adobeDreams Revisited

"adobeDreams Revisited" is a revision and expansion of material previously published as “adobeDreams: A Novel of Santa Fe” (2010) and “adobeDreams II: The End of Karma” (2012).

My primary reason for the new edition is that I felt I could do a better job of telling the story of the characters, whom I adore. 

At the time I wrote the original novels I was taking a full load of “post-corporate-job bucket list” classes at a local community college while also completing Reiki training through Master Teacher. Somehow, I thought I could compartmentalize and juggle all that. Instead it was a continuation of the frenzied multi-tasking of the corporate environment I had just left, and a recipe for mental burnout. Fast-forward some five-to-six years later and it was time to revisit adobeDreams.

I also listened to reader comments and eliminated superfluous elements that did not contribute to the overall narrative. Sometimes an author has so many ideas and so much to say that the plot is diverted into tangential branches that bear no fruit. This is just such a case where a little less is indeed a whole lot more.

Lastly, combining the two novels makes a richer, more complete story.

Some readers were enthralled by what we might call the philosophy of the adobeDreams novels, and for that reason I have added a “Philosophy of adobeDreams” chapter as a compilation of those insights. My hope is that these snippets will in some way prove helpful or at least provide a basis for further thought.

May God bless you, and please enjoy adobeDreams Revisited.

eBook versions of "adobeDreams Revisited" are currently available from Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks, and multiple formats from Smashwords (smashwords.com). Price: $5.99

10 Questions for Author Robert Burke

WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS.

1. Have you received any further feedback about the first “adobeDreams” novel?

“Some people found empowerment in the story and loved it, others struggled with the violence and erotica. I know of at least one person who couldn’t handle the lesbian relationship, and stopped reading. And that’s okay. People are where they’re at. If I don't accept them because they don't accept other people--if I hate the haters--then aren't I just doing a different version of the same thing?

“A few thought the romance happened too quickly. I considered that, too, as I finished the novel, but for me, the relationship wasn’t the heart of the story, no more than the sexual orientation of the characters. As a friend commented after reading the book, ‘The story is not about the story, is it? It’s about life.’ For that reason, Abigail is almost immediately smitten, and then we’re off and running into a series of metaphysical adventures.

"I also suppose that not everyone has experienced an infatuation that pulls you toward another person like opposite poles of a magnet. Read carefully and you'll see that the basis for Abigail's same-sex attraction is already there, and then it's a 'love at first sight' situation."

2. What can you tell us about adobeDreams II?

“adobeDreams II takes off where book one ends. The women are in Paris and things start going wrong as Abigail’s guilty conscience begins to manifest in a very tangible way. That opens the door to a whole new series of adventures, and as you might expect, Abigail doesn’t always follow divine guidance. Consequences follow, but that leads to one of the best lines of the entire series: ‘This is who I am. This is what I do. Imagine the worst. SCREW YOU.’ [Laughs]”

3. Is that you talking, or the character?

“That's vintage Abigail, but what inspired me to write it are public figures who try to dodge responsibility for their indiscretions. Wouldn't it be refreshing if at least one of them would stand up and say, ‘Yeah, I did it, and it rocked my socks off! Now mind your own business.’ It'd also be helpful if our news media was more interested in substance than noise.”

4. Book one left a few unanswered questions. Does book two close those loops?

“Yes, the second novel completes the story begun in the first. Now that I have both books in front of me, I have begun to realize that the whole thing is subject to metaphorical interpretation. For example, to get back to the beginning of book one for a moment, what does it mean to stand on a street corner waiting for an unknown person to take you to a place that may not exist? [Laughs] I think that is a matter of searching for unknown aspects of Self, which, in itself, is a quest for completeness. What does it mean to look into a reflection and wonder if there is another you on the opposite side of the glass, staring back? I think that’s a case of asking: Who am I? What is my true identity? Is there more to me, behind the façade? Again, I think it’s a quest for wholeness."

5. Is the relationship between Abigail and Caroline also a metaphor?

“Absolutely. What does it mean to be smitten with someone of the same sex? I think the other person is an idealized projection of Self, and the relationship is about achieving union with that greater whole. Again, it’s a quest for completeness, but perhaps that’s true of all relationships.”

