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10 Things You Didn’t Know About Slow Up

The novel Slow Up has a lot of things going on. While knowing these is not a necessity in enjoying the story, a deep background in the possible technologies and techniques involved will make it a much better read.

10. Rapid Serial Visual Representation

Can you read it?

It’s a speed-reading trick where text is parced into single point. Some speed readers like it, others do not.

Here’s an online tool to try it out.

9. Most of the IT Scenes Are Inspired by my Own Job at Wind Telecommunications HQ

Most of the tickets came in at a frantic pace, just like in the novel.

The scenes have nothing to do with real persons and situations. But the feeling of an uphill battle, that Sisyphean task of fixing hundreds of computers every day is there in Galene’s job.

8. For More on Nootropics, Check Out Reddit

Nootropics are real and have measurable effects. If you want to try them out, consult an expert. There is a lot of info online, but don’t push yourself too hard. Again, consult a doctor, not the marketing brochure.

Nothing is like the movie Limitless of course, that was a magic pill with insane powers. Real nootropics help you focus, help with creativity, memory.

Read up about Nootropics on Reddit.

7. Polyphasic Sleep is Real But You Should Take it Slow

 

Going directly at Uberman will most probably make you a zombieman.

We’ve all heard about geniuses who simply skipped sleep like Leonardo Da Vinci. That is not actually possible, of course, they only took short naps, powernaps as they call them now, to help their brain recharge.

My opinion is that getting good sleep is more important that gaining a few drowsy hours. I’ve seen that sleep deprivation cuts down on creative thinking. And there are serious medical risks involved.

Again, Reddit has a nice beginner library on polyphasic sleep.

6. The Cybathlon is a Sports Event for Augmented People Where Doping and Pushing the Limits is Kind of the Whole Point

Credits: Angel Giuffria, Bionic Actress. Cybathlon. The Spartan Race. Oscar Pistorius.

The logical next step in athletic events is to have augmented races. Some augmentations actually give an advantage over other athletes, like in swimming. Especially with world-powers sending out troops at stupid wars and having young veterans come back disabled all the time, the day where augmentations are common-place is today.

The Cybathlon is not quite an Olympic-level event yet. But it showcases what can be done, and it won’t be long before augmented athletes can compete side-by-side with regular ones, like Pistorius did in the Summer Olympics of 2012. Yes, we know what he did afterwards, that’s not the point.

You can watch the scene mentioned by Gregoris in the novel, where the winner shows unprecedented evgenis amilla (fair game spirit) and swaps out his number with Oscar’s so he can be the winner:

5. Humans With Amplified Intelligence Could Be More Powerful Than AI

Artificial intelligence is all well and good, but there are those who believe that we can expand the limits of our intellect and reach amazing levels.

Frankly, a merge of mind and machine where a trained user can hook up and amplify his intelligence for short amounts of time is what we consider most plausible.

Another archetype of this is the Mentat from Dune. Human Computers that crave information and can help with decisions.

Wacky hair is a must

From David Lynch’s Dune, we got the Mentat Mantra (It’s not from the Frank Herbert novels but fits so well it got adopted instantly):

It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the juice of sapho that thoughts acquire speed,
the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning.
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.

And now you’ll say it too.

4. Mean Girls is a Must Watch

Mean Girls quotes can be applied to any situation

Nuff said. Watch it.

3. Unlike Wanted’s Turning Bullets, Turning Arrows Are Real

It seems crazy but it’s true. An expert archer can shoot turning arrows around corners.

2. You Can Speed up Online Videos, Audiobooks and Video Files for Faster Input

It might seem weird at first, but the mind adapts very quickly.

Here are some tools with pitch correction:

Chrome plugin for online videos.

Video file speed control with VLC

Audible Narration speed control

1. The Tech is Real: Artificial Wombs

It looks adorable. The real-live version, not so much.

External wombs are being researched and seem to work just fine. There are many real medical conditions where external wombs would be suitable. Of course, that opens up a can of worms, since humans could be raised from prime genetic material without people knowing. It’s almost like a dystopian sci-fi story.

Slow Up is Available to Read Now

Limitless meets Black Mirror in this novel that pushes the limits of a couple’s minds.

When Galene meets a man who’s only goal in life is to make his mind go faster, she ends up falling for him. But will she manage to keep the relationship going at the top of the glass tower, when in reality she’s too much of a slob and is bogged down with all her unfinished goals, when their age difference becomes too much of a problem, and when his work places them in the sights of an unforgiving huntress?

Do you want to know what’s next for the computer geek Galene? Do you wanna meet Artemis? Then read this bittersweet story in a world where thinking too swiftly can get you killed.

