Gardener, Chapter 1

Heavy envelopes with sample chapters from both Snowflake and Gardener left my local post office an eternity ago... well more like a week ago. Now all I can do is wait. While I wait, though, you don’t have to. I’ve uploaded the first chapter of the Gardener and I hope you enjoy reading it.

While writing this first chapter, I got to know Professor Tony Walker as a brilliant scientist who is misunderstood by the majority of his colleagues. He is not unique and his struggle is not unusual. History gives us plenty examples of gifted talented people who were never understood by their friends, colleagues, by the society they served. It seems that genius of a person is rarely acknowledged by his/her contemporaries; that job is left for descendants, for next generations. Why is that?

Why Snowflake? Also read Chapter 1.

Thank you for all the responses. I’m very interested in ConstantRambler’s comment and I’ll make sure to learn from it. Indeed, the main heroine of the Snowflake is a little girl, and though I hope that the story will be interesting to younger readers, it is primarily aimed at adults. In the novel, I’ll try to describe a little girl who, just like the snowflake, started her life among millions like herself. She’s just as pure and innocent as that tiny drop of frozen water, moving through life without any understanding of what awaits her. Humans experience life through emotions. Sometimes we feel elated, others – down. Sometimes we are content and other times we are bored beyond belief of life itself. But then there are moments for each and every one of us when we’re suddenly faced with a question of the meaning of life, of our purpose in it.

I remember a time when as a child I woke up in the middle of the night with the deepest feeling of fear. It was the first time when I thought about dying or more precisely of not being. I’m sure everyone had one of those moments. My parents heard me crying and, once they found out the reason, they told me a story – a legend – about a tiny snowflake. The thing that stuck in my mind, that calmed me down, was that the snowflake always comes back, but only if she tried to do something good on her previous visit. Using the snowflake as example, I want to show that even the tiniest being on Earth has its own mission, its own purpose.

Computing crime and our vulnerability to digital intrusion is merely a backdrop to that story. Ultimately, it is humans that we are most interested in. And it is one little girl – Amanda Clarke – who will be chosen, challenged and forced to grow up if she’s ever allowed to get her life back. Still, I’ll keep in mind ConstantRambler’s comment and make sure there’s enough action in the book to satisfy even the choosiest of readers.

I’ll admit that the legend about a snowflake that underpins the book has been in my mind for a while, but I’m going to leave its presentation for later. For now, I’d like to present the first chapter of the Snowflake. As always, all comments, positive and negative, are welcome.

I also want to ask everyone a question. Do you believe in destiny or karma?