"But even beyond that, Abigail's experiences are a metaphor for the human experience. It's evolution, it's reaching deep down for the will to survive in a hostile environment, it's struggling with the consequences of the evil we allow ourselves to create, it's love-making (love creating) through the expression of sexual attraction, and ultimately it's about the possibilities of human transformation. How far can you go when you're pushed beyond anything you've ever experienced?"

6. A lot of anger from Abigail’s past comes across in the first book. Does that continue in book two?

“No. In the second book the consequences of Abigail’s anger catch up with her. She also learns the fuller extent of her tuning abilities, and that’s why the subtitle is, ‘The End of Karma.’”

7. Can you talk more about that?

“What is karma? In a manner of speaking, karma is unfinished business carried over from the past. And where is the past, really? If there is only the now then the past is nowhere, it doesn’t exist.  It’s only a thought—an energy pattern—we keep re-generating in our minds, in our bodies, in our auric fields, or whatever. Release that, and karma is gone. Think of it like this. What if, one day everyone woke up and said, ‘The wounds and prejudices of the past no longer serve us, how can we work together to build a better now?’

“Is it really that simple? No, but the basic idea holds. This is what happens, I think, when a natural disaster lays everyone low. The tornado comes through and wipes out the town, and then some group consciousness—common humanity—kicks in and everyone helps everyone dig out of the rubble. I wonder if global warming is the great disaster that will put all of us on the same level, so that we finally become united.”

8. Has your writing process changed?

“The mechanics are getting easier, but the overall vision is still a mess. I ‘see’ how the story begins, how it ends, and some of the things that happen along the way, but have no clear outline of everything that is going to happen or how it all fits together. For that reason, the story and the characters begin to write themselves and I really don’t know how it’s all going to integrate. I write myself into horrible dead ends and stay stuck for weeks or months until I see the way out. It’s an inefficient, sloppy way to write, but that’s sort of how my mind works—scattered all over the place, yet, somehow it gets the job done.”

9. Will there be an adobeDreams III?

“The seeds for a third novel are there, but for the moment the first and second books stand together as a complete story, and I’m working on other projects.”

10. What can you tell us about these other projects?

“I am currently writing a non-fiction book, but it’s too early to say much more than that. In terms of fiction, I have ideas sketched for a horror story, a crime thriller, a romance, and a space opera. I’m a huge ‘Star Trek’ fan, and if I could do something like that—albeit with a harder edge—then that would be a total turn on. Some of the other ideas might become short stories, rather than novels.”

Images That Inspired Prose-3

Images that inspired prose, from the novel, "adobeDreams II: The End of Karma" by Robert Burke: "I know this. This is zazen--like Zen monks do. What are we going to do? Meld?"
Available as a Zazzle poster here: adobeDreams on Zazzle
Other images that inspired prose:
"adobeDreams [steer skull with ristras]" (click the link, then scroll down):  Images That Inspired Prose
"True Hearts" (click the link, then scroll down): Images That Inspired Prose-2

Customer Reviews!

Customer reviews from the paperback version of "adobeDreams" at Amazon.

4.0 out of 5 stars Makes you think

Mr. Burke takes us on an adventure to a world we've never been. It is a journey of Super Heroines overcoming violence from past experiences and finding the strength to look their abusers in the eye letting them know "no more". The central character, Abigail, is there to take photographs of AdobeDreams for her travel guide, but finds much more. The picture Mr. Burke paints has many layers. His description of the landscape makes you feel like you have been to the places he describes and he also takes you to places you never want to go. This action adventure makes you appreciate the resiliency of women and their ability to keep going no matter the circumstance. I found myself wanting to know what happens to Abigail next!

5.0 out of 5 stars LOVED IT!

This is a fun, metaphysical sci-fi that is a fast and easy read for those with an open mind and a belief in infinite possibilities. Can't wait for the next journey.

