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Book details
  • Genre:PERFORMING ARTS
  • SubGenre:Acting & Auditioning
  • Language:English
  • Pages:114
  • eBook ISBN:9781618423146

Eden In Atlantis

by Derek Strahan

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Overview
20,000 years ago, the earth’s axis was much closer to the perpendicular. There two moons. There were no seasons. It was paradise. The earth basked in eternal summer, many life forms flourished, including humans. What is now Antarctica was not then ice-bound and frozen at the Pole. It was then called Celestium, it was populated and harboured an advanced patriarchal civilization that eventually became the model for Atlantis, on an island in the Atlantic. But first that island is home to a community called Eden, a community organised on matriarchal principles, ruled by a Queen, where inheritance is matrilineal. The island is lush, fertile and an abundant variety of life forms flourish, including large and dangerous predators among which are found small colonies of dragons (dinosaurs) that are slowly being hunted to extinction. The warrior/hunter class, comprising both males and females, has high status. The community and its sacred places are walled for protection. Into this isolated community a stranger is thrust, banished from his homeland, Celestium, for the crime of revealing dangerous secrets to the common people. The stranger’s name is Lucifer, which means “light bringer’. He is a scientist with special knowledge of crystals. Eva is a young woman who falls in love with a young man, Daemon. In so doing Eva frustrates the ambitions of the Queen’s son, Adam, whose ambition is to usurp his mother, and rule Eden with Eva as his consort. Lucifer also loves Eva, but discreetly, from a distance. Using his science Lucifer is able to predict the cataclysm that is about to bring devastation to Eden. The political intrigues in Eden are subsumed by celestial events, but not before Lucifer is able to pluck Eva from captivity and bring her to his high mountain cave where they are safe, and from which they observe the comet collide with the smaller moon and, amid tumultuous storms and vast tidal waves, rain fire and debris on Eden. Humans are thus barred from Paradise because Pa
Description
Who knows when, perhaps 20,000 years ago, the earth’s axis was much closer to the perpendicular. There two moons. There were no seasons. It was paradise. The earth basked in eternal summer, many life forms flourished, including humans. What is now Antarctica was not then ice-bound and frozen at the Pole. It was then called Celestium, it was populated and harboured an advanced patriarchal civilization that eventually became the model for Atlantis. But that was much, much later; after the greater earth changes that shifted the South Pole to where it is today. No one knows exactly where Eden was located. The Eden of this story is an isolated settlement in a mid-Atlantic island (much later to become Atlantis) organised on matriarchal principles, ruled by a Queen, where inheritance is matrilineal. In this society males have no rights of paternity, and (to prevent any claim of such rights) long term heterosexual relationships are discouraged, and paternity is hard to establish. Consequently gay and lesbian relationships have equal social status with heterosexual ones. As everywhere on the globe, the island is lush, fertile and an abundant variety of life forms flourish, including large and dangerous predators among which are found small colonies of dragons (dinosaurs) that are slowly being hunted to extinction. The warrior/hunter class, comprising both males and females, has high status. The community and its sacred places are walled for protection. Into this isolated community a stranger is thrust, banished from his homeland, Celestium, for the crime of revealing dangerous secrets to the common people. The stranger’s name is Lucifer, which means “light bringer’. He is a scientist with special knowledge of crystals. Eva is a young woman who falls in love with a young man, Daemon. In so doing Eva frustrates the ambitions of the Queen’s son, Adam, whose ambition is to usurp his mother, and rule Eden with Eva as his consort. Lucifer also loves Eva, but discreetly, from a distance. Fate intervenes in the form of a Comet (actually a large meteor) that is approaching earth. Among Lucifer’s inventions is his “narthex”, an early form of telescope made using fennel cane as a tube, with lenses at either end for magnification. Using this device to scan the heavens Lucifer is able to predict the cataclysm that is about to bring devastation to Eden and to the entire world. The political intrigues in Eden are subsumed by celestial events, but not before Lucifer is able to pluck Eva from captivity and bring her to his high mountain cave where they are safe, and from which they observe the comet collide with the smaller moon and, amid tumultuous storms and vast tidal waves, rain fire and debris on Eden. Humans are thus barred from Paradise because Paradise has been destroyed. But two humans survive.
About the author
Born May 28 1935, Derek Strahan's early childhood was spent in colonial Malaya until the age of five when he, his mother and sister were evacuated to Perth, Western Australia, just before Singapore fell to the Japanese in February 1942. (Strahan's memories of his "Perth years" motivated his later return to Australia). From 1946 he was based in Northern Ireland receiving education at Campbell College, Belfast and later at Cambridge University from which he graduated in 1956 (BA Cantab. Mod. Lang.) In Sydney, Australia, from 1962 he juggled commissions to write film scores with work as, variously, actor, teacher, film director, scriptwriter and singer/songwriter. He has scripted extensively for TV and film, including 5 years as contract writer for Australia’s first hit TV series “Number 96”. His film music has been heard internationally on over 30 Australian Film & TV documentaries and 3 feature films. Material from these sources is available on CD. During this period he also began writing concert music including numerous chamber works commissioned by distinguished Australian artists. These now range through chamber, solo instrumental, vocal to symphonic works, including his Clarinet Concerto, premiered in Australia, 2002 by Alan Vivian at the Australian National University School of Music and in the US, at San Antonio, Texas in 2017 by Lux Musicae. Recordings of his works are frequently heard on national and fine music radio stations. Strahan does not subscribe to any particular school, style or set of musical dogmas. He is concerned to retain melodic lyricism, and to achieve harmonic liberation through a synthesis of melodic and metric polyphony. Musical material for various opera projects is being developed in smaller scale works, and work is in progress on libretti which Strahan is writing himself. They are being developed firstly as plays (from which libretti will be derived), along with other theater plays that are being published online through BookBaby. Strahan favours comedies and happily acknowledges the influence of 18th century Restoration drama, Moliere, GBShaw, Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward and all writers who value satire and farce as vehicles for exploring the human condition. Three feature films have been produced from his scripts “Leonora” (1985), released on video, cable in US & Europe, and shown on Channel 9 in 1996; “Fantasy” (1990), released internationally on Columbia Tri-Star video, and “Inspector Shanahan Mysteries – Cult of Diana”(1992), shown on Channel 9 in 1996, also “Anatomy of Murder” in 2017. He directed “Leonora” and co-directed “Fantasy” with Geoffrey Brown for Combridge International, and also wrote music for these three features. His 1-Act play “Triple Six” was seen in a student production at Newcastle University in 1996. He has written a considerable body of music for film and concert performance much of which has been released on CD and is frequently broadcast. Theater plays are posted at BookBaby: “Eden In Atlantis” “Takeover” “Bullet-Proof Pyjamas” “Sodom and Tomorrow” “Preface to Meet The Fractals” “Meet The Fractals” “Pleroma” “Everything Else” “Poseidon In Atlantis” “Calypso In Exile” "Atlantis Lost".