Anger, The Final Push and Shameless Happy Endings.

Custodian (book one of what might be a Free Planet series) is an angry book - from an angry person.

You probably guessed that already, right?

What you might not have guessed is that Custodian has a shamelessly happy ending which, for a post-apocalyptic novel, might not be to everyone's taste. And I don't really care if that offends you or not. I don't spend three years researching and two years writing these books to get your approval.

Custodian was finished on the 21st of April 2012 i.e. one year ago I could have happily passed it on to my literary agent who'd have auctioned it off to his three-choice publishers, the victor would have assigned it an editor and a marketing slot and they'd have changed everything (including my home-made Fields of Rape cover) so that everybody was happier with it.

Myself included.

I'm saying, "It's a flawed novel," but aren't they all? I was particularly annoyed that I would need to write a second book Liberator (which I'm a couple of chapters into) to explain what happens after mankind finds the other half of his DNA. I did come up with 'substantiation' for Asalah's chapter-one claim of ninety billion souls. I did take the reader through the intergalactic reason for it. But I wasn't totally happy with the aftermath. Remember, I'm an angry boy. Not really yet matured. Yet to grow up.

I remember thinking, for the last year, "What would happen if Custodian (Free Planet as it was named then) never came out, never found a publisher, never found shelf space?"  And I never came up with an answer. I had this sinking feeling, for the last year, this simple understanding that 'my' free planet, as outlined in this fictional Devil's Advocate excuse for 'entertainment' will never probably come about. Creativity, Passion and Kinship will have no impact on the human condition. Do Right By (free planet) will not be a guiding principle - we will never leave it better than we found it. There are too many problems with the whole Free Planet concept. Not least the seven billion people who'd be needed for such an endeavour to nullify all the forces that would rise up against such an ANTI-PROFIT movement. Custodians would literally be slaughtered on the streets, as foreigners all over the world are being slaughtered in the streets.

People like you, people like me, people you know. Corporate armies and insane inbred educational philosophies of 'how the world should be' are crushing screaming baby skulls under their boot. And nobody gives a fuck. As long as it doesn't intrude upon their cosy life they've tacitly thrown away all freedom for. Call it democracy, call it religion, call it dividend. As long as the 'status quo' isn't disturbed. Where is the energy to combat or rectify or alter one iota of that? I suspect that after maybe a decade or more of Total Global Surveillance and corporate fascism in the name of PAY, PAY, PAY mankind will start to look for an alternative to the petro-dollar, the water-dollar, the grain-dollar. By then it might not be too late, but Custodian sprouts from a time when mankind is totally embedded in the Consumerist Way. He is lost in it. He needs a radical solution, a clever get-out clause to have any hope of escape.

There is light at the end of the 'free planet' tunnel, there really is a shameless happy ending at the end of the book. But like all systems of neo-liberty there's a big flaw, a potential spanner in the works, You The People. The freedom (or continued slavery-for-profit) of mankind depends on you. You're the only one who can save Free Planet.

why Custodian won't be - the Next Big Thing

I've known Nicholas Alan Tillemans for years and we've collaborated on a number of things, mostly notably our short story The Mound (which he published in his Acetone Enema collection). When he asked me to participate in THE NEXT BIG THING blog hop, I agreed. That was six months ago. Since then I've been in a panic. Just literally not able to do anything, such was my panic about finding first a literary agent then a publisher for my first 'free planet' novel Custodian, then I even panicked about awaiting for the final edit to arrive - and it's still not here.

Finally, here's my instalment of THE NEXT BIG THING.

What is the working title of your book?

Custodian.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

I thought I could change the world by stating the obvious, "This is a Free Planet." I was wrong. Custodian will NEVER be The Next Big Thing. My life and my career is doomed to failure, and you (as gormless Consumers) need to revel in my moment of doom. I'm the Past Master of Failure, and I've done it before. I've walked away from a £30,000 a year job in the games industry. I've slaughtered ten years worth of life-size oil-on-hardboard oil paintings. I'm a terminal Spring Cleaner. In all the years I've been writing these daft 'genreclectic' books I haven't earned a single penny. Not one. Not one jot of concern.

What genre does your book fall under?