Read Slow Up
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The Myth of Cupid and Psyche

Psyche was born so beautiful that she was worshipped as a new incarnation of Venus, the goddess of love. But human lovers were too intimidated to approach her, and Apollo recommended her father abandon her on a crag where she would marry “a cruel and savage, serpent-like winged evil.”

It evolved into modern storytelling.

But Psyche’s story ended up being much more interesting. Brendan Pelsue shares the myth of Cupid and Psyche in this excellent video from TED-ed:

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Introducing the Bite-Sized Stories Anthology: 33 Indie Flash Fiction Tales for Stolen Moments

Looking for some short but high-quality entertainment over coffee or a snack? Grab Bite-Sized Stories and fill your stolen moments with 33 indie flash fiction tales. Just 5 minutes per engaging story.

Discover new authors!
Discover new authors!

From a creepypasta horror farm to a bullish love tale and from the bloody metal deck of the ESS Arclight to superhero octopus food trucks, you can transform your shortest stolen moments into utter delights with this diverse collection of 33 flash fiction stories.

Commuting to work? Grabbing a quick coffee? Each story tells a complete tale in but a few short minutes with the added promise of a lifelong introduction to new indie writers.

You never know, you might just find your next favorite author.

I Want To Download It For Free

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Jump On The Bandwagon, Quick!

We made a Facebook group for all you Mythographers. It still has no identity, just a place for all of you to hang out. We’ll make it work together.

Got a stamp of approval and everything.
Got a stamp of approval and everything.

This group is currently beta. Meaning things are about to change at any time.

So what can you do over there? Well, except talk about the God Complex books, we can discuss articles, favorite mythologies, movies like Wonder Woman and Thor, books like Ilium and Percy Jackson, anything you like. Keep it civil, but light swearing is allowed.

I Wanna Join The Facebook Group

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A Pile Of Hand-Picked Book Covers For Inspiration

I uploaded my folder for covers on imgur for this post, if someone wants to see it or use it for reference and ideas.

Goodreads loves to show off this one. Despite it's unusual composition, it works great.
Goodreads loves to show off this one. Despite it’s unusual composition, it works great.

http://imgur.com/a/UoemZ

(Yes, the first ones are animated gifs. They are experiments with the digital format ) They are not necessarily books I’ve read or that I suggest, this is just a design thing.

The covers I picked are nice for various reasons, either typography, colors, composition or ideas. Some just work nicely in thumbnail size. They are the ones I browse for brainstorming. You can click the link or browse below:

Book Covers I Like

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What Is Cyberpunk Anyway?

I’ve happily stumbled upon this article on what Cyberpunk is and what will be. Which I will happily cannibalize for a few quotes on this post.

Cyberpunk does allow you to say a story of, perhaps Celebrity Singers and Biker Amazons 🙂 (credit Petri Rahkola)

It gets a bit academic, and I think the subject doesn’t need that much analysis but I like some of the points. I’ve even had a realization:

A kitsch self-parody

For all its outward cynicism, cyberpunk is often wilfully naive; conspiracies are unravelled, the lone maverick is redeemed, the lone aberration at the head of the system is taken out and all is well again. For all its gritty imagery, this dissonantly contradicts reality. Indeed it is questionable whether cyberpunk is an entirely dystopian genre. For the oligarch-villains occupying the luxury penthouses and boardrooms in which boss battles occur, this is utopia. The ubiquity of scaffolding in the genre’s platform games suggests there is even a building boom. It is a great time to be an engineer. Even for the average citizen, perhaps things aren’t that bad; there are plenty of exotic street-food outlets and sports to enjoy (you can follow the blood and chrome progress of Brutal Deluxe in the Bitmap Brothers’ 2007 Speedball series). Escape to off-world colonies, as we are told repeatedly by advertising neo-blimps, is an option for the rich and genetically sound. Some of the tyrannies are fairly relative. In X-Kaliber 2097 (1994), the reign of the warlord Raptor means “there are no more jobs to go to,” echoing the current fear that automation might render us all unemployable. “Well,” we might say, “thank god for that.” Even when the apocalypse beckons or has already happened (the release of the planet-decimating biochemical Lucifer-Alpha in 1988’s Snatcher, for example), it is survivable.

I like that. Yes, deep down cyberpunk is wish fulfillment, does have a happy ending, the corporations do lose. Vices are plentiful, humanity has far-out options for life extension and survival, heroes are cool and larger-than-life.

