Macabre Multiverse - Introduction.
Includes audio (with some plosives... I'm learning)
First things first, I had a minor rebrand.
I have returned to the deep red from my sci-fi book spines, and changed the name of this Substack from The Weird Worlds of Phillip Carter, to
The Science Fiction Synaesthete.
I did this because I actually have synaesthesia - that brain thing which lets you hear colours and see music - and some of my characters do, too. I didn’t realise how unusual it was, and how interesting it is to people, until I was around 25. And I think it’s time I am a bit more open about it.
Because your sensory framework decides how you experience the world. Some might say it’s why I blend Sci-Fi, Poetry, and Comedy together.
It also means I’m an authority on the subject. So, when Stephanie (from The Stephanie Glitch) finds out her synaesthesia is more than it seems, I have real examples to draw upon. This is a novelty for me, as I usually just make stuff up and research. I am very much not a ‘write what you know’ writer (Never met a time travelling crab, still write about them).
Anyway that’s the rebrand news over.
Over the next few days, until Halloween, there will be more posts than usual. I try to keep it down to one every nine days on average, but I want to show you the beginnings of the five stories in my next book, so I’ll be emailing those out in the next few days until release.
For now, here is the introduction. I’d like your thoughts on it please.
Macabre Multiverse
In some dark corner of the universe, eight human brains are salvaged from the ruins of a broken starship, their last memories absorbed into a vast alien intellect. In their final moments, these humans were dreaming. Five of them were imagining new Science Fiction Horror stories, two of them were creating art, and one of them was somehow astral projecting, nudging each of these twisted visions toward a shared goal.
The result of this merging of human minds is Macabre Multiverse - and the aliens who salvaged those brains were kind enough to compile what they found within and send it hurtling back through time and space. So here it is, our reports on the fraying edges of reality and probability, an anthology of five new Science Fiction Horrors, illustrated by two artists, and polished by a sixth writer who ensured each and every story was as shiny, sharp, and twisted as it could be. Welcome to the Macabre Multiverse.
Macabre Multiverse isn’t my only project. I have plenty of my own books that I am working on. Here’s the next big one.
Single drafting for the win- Heinlein was adamant that the culture of agonising over every sentence imagining perfection was just around the corner was lunacy. Far better to just keep writing and learn to produce high quality drafts with minimal editing. It is a lot like how students used to practice writing whole essays by hand in pen, with no real capacity for editing. The convenience of computer typing trains the writer to slap any old rubbish on the page, reassured they can fix it later on.