Seeds of the Machina
I’m happy to announce the addition of our 20th title, Seeds of the Machina by Thomas Moore. Your comments are welcome!
It’s also worth noting that Thomas is passing all of his portion of donatons for this book along to he Family Literacy Foundation, so be generous!
Even the smallest children knew about the story of The Darkening. It was a cautionary tale to remind everyone of what the damages of blind ambition can cause. Children would listen with their eyes wide open in terror as they imagined the wrath of God being unfurled upon the unwitting people who had dared to defy their own limitations. The programmers were powerful people that could control steel and wield vast creations at their fingertips, but when they discovered that humans were the result of complex programming and design, it was only natural that soon they would let their curiosity cause them to tamper. A new type of programmer was born, they were called geneticists.
It started off innocently; the programmers first decided that they would fix the inherent design flaws of their own programming. They understood the algorithms of what it meant to be human, but they weren’t listening to the musical complexity in its entirety. Many people across the ancient world hailed the programmers of genetics and looked forward to ushering in a new era of humans that lacked flaws and defects. When parents wanted to have children they could pick out what kind of children they wanted, or even their pets or their food that they would consume.
Humans were modified intrinsically so that they would be resistant to damage, grow stronger, and live longer. Within a hundred years there wasn’t an aspect of civilization that wasn’t altered by the geneticists and their tampering.
But during all of this modification that the geneticists accomplished they were all surprised when they realized that there was a flaw they had overlooked…
January 26th, 2006 at 5:06 pm
You can find the website for the book at: http://www.seedsofthemachina.org/wordpress/
I encourage any fans of the book to check it out and leave a comment/or share some of their own submissions to what I call the “machinaverse”.
Thanks for the support everyone
January 31st, 2006 at 5:34 am
Really enjoying the story and eagerly awaiting future chapters!
June 5th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
dude, come on! between chapters 8 & 9 i listened to all of Earthcore and half of 7th son. i can’t stand the suspense any longer. i need more! oh, and good call with the Chiasm. Emileigh is awesome.
August 17th, 2006 at 7:03 am
please - please just finish this book!!! we have been waiting so long and i think my mind will explode. if you have given up then let us know. I have listened to 4 audio novels since the last chapter!!!! please finish this now!!!!!
August 31st, 2006 at 6:56 am
Like every one else I think this is a good book, the only problem is the length of time it is taking to get more chapters, what is the problem?
I have also read a lot of other books while waiting for the next feed.
If there is a problem here Please let us know.
September 23rd, 2006 at 10:15 pm
First, I want to be clear that I think the story here is brilliant, in particular the concepts that are beginning to unfold about AIs and angels (I’ll keep listening just to see how that is explored further, if the rest of it ever makes it online). However…
Is no one else bothered by the grammatical errors and generally amateurish writing? For example, phrases like “the contents contained within”, “completely ignore him altogether”, “What kind of person is she like?” and “horribly putrid” are not only terribly redundant (especially that first one, of course the contents were contained within, that’s what contents are), they’re clumsy, and the text is full of them.
For myself, at least, a sentence like those and “Many of the shade reapers were dwindling in number”, or “she followed her eyes around the room” - which make no sense as written - take me out of the story as I’m trying to figure out first what the author really means, and second how he could have left that in a supposedly finished piece.
Finally, the word “suddenly” appears all over the place where it’s not needed, which is a common error actually. Saying “suddenly” doesn’t make things more exciting, if the word isn’t warranted then all it does is clutter up the sentence. Here’s a rough rule of thumb: If the thing that happens does so because of something that was just mentioned, and is an obvious effect of that something, then there was nothing “sudden” about it. For example, if person #1 clearly punches person #2, then person 2 falling over didn’t happen “suddenly”. At the very least, don’t keep using the same word over and over.
Oh, and who uses a word like “forthwith” in expository prose?
Most of this is a simple matter of being too wordy. This is similar to my criticisms of The Pocket and the Pendulum, great story, but a once through by a competent editor could have cut out a thousand unnecessary words and made the whole thing read a lot more smoothly.
I don’t mean to beat up an the author, but it’s frustrating. Again, I think the story and concepts here are genius, but it’s hard to enjoy a story when every fifth or sixth sentence makes you cringe.
This is a great first draft, edit it down and clean it up a bit and I’ll be first in line to pick up a print copy and talk it up to everyone I know.
September 25th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
Bah, there’s actually a post about this on www.seedsofthemachina.org (which I had not visited yet): http://www.seedsofthemachina.org/wordpress/?page_id=31
Anyway, like I said I’m totally loving the story, so please don’t take my criticisms to mean that you shouldn’t listen, I just tend to more bothered than most with these things. I hope some more episodes get done soon, I can’t wait to see where it goes.
December 5th, 2006 at 11:21 pm
Has this book been abandoned? What is going on? Does someone need to go by Thomas Moore’s house and see if he is okay?
January 12th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Love the evolving story of this book so far… but when’s the next installment coming? Have I missed something? I’ve been listening and screening so many audio books my ears are going to fall off… so please hurry before that happens as I’m hooked to HEAR what’s next.
Deborah
February 24th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
I would really love to see this book continued. I’m so hooked!
April 20th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
A new episode! Hooray!
April 21st, 2007 at 5:09 am
Some of you may have noticed that Chapter 11 has hit live after several months in limbo.
Thanks everyone for hanging in there! Chapter 11 serves as a bridge to the final act of the story, and so expect to have many of the mysteries solved and loose ends starting to get wrapped up.
April 21st, 2007 at 6:47 am
Hooray!
I’m so glad you’re back with another chapter Thomas. I can’t wait to listen.