My kind of cyberpunk is rather light. All the tropes are there, but they are a backdrop to character and plot. Mega corporations crush people and effectively become worshiped, but we see the casual interactions and the family issues. Not the sweeping socio-economic ones, which frankly, would make a boring read.

 

Following the maxim of its baptist William Gibson that “the future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed,” cyberpunk has always been a scrapyard, with pieces of what is to come scattered through the past and present. Indeed, its saving grace is that it recognizes, as other futurology often fails to, that the future will be a collage and it will be considerably older than the present.

That scrapyard is what I try to put in my own stories. A bit of Greek mythology, a bit of plausible technology, a narrative that draws you in, and some action to keep it exciting. Because, make no mistake, violence is at the cybernetic heart of cyberpunk.

 

The fear and power of plugging in and losing our humanity in the process, continually evident in cyberpunk, is again not new; we find precedents in Descartes’ Demon and Plato’s Cave. There is also a certain guilty pleasure in immersing yourself in a videogame world that warns you of the dangers of immersing yourself in videogame worlds. The early game Interphase (1989), by The Assembly Line, deftly equates virtual reality with dream-space, a crossover we will no doubt increasingly see with advances in VR, AI and augmented reality. At that time such developments seemed the stuff of dreams, but they are incrementally becoming more real. In Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs (2014), the hacking abilities of the lead character Aiden Pearce suggest that the human brain, the city and cyberspace are now interwoven networks. To accumulate great power in the latter two is to potentially wield power over the first.

My main issue with VR is that one. I too have been brought up with Neuromancer, and Matrix more recently (yes I said recently, shuddup), but I don’t think VR is what we thought it would become in those days. I firmly believe, that instead of diving inside the computer world, we will superimpose the digital word over the physical one. A Shared Augmented Reality, giving us information and allowing us to interact with the digital equivalent of the physical objects. In my works, I call it the veil, a shared overlay of public data. For example, when people look at you with SAR glasses or maybe someday contact lenses, they’ll see your public facebook and twitter profile, all available for interaction.

Anyway, the God Complex takes place in a cyberpunk world, with a few metaphysical elements and a lot of Greek lore. The latest work and the first published novel is “The Girl Who Twisted Fate’s Arm,” and you can find it on Amazon:

 

When the daughter of Greece’s premier singer fails to sing as expected, she finds out about a biker group of women. But will she manage to find the elusive Orosa, the bikers’ motovlogger, when all she has to go on are random street-sightings of criminal behaviour, when her family is opposed to her following this path and when her dad’s employer wants to keep her as she was for marketing purposes?

Do you want to know what’s next for the voiceless Aura? Do you wanna meet the Amazons? Then read this coming of age story in a world where fate is quite literal.

Read through the page on our site for descriptions and other places where it’s available.

 

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Featured Story On Wattpad Sci-fi: Crying Over Spilt Light

Wattpad has done us the honor of featuring the Muse story on the Science Fiction category.

Call Now!
Call Now!

On the verge of abandoning his life-long project, an obsessive physicist hires the innovative service of an android Muse to help him finish his work. But when things start to go missing from his life, he must learn that not all is worth sacrificing on the altar of science before he has nothing left to live for.

Do you want to know what’s next for poor-but-brilliant Yanni? Do you wanna meet the Muse? Then read this unique sci-fi thriller that toys with the very concept of inspiration.

You can read it all below:

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Hire a Muse, Get a Nobel Prize

HIRE A
Easy as pi!

The novella Crying Over Spilt Light takes us on a surreal journey of a man’s quest for a scientific breakthrough.

Funny thing is, at the day we announce it officially this science article pops up:

New device could lead to computers thousands of times faster

This real scientific breakthrough uses physical honeycomb constructs to bend light, whereas Yanni, our bright but poor physicist in the novella attempts to use Maxwell’s light knots.

You can read the book here:

spilt light cover 3d small
What if you could hire your own personal Muse?

 

https://www.mythographystudios.com/books/crying-over-spilt-light-book/

It is available on Amazon, Kobo and Smashwords (if they ever get around to publishing it).

As always, this is a story about the god complex, the drive of a man to prove himself immortal. In this case by taking a place in scientific history, and why not, a Nobel prize?

 

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Get the first peek into the god complex universe!

We have put up our first book in the god complex series for free on Amazon.

What happens when a corporation gets a god complex?
What happens when a corporation gets a god complex?

You can get the Kindle book for free by clicking this link below: (PROMOTION ENDED)

How to 3D print a god (God Complex Short Stories Book 1)

After you read it please leave a review on the Amazon book page!

The free giveaway will last until the 29th of September.

You can learn about these specials beforehand by joining the TopSecret list.