Tampa, FL (OPENPRESS) Sept. 15, 2010-12:02am
by: hawkiconoclast
    After surviving emergency brain surgery in 2004, E. Haase created several multi-media works for one purpose: to communicate his vision concerning humankind’s role in earth's environmental future. He received this information from a clinical death experience which occurred during a six-hour craniotomy to suture a burst aneurysm.

    His latest work stemming from this experience is the interactive book 'Apocalypse Near'.
The book is being released in several editions beginning with today's release to the general public as an interactive e-book. Traditional bound books containing links to supplementary media on the author’s websites will soon follow & production of an audio book has begun.

    Apocalypse Near is a novelization of the author's screenplay of the same title. Haase’s first effort to communicate how humankind may achieve a symbiotic relationship with the environment was www.consciousconsumers.net. Haase feels much of the information on this site was uploaded to his consciousness during an out of body experience while in surgery.
    Following a year of constant work on consciousconsumers Haase became despondent because he felt he wouldn’t reach enough people in time to avoid the horrible part of his vision of earth’s future. Haase asserts that during his near death experience he saw earth as if he was looking at it from space & watched it change into a dead, moon-like apparition. Haase said, “It happened in an instant; I saw the planet die of consumption. Then it was like I was turned around to see a biologically healthy earth. The message I felt being communicated was that one of these circumstances would soon occur and which would happen was a choice being made by humankind.”
More concerning this experience is fused with the somewhat fictional drama embedded in “Apocalypse Near”.

    Haase contends that some of the book is "somewhat" fictional because he characterized the damaged parts of his brain as well as the psychological & phenomenological challenges that he's been living with since suffering the aneurysm. So, although there are parts of the book that can in some senses be considered fiction, to the author, it is all a real, day to day battle for life. From his point of view, the book is a pure autobiography, but he relents to call it a "metaphysical autobiography". It may in fact be a truly novel, genre defying novel. Haase explains his intentional blurring of the line between fact and drama in the book's front matter, but the purpose of the blur is to intensify drama in order to motivate the reader.

    Haase’s intends to use drama in the tradition of early Greek & Roman dramas which he opines were more about inspiring the behavior of populations than entertainment. 'Apocalypse Near' fuses several electronic mediums, performance art and environmental activism into what Haase calls “REFORMance art”.
    The fictional element of this otherwise autobiographical book begins beneath a highway overpass where a young man lays sleeping. His well-heeled appearance indicates he’s no average drifter. The man appears to be dreaming. We enter his supernatural communication with what looks like a supernova as it foretells a mission concerning the collapse of earth’s operating system. A passerby observes him have a seizure and calls an ambulance. In hospital he’s found to be suffering a brain hemorrhage. Surgery saves him but lack of identification & physiological anomalies beget a mystery. Upon waking the man claims no memory of himself. His only memories concern his mission to stop earth’s environment from crashing. When asked his name he claims to only remember the sound “E” so hospital staff call him “E”. He demands a laptop and Internet connection to upload his “Viridian REVELution” campaign to save earth. This begets an adventure, which will determine the survival of earth’s biosphere and be the opening battle in his declared “war on war”.
    A love triangle between “E”, the nurse who found him and an elusive muse communicating with him in dreams develops as he begins his quest. “E” discovers he must defeat an invisible enemy invading earth from another dimension. This enemy is composed of dark matter, powered by dark energy and running a superior operating system. Their job is to delete the inferior human product line before humans destroy earth’s “bio-drive”. In the end “E” finds his identity may give him the ability to defend earth and undertake what will become his future mission in the war in heaven. The next two books of the trilogy cover this inter-dimensional conflict and the outcome of the protagonist’s “War on war”.
The parallel between Haase’s real life and the book’s fiction is why Haase subtitled it “a metaphysical autobiography”. Haase said “I didn’t intend to write this book. It was a case of automatic writing. The book would not exist apart from my N.D.E. and fight to get my life back. It’s a metaphysical manifestation in the true sense of the word.” Haase believes he may have created a new genre which he calls “Hyper-Reality”. The “Viridian REVELution” website at: www.consciousconsumers.net/revelution/ is another piece of Haase’s real environmental mission that is now embedded into the book’s interactive fiction. More on the author & the genesis of “Apocalypse Near” is on the author’s website at www.imagimedia-inc.com/
“Apocalypse Near” is available on Amazon & via the author's websites.

    Finally, 'E' said "Be sure to read the front matter to understand how & why I fused elements of fiction & how, in a way, they're not really fiction. I was at times characterizing phenomenological experiences that are the result of my brain injuries. I excorcised parts of my brain that were battling with each other and tried to make that real for readers by putting them into a dramatic context. In a certain sense, it's all real for me & it's all for the very real purpose of helping people understand their responsibilities regarding life & death on a personal & planetary basis."