Quilandria
Liane
Gabora, March, 2023
Blurb
(Mini-outline without spoilers)
As a
pandemic rages on, Stella and her housemates feel trapped and dejected, and struggle
to find purpose in their lives. The source of wisdom and
guidance they crave arises in an unlikely form when RAJ, a DJ and late-night host on a university radio station,
makes an offhand joke about the ‘Glory of Groove.’ Stella, a PhD student in
physics, agrees there is something profane yet profound about replacing the
word ‘God’ with ‘Groove.’ The joke feeds on itself, and together the housemates
develop a comedic radio drama series featuring Stella as the Sacred Scribe of
Cosmic Vibe, artistic Alyzia as the Goddess of
Groove, and computer science student Bruno as skeptic, with origin of life
researcher Seung Gong directing. The housemates laugh off rumours that Seung
Gong is a Chinese cyber spy, but when Stella’s computer
is hacked by the Chinese Ministry of Data, doubts arise.
Bruno shares his virtual reality
simulation of human cultural evolution on the Glory of Groove show, prompting Alyzia to assert that our souls evolve too. She claims to access
a parallel realm called Quilandria, in which thoughts,
feelings, and ideas appear as objects made of light, and creative sparks and
rays of hope, as well as psychological fragmentation and centredness, are
all visible and tangible. Reflecting on ideas appears as reflection
of beams of light within spherical shells until they are sufficiently focused
to be expressed, and lying, or bending the truth, appears as the bending
or refraction of light. Stella is astounded that Quilandria
follows the rules of quantum logic and optics in higher dimensional spaces. The
show’s fans convince them that Quilandria could ‘shed
light on’ humanity’s problems by revealing how all things are connected, where
blockages lie, and how they can be dissolved with ‘inner light.’
Stella’s standing as a solid physics
student becomes tarnished when she is accused of “posing as some kind of Goddess.”
It doesn’t help that she has become consumed by a project that fuses Bruno’s
virtual world for the study of human cultural evolution, with Alyzia’s otherworldly visions, and her own research on
quantum optics. She starts recreating Quilandrian phenomena
in the laboratory, and is on the verge of opening a portal to a new understanding
of the forces that propel people, states, and the world as a whole,
when mysterious entities try to sabotage the project, and the university threatens to
shut it down. She must either abandon it, or engage in decidedly un-Goddess-like
acts of cyber espionage and cyberwarfare, making use of Alyzia’s
ability ‘see’ people’s inner worlds.
Full of
mystery, romance, and mind-bending science, this novel will transport you to a place
where human thoughts and actions sprinkle vibrational fingerprints
through the cosmos, and the power of the universe is at your fingertips. Get ready to join
Stella and her housemates on a journey of discovery like no other!
The above is
actually the version I arrived at after some pondering and heart-to-heart with
our good friend ChatGPT. Below is my original blurb
(which I found rather lacklustre but wasn’t sure how
to fix), followed by ChatGPT’s version (which I was
quite impressed by, but it left too much out).
Original
Blurb (Pre-ChatGPT)
Trapped together during a
pandemic, STELLA and her
housemates are faltering, in need of something to believe in. The source of
wisdom and guidance they crave arises in an unlikely form when RAJ, a DJ and late-night host on a
university radio station, makes an offhand joke about the ‘Glory of Groove.’
Stella, a PhD student in physics, agrees there is something profane yet
profound about replacing the word ‘God’ with ‘Groove.’ The joke feeds on
itself, and together the housemates develop a comedic radio drama series
featuring artistic ALYZIA as the Goddess
of Groove, and Stella as the Sacred Scribe of Cosmic Vibe.
The pandemic draws to a close, and Stella is approached
by SpinWizard, a company that uses quantum machine
learning to manipulate people. She desperately needs the money. However, when an
employee hints that she steal data from her housemate SEUNG GONG, a
computational origin of life Ph.D. student who works on the side for a
competing company, she indefinitely postpones the offer. The employee tells her
that Seung Gong is a Chinese spy, which Stella doesn’t believe. Meanwhile, her
computer has started to acting mysteriously, making her wonder if she’s been
hacked.
On the Glory of Groove show, BRUNO shares his virtual reality simulation of human
cultural evolution. Alyzia says our souls evolve too.
She claims to access a realm called Quilandria, in
which people’s thoughts and feelings appear as objects made of light, making
them easier to manage and understand. On Quilandria, psychological
centredness or fragmentation, creative sparks, and rays of hope
are all visible and tangible. Reflecting on ideas appears as reflection
of beams of light within spherical shells until they are sufficiently focused
to be expressed, and lying, or bending the truth, appears as the bending
or refraction of light. Stella starts catching glimmers of Quilandria when she’s in Alyzia’s
presence. She is amazed to find that Quilandria
follows the rules of quantum logic and optics in higher dimensional spaces.
The Glory
of Groove goes from an obscure late-night act to an internet sensation. World
famous, in love, and nearing completion of her Ph.D., it looks like Stella has
it all, but a cascade of tragedies changes everything, not just for her, but
for the household, and the entire planet. To turn things around, she must embark
on a project that synthesizes Alyzia’s otherworldly visions,
her own work on quantum optics, and Bruno’s virtual cultural evolution studies.
She’s on the brink of opening a portal to a parallel realm that shows why every
action humans take, every thought we think, sprinkles vibrational fingerprints
through the cosmos, altering how it unfolds. However, to complete the project,
she must determine whether it is SpinWizard, Seung
Gong, a colleague, or a mysterious force operating from within Quilandria itself that has set out to sabotage it, and rely
on her ability to ‘see’ not just when someone else is deceiving her, but
when she is not aligned with her highest self. And there’s that one last,
niggling mystery to solve…
Chat-GPT’s Revised Version of my Original Blurb
As a
pandemic rages on, Stella and her housemates are struggling to find purpose in
their lives. That is, until a chance encounter with Raj, a DJ and late-night
radio host, leads them to discover the "Glory of Groove," a profound
yet irreverent philosophy that replaces "God" with
"Groove." Soon, the housemates are creating a hit radio drama
featuring Alyzia as the Goddess of Groove and Stella
as the Sacred Scribe of Cosmic Vibe.
But when
Stella is offered a job by a mysterious company that uses quantum machine
learning to manipulate people, she is forced to make a difficult choice. Should
she accept the offer and risk betraying her housemate Seung Gong, or should she
follow her conscience and turn down the job?
As Stella
grapples with this dilemma, she begins to uncover strange and mystical forces
at work in the world. With the help of Alyzia's
otherworldly visions, Bruno's virtual cultural evolution studies, and her own
work on quantum optics, Stella embarks on a quest to open a portal to a
parallel realm. But as she gets closer to her goal, she realizes that she must
confront the forces that seek to stop her, whether they come from within or
without.
Full of
mystery, romance, and mind-bending science, this novel will transport you to a
world where the power of the universe is at your fingertips. Get ready to join
Stella and her housemates on a journey of discovery unlike any other!