Additional Information Regarding'The Moloch Manoeuvres'- As Revised in the Spring of 2002 - |
|
A PHANTACEA Mythos
|
|
IntroductionIn Greek the word 'phantacea' means imagination. I first used the word in a short story I wrote in 1969 while I was in first year university. It was the title of a series of comic books I wrote and published from 1977 until 1980 and I kept on using it when, in 1996, I began writing and publishing PHANTACEA on the Web. Although due to aspects of its subject matter 'The Moloch Manoeuvres' unavoidably touches upon issues of faith (including some of the most widely held beliefs found in organized religions throughout today's world) I can assure you PHANTACEA is and always has been, shall we say, religiously secular. Of course, it being 'Anheroic Fantasy', science is treated somewhat sacrilegiously as well. |
PremiseThe overriding premise of this novel, and indeed of the entire PHANTACEA Mythos, is the Gods and Goddesses, the Demons and Monsters, of Antique Mythology not only existed but still do. At least they still did in January 1938, which is when Manoeuvres is set. However, thanks primarily to monotheism, these Gods and Goddesses, Demons and Monsters no longer function very well. So, in 1920, what a large number of them did was attempt to have themselves reincarnated. The results of this attempt are now 17 or just turning 17 years old. Collectively they are known as the Summoning Children. 'The Moloch Manoeuvres' tells of the first encounter of a few of these teenagers, some of whom are also known as 'supranormals' or 'supras', with forces that are beyond the rational ken of not just them but the vast majority of their elders and/or financial supporters. These forces are not beyond the ken of a few of their minders, the Witches of Weir, though. That is because it was these witches who called the Summoning of 1920 in the first place. |
Publishing History of PHANTACEAJim McPherson's PHANTACEA Mythos first appeared publically as a series of comic books ('PHANTACEA - Anheroic Fantasy Illustrated') that I wrote and published from 1977 until 1980. In 1987, after considerable success at selling back issues of the initial series, I attempted to revive the comic book as 'PHANTACEA Phase One'. Unfortunately the market for independently published comic books went soft again so I discontinued the Phase One project after only one issue. In 1989 I published 'Forever & 40 Days - The Genesis of PHANTACEA'. This was a graphic novel that included the short story entitled 'Sister Grandmother'. I published an earlier version of 'The Moloch Manoeuvres' in serial format on the Internet between 1996 and 1998. Accompanying installments of this version of the novel, which was much shorter in its original draft, were chapter-by-chapter synopses. These synopses, complete with relevant links, remain available on the Internet starting at home.istar.ca/~jmcp/mole1.htm. The jumping off URL for PHANTACEA on the Web - 'Modern Age Mythology' is home.istar.ca/~jmcp/index.shtml. The Main Menu can be found on home.istar.ca/~jmcp/ph2.htm. |
The Novel & Future Installments of the PHANTACEA MythosIn the Spring of 2002, in order to better reflect
the growth of the PHANTACEA Mythos over the course of An overview of this revision, including a capsulization of relevant aspects of the PHANTACEA Mythos, some additional notes specific to Manoeuvres, and sample chapters of this revision are available elsewhere on the Web... At present I have on disk first drafts of a total of 5 novels or novellas set in 1938, a lengthy, still-in-progress book that covers the years from 1955 to 1965, and 7 novels or novellas set in the early 1980s. This material has been written, mostly on weekends, over a period of approaching 30 years. My father built train sets in his basement. I write books and publish web-pages in mine. If you want to buy into the PHANTACEA Mythos please download the order form, follow the instructions given and do just that. At this point in time I am not offering the revised version of 'The Moloch Manoeuvres' for sale on disk. Nor am I selling any more copies of 'Helioddity', the novel that proceeds from it. I am, however, currently serializing Oddity out here in WWW.Dotland. |