Watermelon Salsa

The recipe for Watermelon Salsa as it appears in the novel:

2-cans Kuner’s No Salt Added Black Beans, drained

1-onion chopped

½ to 1 jalapeno, seeded, chopped

watermelon, diced (off season: use diced pineapple)

fresh cilantro

fresh lime(s)

Mix all together in a bowl. Squeeze lime juice over salsa. Serve with colorful tortilla chips and cold beer or margaritas [please drink responsibly]!

Book Club - Part 1 of 3

In late April I had the great privilege to meet members of a local book club who have read “adobeDreams.” It was something of a genre/demographic mismatch as only one member had previously read fantasy sci-fi, but valuable nonetheless. A ninety-minute discussion ensued with candid feedback from eight avid readers. My sincere thanks to Ann, Elaine, Jane, Kitty, Maureen, Nancy, Susan, and Tris for your time and hospitality! Note: Where more than one member responded to a question or comment, each member’s comment is shown within its own quotation marks.

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

Author: It’s funny, when you write a book and people know you, they tend to think the book is about you. Friends of my wife, for instance, read the book and then made a point of having lunch with her and asking, “Are you okay?” “What’s going on there?”

Book Club: “Do you beat your wife?” “Where is that scar [referencing the heroine’s scar from domestic abuse]?”

Author: Yes, exactly. And for me, what I think of, is as a kid my favorite author was Edgar Rice Burroughs. He wrote a series about John Carter of Mars. “A Princess of Mars” was the book I liked most. It was about this Civil War veteran who is out west and is pursued by hostile Indians. He runs into a cave to escape but then realizes there are strange vapors that paralyze him. The Indians come to the entrance but are afraid to enter and leave him to his fate. When he wakes he finds himself on Mars and has all these adventures. You know the author because he also wrote the “Tarzan” series. The odd thing about Edgar Rice Burroughs is that he never went to Africa. So he wrote all those “Tarzan” books without any direct experience. Presumably he never went to Mars, either. So you can write a lot of things, I think, without it being about you.

Book Club: “Just using a good imagination.” “’Cause you’ve never been a lesbian, right?” [Much laughter]

Author: No, not in this life. Maybe in another one, I don’t know. I kind of wondered, after reading the book, how many of you assumed the author was gay? Did you think that at all?

Book Club: “No.” “I was surprised it was a male who did the book.” “It’s like ‘Little Bee’ [one of the club’s previous books] had a male author.”

Author: One of the things some of our friends liked about ‘adobeDreams’ is the absence of superfluous details. So many books have so much background detail in them that you almost get tired of reading all of it. For example, I read Stieg Larsson’s “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”—certainly a great book—but I got to, like, page 350 and I realized the story was just beginning.

Book Club: “Yes, there is a lot of detail in ‘Dragon Tattoo.’” “That’s right.” “The movie is very streamlined [compared to the book].” “I loved the movie.” “I’m not sure I would have understood the screenplay if I hadn’t read the book because the movie was so streamlined.”

Author: But for me, give me 350 pages and we’re going to go to the moon and come back. And I think part of that is that in my previous incarnation as an Information Technology manager, I did a lot of technical writing.

Book Club: When you write, you cut to the chase.

Author: Yes, I’m accustomed to communicating things as simply and directly as possible. And hopefully that’s the way I write fiction, too. Another thing people noted is the speed of Abigail’s transition from straight to gay. They thought it happened too fast.

Book Club: “Yeah, it was like, ‘Wait a minute!’” “It was way, way too fast.”

Author: I thought about that as I did rewrites, but I wanted that whole “Earth Paradise” thing—where they go back and experience life as Australopithecus “ape-girls”—to happen at the very beginning in order to get that kind of stuff rolling, and I also wanted that romantic encounter to happen immediately afterwards because they flowed so well together. So I really had to jump into it, and all of a sudden Abigail is smitten.

Book Club: “Yeah, you were very descriptive in your writing. You painted a good picture.” “Yeah, you really got into that scene.” [Laughter]

Author: Actually, I tried—as much as possible—to communicate the feeling rather than the mechanics.

Book Club: So you’re telling me this book is not a dream? I was thinking the whole story was a dream, that she dreamt the entire thing? Because, if not, then that blows my whole theory.

Author: No, it’s happening in “reality.”

