St. Offraed's Relic. The story that asks you not to put the lid back on the tin of frogs.
Meet the main Characters
The main characters of the novel are the members of the Hibre family and the two children from the children’s foster home in the village.
They have their own clear individuality, but all have behavioral characteristics that would be recognizable from an English village in the 1950s. This was the highpoint of the post-war polite society, the values of the previous generation formed the glue that had yet to be chipped away by post modernism and the emergence of the teenager.
Manners, restraint, stoicism and conformity were the cornerstones of a polite village community. The adults and children all exhibit these attributes, to a degree, with perhaps the hint of rebellion in the ranks.
The Novel
We live in a perilous world, a world made dangerous not necessarily by nature, but by the activity and intentions of humans and their societies.
We hold many weapons of mass destruction, and the variety of weapons will only increase as technology advances. In such a world, the survival of our species depends on reason. Yet many societies remain grounded not in reason, but in superstition, dogma, or delusion, whether through authoritarian rule, religious ideology, or the comforting myths of the past. So, what do we do in a novel? Give an account of us and our society in a series of chapters, criticising and lecturing about our frailties, until the brow of the reader furrows, the eyes dim and the mouth droops in surrender at the repeated accusations of our silliness…….or……….do we have a good laugh at our own expense? Point at each other and crease up giggling at how dumb we can sometimes be.
Let’s get on and do that.
The Gallery
Most of the images in the Gallery depict scenes or characters from each chapter of the novel, the five prologues and the epilogue. These images have been created by Ai image generation from prompt freeware. Some images simply could not be generated, either because they were too surreal or difficult for the program to grasp.
Not a single Ai image creation program could create the image of a Waisthold’s Orbiter bicycle, let alone the Hanoverian Malady decals. Ais have a cutoff point where they are prevented from creating images they may cause particular types of offence, or suggestive in some way.
Some Ais are stricter than others. There are a great many scenes from the novel that could not be produced, however, all scenes are hopefully described in such a way that no image is actually needed. It’s just a bit of further fun really, because it’s available.
