Black Maven's third interview with Steven Wood Collins

This is my third interview with Mr. Collins at his home set in bucolic Escazu, Costa Rica. We last met here nearly three years ago to discuss various topics surrounding his novel, Puramore – the Lute of Pythagoras, his Goodreads Author's Blog, The Patricians, and his personal life.

Well, Steven, I'd imagine that much has transpired in your life since we last met. First off, how is your health?

I'm hale and hearty for a 65-year-old, and generally in good cheer most of the time. I continue to maintain a somewhat vigorous exercise program which I ascribe as contributing to my overall salubrious attitude in life at present. My wife and I work out at the fine exercise facility at the Costa Rica Country Club three or four times a week. I have to be careful about not overdoing exercise, though, mainly because of the potential to exacerbate my omnipresent upper-extremity and cervical spine RSI symptoms as well as the sciatica condition, all of which I've suffered from for the past several decades. As a result, the workout regimen, such as it is, mainly consists of low-impact and low-stress aerobic and anaerobic exercise on treadmills and weight machines. It provides me with just enough physical exertion to produce healthy muscle and skin tone.

That's excellent, and it shows as you're in the pink of health. You're to be commended for taking such good care of yourself at your age.

Thanks, Black Maven.

Otherwise, my daily life routine seldom varies. I generally spend most of the day either reading or writing, principally by adding new research material and related commentary to The Patricians blog. I've been more or less absorbed in that effort for several years now, which has relegated my other writing projects to basic inactivity. however, I'm planning on devoting much less time to the blog, perhaps only focusing on further development only once or twice a week instead. it's grown in scope over the years where it requires the assistance of full-time staff to fulfill ultimate objectives I have in mind, such as reformatting individual posts to render a consistent and improved overall presentation, hopefully, via its dedicated website. I have neither the time nor the inclination to put forth that effort myself as it's rather herculean in many respects, not the least of which is the undue stress of the physical and mental demands on me personally. Anyway, I'm attempting to raise a bit of capital for that purpose through community funding sites, though not much luck on that score as of yet. Nevertheless, the project is clearly out of hand for me to manage by myself over the near term.

I continue to follow the blog's progress on its Facebook page. I notice it's gaining a significant following.

Yes, that's right. Also, the Goodreads Authors Blog version has received hundreds of thousands of pages since first published. At last count, it's generated nearly 410,000 page views since first published over five years ago with over 42,000 new views of which are being realized during the past six months alone. What's remarkable about that is it's only advertised via metadata provided on each blog article. What that tells me is there is a viable interest in this type of genealogical presentation that begs for further commercial development.

Quite so.

I've noticed also that you're currently posting more blog articles dedicated to your Collins lineage. Is there any significant reason for that emphasis at present?

After years of searching after reaching a dead end, not much of a pun intended, in tracing the lineage through the American historical experience to the beginning of the 19th century. Then one day a cousin, perhaps witnessing my plight, suggested via an Ancestry.com board message an agnatic forebear that perfectly fit the genealogical bill, namely, a paternal relationship to the last traceable Collins I discovered through my work who flourished at the same time and place in America around 1800. from there, I quickly established agnatic relationships with my first Collins forebears, namely, Deacon Edward and his brother, John, who immigrated together to America with their families in or around 1635. Ironically, had I focused on this lineage earlier I could have made the essentially same discovery myself by tracing my paternal grandmother's Wood lineage through to Deacon Edward, who was her 8th great-grandfather. Thereafter, it would have been fairly reasonable to conclude that her father, Hurlbert Wood, knew full well of this relationship to Wesley Taylor Collins, his cousin and my great grandfather, and thus arranged for his daughter's marriage to his son, Lowell Outwater Collins. Moreover, knowing the English penchant toward strict maintenance of racial-ethnic purity as I do, there can be no other reason Hurlbert would have promoted the marriage as he did, particularly considering his daughter was loathe to the idea at the inception as the marriage relationship later proved when it failed spectacularly not long after she gave birth to my father eight years later.

That's amazing. It must have made your hair stand on end when you discovered your grandmother's relationship to Deacon Edward.

Indeed. Anyway, feeling sufficiently authorized to pursue further genealogical research, I began to trace the Collins lineage back in time to forebears who immigrated to England from Ireland during the first half of the 14th century, towards the end of the Black Plague. At that point, I more or less concluded that the bloodline was of Irish ancestry, which was first established, as I later discovered, with the settlement of Wicklow many millennia ago, which was several thousands of years before the Heremons first arrived on Irish shores.

However, a more recent research finding traces my YDNA lineage origin to Scandinavia, at least as far back in history as the 5th-century AD. My Norwegian/Viking ancestors conquered the region around Donegal (Irish translation: Fort of the Foreigner), Ireland, some time during the 6th- and 7th centuries. My direct forebears came to Ireland from Orkney, Scotland during the latter half of the 12th-century. The first patriarch to settle there was Kolli Kollson (born abt. 1150). His descendants' Irish surname became Coileain (or O'Coileain). According to this pedigree, one generation resided in Cork before returning to Donegal, which likely accounts for the conflated surname identification with the O'Collins lineage of Wicklow. Thereafter, both pedigrees are in essential agreement as to the approximate time frame as to when our forebears immigrated to England and beyond to the time they immigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635.