Extreme adult sci-fi horror fantasy gene-spliced space romance thriller with a talking bird and a talking cat.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Who would I choose to play the big talking birdy from Planet of the Owls or the big growling kitty kat from Pre-history? Well, let's examine this. During the course of the book (which I wrote in a style to make it especially easy to adapt for the Big Screen because I understand how much help a script-writer needs; how criminal that third act sell-out can be) I thought maybe 'some unknowns'... And the star of the film, YOU, could be played by the audience holding up a mirror to their gob-smacked faces through the whole length of the film and checking that they're still breathing by misting up the glass with their Popcorn-stinking Soda-laced breath.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

A group of Oxford University's finest young minds offer to pull you from under your Corporate Slavery Yoke - most don't listen, many perish.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Self-published. It has to come out NOW gadamit. It's the LIFE GAMBLE.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Too long, in terms of years wasted for no projected return. When I could have been working my butt off for the man and bringing home the bacon for momma, my ever-suffering wife, who was subsidising my very existence so that I could justify being on the internet EIGHT HOURS A DAY researching all the stupidest and least relevant conspiracy-nut tin-foil-hat nonsense there is. And believe me there's a lot of that shit out there, if you're 'that way inclined'.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

None, there's nothing like this ... oh, apart from Tron, maybe. Or K-Pax.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

Alex Jones, James Corbett and David Icke phoned me up one night on ICC or International Conference Call and sang to me like a choirboy trio, "Michael (they actually used my full christian name in the opening bar) Michael," they sang, "You have to write this novel because Humanity is fucked otherwise," like I could actually do anything. Like anything I said, right now, would make THE BLINDEST BIT OF DIFFERENCE to The Complacent.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

It starts and ends with a sermon about Mankind's Enormous Swollen Surrogate i.e. capitalism, small c.

If you wanna read some REAL WRITERS, do yourself a favour and check out these five amazing literary superstars you'll never have heard of Kurt Newton, polycarp kusch, Alex Severin, Destiny West and John B Ford -- I wrote about these five amazing writers in the very last (obituary) edition of Red Scream and I stand by what I said, back then.

Custodian¹ going through FINAL EDIT stage, Liberator² is being worked on.

yes, there's a blatant MICC angle

I've never been the most patient of writers, so (while Free Planet¹ "Custodian" is still being final-edited in the USA) I've decided to get back into the writing of Free Planet² "Liberator" right away.

There's no more time to waste pondering ideas, structure and resolution of this second book of three (as the current plan stands).

In fact, I already have two pages of bullet-pointed notes and am a few thousand words in having already mostly fast-drafted the first three chapters. Liberator takes place four years after the anti-corporate Natural Lottery events of Custodian. There are only a few survivors from  the original narrative, but certain intimate historical dependencies are explored in fatalistic detail.

In fact, I've decided to add the opening chapter from Liberator² at the end of Custodian¹ and I've had new thoughts on structure. Where Custodian was an alternating split narrative between You The People and The Custodian Liberation, Liberator's mostly-split-narrative structure will have an 'infrequent visitor' in the form of a 'third narrative stream'.

There'll be WE THE PEOPLE because now it's even more communal. There'll be MONSTERS FROM HELL because there are always prejudices and conspiracies. And there'll be a special feature section that opens the book and returns every now and then through the bulk of the novel to chart what really happened during Custodian, and it's nothing like you'd expect. It's sinister and will still haunt the narrative of Liberator, FOUR YEARS EARLIER.

Get ready, this brutal bastard'll sting.

The Custodian Libertion presents The Natural Lottery

Every night at exactly seven o'clock local time, the Natural Lottery Show will hack into the GES or Global Evertainment System to deliver the intended message of a Free Planet for all.

"We are gathered here, today, in a secret location known only as Bullingdon Woods to the select members of our new Diversity,” Asalah begins her introduction, “It's nice to see so many who've already adopted the Custodian way, and so many who've shown commitment to such in a future iteration, are all present at this inauguration of the official Campaign for a Free Planet. I'd like you to raise your glasses, beaks, muzzles, funny-shaped back things, your too many arms, your communal living spaces to the cause we've committed our physical and intellectual lives to.”

"You know this is really gonna hurt, don't ya?” one dissenting voice from the back mutters. 

