Here we have the novelization of a form of media unnatural to humanity. It consists of dozens of testimonies from characters previously unknown to the reader, many of whom have absolutely no understanding of their circumstances. In short, this is quite possibly the most unified and coherent manuscript I have ever translated.
That was sarcasm. Did you catch it?
Well, the simple truth is that it is business as usual for the Archon and the Matriarch: Weird art, weird sex and weirder politics. Also, the science is questionable: I did, however, have a chance to speak with Dermot about Cüinn’s assertion that “the laws of thermodynamics don’t apply in all universes.” This contradicts the one of the final theoretical suppositions of our era’s greatest physicist, Stephen Hawking. Dermot replied, “Hawking was a genius, but he spent too much time looking at math and not enough looking at the world around him. He thought it wouldn’t be elegant if all universes failed to behave consistently – that a variation in key physical constants would lead to the breakdown of scientific verifiability – and that colored his thinking. Just observe any group of sentients – the phenomenon is especially pronounced in penguins, politicians and two-year-olds – and you’ll realize that there’s no such thing as consistent behavior.”
You see what I mean? At least this tome contains two things of value. First: the sublime thesis that the most effective means of seduction is to share the dessert which is the true manifestation of your inner soul. Few women would disagree.
The second is the delightful calligraphy of the Honorable Theodoric del N’stl’d, Secretary to Her Eminence the Matriarch of Skarsia. My expertise is, I grant you, limited, but I would still venture to say that his mastery of the emoticon is unsurpassed in all of human history.
In its original release, Cord’s wholograph bombed with its intended audience. The average Cu’enashti could not be arsed to participate in an artistic experience that was not solely concerned with his or her Chosen. But to the humans of the Domha’vei, A Gathering of Leaves became the media push sensation of the decade, breaking records and winning a number of prestigious awards. The irony was clear to the era’s humanity – the phrase “Hand a wholo to a tree” became the equivalent of the current English phrase, “Casting pearls before swine.”
As with The Chevalier’s Arbor, illustrations of the heraldic device are provided when each branch achieves knighthood. These are my own interpretations, done with the assistance of public domain heraldry resources (with special reliance upon the illustrations of Graham Johnson as published in A Complete Guide to Heraldry by Arthur Charles-Fox Davis).
A note on quotation conventions: Conversations which occur in the material world (Universe Prime) as well as titles and quotations from documents are all delineated by using standard double-quotes. Conversations which occur in the pleroma are indicated with double-angle quotes, and conversations using telepathy or chatburl are indicated with italics. This is to allow the reader to distinguish who is capable of hearing when three conversations take place simultaneously. Which happens more often than you’d like to think – I did tell you that it was a unified and coherent narrative, didn’t I?
This Special Edition Director’s Burl is replete with the kinds of extras and deleted scenes that sophisticated audiences have come to expect from auteurs who imagine you will pay money for media rather than getting a copy your cousin stream-ripped from Netflix. For the online version, you will have the choice to proceed with the story as edited in its original release, or to jump to an “emanation egg” if available. The emanation eggs take place between scenes and provide additional information which it was judged interrupts the flow and continuity of the narrative. If you desire, the emanation eggs can also be read in order immediately after the narrative is finished (they are listed this way in the Table of Contents; in the dead tree version[1] published book they appear in a section at the end of the novel). Settle in with some Eden blue popcorn crème brûlée with cinnamon caramel nau’gsh sauce and enjoy this multimedia extravaganza.
– MC
[1] For some reason, my clients objected to the use of this colloquial phrase.