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Writer's pictureGabriel Axton

The Portal of the Overhackers. A short literary background by Bruce R Long.

This novel took 20 years to write. This means that the first editions or drafts of the first five chapters (out of thirteen chapters in total) were written by a software engineer who had just started an arts degree majoring in literature and philosophy, whereas the rest of the book was written by a 52-year-old with an MPhil in literature, a PhD in analytic philosophy, and very nearly finished an advanced diploma in psychology at The University of Adelaide. It's not the credentials that matter, but the experience that goes with them.


As a result of this timeline for production, the book has some interesting quirks. It has postmodern and modern elements with episodic components in the early chapters. It is highly experimental with narrative voice, but only in one or two places. The experimentation is very limited. The idea was to inject enough of this into the novel to make it clear that actual literature was not too far away, while not disturbing the enjoyment of the everyday reader overmuch.


Nonetheless, the everyday reader of comedic sci fi novels should be prepared for some surprises in terms of the narrative and narrative voice. This is not a mistake. It's to prevent the reader from being bored from the monotony of the usual, and to give the everyday reader a taste of what literary experimentation looks like. One that they should enjoy experiencing because it's different, and it treats the everyday reader as someone who can easily handle that kind of difference. I try always to flatter my readers by expecting just a little more of them, but I always work hard to maximise their enjoyment of it, if for no other reason than my long career in philosophy has left me a utilitarian, hedonist absurdist.


The Portal of the Overhackers is probably the first example of comedic, space-operatic informationist science fiction. If you're wondering what informationist sci fi is, then think of it as post-cyberpunk.


There's a concept in information-theory and the philosophy of information coined by the late philosopher of information Fred Dretske: surprisal value. It's the psychological-cum-statistical surprise one should experience when receiving a given signal with certain information encoded into it. The more surprise one experiences based upon one's existing information, the more new information one gets. Combine that concept of surprisal value with science fiction literary theorist Darko Suvin's concept of the novum (a science-and-technology-centric plot device) and you arrive at what the informationist-cyberpunk element of the novel is about. The way this works is according to what I have, in my Master of Philosophy thesis in English, called metainformational fiction. Metafiction is fiction that has themes, tropes, settings, and plot devices about fiction and the production of fiction. Metainformational writing is fiction (which is a form of information) that conveys information about the transmission, production, generation, encoding, decoding, loss, and value of information by way of plot devices that are themselves information-based novums or scientific/technological plot devices (such as telepathy, neural implants, ansibles, body printers, brain uploading, brain downloading, and super artificial intelligences.)


In my opinion as author the book gets much better from about page 70-80 onwards, with much of the first 70 pages being originally written between 2004-2006 (although that portion of the book had a proper rewrite to about 35% changed content in 2023-24.) However, I am happy with the first 70-80 pages or three-four chapters in terms of them being entertaining spoofing of sci fi themes admixed with some adventure, slapstick, and giggle-inducing dialogue.


In fact, there is a character in the first three chapters called the Astralakian Annihilator, which character predates the movie Cloverfield. Sci fi fans might see some parallels. Another piece of trivia is that the character Fabble Shizzle Tomp Werd is the inspiration for the Millennial and Gen-Z saying 'The Shiz!' I believe I might have a fine chap called Snoop Dogg to thank for that, but this is the world of literature and cultural narratives, and so I am not certain about it.


My influences are Rushdie, Adams, Whedon, Gaiman, Gibson (Idoru), Dick (Johnny Mnemonic), and Stephenson (Snow Crash). Although Adams is an influence and this should be obvious to Adams fans, I do not seek to emulate the comic tone and pace of The Hitch-hikers' Guide to the Galaxy. The comedy-to-adventure/drama ratio is much closer to movies like The Fifth Element and Men in Black. If there is Adamsian influence in it, it's more like his Dirk Gently books than HHGTTG.


The book really starts to pick up in terms of writing from about pp 80-100 through to the end ( 325 in the print edition page count) but the first 80 pages should certainly give any fan of comedic sci fi plenty to enjoy. I laboured hard at it and plenty of creative sweat went into it.


The Chronicles of Xeo Woolfe: The Portal of the Overhackers

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