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Voyage: Embarkation #8 Benevolence
Kal is ready to leave his strange home and is about to embark on a journey to even stranger worlds.
After four years of exile, he can finally escape into the metaxia, the unspace between universes, and explore alternate Earths.
Supremely advanced cultures and natural wonders of immeasurable beauty await him. However, there exist also worlds mired in social decay, and those filled with dangerous, exotic forms of life.
Armed only with defensive nanotech and a computer pad, Kal travels from one alternate Earth to another. Navigating the infinity of possibilities, he embarks on a new kind of voyage, a voyage along the catastrophe of notions.
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Kal is shocked to discover a world where the fundamental component of all life is clay. This is a huge surprise, since he has not travelled “metaxically” far enough from Earth to account for such a huge difference in evolutionary history. Tria is unnerved and wants to leave, but Kal insists on uncovering the mystery of the world of clay people and animals called Glinn.
Voyage: Embarkation Episode #8 "Benevolence" is about 10,500 words long.
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Voyage: Embarkation
Episode #1 "Setting Sail" - February 11, 2013
Episode #2 "Longing" - February 14, 2013
Episode #3 "Just a Game" - February 18, 2013
Episode #4 "Tria" - February 21, 2013
Episode #5 "Corporeal" - February 25, 2013
Episode #6 "Norselands" - March 14, 2013
Episode #7 "Duality" - April 11, 2013
Episode #8 "Benevolence" - May 9, 2013
Episode #9 "Nanogen" - June 6, 2013
After four years of exile, he can finally escape into the metaxia, the unspace between universes, and explore alternate Earths.
Supremely advanced cultures and natural wonders of immeasurable beauty await him. However, there exist also worlds mired in social decay, and those filled with dangerous, exotic forms of life.
Armed only with defensive nanotech and a computer pad, Kal travels from one alternate Earth to another. Navigating the infinity of possibilities, he embarks on a new kind of voyage, a voyage along the catastrophe of notions.
------------
Kal is shocked to discover a world where the fundamental component of all life is clay. This is a huge surprise, since he has not travelled “metaxically” far enough from Earth to account for such a huge difference in evolutionary history. Tria is unnerved and wants to leave, but Kal insists on uncovering the mystery of the world of clay people and animals called Glinn.
Voyage: Embarkation Episode #8 "Benevolence" is about 10,500 words long.
------------
Voyage: Embarkation
Episode #1 "Setting Sail" - February 11, 2013
Episode #2 "Longing" - February 14, 2013
Episode #3 "Just a Game" - February 18, 2013
Episode #4 "Tria" - February 21, 2013
Episode #5 "Corporeal" - February 25, 2013
Episode #6 "Norselands" - March 14, 2013
Episode #7 "Duality" - April 11, 2013
Episode #8 "Benevolence" - May 9, 2013
Episode #9 "Nanogen" - June 6, 2013
42 pages, ebook
First published March 9, 2013
3 people want to read
About the author
Zachary Bonelli
32 books28 followersI grew up in a small town in northern Illinois, west of Chicago. After graduating high school, I dual majored in English Literature and German Language at a small, Midwestern liberal arts college. After undergrad, I turned my eyes towards exploration, and spent many years in Japan, Thailand and Hawaii.
Nowadays, I live with my partner near Seattle, Washington, where I work in the gaming industry.
I love stories. I’ve long been fascinated by video games as a storytelling medium, and I love exploring different cultures, discovering the different underlying stories that different groups of people tell themselves, the stories that define who they are and how they perceive the world.
Nowadays, I live with my partner near Seattle, Washington, where I work in the gaming industry.
I love stories. I’ve long been fascinated by video games as a storytelling medium, and I love exploring different cultures, discovering the different underlying stories that different groups of people tell themselves, the stories that define who they are and how they perceive the world.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 15, 2013
ANIMAL FARM
The Embarkation series keeps getting better and better, making its author's mind look more and more like Pandora's box (I mean that as a compliment...).
First of all, the man can write. Notice, from the first page, how alliterations provide a sense of texture to the reader, and the way punctuation gives a binary rhythm, like a heartbeat symbolising the very Life described, to his sentences:
"Artichoke-shaped bushes dotted the landscape, dispersed amongst the trunks, each adorned with large funnels, expanding and closing methodically, collecting the water and gulping it down."
Imagination remains key in the series. We are once again transported into an alien, exotic world that seems to bear no resemblance to our own: small mud men, talking animals, cities made of clay. And yet... Everything is actually very similar to Life as we know it.
My goal is not to spoil the pleasure of discovery here, so I won't go too much into specifics. Suffice it to say that you will encounter such familiar problems as ecological catastrophe, wrong decisions, tyranny, slavery, revolution, and the Nietzschean motif of History repeating himself. The pigs (read it, you'll understand) brought to my mind a parallel with George Orwell's Animal Farm, which is described thus on Wikipedia, and the comment applies to Benevolence:
"The novel addresses not only the corruption of the revolution by its leaders, but also the ways wickedness, indifference, ignorance, greed, and myopia corrupt the revolution. It portrays corrupt leadership as the flaw in revolution, rather than the act of revolution itself. It also shows how potential ignorance and indifference to problems within a revolution could allow horrors to happen if a smooth transition to a people's government is not achieved."
