Jeremy Puma's Blog

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Strange Animal Publications is proud to announce the release of Liminal Spaces: A Robotic Romance,  a serialized Sci-fi novel by Jeremy Puma, illustrated by Tim Boucher!

PART FOUR:  After a gruesome introduction to life aboard the Haikou, one of the enormous floating cities now patrolling the planet’s polluted oceans, El and the two Magisters continue their search for the elusive Franklin. Their investigation takes them far below the ocean’s surface, into the depths of the Oceanopolis, where their best lead, one of the more unusual mechanicals El has ever met, engages them in a most bewildering conversation. Are they getting closer to uncovering Franklin’s location, or will the complexities of life aboard the Haikou hinder their investigation?

Click here to start reading PART FOUR on Amazon.com Kindle!

Click here to start reading PART THREE on Amazon.com Kindle!

Click here to start reading PART TWO on Amazon.com Kindle.

Click here to start with PART ONE: A ROBOT AND HIS MULE.

Don’t have a Kindle? Get the free app for your iPad/iPhone/other mobile device at http://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fiona/kcp-landing-page?ie=UTF8&ref_=klp_f_win).

Prefer the feel of good, old-fashioned “paper”? After every seven installments, the series will be released in paperback form. FUN!

*Don’t forget: if you’re a supporter of Strange Animal Publications’ original funding campaign, you get a free copy! Let us know if you’d prefer your copies electronically, or would prefer to wait for each paperback.

PART FIVE will be released in April!

Also, please remember that we have no marketing budget. If you like the story, share it with your friends, and consider writing a review!

Send to Kindle

Strange Animal Publications is proud to announce the release of Liminal Spaces: A Robotic Romance,  a serialized Sci-fi novel by Jeremy Puma, illustrated by Tim Boucher!

PART THREE:  Franklin the Robot has fallen into a place both indescribably strange and strangely familiar. As he tries to make sense of his new surroundings, his technological abilities begin to fail him. Will he find his way back to his home and his true love, or will the mysterious denizens of this extraordinary place capture him in their web of strangenesses?

Click here to start reading PART THREE on Amazon.com Kindle!

Click here to start reading PART TWO on Amazon.com Kindle.

Click here to start with PART ONE: A ROBOT AND HIS MULE.

Don’t have a Kindle? Get the free app for your iPad/iPhone/other mobile device at http://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fiona/kcp-landing-page?ie=UTF8&ref_=klp_f_win).

Prefer the feel of good, old-fashioned “paper”? After every seven installments, the series will be released in paperback form. FUN!

*Don’t forget: if you’re a supporter of Strange Animal Publications’ original funding campaign, you get a free copy! Let us know if you’d prefer your copies electronically, or would prefer to wait for each paperback.

PART FOUR will be released in 2015!

Also, please remember that we have no marketing budget. If you like the story, share it with your friends, and consider writing a review!

Send to Kindle

Strange Animal Publications is proud to announce the release of Liminal Spaces: A Robotic Romance,  a serialized Sci-fi novel by Jeremy Puma, illustrated by Tim Boucher!

Deep within the industrial center of the Volery, a city of satellites in Earth’s orbit, Elron Iowa puts the final touches on the most recent member of the robot Magisterium. A long-time member of the Volery’s crew, Elron believes this is just another job, but soon finds herself in a section of the city typically reserved for “Robots Only,” and on the receiving end of a most unusual assignment.

Click here to start reading PART TWO on Amazon.com Kindle.

Click here to start with PART ONE: A ROBOT AND HIS MULE.

Don’t have a Kindle? Get the free app for your iPad/iPhone/other mobile device at http://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fiona/kcp-landing-page?ie=UTF8&ref_=klp_f_win).

Prefer the feel of good, old-fashioned “paper”? After every seven installments, the series will be released in paperback form. FUN!

*Don’t forget: if you’re a supporter of Strange Animal Publications’ original funding campaign, you get a free copy! Let us know if you’d prefer your copies electronically, or would prefer to wait for each paperback.

PART THREE will be released in November!

Also, please remember that we have no marketing budget. If you like the story, share it with your friends, and consider writing a review!

Send to Kindle

Strange Animal Publications is proud to announce the release of Liminal Spaces: A Robotic Romance,  a serialized Sci-fi novel by Jeremy Puma, illustrated by Tim Boucher!

PART ONE: A ROBOT AND HIS MULE

For longer than anyone can remember, the world has been ravaged by a volatile climate. Long ago, the wealthy retreated to the Oceanopoli– enormous floating cities—consigning the underprivileged to an uncertain future on a drastically altered planet.