Book Club: “Doesn’t the last page say she woke up, or something?” “Yeah, it did say something like that, that confirmed it was all a dream.”

Author: She woke up in Paris with Caroline. After the big battle at adobeDreams, they basically escaped to Paris. [Change of subject:] Was the book too violent for anyone?

Book Club: “I didn’t think so.” “Pulling the snakes out of his heart [scene where Lucifer first manifests] was frightening.”

Author: Yes, that was scary. And, actually, part of that was a true story [see answer to question 6 of the 15 Questions for Author Robert Burke article]. But the scariest part for me was writing the “Heart of Darkness” chapter that takes place in Africa. That scared the crap out of me—my heart was pounding as I wrote the chase sequence. Did it seem frightening to you?

Book Club: “It was a scary situation, with the people hiding out, afraid to be discovered by the troops, and then the troops came back.” “What was the deal with the gun? She was firing the gun and it ran out of ammo?”

Author: No, she tried to fire it and didn’t know how to release the safety. [Change of subject:] Were the romantic encounters too sexual, too explicit?

Book Club: “Yeah! I am not a prude at all but why...why did you go there? I just don’t like anyone talking sexual like that.” “We don’t read anything that graphic.” “What was the point? I don’t need to hear that many details.” [One member to another:] “What did you and your husband do this week?” [Other person’s response:] “Very similar to the book!” [Laughter] “What was the point of that much detail? To me that looks like filler, like when comedians get raunchy, ‘cause to me it looks like you don’t have anything else to say so you do it to fill up pages.”

Author: No, I was challenging myself as a writer to see if I could write decent erotica. Is that a contradiction in terms? [Much laughter from group.]

Book Club: Okay, but put it in a different genre, like Danielle Steele, but don’t put it in those. Don’t mix the two.

Continue to Part Two: Book Club - Part 2

Book Club - Part 2 of 3

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

Book Club: “The one thing that did upset me a little is that they were in love because each was so beautiful and so perfect. There are few people that are that perfect, and so I thought that was a little superficial. Like she [Caroline] was the top of the species with such a beautiful body and everything.” “Except when you’re first in love, people actually feel that the other person is perfect.” "Infatuation." “I thought it detracted from the book.” “Well [the attraction] had to be that extreme because everything else was extreme.”

Author: [In regards to the erotica] Like I said, I wanted to stretch myself as a writer.

Book Club: “You did it!” “Really well!” [Laughter]

Author: I was also trying to add some shock value, just to do something different. The second book is much more toned down. It doesn’t have that level of detail because I already did it.

Book Club: “It didn’t turn me on.” [Another member responds:] “We’re glad you weren’t turned on.” [Laughter] “It was just like, I didn’t need to know this. I thought it was unnecessary.” “The explicit detail didn’t bother me. I think that’s because of my interpretation of what the book was about. It made sense to me. It’s that it was a dream and it was really her and she was facing some stuff in her life, the demons in her life, her ex-boyfriend, and she was trying to find a way to love herself again. So I didn’t think it was inappropriate or out of bounds.”

Author: I’ve actually considered the it-was-all-a-dream angle, but I think that’s robbing the reader. As a reader I’d think, if none of it was real, then why did the author waste my time? Does that make sense? [Of course, in the larger scheme, it’s all made up!]

Book Club: “I don’t like that, either.” “I don’t like movies where they wake up and you find out none of it really happened.”

Book Club: “So I don’t know that I got the real meaning of the story. Some of the things were like, ‘We already know that,’ and although it was enlightening to the character and kind of woke her up, I thought maybe it was simple. I was expecting and hoping for something a lot more and I just didn’t get it.” “Well, it’s supernatural, crossing that threshold into a place that does exist, but doesn’t exist exactly on Earth.” “Yes, into another realm of reality...” “Parallel lives.” “There are people out there who think we do live parallel lives.” [To author:] “You’re a sci-fi person, though. And I am not a sci-fi person.” “I always say that at the beginning of the X-Files, ‘I don’t like it.’ Then I watch the show, and then it’s kinda weird, and I decide it’s pretty good.” [To author:] “So do you think there are other planes of life or activity?”

