On Writing Coming Home and Reviews of the Book

A Friendly Reminder...

My reading of Water Rounded Stones AND a section of Coming Home at Rain or Shine Coffee House is on Thursday the 20th. Be there or be square!

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On the Process of writing Coming Home:

Coming Home was written over a period of three years. The first attempt made it about 20,000 words before I abandoned it. In that first draft the focus of the work was too much on what would later become a single chapter in the book. The second draft worked to widen the lens and take in all of Gardenza, examine more of the concepts introduced, and had more of a “travel documentary” feeling. A good portion of this second draft was lost by a ham-fisted error on my part. I abandoned coming home for about a year working on other projects including the second edition of Water Rounded Stones before finding the gumption to try again at Coming Home. The third and final version of the book is the best. In rewriting lost portions and salvaging the bits that I could from the second draft I realized that the book needed history to tell its story properly. The addition of foot notes not only freed up Yuris to narrate his story with more natural speech, it allowed a second level of storytelling, a story within a story sort of narrative that reinforces Yuris' narration, allows for less clunky exhibition, and acts to put the reader into the story by encouraging them to approach it as non-fiction. Ultimately, I am thankful that it has been difficult to write this book. If it had been easier to write, I don't think anyone would want to read it...

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Deleted Reviews of Coming Home:

The second edition of Coming Home was issued by Golden Gift in 2446 after the first edition began to generate traffic. Seeking to embrace the brewing controversy, Golden Gift added two text Reviews it had received on the initial release. Yuris Okan was not informed of this decision until after the work went live and was furious with the change. He sought immediate legal action against Golden Gift, who pulled Coming Home from its sites and reissued it four hour later without the offending reviews. Citing legal obligations not to defame Golden Gift, Okan said that he “disagreed with the candor of both reviewers.” Scholars to date, have suggested that G.G.'s picks were designed to create negative press and high sales. Modern day readers are invited to judge for themselves. Below are the reviews as they appeared on the G.G. Site.

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StargazerTrue [Rev. Huron Liu-Wen] Comments:

“This book Coming Home is rapidly gaining followers on the network and while it is well writen, Okan's aim, or perhaps more rightly Perth's aim, is crystal clear. From the beginning of Coming Home we hear justifications, absolution, and excuses for Perth's soldiers, men and women who, no True Ally will contest, are responsible for their actions, in this case, the genocide of the Gardenzen people. Okan talks about his own struggles, glorifies his actions, and supports the Perthan Media Machine's narrative of Perth: the just and wronged. Okan seems unaware that whenever tested, he folds, cringes, hides, or runs away from danger. As an action story, this fails; as a wartime account, it bores; as an example of how badly Pearth's brainwashing took hold, it excels... For this reason, that we must never forget evil, I encourage everyone to read this book...”

Libertine2440 [Krober Huang-Lentz] Comments:

“In this post war era few are speaking out against the real dangers that face not simply the CSA, but humanity as a species. We must not forget what we have witnessed. Time, history, media, they all simply our visions and make what was a complex situation into its component parts. Yuris Okan remembers. In his phenomenal work Coming Home. Yuris shows us the errors of our societies, be they religious, political, or financial, and how they fail to account for the needs of the most vulnerable among us. His work shows that human suffering has no nation, that we as humans must forgive Pearth, even of acts as wicked as these, and that our future as a people, as one people, can only be found in unity. Coming Home will show you the face of the war Pearth, the CSA, everyone does not want you to see. Read it now, before THEY convince you otherwise.”