Centuries before our tale, an IBM/Kuko Corporation Joint Initiative launches a massive orbital server farm, OrbServ, which develops its own intelligence and becomes the single “brain” for all of Earth’s machines, including the now ubiquitous robots who share the planet with the humans.

Franklin, a Second Generation free robot who formerly worked on an Oceanopolis, spends his days as a courier, delivering odds and ends for the impoverished citizens of his town and saving up to repair a damaged arm. While fulfilling his duties, Franklin finds himself– quite irrationally– falling in love with Annabel Leigh, the human daughter of a local lay-about. One typically hot afternoon, he decides to ask for her hand in marriage. But, this isn’t some clichéd robot love story….

What happens next will change everything!

Ostensibly science fiction in the vein of Stanislaw Lem but equally influenced by the works of Latin American “magical realists” Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares, Liminal Space follows the adventures of Franklin as he navigates a “reality” somewhere between the worlds of Philip K. Dick, Jacques Vallee and Charles Fort….

Liminal Spaces will be released in $0.99 installments for Amazon Kindle. CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR COPY!

Don’t have a Kindle? Get the free app for your iPad/iPhone/other mobile device at http://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fiona/kcp-landing-page?ie=UTF8&ref_=klp_f_win).

Prefer the feel of good, old-fashioned “paper”? After every seven installments, the series will be released in paperback form. FUN!

*Don’t forget: if you’re a supporter of Strange Animal Publications’ original funding campaign, you get a free copy! Let us know if you’d prefer your copies electronically, or would prefer to wait for each paperback.

PART TWO will be released in early October!

Also, please remember that we have no marketing budget. If you like the story, share it with your friends, and consider writing a review!

Send to Kindle

 

Strange Animal Publications is proud to announce the imminent release of Liminal Spaces: A Robotic Romance,  a serialized Sci-fi novel by Jeremy Puma, illustrated by Tim Boucher!

 

For longer than anyone can remember, the world has been ravaged by a volatile climate. Long ago, the wealthy retreated to the Oceanopoli– enormous floating cities—consigning the underprivileged to an uncertain future on a drastically altered planet.

Centuries before our tale, an IBM/Kuko Corporation Joint Initiative launches a massive orbital server farm, OrbServ, which develops its own intelligence and becomes the single “brain” for all of Earth’s machines, including the now ubiquitous robots who share the planet with the humans.

Franklin, a Second Generation free robot who formerly worked on an Oceanopolis, spends his days as a courier, delivering odds and ends for the impoverished citizens of his town and saving up to repair a damaged arm. While fulfilling his duties, Franklin finds himself– quite irrationally– falling in love with Annabel Leigh, the human daughter of a local lay-about. One typically hot afternoon, he decides to ask for her hand in marriage. But, this isn’t some clichéd robot love story….

What happens next will change everything!

Ostensibly science fiction in the vein of Stanislaw Lem but equally influenced by the works of Latin American “magical realists” Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares, Liminal Space follows the adventures of Franklin as he navigates a “reality” somewhere between the worlds of Philip K. Dick, Jacques Vallee and Charles Fort….

 

Liminal Spaces will be released in $0.99 installments for Amazon Kindle.

Don’t have a Kindle? Get the free app for your iPad/iPhone/other mobile device at http://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fiona/kcp-landing-page?ie=UTF8&ref_=klp_f_win).

Prefer the feel of good, old-fashioned “paper”? After every seven installments, the series will be released in paperback form. FUN!

*Don’t forget: if you’re a supporter of Strange Animal Publications’ original funding campaign, you get a free copy! Let us know if you’d prefer your copies electronically, or would prefer to wait for each paperback. 

We’re just putting the last few details on the first installment, and will announce its release shortly. Thanks for reading!

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Strange Animal Publications, in partnership with Early Clues, LLC, is proud to announce the publication of the Early Clues Employee Handbook, now available on Amazon Kindle for only $3.99!

Click to order!

The guys at Early Clues drafted the official press release in their inimitable style; I’ll let them take it from here:

WHAT’S IN THE HANDBOOK:

Early Clues Employee Policies and Procedures. You don’t need to work for us directly to benefit from this ages-old moral instruction. We are allsomeone’s employees, and here are the Policies and Procedures that guide us as we move between Branespaces and foster the new Reality Model.

A Guide to Emerging and Alternative Intelligences. Featuring advice on nurturing your relationship with the entire taxonomy of emerging and alternative intelligences, from roombas to bigfoots to Black-Eyed Kids!

OpenQNL and Applications. Learn the fundamentals of the most exciting programming language ever conceived— a language designed to allow the user to program Reality Itself!