Thrown in the middle of this is poor, naïve and helpless Kal, who still remains a long, long way from home. But isn't a quest supposed to be trying and possibly everlasting?
The Embarkation series keeps getting better and better, making its author's mind look more and more like Pandora's box (I mean that as a compliment...).
First of all, the man can write. Notice, from the first page, how alliterations provide a sense of texture to the reader, and the way punctuation gives a binary rhythm, like a heartbeat symbolising the very Life described, to his sentences:
"Artichoke-shaped bushes dotted the landscape, dispersed amongst the trunks, each adorned with large funnels, expanding and closing methodically, collecting the water and gulping it down."
Imagination remains key in the series. We are once again transported into an alien, exotic world that seems to bear no resemblance to our own: small mud men, talking animals, cities made of clay. And yet... Everything is actually very similar to Life as we know it.
My goal is not to spoil the pleasure of discovery here, so I won't go too much into specifics. Suffice it to say that you will encounter such familiar problems as ecological catastrophe, wrong decisions, tyranny, slavery, revolution, and the Nietzschean motif of History repeating himself. The pigs (read it, you'll understand) brought to my mind a parallel with George Orwell's Animal Farm, which is described thus on Wikipedia, and the comment applies to Benevolence:
"The novel addresses not only the corruption of the revolution by its leaders, but also the ways wickedness, indifference, ignorance, greed, and myopia corrupt the revolution. It portrays corrupt leadership as the flaw in revolution, rather than the act of revolution itself. It also shows how potential ignorance and indifference to problems within a revolution could allow horrors to happen if a smooth transition to a people's government is not achieved."
Thrown in the middle of this is poor, naïve and helpless Kal, who still remains a long, long way from home. But isn't a quest supposed to be trying and possibly everlasting?
February 17, 2014
Benevolence is my favorite episode so far. Zachary really hits his groove here. Glinn, the world Kal and Tria visit in this episode is very well thought out and clever. I loved the parallels to Animal Farm.
Tria turns out to be the voice of reason in this episode, but Kal’s curiosity gets the best of him. Of course, if I ran across an ‘Earth’ populated entirely in clay people and clay humanized animals, I’d probably react in about the same way. Everything about this alternate earth is very well described and amazingly strange.
Kal’s holier than thou attitude gets the better of him here, a lesson worth learning. I love the character development woven through out this whole episode, as Kal struggles with his teenage save-the-world instincts while coming to terms with the reality that he cannot fix everything.
Tria turns out to be the voice of reason in this episode, but Kal’s curiosity gets the best of him. Of course, if I ran across an ‘Earth’ populated entirely in clay people and clay humanized animals, I’d probably react in about the same way. Everything about this alternate earth is very well described and amazingly strange.
Kal’s holier than thou attitude gets the better of him here, a lesson worth learning. I love the character development woven through out this whole episode, as Kal struggles with his teenage save-the-world instincts while coming to terms with the reality that he cannot fix everything.
May 13, 2013
Before you read this review, be informed that I have not read the previous seven books that belong to this series.
This small book is a fast read that continues the adventures of Kal, who travels (and has traveled) to many different Worlds and has encounters in each one.
This particular encounter involves a World that resembles his own in some instances, and yet very different in others. The quick story takes us on a rumbling ride through a high stakes adventure in this World that is filled with large characters who are sometimes difficult to differentiate. However, there are gems scattered throughout the story that make it sparkle delightfully. You will enjoy this book and feel the same compulsion I felt to get your hands on a copy of Book 9.
This small book is a fast read that continues the adventures of Kal, who travels (and has traveled) to many different Worlds and has encounters in each one.
This particular encounter involves a World that resembles his own in some instances, and yet very different in others. The quick story takes us on a rumbling ride through a high stakes adventure in this World that is filled with large characters who are sometimes difficult to differentiate. However, there are gems scattered throughout the story that make it sparkle delightfully. You will enjoy this book and feel the same compulsion I felt to get your hands on a copy of Book 9.
December 7, 2013
(Full disclosure: I was provided with a free copy of Voyage: Embarkation)
A tyrannical dictator with the lifeblood of a world in his grasp seems like a pretty obvious evil. What kind of heartless monster would Kal be if he didn't intervene? But then why is Tria so anxious to simply leave the world to its miserable fate? What could possibly be worse than total, joyless slavery?
Conjuring echoes of Animal Farm, Benevolence investigates the oft-ignored dangers of 'fixing' perceived injustices, and prompts reflection on the indefatigable animalistic tendencies that all humans carry inside them. Magnificent!
A tyrannical dictator with the lifeblood of a world in his grasp seems like a pretty obvious evil. What kind of heartless monster would Kal be if he didn't intervene? But then why is Tria so anxious to simply leave the world to its miserable fate? What could possibly be worse than total, joyless slavery?
Conjuring echoes of Animal Farm, Benevolence investigates the oft-ignored dangers of 'fixing' perceived injustices, and prompts reflection on the indefatigable animalistic tendencies that all humans carry inside them. Magnificent!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews