Steven R Radich

I was just reading how the creature that tried to kill Salman Rushdie because of his offensive depiction of Allah was finally facing the courts. Having read a little of this astonishing author, including his novel at issue, "The Satanic Verses," and as a "wannabe" author, I am saddened that such an astonishingly inventive, scholarly, skillful writer should be so abused. Mulling for a bit as I wondered about the human condition, I was reminded that it wasn't so long ago that my own Christian culture was willfully slaughtering Muslims and burning witches at the stake. Today, I still have Christian friends who would take offense if the name Jesus was misused and still accuse non-Christians of Satanism. So much passion and so much misunderstanding over the ways we use language! Tragically, I see no end to this ignorance. Really, does anyone in their right mind imagine that a creature held responsible for the entire universe might quibble over such a trivial matter?

I wanted to share my thoughts about your book, Letters from Another Galaxy so far. I’m about 30 pages in, and I have to say, it’s incredibly interesting and deeply resonant. Even though it’s fictional, it feels as if you’ve unknowingly written the perspectives of actual people from another dimension. It’s as if the experiences you’ve described are reflections of many versions of your own, across different realities where these events might have truly occurred.

Reading it feels like tapping into something beyond the surface—like the story chose you as its vessel to be brought to life. I can’t wait to dive further into it and see where it takes me. Just wanted you to know how much your work is already making an impact.

Thanks for sharing this with the world.

Misael Apollo Quiles

I wanted to share my thoughts about your book [ LETTERS FROM ANOTHER GALAXY] so far. I’m about 30 pages in, and I have to say, it’s incredibly interesting and deeply resonant. Even though it’s fictional, it feels as if you’ve unknowingly written the perspectives of actual people from another dimension. It’s as if the experiences you’ve described are reflections of many versions of your own, across different realities where these events might have truly occurred.

Reading it feels like tapping into something beyond the surface—like the story chose you as its vessel to be brought to life. I can’t wait to dive further into it and see where it takes me. Just wanted you to know how much your work is already making an impact.

Thanks for sharing this with the world. MISAEL APOLLO QUILES

Are you ready for the second coming?
This Epic tetralogy [ a trilogy plus one] will stretch you!

I am just recovering from a phone call during which a reader revealed it had taken him six months to read my novel "Letters From Another Galaxy." He explained that he had found it a difficult read and that it had required a load of brain power to hold the story together, but that now he had reached the end, he reckoned it fairly stood alongside Dune and Lord of the Rings. Just sharing.

Interview with National Geographic
( as reported in Letters from Another Galaxy by Steven Radich)
https://www.austinmahttps://www.austinmacauley.com/book/letters-from-another-galaxy
“Since your arrival on our planet, humanity has become obsessed with what it is that you want to achieve on Earth. Can you clarify this for me please?”
“Certainly Ms. If you want to get to the essence of our visit ...” answered Brahman Master Navigator [N2], “I would have to reply: ‘Curiosity’ ... plain and simple ... We just want to know what’s out there ...”
“So, what’s this all about taking samples of humans and animals and machines ... more curiosity?”
“In truth, yes.”
“What about those critters settling inland from here ... are they just being curious?” continued the National Geographic interviewer.
“I suspect you Earth folk haven’t quite grasped the idea that there are several species visiting your planet at the same time ... all with their own objectives ... To find out what they want, you’ll have to ask each of them.”
“So why are you all here at the same time then?”
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“We come from several different planets in adjacent solar systems. Not too long after we learned how to get from one planet to another, we entered a cycle lasting a hundred generations during which we were always at war with one another ... a bit like you folks seem to be still amidst here. Eventually, we learned that by working together, we all could achieve more than if we were competing with one another.”
“So, you’ve learned to cooperate ... is that all there is to it?”
“The point that I’m trying to make here, is when we discovered you, we formed a Joint Exploratory Expedition with a rotating leadership. Currently, a Cluster species one of your journalists has labelled ‘Haiku,’ occupies that leadership role.”
“Never heard of them ... where did they land, then?”
“Their first expedition was lost. They are now due to arrive during the second wave ...”
“Lost?”
“Something that your clever viewers might be smart enough to appreciate is, apart from the flight methodology of we Brahman, the others employ techniques with a built-in degree of randomness when it comes to outcomes. A known percent will always fail ...”
“Woah, woah! Different flight methods and unpredictable outcomes? Yet you all still come?
“The most common strategy to minimise the risk you point out, is to deploy a disposable crew of robots, bionics, humanoids. Bionics especially, are most likely to have been kidnapped or coerced into becoming crew. In the intensively occupied zone of our Home Cluster, we also have several tribes bred for space faring, including one species that we believe may have evolved in space. However, a bit like your ocean-going turtles, from the vastness of our shared galaxy, our Space Gypsies need to find suitable habitats such as moons or asteroids, or even planets, on which to lay their eggs ...”
“But ... but, but ... you have implied that you all have different ways of getting about in space ... did you mean different ways of travelling through space-time?”
“We Brahman think our way through space-time, the others have technologies that exploit their very sophisticated understandings of the nature of the physical world ... to transition into a different dimension when they wish to travel a vast distance.”
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“Amazing ... mind-bogglingly amazing ... Tell us ...”
“If I may be so rude as to interrupt you here? Your viewers may love to hear that we Brahman couldn’t come to your Earth until someone else had discovered it ... We need to imagine something before we jump ... to jump to a place that we can picture. We still end up thinking our ways into some pretty weird places ... get lost a lot, but unlike our Home Cluster colleagues, for whom the lost rarely return from the other dimension, we can always picture our home planet ... So, we eventually find our way back home, no matter how lost we were for starters ...”
“Stunning ... just stunning ... Have you ever been so lost?”
“On several occasions, yes. We can think our way into some pretty remote places ... most often it’s just more emptiness, but on one occasion I found myself in a vast sentient cloud, about the size of your very own solar system.”
“What was that like?”
“It was quite amazing, until I recognised that it was trying to absorb me, to eat me, you might say.”
“What do you do then?”
“Came home quick ... wasn’t going to become lunch for any celestial body if I could help it.”
“I was hoping to ask you ... about ... a bit about you and your ship ... where you live, how your ship works?”
“Like you humans, genetically we are primates. The focus of our recent evolution in which we have played a deliberate hand, has been to develop our mental capacities ... often at the expense of our general health and well-being...”
“Please explain ...”
“For example, in low-gravity environments such as on spaceships, it’s not such an issue, but in higher-gravity environments, we have become so top heavy that we can have difficulty maintaining our balance ...”
“And they all fall down ...”
“Ha ha hah! Not quite ... we Brahman are of an elite caste on our planet, and in a minority ... the rest of our lower-caste Brahman have fewer of these problems ... although all aspire to our status ... which is due to our vast mental superiority ... Our bodies have become so out of synch with our minds that something must be done to ensure our survival as a species. Currently our cultural managers are reviewing our options. We quite like your muscular bodies ... just so you know ... ha ha ha ... Did I just make a joke? Ha Ha!”
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“Ha ha ha ... maybe you did, hah hah hah. What about you? How did you come by your remarkable skill set?”
“I’m a clone ... all of us Master Navigators are identical clones. Our preceptor was born with the ability to project matter through time-space. Although much work has gone into duplicating our mental capacities, none have succeeded. You could say: we are an accident of evolution ...”
“You mean to say that no-one else ... but no-one else, can navigate around space time like you and your fellow clones ... that your skill is unique?”
“Correct ...”
“But since you’re all such great genetic engineers ... why don’t you just breed more?”
“We’ve been attempting to do just that, for the equivalent of a thousand of your years or more without success ...”
“For real?
“We think we might have stumbled upon a quality that isn’t genetically derived ... That’s our best theory ... and we still haven’t worked it out with any certainty ... we haven’t discovered the vector that carries the psychic ability ... however it gets expressed. So, cloning it is ... several thousand of us copied ... so far as I recall ...”
“And is it true that your ship is really an extension of your body ... some kind of living expression of you?”
“Yes ... we think/imagine our celestial bodies into existence. If it’s not your very own mental projection, the body turns to dust when moved through space- time.”
“What else can you tell us about how being Brahman is unique? Any special qualities that may not be so apparent ... that might tweak the interest of our viewers?”
“We have a different paradigm of how the universe works from you. For us, the universe is conscious, and we find that it behaves as such if you treat it as such ...”