Synconjury. Are you more interested in “Wizarding Ways”? Synconjury, a reality manipulation paradigm developed by our Parade of Magicians, has been used for everything from standard divination to successfully thwarting the invasion of a sovereign nation!

Writings of the Corporate Fathers. Here, in these pages, you’ll find the collected wisdom of centuries of Inner.HelpDesk requests and Search.Within queries. Wondering how to successfully manage a “Lucky Five Hundred Company” and get Real Results? Consult our experts and you’ll be amazed at the difference!

Visit Amazon.com to order your copy today!

A paperback release will also be announced shortly. The paperback will also be available via Amazon.com, or orderable via your favorite independent bookseller. Strange Animal backers will receive complimentary copies in the mail as soon as they’re available. 

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After all of the back-and-forth with the cagey crew at Early Clues, it looks as though we have an agreement. I’ll let you sort through their official announcement and make of it what you will. To parse it, their stance seems to be that “Public Domain” means something different to them than it does to the rest of us, but they’ve agreed to let bygones be bygones and cooperate with the publication of the material I’ve been provided.

As I mentioned to them, it seems to me as though they’d appreciate the publicity, considering they’re EVERYWHERE. Some of their presence seems proprietary, but some of it is obviously taking advantage of “free” services. So far, I’ve managed to find the following “e-Trail” of Early Clues’ presence online:

Their most recent writing is on Medium:  https://medium.com/@earlyclues.
They have a weird, 1997-style homepage: https://www.earlyclues.com/. Until recently, it was an insanely detailed blog. Most of the material from the blog is going into the Handbook.
They maintain a forum for internal discussions: http://www.earlyclues.com/intranet/.
They have a presence on Github, where they’re posting code: https://github.com/EarlyClues.
They have a Twitter account: https://twitter.com/@earlyclues.
They apparently have timeshares available in Florida: .
Then, there’s this:  http://earlycluescopilot.weebly.com/.

That’s all I’ve been able to find so far, but they’re obviously not afraid of exposure, so I knew we’d be able to work something out. And, indeed, the exchange I related in my previous post occurred, and I think we’ve come to an agreement that will be appreciated by all parties, and may even benefit you, the reader.

Here’s what we decided:

1. I will publish the materials provided to me as the Early Clues Employee Handbook, but Early Clues will be given the chance to respond either through public statement or redaction of the text (I’m fine with this– it’s all weird and strange, so I can’t see as how removing any of the material will make it any less interesting).

2. I will dedicate this material to the Public Domain for perpetuity. Again, no problems here– I’m a fan of ‘setting information free.’

3. Any profit above and beyond the costs of printing and publishing will be distributed back to the general public.  What does this mean? We’re not sure yet; we’re working out the details. Suffice to say, it could mean a few lucky individuals will be the recipients of what will likely be modest cash prizes.

Why am I doing this? Because the material is really intriguing and interesting– it’s like nothing else I’ve ever seen, either online or in reality. Regardless of the strangeness involved in bringing this book to print, I think it’ll be worth the trouble. Now that we have this agreement signed and sealed, it’s time to deliver! Look for more updates regarding The Early Clues Employee Handbook over the next few weeks, and thanks for supporting Strange Animal Publications!

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This situation is getting a little confusing and heated, so for the sake of documentation, I’m summarizing the story thus far in a post (with a handy time-stamp).

1. I’m approached by someone from Early Clues, the weird pseudo-corporate organization that I always thought was some kind of joke or satire. Said individual claims to be a ‘whistleblower.’ He gives me some files and asks me to publish them under Strange Animal. I think they’re interesting and funny, if a bit overwrought, and he assures me that they’re in the “public domain,” so I agree. Plus, I’ve always admired their warped and zany aesthetic, so I almost felt a little conspiratorial.

2. I start to work on the book, thinking this is no big deal, when, the other day, a post appears on Medium.com, “doxxing” me as the publisher (I’d planned to publish it semi-anonymously, to fit in with the “Early Clues” aesthetic). It denounces the publication as a “fraud,” and implies they’ll be pursuing “legal action” against me if I publish this PUBLIC DOMAIN material.

3. I reply in a post on this site that I have no intention of ceasing the publication of this material, as I’ve already put a metric ton of work into this project, and I’ve already invested money into printing costs. I share my intentions through a post on Facebook.

4. Early Clues responds yet again on Medium.com, claiming I am “picking” on their corporation. I post this once again on Facebook, and this time they reply in a post that actually uses screenshots from my Facebook posts. This is getting creepy.

