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Legends of the Metasphere: A Collection Of Speculative Fiction And Mythic Adventures

by Joseph Kerrick

216 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #06-1609; ISBN 1-4120-9853-X; US$17.95, C$20.64, EUR14.74, £10.32

Beyond the laws of science lies the metaphysical realm, a mind-boggling multiverse where the ancient Gods still live, and battle dark forces for the souls of human beings.

About the Book

Legends of the Metasphere is a collection of speculative fiction and mythic adventures. The stories are populated with a phantasmagoria of remarkable beings from the past, present, and future ∼ and with very realistic men and women, whose ventures into the metasphere transform them into heroes and heroines of truly mythic stature.

The first story in the anthology is The Metamorph, which portrays life after death in terms as believable as good science fiction. Here are some comments which readers sent to the author:
"It's the finest and most succinct everlasting love story that I have ever read. It is also an excellent crash course in religious metaphysics."
∼ Donald Glick, planetary oncologist

"To Joseph Kerrick, master performer of the world to be! 'Metamorph': what a fantastic concept ∼ and so ably achieved. I worried at first after Melissa died whether or not you would be able to 'suspend the disbelief'; but you did."
∼ Edwin Massey, poet

The Second story is a retelling of the timeless legend of Parsifal and the Holy Grail. The author was especially inspired by Richard Wagner's operatic version. Here are comments from a man named Peter, who went to see the opera for the first time:

"It's just with extreme luck that I found your Parsifal story on the Internet. Your portrayal of the events was so moving that I felt compelled to send this email to thank you for your work. The opera was resplendently magnificent! But I must admit that I like your story better than Wagner's. Your elaboration of the seduction scenes in particular are more poetic and beautiful than his."

The third story is a novella: The Visions of Victor and Beatrice. Part I is The Wedding of Star and Shadow, in which the hero Victor travels to the ends of the universe in a near-death experience. Part II is titled Do Robots Go To Electric Heaven? This time Victor's lover Beatrice is swept into the metasphere, a harrowing journey in which she discovers the nightmarish reality behind the illusions of life as she had known it.

About the Author

Joseph Kerrick spent several years in what he described as "the magical universe". The physical coordinates were Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, California, home to a whole conjeries of visionaries and wizards, trippers and mystics, colorful street people and hardcore crazies. The adventure culminated for Joseph in 1985 with an event that he experienced as an apocalyptic transformation, and was diagnosed by a psychiatrist as a psychotic episode.

Whichever way you interpret it, the result was that he went back to his loved ones, raised his son, and integrated his strange experiences into life as we know it on planet Earth. Like John Nash in A Beautiful Mind, his recovery took decades but the difference is that along the way Joseph used the fruit of his psychotic adventures to create hauntingly beautiful fictional stories, which have attracted a small but enthusiastic readership in the alternative press and on the World Wide Web over the past twenty years.

Excerpts