“Uh huh!”
“Within our Home Cluster, as here on your planet Earth, all our self-aware creatures attribute anything that they fail to understand as being the domain of one deity or another. But few draw such a sharp distinction between animate and inanimate as your science appears to do. As for us Brahman specifically: we detect a wider range of the electromagnetic spectrum than do you humans (as far
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as we know!). We can see more colours, hear a greater range of sound, and we also can see your thought waves ... not so’s we can read them yet ... but we are learning to. Our species are all quick with new languages.”
“Tell me then, what do our thoughts look like ... really?”
“Not easy to reference anything with which you might be familiar ... what about a cloud of dust? Maybe with ripples and swirling about ... a high degree of mayhem and clutter ... a waxing and waning ... edges always ill-defined ... Helpful?”
“Hah, hah, hah ... a blot of dust ... hah hah hah ... sounds a bit close to the truth at times ... hah hah ha! What can you tell us about the others who are visiting ... we’ve got some in China and the US ... and you say there are more coming? You say you’re all friends?”
“Not quite friends as you would have it ... as in wanting to spend time together ... and enjoying it ... But, for those other primates settling in China, it might be true ... we two species do quite like one another. As for the bear-like creatures trying to settle your inland desert, we work with them. Rather than liking one another, we are more like colleagues on this intra-galactic adventure. And, as for the marine creature that was reported to have arrived in New York ... I’ve never seen a live one. Traditionally whenever flying, they have used robots as their proxy. More recently, since the Xerox recovered our first humans, they’ve tended to use the humanoids they build as their emissaries ... their ambassadors ... They are well fabled as flying averse ...”
“The rapists in Central Park?”
“Humanoids exclusively ... hard-wired for s*x by their Water World designers so as to ensure their biological success ...”
“Weaponry ... you all seem to have access to a vast array of offensive and defensive technologies that makes us humans look ... almost Stone Age ...”
“Well, firstly, you do need to appreciate, by comparison with all of us, your human cultures remain primitive. Some in our joint mission may well see your kind as little more than bugs to be trodden on if you get in the way ... It all depends on the agenda of each mission ... If it’s seen that the objectives might be advanced by treating humans well ... then so be it ... and so to the contrary.” While the interviewer squirmed uncomfortably, N2 continued, “Make sure your viewers take care not to be blinded by the romance of the whole idea of an extra- terrestrial invasion ... None of us are here to make friends. Although making friends may be in our best interests on occasion ...”
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“You’ve just raised a whole bunch of very thorny new questions ... but before we go there ... back to weaponry ... what can you tell us about the weapons of each occupational force?”
“The Water World species are masters of camouflage. Just as they can hide in plain sight in their natural habitat, so too, they can manipulate the whole electromagnetic spectrum to make their vessels seem to disappear ... And along with our cousins in China, they employ some form of reactive momenta to repel attacks on their vessels or occupation sites ... Their systems absorb the energy of an attack, then use the same energy to return the ordinance, to its point of origin ... the weapon follows its own delivery trajectory back to launch site.
Generally, Cluster technologies focus on defence rather than offence. As soon as a weapon locks on to us, we know ... As for attacking us with old- fashioned ordinances, your viewers need to know that our robotic defence systems are programmed to respond in proportion to the energy of the attack. While some first ordinances might pe*****te, the fury of the response to such pe*******on could be devastating for those who launch the attack. Perhaps the Earthly allusion to throwing stones at a wasp’s nest might be useful: once the wasps find the source of the attack, then all hell is let lose ... You have been warned!”
“I’ll have to make sure the defence boffins get first dibs at this interview ... thanks for your frankness, Mr Master Navigator ...”
“We actually quite like you humans ... and wish you well ... as long as you don’t stand in the way of our goals ... which, as I’ve explained before, are scientific at this stage ...”
“There has been a suggestion that the occupiers of China and the Middle East might have an endless energy system ... We have noticed that the rest of our visitors’ ships seem to have energy supplies that require refurbishing and or renewal ...”
“Very sharp, sir, but the answer is no ... they don’t have an endless energy system ... However, like the Haiku whom you’ve not yet met, they have both built billions of light-seeking nanobots that will absorb any kind of energy they can capture. Once loaded up, they bring it back to add to their hive’s energy storage systems. It’s just that their bots are so small, that you haven’t seen or detected any yet ...”
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“Amazing, Mr MN2, utterly amazing. You mean to say that they have these microscopic devices that harvest energy like a bee harvests nectar? And then brings it back to the hive? Amazing!”
“Well, firstly, I’m not familiar with your bees, so can’t comment on any similarities. Then it’s really a bit of an issue of definition ... I suppose it’s about as close to an endless energy system as you can get ... there’s no shortage of energy in our universe, and those bots never come home empty handed ... Is that how you would say it?”
“Not bad, not too bad at all! Thanks to you again, Mr MN2. I have one final question: why is your hair green?”
“Ah-huh ... wondered when you would ask ... Ha Ha Ha! During one of our experimental breeding programmes, we tried splicing in some plant genes for capturing light and converting it to energy. We found it worked pretty well, so this genetic modification has been standard for several generations now ...”
“Why on earth would you want ... ?”
“Don’t have to eat so much ... has taken a huge load off our food supply systems ... less pressure on our environment ... A nice sunny day, and we just need water and a few vitamins and mineral supplements ... Very efficient don’t you think? Also, real convenient ... you humans should try it!”
“I think we are out of time ... thanks again on behalf the whole National Geographic family ... thanks for such a frank and informative interview ... thank you!”
“My pleasure, Miss ... next time, perhaps I can take you for a guided tour of MN1’s internal organs ... Until then?”
“Oops ... sorry, almost forgot. One last question if I can squeeze it in ... may I?”
“I’m not under any curfew, so shoot ...”
“Given the scope of your awareness and accumulated wisdom, have you discovered anything, apart from having DNA in common, that might link us all?”
“Surely,” replied MN2. “We all like to play ... just saying ...”