Author: There are supposed to be an infinite number of parallel universes. Basically, every time a choice is made it spins off another parallel universe. At least that’s some of the new, strange physics you hear about.

Book Club: “But I was in there thinking I was going to be enlightened or thinking that something was going to change...okay, I’m going to learn something...something is going to hit me..it’ll be something new and exciting...but it left more questions than answers.” “It did leave a lot of questions.” “So, can you do me a favor, can you give me a synopsis of the meaning of this whole book? Because I can’t figure it out yet.”

Author: At one level it’s a metaphysical action-adventure and what it gets into is the possibilities of human development. The whole idea of the protagonist’s ability to ‘tune’ into different states—that’s the main thing; and how that might also affect the overall evolution of mankind, because I think we all need to ‘tune’ to a higher state.

Book Club: So how long did it take you to write this?

Author: Here’s the story for you [see answer to question #2 of the 15 Questions for Author Robert Burke article].

Author [responding to question about publisher]: I’m self-published through Amazon CreateSpace. I originally went with ebooks—Amazon Kindle—and it’s also out there in Apple, Kobo, Nook, and Sony ebook formats, because I initially thought that was the way to go. Then I had so many people who said, “I want to read your novel, but I don’t want to read an ebook,” that I did the print version.

Book Club: “Don’t give up writing. But don’t be explicit on that stuff unless you want to be a Danielle Steele romance novelist.” “I haven’t gotten to the erotica [two members had just begun reading the book]. I know we gotta get there. ”

Author: Chapter 5 ["Girl Love"]. [Much laughter all around.]

Book Club: The erotica didn’t seem to bother the rest of us except one, but what kind of feedback are you getting from other people who have read the book?

Author: I haven’t received any negative feedback about that.

Book Club: Everybody thought it was okay?

Author: Or they’re not saying.

Book Club: “I thought part of it was for shock value.” “But why shock? No, I didn’t like it. I thought it took up a lot of the book.” “I thought the recurring sexual relationship was a lot.”

Author’s Note: I had to look this up! There are 2,050 paragraphs in the book. The physical attraction between the girls is certainly a constant theme throughout, but only 25 of the total paragraphs describe actual “make out” sessions, or hardly more than 1% of the book (depending on how much "mood setting" you want to include).

Book Club: “I wanted to get something out of the book. I don’t need to know about somebody’s sex life. That’s not why I’m reading this book, damnit! I want to find something really great in it.” “You don’t have to go there [to the explicit scenes]. Just be gay, be lesbian, and just do it without the details.”

Author: Another question I had. Was there too much male bashing?

Book Club: “It seemed like there was some real male bashing in the whole book.” “You know, at one point in time we might have been in agreement with you there. For the most part we all like men pretty well.” “We like some of them some of the time.” “We talked about the male-bashing, and then I was in my gym and I heard this woman talking to this other woman and I guess she was in therapy and had been through all this abuse from men, and it’s like, well, I guess some people do have that negative experience.” “And that’s what hit me, there are people out there who can relate to that, we just happen to be not those people.”

Book Club [the conversation shifts to lesbians]: “I think a lot of people come to that because of really horrible experiences.” “To me Abigail was a circumstantial lesbian because of her experience with her father and boyfriend. I worked with a girl who had a history of abuse and she hated men because of it. But I think most people who are truly homosexual are born that way.“

Book Club [change of subject]: The woman in the desert [Sam], from Taos, who knew Caroline and Raphael. She had been to adobeDreams. How does a person get drawn to that location? What was it? Abigail said she saw something on the Internet that interested her and she was a journalist doing a report [travel guide]... but it seems like to get there you have to be accepted.

Author: You have to have the spiritual inclination.

Book Club: “How does one get called to anything? Somehow the universe takes you to where you’re supposed to be. Even though in my opinion you still have free will to accept or decline.” “One weak link is why did she assume that she was stood up on the corner, when it was Raphael who showed up and she started talking to him?” “Why couldn’t he have just said, ‘Hi, I’m from adobeDreams.’”

Author: For me, it was a test for Abigail, because they then go to Burro Alley, and the whole sequence that follows is a sort of test.

Continue to Part Three: Book Club - Part 3