May 13th, 2007 at 5:29 am
Yippeee!!!! Your back!
May 13th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Thomas,
Great work with Seeds of the Machina. Ok dude it’s now May, lets get this puppy to bed man I can’t wait to finish it up. Also, it seems that one cannot download some of the what I think are extra stories from I tunes, I click the link and it acts like it will download and even starts another podcast spot different from the book spot. Any idea whats up with that? Keep up the good work.
May 24th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Scott,
I definitely agree about putting this puppy to bed.
The extra stories from iTunes are all hosted on my website, which has very spotty uptime. Try again and if you’re having problems toss me an email to garavondik [at] yahoo.com and I’ll gladly walk you through them!
-Thomas
May 27th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
No, don’t put the puppy to bed! The puppy has a lot of work to do!
June 10th, 2007 at 7:15 am
I’m SOOOOO glad there’s a new update! I love this book so much and was sad when it took such a long break. That said, as a writer myself, I do understand when sometimes a break is needed. I can’t wait to see where this story leads us!
July 3rd, 2007 at 4:48 pm
I just wanna say that this is my favorite book so far on podiobooks. I love the story, the characters and the I.R.I.S. and (sigh) drake. this story is set in a great time period, with believable, and very interesting plots for each and every charecter. keep up the great work!! ch.12 is what I want to hear, I would not be supremely surprised if this made 30 chapters. dude keep up the amazing work!!!
July 6th, 2007 at 4:18 am
i agree that this is a good book. i don’t think that this is the best.
here are a few that are better. Half share, Quarter share, Full share, In the service or samurai, Hunting elf, these are just five. and are all done.
Well full share has just started.
July 25th, 2007 at 5:04 am
Oh why oh why did I not look at when your episodes were released? 1 chapter in a year? Oh gods…
But I didn’t looked, and now I have listen to them all, and I keep checking for more! finished this book!
its got a great story and I have really enjoy what you have available so far.
July 25th, 2007 at 5:04 am
Oh why oh why did I not look at when your episodes were released? 1 chapter in a year? Oh gods…
But I didn’t look, and now I have listen to them all, and I keep checking for more! finished this book!
its got a great story and I have really enjoy what you have available so far.
August 24th, 2007 at 7:55 am
I’m with you Jukaz! I really want to see where the story takes us and I just hate getting attached to a story and being stopped cold, lingering, waiting… I left a comment on Mr. Moore’s blog, the last entry there was in May. I do hope our author is OK but some communiction would be really appreciated!
There is a preview of Ch 12 over there.
September 4th, 2007 at 9:34 am
It was an honor to meet you! (DragonCon ‘07)
Keep up the good work and it will all work out in the end.
September 17th, 2007 at 3:46 am
here we go again.
September 18th, 2007 at 7:46 am
What has happened to Thomas? In May I eagerly listened to the preview of chapter 12.. it’s now September and we have heard nothing more? Not even a note telling us it’s on it’s way? Well, I really hope it is anyway!
I do find some solace knowing it’s not just me that is still hanging on! Joan, Beth, Jukaz and James I salute you =)
Please Thomas! Give us a sign you are OK and we aren’t doomed never know how the story ends?
September 19th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
I’d just like to see a note from our author telling us if we should stay tuned or give up. I will check back once more in a week or so and then cancel my subscription.
It’s one thing to wait a reasonable amount of time with some intermittent communication from the author as to what’s up (a general update, not looking to pry) but, with no explanation, what else can I do? There was almost a year between episodes 10 and 11, which is a bit beyond reason. I was willing to stay on board assuming things were back on track. A real shame not to finish such a good story.
PS. I see by Beth Moore’s comment that you were up and about for DragonCon ‘07 so you must be alive and walking!
Beth Moore - You say you saw Thomas Moore there, did you get any info on what the hold up is?
November 4th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
I found him on myspace! And he logged in today! Lets all interrogate him there! http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=79843444
December 31st, 2007 at 11:04 am
I’m glad the author is alive and I’m glad all of you have commented on the abrupt end of new episodes. I was thinking I had a bad link that accessed only a portion of the story. I’ve been on all the podcast sites looking for a way to get the rest. This story has a great plot and interesting characters. The grammar leaves something to be desired but the story is intriguing so I’m just ignoring it. Having listened to 11 episodes it doesn’t feel the story is even halfway complete. I guess the author is bogged down by life.
I really appreciate all of the podcast authors because what they do is for love of the craft, not money but I do wish they’d follow a protocol of not releasing podcasts until they have a number of episodes already “in the can” and can commit to completing the project within a certain time frame.
That said, I hope we can all agree that family and work have to come first and that sometimes catastrophic things happen that ruin best laid plans. Hopefully whatever is going on in Mr. Moore’s life isn’t awful but while there’s a chance that is the case we may want to be a little more sensitive in complaining and hunting him down. None of his web links work and the subscribe button for “Seeds of the Machina” at Podiobooks is no longer active. These things might be an indication of more than simple procrastination.
January 1st, 2008 at 10:34 am
Thanks for the thoughtful post, OP. The non-functioning links offsite is a problem we need to figure out a way to handle. We rely on the authors to give us the links and then to tell us when to change those links. These are broken (probably because the author has taken the external site down) and I’ll remove them today. I need a way to find other broken links. Seems easy enough.
The subscribe button on the page is missing, by design, so that no new people can’t start the book and then grow frustrated (as you and others have) when they discover there aren’t any more chapters. I *hope* that we’ll get more chapters from Thomas (as I like the story, too) and that we can eventually turn it back on, allowing others to enjoy the *complete* story.
October 2nd, 2008 at 9:22 pm
a book glorifying luddite jesus freaks. can it get any worse?