Have you had your y-DNA tested?

Not yet, but I plan to soon. Nevertheless, based on y-DNA studies conducted on several presumed cousins, I belong to the r1b-M269 haplogroup. This is the dominant haplogroup for males residing in the British Isles and western Europe today. An r1b mutation, the first carriers of this y-chromosome emerged from the Pontic steppes around the Black Sea around 10,000 years ago, or sometime after the last ice age. Many important figures of medieval British history possessed this y-chromosome. There's also a formidable list of noteworthy present-day surnames whose namesakes are of the M-269 haplogroup.

Fascinating.

I think so. What's even more interesting is the migration routes members this haplogroup took over time that coincides with several important developments of ancient histories, such as the establishment of Scythian and proto-European civilizations, including Ireland and Spain.

I would like to now turn our attention to several aspects of your novel we may have entertained in the past but I think deserve further attention in any case.

Okay. So let's turn.

Right. As I recall, your main inspiration for writing the novel was an almost spiritual connection with Sir Francis Bacon, who penned a similar work, entitled New Atlantis, that he left unfinished before his death.

I do recall suggesting that connection.

Was there any other source of inspiration as you think of it now?

There were two, the first being to put a potentially optimistic spin on Aldous Huxley's Brave New World as to the dystopian future of mankind, which I always thought was dreadfully dour and fatalistic. I first read the novel when I was a teenager.

Do you think you accomplished that goal?

To a literary degree, I think I did since the primary thesis holds out the hope that in the final chapter of its existence mankind will possess the opportunity to be elevated, both physically and spiritually, from a state of eternal misery to a kind of apotheosis. However, to achieve this state of exaltation, for want of a better word, one must submit to a genetic reengineering process that essentially upgrades and transforms both the human body and mind to a divine form. It's also a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the socio-political irony involved in designing a body politic that promises to produce utopian results for all citizens regardless of individual merit.

Secondarily, after a couple of years of groping around to think of a suitable storyline to convey this thesis, I became inspired after reading Ray Kurzweil's book The Singularity is Near soon after it was first published in 2005. But what inspired me more afterward was reading blog posts on his website that not only extolled the virtues of a Singularity paradigm, but also the desire to somehow meld with it just as soon as it occurred. It seemed to me that many of these well-educated members of the scientific community were so disaffected and alienated with the material life they'd gladly upload their minds to a type of virtual reality with little or no regard for possible dire consequences.

I developed the Juan Aguila character as a shaman spirit guide to express concern for the possible fate of transhumanists stepping on their own volition into a potentially evil dimension of horrific proportions. Wingtip, the archenemy of humanity from another universe, represents the ultimate antagonist whose demonic goal is to strip mankind of its immortal soul. George Smythe, the protagonist, is a messianic figure who, during his teens, is selected and later cultivated by an ancient druid society as a candidate to lead mankind to a kind of singularity apotheosis if he proves himself worthy to wield Puramore, the Divine Sword of Destiny, and survives Wingtip's assassination attempts.

Whether inspired by my novel or not, I'm gratified to see the more recent advent of several transhumanism religions as publicized through social media, such as Facebook. a few I've noticed are even based on the Christian faith, which seems to hold that the Singularity event may mark the beginning of the Apocalypse wherein humans will choose to convert to a transhumanist Christian idealogy as potential transhumans. Ray Kurzweil now foresees the Singularity event occurring around 2029 or sooner.

Are there any more hidden “tongue-in-cheek” social commentaries the readers should be forewarned about?

The novel is rife with them, but I shan't say more as further disclosure would needlessly prevent discovery by the sophisticated intelligentsia, which should be an integral part of their reading enjoyment. I can only add it's best to don one's Thinking cap when starting to read Puramore because you never know when one of those hidden commentaries will present itself.

I would also recommend reading the novel from the perspective of a singularitarian, mainly because straight line and curvilinear thinkers are likely to be confounded by the regular representation of singularity cosmology throughout the text.

Puramore appears to be one of the first novels written that romanticizes the transhumanist movement if it can be stated that it was defined by that name back when you first started working on the manuscript. Would you agree with that assessment?

In my humble opinion, it does appear to have been one of the first, if not the first to deal with sociological issues about the emergence of the transhumanist movement at the very least. And, now that I think of it, in a rather romantic context as well.

Are you now planning to write the sequel to the novel, which you previously said would be entitled The Retopians?