Reference MaterialIn order to prepare Manoeuvres I relied on a wide variety of reference material. Among the material referred to by various characters in the novel are "The Histories of Herodotus", Ovid's "Metamorphosis", Dante's "Divine Comedy" and the Bible itself. For information on the True Easter I used Frazier's "Golden Bough". Other material available in 1938 that I incorporated into this novel includes work by Manly P. Hall and Lewis Spence. Throughout Manoeuvres there are references to such well-known mythological staples as the story of the Minotaur, the Trojan War, the Volsung Saga and the Song of Nibelung, upon which Wagner based his operatic Ring Cycle. More modern material I referred to during my research includes some of the works of Zecharia Sitchin ("The Earth Chronicles"), David Hatcher Childress (Adventures Unlimited Press), Barbara G. Walker ("The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets") and Robert Graves ("The Greek Myths" and "The White Goddess"). I have also built up a decent-sized home library of reference material on various mythologies and mystery cults such as Roman Mithraism. In addition I have been to a number of the locales in Europe, Egypt, Turkey, Central and South America where parts of the Mythos are set. There's an Online Bibliography webpage elsewhere, though I can't guarantee all the links work any more. Some of the graphics found in PHANTACEA on the Web are scanned-in pictures I took while on the trips referred to above. A good percentage of the rest are taken from the comic books. There's a list of sites with loads of graphics on my Web-Publisher's Commentary webpage. |
Fanciful Aspects of PHANTACEAAmong the fanciful creatures who appear in Manoeuvres besides a couple of devils, a dozen or so supras, and two maybe-faeries are lamia and a chelonian basilisk, both of which are akin to Medusa-Gorgons, a Garuda, a Raven Fetishim and a fin-winged flying dolphin, psychopomp or porpoise pomp. While there are no blood-sucking vampires in Manoeuvres they are presumably out there somewhere. Even though he is actually wearing a Grecian style skirt or girdle, one of the supras describes himself as a Werewolf in Shorts. By contrast, the Witches of Weir and the trance-sending Wayfarers in the Weird are comparatively ordinary. However, most of witches have skills that include an ability to walk or hide between-space on Menstrual Stones, an ability to cast sensory illusions, and an ability to perform memory edits and control some folks' minds. The male maybe-faerie in Manoeuvres teleports between recently killed dead things. He accesses these dead things by visibly killing himself, sometimes quite gruesomely. |
Fay-saying, Fishifying & other examples of Humour
The amphibious deviant who rides the fin-winged porpoise pomp almost invariably 'fishifies'. That is to say she uses 'Fishisms' like 'dugong-don't', 'manatee-mother', 'hake-hate', 'krill-kill', 'halibut-end', 'codswallop', 'whaledreck' and 'stream-seems'. As entertaining as they can be, when the forever 7-year old faerie trickster and the aquatic, who perhaps not surprisingly goes by the name of Fish, get together it helps to have a translator nearby. There is a fair amount of humour in Manoeuvres. Much of it flows from the characters themselves, the way they talk to each other, and not the situations they end up in, which are anything except funny. Most of the Summoning Children are sharp-witted and Fish, when you can understand her, is adept at the put-down. So is Hush. She has been known to call Fish's famous Fishisms fatuous. Somewhat of an exception to this rule is the main devil, Djinn the jinn. He proves to be an admirer of American-style cartoons and some of the stunts he pulls would not look out of place in a Daffy Duck (Warner Brothers) or Popeye (Max Fleischer) cartoon of the day. |
Language, Violence & Sexual SituationsThere is the occasional outburst of cursing and swearing in Manoeuvres. Most of it emits from Hush when she is in Huff-mode. Figurative steam is not all that emits from her, -- she smokes cigarettes and a corncob pipe. The violence, when it happens, is relatively graphic and there is a Mithraic Taurobolium ceremony wherein a bull, quite involuntarily, spills his guts into a pit containing a Summoning Child hoping to achieve manhood, or an approximation thereof. There is also a fair amount of sexually suggestive language. However, the actual sex scenes themselves are not presented in any lurid detail and in fact happen mostly off-camera. |
Potential Spin-offsIn addition to comic books, which was where it began, and novel-length continuations, of which as already noted there are a number in first draft stage on disk, I believe much of the PHANTACEA Mythos could be spun-off into video games, action toys, graphic novels and such like. Although I am not a fan of animated comic books I believe there is potential for a live-action television series or perhaps a series of special effects laden movies, albeit with nowhere near as large a cast of characters. |
Other Relevant Links
|
'The Moloch Manoeuvres'(First Three Chapters of the 2002 Revised Version*) |