"We are … yes, we will have to make the ultimate sacrifice for our fellow man. But this is something we are all aware of. No negative voices are to be allowed to 'sway our resolve'. We aim that every living person on Planet Earth will hear our message. Like a new record no one likes on first hearing, we will repeat and replay our message of a Free Planet for all the world to hear, until people finally get it. Until the world starts to wake up from its ridiculous monetary nightmare. Until people under.stand.”

"What if it doesn't work?” the voice again, from the quivering underbrush, the one dissenting voice of reason.

And you know what, the more Asalah Al-Faghori thinks about it, the more she becomes concerned that the whole Custodian Liberation is a complete red herring doomed to ultimate and embarrassing failure...

"CUSTODIAN" the first novel of the free planet series is due in ebook, kindle and paperback REAL SOON.

Kevlar Kubitz - gets you from A to B in perfect harmony

One of my favourite features of the Custodian novel are the Kevlar Kubitz that transport corporate drones i.e. You The People, from your CDZ or Corporate Dorm Zone to your offices of The Industry like mosquitos trapped in amber. They have this 'genetic muzak' that plays in your back brain that you can only 'hear later' while you're digesting the odorous tasks of the working day. And they don't always tell the truth. Though it's not like you'll have any discernment anyway, so any old crap story works. THe more lurid and insane the better.

But there are 'scintillas of truth' therein. If you know what you're being told. This particular bit is pulled straight out of the early part of the novel when you're not quite sure what your heroic role is.

P.V.s or Psyche-Vertisements, another ESI ready-to-wear, will push any old marketing to the core of your brain during your daily commute: here's a classic. 

January, 1932. Dusseldorf, Germany. Everyone knows the story about Lord Adolfus Hitler, 'cos you can't unknow a psyche-vertisement until its contractual erosion time has expired'. Heil Hitler, so the story goes, had just given a rousing speech before the Industrial Club in Elberfelder Strasse, just round the corner from where you recently worked in Wupper Strasse in what's still known as Dusseldorf in what once was called Germany. Heil Hitler was leaving the meeting, his protective entourage surrounding him, and he just slipped on something in Elberfelder Strasse, right outside the steps of the Industrial Club.

Died on the spot.
Everybody knows this … it's part of your Industry Education.

When a Kevlar Kubitz arrives in your Corporate Dorm Zone it'll sniff you out, home in on you, chemically. It'll ferret you out of your stinking pit of Evertainment slumber where you're allowed to be who you really wanna be. This is the perfect tactic for a ruthless organism like The Industry who may need to apply Leverage™ later on in your career cycle. You know, when your role as an asset for the Corporation, your paid-for loyalty, is put under 'ethical pressure'.

Angie's Diary reviews Custodian and it's not even out yet.

art, literature and lifestyle website Angie's Diary have a review of Free Planet¹ CUSTODIAN on their site, and the book isn't even out yet.

"Custodian" is the tale of one group of Oxford University's finest minds, the eponymous Custodians, who offer mankind a technological 'get out of jail free card' enabling them to slip from under the yoke of Corporate Slavery to THE INDUSTRY. [source ANGIE'S DIARY CUSTODIAN REVIEW]

"Custodian" (the first Free Planet novel from Mike Philbin) is due out real soon in ebook, kindle and paperback edition.


TEN DAYS LATER UPDATE: Angie's Diary have also run with that Kevlar Kubitz feature (in the post above) with slightly different data than the post content.

Free Planet¹ CUSTODIAN

custodian final cover

free planet¹ CUSTODIAN third draft complete:- 

novel available soon in Kindle and Paperback format.

as this first Free Planet novel was about three years in the research and a couple years in the writing/rewriting, the start of the book and the end of the book needed 'stylistically welding'.

I've edited, reworked and tightened up the opening chapters and gone through the rest of the opening part of the book so that it ties together better with the attitude, speed and style of the latter part of the book. I got rid of the introduction which, while being a nice rant about the education system that I'd rewritten kinda like about eight times, just got in the way of the real narrative.

Also, a very good friend of mine (editor and writer) will be going over it with a fine-tooth comb for one final line-edit. And there's a new cover design incorporating the power numbers into the free planet subtitle. After much internal debate, I left this message on the dedication page...

dedicated to all our children's children

...as (should such a thing as a Free Planet ever come about) that generation of people i.e. the children of today's children, will probably be the first to understand 'then' what we did or are trying to do for them 'now' and be able to deal with the crucial and life-enhancing chaaanges that they'll need to incorporate into their lives.