
Mixed Harvest: Stories from the Human Past, Berghahn Books, 2020.
Golden Nautilus Award, Multicultural and Indigenous
Harvest follows planting. Among the benefits are soaring cathedrals, orchestral music, printed books, long-form television series, chocolate mousse. Unintended consequences include plagues, pollution, climate change, overpopulation, inequality, and war. Thus the harvest is mixed.
After millennia of wandering the earth with little impact, a universal, if inadvertent transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and pastoralism was complete within a few thousand years. Mixed Harvest tells the story of the Sedentary Divide, the most significant event since modern humans emerged. Before the Sedentary Divide, humans followed their food; afterward, the human diet had abandoned wild foods by domesticating, and irrevocably changing, plants and animals. People remained in one place and kept their food close. Agriculture was so successful that religious and social belief systems evolved to enforce its consequences: social inequality, exploitation of resources, constrained gender relations, and increasingly devastating conflict.
For those interested in learning more about the Paleolithic caves around northern Spain, Charles Schwalbe at Northernexposurespain not only provides reasonably priced personalized tours but sends out a regular newsletter with links to the latest archaeological research. He is extremely knowledgable about the region (including Iron Age and Roman archaeology) and was invaluable for some of the stories in this book. To sign up for his free newsletter, follow the link.
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The Prophecy Gene: Number 3 in the Lisa Emmer Series, BooksBnimble, 2022
From the Publisher:
EVERYONE WANTS A PIECE OF HIM…HE HAS A MILLION
VIDEO FOLLOWERS AND HE’S ONLY SIX YEARS OLD—
To his mom, he’s just sweet Félix, a very special six-year-old. She doesn’t understand him, but she loves him to bits.
To his million young video followers, he’s their beloved science teacher.
To the little-known Delphi Agenda, working, as always, for peace and harmony, he’s not only a prodigy, he’s a prophet with the potential to become more powerful even than Lisa Emmer, the current Delphic Oracle. Perhaps even the power to save the world from humanity’s dumpster fire.
But to a few others who understand how enormous his powers are, he’s a pawn they could put to their own use.
The Thriller in Paradise series is also available on Kindle.
Stories and Essays
Satisfying Ambiguity, essay written just after 9/11. The Wizard of Oz meets the Delphic Oracle. George W. Bush needed a brain. Dick Cheney needed a heart…
Past Futures, Future’s Past, essay: The emergence of the concept of linear time and the beginning of history during the Sedentary Divide.
Not Just a River, essay: Denial, according to Mark Twain, is not just a big river in Egypt.
Anomalies, essay: Three books that investigate the anomalous, address the unexplained, and answer the impossible. The truth is in here.
Dispersion, short story. Digital media fragment us.
Seeking, short story. Personal ads have never been this complicated.
Water, short story on Fictional Cafe. A bath in broad red strokes.
The Tale of Genji, an essay on sex, death, and translation delivered in Tokyo in 1984 available on Academia.
The Hegemony of the Straight Line, How agriculture changed the way we see.
Mine, a short story in Jet Fuel Review. A night on the town with Dante…
The Factory, a short story about one aftermath of the Vietnam War. The Deadly Writers Patrol, Spring, 2020.
Sigrid, a fable, in Sublunary Review.
Disappointment, Salomé’s career after John, a short story in Stonecoast Review #14, Winter 2021.
Floater, a short story of drowned hopes, South Carolina Review. Volume 53.2, Spring 2021
A short letter to the future I wrote to my grandson.
The Memory of Charles Babbage, short story about a day at the beach. Mikrokosmos, Mojo 19.
A Kind Word Alone, short story; Jack A Ridder, Deconstructionist Detective, August 23, 2021, Nonconformist Magazine. Print version: Issue 1, Winter/Spring 2022.
© 2022 Rob Swigart