If I don't, I wrote Puramore anticipating the possibility that I might never write a sequel. Thus, the essential storyline, as told around the third part of the book describes a salubrious destiny for mankind in the far, far future. It's difficult for me to envision how transhumans will flourish in a universe they have the power to orchestrate through the entire range of the space-time continuum so I may not make another attempt to step into that hyper-imaginary milieu. Still, I'm not ruling out the possibility that I may one day start work on the sequel, but I would only do under the right circumstances.

And what would be the right circumstances that would motivate you to start writing the sequel?

Probably a compelling inspiration for the storyline first. after that, well, sufficient time and leisure to work on the manuscript unfettered by financial concerns that often hamper the natural outflow of an author's creative juices, so to speak. Dystopian sci-fi is a difficult genre to create in, mainly because the literary foundation lies in the undefined future, both scientifically and sociologically. Making the two come into any meaningful agreement is more than problematic. But when done right, such as achieved by the great novelists of the genre, like George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, a lasting impression is stamped on the literary world.

So, is that potentially the end of your literary career if you never start the sequel project?

Not necessarily. I've always been a big fan of historic novels, such as those authored by Ken Follett. As such, I may start a historic novel project of my own. I'm thinking about telling a story that unfolds during the time of the English Anarchy and ends during the reign of King Henry III. This was an exceptionally politically turbulent period in England.

Haven't there already been enough books written about this epoch?

No doubt, but unlike the others, the protagonist in my novel will be Sir William Marshal, who's one of my ancestors. His presence and political power as merely a peer in England were exceptionally important in shaping the future of the country, particularly concerning his role in establishing the Magna Carta and averting the French invasion in 1217 when he ruled the country as regent. Moreover, his life, from the time of King Stephen, who spared his life when he was a boy, until his regency, was glorious from the inception of his knighthood until his death. As such, he had few if any peers as a knight whose own brand of chivalry was of the highest order ever attained. and he touched the lives and more of all the major monarchal players of his era. Though King John never adopted his code of chivalric ethics, I think it can be said that Henry III, his son, was favorably influenced by William, which may have been one of the contributing factors to his long reign.

I think there was a time, particularly during his tenure as regent when William could have crowned himself king of England, but never would have thought of it because of his deep and abiding fealty to the Plantagenets as well as his unassailable code of chivalric ethics. Nevertheless, he certainly would have had the popular support of the baronetcy peerage as well as the powerful Knights Templar to have pulled off such a coup if he had a mind to.

Well, on the face of it, I'd say that's a rather romantic pitch that may well be worth developing as a central thesis for a historic novel under your authorship. I wish you godspeed and success if you ever embark upon this promising literary project.

Now, as a practitioner in the black art of numerology, I couldn't help but notice numerological references interspersed throughout the text, particularly in the frequent appearance of the number 13 in various forms.

Yes, as you know, the number 13 is a karmic number that signifies convulsion, usually societal, that occurs to initiate a basis for a change in, say, of a social paradigm, much like a violent revolution precipitates to form a new social government, such as the American Revolutionary War. You undoubtedly noticed the book is divided into two parts, each consisting of 13 chapters. The number 26 is dualistic, 13 plus anti-13, that shows up in history every once in a while, one poignant example being the number of Founder Knights of the Order of the Garter, which was founded by King Edward III during the mid-13th century.

There are several other numbers of spiritual importance interspersed throughout the text, which I'll leave to the reader to discover for themselves.

Right.

Are you continuing to maintain an active interest in current developments in the transhumanist movement?

Not really, though I have allowed a few select related sites to post on my Facebook timeline. However, I don't as a rule read the individual posts, mainly because the entire topic is currently only of passing interest to me. These days I've grown somewhat world-weary, almost diogenic, especially when it comes to present-day political affairs. I'll likely snap out of it before too long; but for now, I'm dispassionate about most aspects of philosophy and futurism, etc.

Nevertheless, is there any one person you consider at the vanguard of the transhumanist movement in your opinion?

Besides Ray Kurzweil, I'm only familiar with one individual emerging as such that I would consider worth following. I've allowed Alex Vikoulov, who's a brilliant neo-transcendentalist, digital philosopher, and singularitarian, to post on my Facebook timeline. He's ahead of his time and deserves to be considered in the vanguard in that milieu at present in my opinion.

Right. Well, that wraps up what I wanted to accomplish during this interview today, Steven. I thank you for providing me with yet another opportunity to become better acquainted with you, both as an author and human being.

It's again my pleasure, Black Maven. It's always one of the highlights in my life to be in your mystical presence once again.

One more question before we end this interview session: are you still being beset by that caustic NGO you previously reported had caused you such aggravation and harm?

I'd rather not answer that question at this time, Black Maven, as it's now being considered as a series of human rights violations by the U.N. Committee on Human Rights. Regretfully, in the interest of at least preserving my dignity, or what's left of it after the egregious onslaught, I was compelled to petition the international body for some kind of relief and redress.

That's truly a shame. We can only hope you'll soon realize righteous vindication and compensation for the abominable injury you've suffered.

Amen.