The Ills of Saardu (1985)

By Carma Chan
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Published: May 11, 2010
Words: 66,249 (approximate)
Language: English
ISBN: 9781452358277

Short description

The original draft of Saardu is offered as an ebook for purposes of study, trivia, and historical record. The Saardu story has changed dramatically since its first inkling in 1984. Published for the first time in 2010 to prove the author did not steal ideas from James Cameron's movie "Avatar". This is an exact copy, unedited, of the manuscript in public archives at the U.S. Copyright Office.

Extended description

In 1984, the year following her brother's suicide, the first inklings of Saardu appeared. What is apparent in this story is that the author was deeply affected by the experience of watching her big brother go from being a normal boy who loved baseball and The Beach Boys' music to a schizophrenic who thought the Devil, Jesus, John F. Kennedy, and other historical persons were talking to him or that he was their reincarnation. She attended his funeral in 1983 and was impressed by his best friend's eulogy, in which he stated that it was a pity that people were afraid of Ken--he was harmless, and very interesting. Her brother was also a talented writer and poet. She had corresponded with him from Boston while he was well for a few years living on a houseboat in Hawaii. They had something huge in common: both were grieving about their children. Ken's wife had given birth to his son while he was in the mental hospital, and he was never allowed to see the child--not so much as a pictu.. (Read more) In 1984, the year following her brother's suicide, the first inklings of Saardu appeared. What is apparent in this story is that the author was deeply affected by the experience of watching her big brother go from being a normal boy who loved baseball and The Beach Boys' music to a schizophrenic who thought the Devil, Jesus, John F. Kennedy, and other historical persons were talking to him or that he was their reincarnation. She attended his funeral in 1983 and was impressed by his best friend's eulogy, in which he stated that it was a pity that people were afraid of Ken--he was harmless, and very interesting. Her brother was also a talented writer and poet. She had corresponded with him from Boston while he was well for a few years living on a houseboat in Hawaii. They had something huge in common: both were grieving about their children. Ken's wife had given birth to his son while he was in the mental hospital, and he was never allowed to see the child--not so much as a picture or a name. He was told that an adoption was approved by the court during his long absence. The author met her brother's little boy at his funeral. It was the first and only time he saw his father. He was seven years old.

Carma's empathy for her brother and grief about the pain of being socially rejected expressed itself through daydreams that became the basis of the entire Saardu series. She had never read scifi, had not been an avid fan of any scifi TV series or films, and wondered why people were so eager to get off this planet, when Earth is obviously the most beautiful planet in the known universe. In 1984, she was reading nonfiction science books about how the Earth was formed and about the intelligence of dolphins and whales, and she read "The Way of Zen" by Alan Watts. Then suddenly, out of the blue, an idea struck her and she scribbled down a few sentences about a child on an alien planet befriended by a giant telepathic dragonfly. This was the birth of Saardu.

Patty Sovic was the receptionist at Vidal Sassoon's Chatsworth distribution center, where Carma worked 1983-1985 as a secretary in the purchasing department. Patty encouraged Carma, and the paragraph grew to a short story, then a novel, then a trilogy, and now she is working on the 6th book.

The story has changed dramatically since this 1985 manuscript was registered at the U.S. Copyright Office. This draft was not intended for publication. It is made available now as an ebook for purposes of study and historical record. The first Saardu paperback was published in November 2009. In January 2010, Ludovic Leleu, Carma's illustrator from France, saw the film "Avatar" and got a "weird feeling". It seemed there were too many similarities for coincidence, and he wondered if it was possible that someone in Hollywood had read Saardu years ago and taken ideas from Carma. Of course, it is possible, but the plots are very different. In 2010, Carma decided to post this 1985 manuscript on the web for the record, so that readers of Saardu would known that she was not copying "Avatar" when she invented Saardu.

In 2012 the author legally changed her name to Chan to honor her real dad, the Chinese stepfather who treated her and her five siblings as if they were his own pride and joy.
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Tags

scifi, schizophrenia, avatar, james cameron, patty sovic, carma gagne, richard walter, tim flannery

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