5. They’ve also sent numerous threats via Twitter, which I barely even use.

So, I’ve taken a couple of additional steps to protect my investment. First of all, I’ve been consulting with a colleague who is familiar with US Copyright Law and Intellectual Property Rights. I’ve been advised to obtain proof that they have, indeed, dedicated this material to the Public Domain. I thought this would be a monumental task, given that copyright records are typically specific to a particular work and don’t cover an entire body of material. Still, I thought I’d give it a try.

THEN, remarkably, last night I received an email from my contact within Early Clues, attached to which was the following document:

Download the PDF file .

HAH! The proof I needed. I’m pretty sure the timestamps on the document will cover any legal challenges Early Clues tosses at me. Still, I’d really like this resolved without the annoyances and costs of legal back-and-forth, so I’ve asked my informal legal advisor to help me contact their legal department, to see if we can come to any kind of agreement regarding publication of this material.

Early Clues, the ball is in your court. I’m using this post to publicly state that this material will be released, one way or another. We can do it the easy way, or the hard way. Your choice. Have your representatives contact me at jeremy AT strangeanimal DOT net, and let’s see if we can come to a resolution that will be mutually beneficial.

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They’ve found me out!  

It’s true; I’m currently working on a collection of materials provided to me by an insider from the Early Clues Corporation. I’m still some time away from an official release date, but somehow the Early Clues guys have beat me to the punch and are forcing me to play my hand by threatening me with vague legal repercussions. Thing is, they don’t have a leg to stand on, as the material provided to Strange Animal has been officially dedicated to the Public Domain. I’m going to do the same, and there’s nothing they can really do to stop me.

The whole story of how I obtained this material and why I decided to publish it will appear in the book’s foreword. The cover they’ve obtained is the real deal; not sure how they happened across it, but I may as well give you a sneak peak. This is still just a draft, keep in mind:

And, just for kicks, here’s the back cover, too:




As I mentioned, it’s still a work in progress, but here’s an excerpt from the foreword:

NOTES ON THE CONTENTS OF THIS HANDBOOK

The first section of these materials, presented in the same order I found them when I opened the envelope in my car (to the accompaniment of the rasping static produced by AM Radio), seems like, at first glance, a fairly “standard” corporate employee handbook. When you begin reading, however, some slightly disturbing details begin to stand out.

Policies range from the amusing (“All employees that are able and willing to break-dance will be granted ONE (1) extra window of break time”), to the absurd (“Wage reviews are conducted every 30 seconds for each employee, and salary increases are based on those reviews, as well as our profitability – and are never granted”), to the outright sinister (“Misuse of alcohol or drugs by employees can impair the ability of employees to maintain a sober vigilance to watch for signs against the End of the All”). Still, one does have to question whether any of this material is significantly more disturbing or sinister than the material presented in any modern corporate manual.

The second part of this text is a collection of entries from an Early Clues journal or log of some kind, included in the packet I received as simple print-outs. They seem to be presented as a kind of ‘overview’ of some of the major themes found on EarlyClues.com. OpenQNL and Synconjury are given ample space, with additional sections devoted to “Entity Rights” and a collection of meandering—but unquestionably fascinating—writings by Early Clues “Executives.” “Eclectic” doesn’t begin to describe the contents of this book. On one page there will be moments of deep humor and obvious satire, side-by-side with whimsical poesy, followed by intimations of cosmic horror on the page following.

I don’t know whether this is some kind of “Subgenius” style “Joke disguised as a Corporation or Corporation disguised as a joke,” or if my original suspicions that this may be an elaborate prank or art project are correct, but if even one tenth of these contents are “true” in the objective sense, the implications for what Early Clues refers to as “Legacy Reality” are profound.

I’m anticipating a release of this title some time in late March or early April, depending on how much interest I can generate in the material. I think there’s material in here that will appeal to a wide cross-section of readers, from the “high weirdness” set to the anti-corporate set to people who just appreciate funny, surreal strangeness. Meanwhile, I’m reaching out to Early Clues to make sure they understand that I’m perfectly within my rights to publish this stuff, and that they’d be better served by “cleaning their own house” than by coming after a guy with a couple of websites and a few books for sale on Amazon.

Needless to say, watch this space for more news!

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I can’t reveal too much at this point, but I’ll soon have an exciting announcement about our next project. I think this one will knock your socks off.

In the meantime, if you’ve purchase any books from the catalog, perhaps you’d be kind enough to drop by Amazon or Barnes and Noble and leave a review?

And, don’t forget to stay tuned to  our other blogs, This Way and Magirology, which are updated more frequently than this site.

Watch this space!