User talk:Ahmed Mehreen

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Hello, Ahmed Mehreen, and welcome to the ISFDB Wiki! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will insert your name and the date. If you need help, check out the community portal, or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:28, 7 June 2024 (EDT)

Incandescence

Regarding this submission: Does this book contain any speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, or supernatural horror) elements? From the product description & reviews, it doesn't sound like it. Amazon is categorizing it as "20th Century Historical Romance" and "Contemporary Romance". Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:31, 7 June 2024 (EDT)

Yes, the book has detailed paragraphs on scientific exploration such as spacetime which have eluded both Amazon and my reviewers. Thanks, Mehreen

Can you please clarify? Discussion of scientific exploration is not necessarily the same as science fiction. Is this discussion of real scientific principles? Or discussion of imagined future scientific or technological advances, time travel, etc? Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:30, 13 June 2024 (EDT)

No,not discussion of real scientific explorations. The protagonist conceived Time and space in the context of her grandfather's demise. Her exploration of death and soul in terms of the laws of physics for example in a fictive manner. I can give you an example from a passage:

p321

"However, Mila’s restless, ever curious mind demanded answers. It rambled on. The world rotated on its axis; the sun set, and the moon rose. Those were the fixed parameters of physics as death was too—fixed. Mila loved her grandfather, growing up watching all his amazing feats. Walking miles both in health and in sickness, he had walked long distances; he literally walked to his death bed too, when the family walked him down to his bedroom from the dining table. Grandfather lay cold today, six feet under. One moment he was breathing—solid. Next, he vaporised into thin air. What lay beyond this illusory world of sense perception of sights and sounds was the question? Where did he go? What happened to the energy? Did it seep out of the body that we call soul? Or did the body not produce enough energy, resulting in death and a decomposed body—the end of it all? The answers perhaps could only be intuited.

p. 322

Grandfather could intuit time. Or rather his end of time which was clear from hugging grandmother, smiling at her, and bidding her goodbye at the precise moment before he crossed over. Time could be internally intuited. But could he also intuit where he was going? Could he intuit space?

Space was an external element. Whatever form Grandfather was at the moment, outside of that vessel from which his soul flew away like a bird from its ribbed cage, his physical elements remained bound to the parameter of this reality of sense perception. The body slowly disintegrated into the soil, and bones turned into fossil fuel over time. In rain, the melted body parts fertilised more solidly into the ground, facilitating the production of food. The winds winged the dust made out of his body parts away to the distant lands. It spread.

Mila’s thoughts were lucid. However, perhaps there was deeper magic out there, which eluded her. Which neither she nor Grandfather could intuit? She couldn’t intuit the existence of heaven or hell. However, a vast cosmos lay out there, space, where perhaps the spirit flew. The spirit which sourced life from the undying elements of nature, energies, gasses which had once given his body consciousness—the lights, the sparkles, the movements. Mila combined the two realities in binary mode—the physical and the metaphysical were connected to form one complete universe. Life journeyed from one to another. Grandpa existed in various forms bound by binary oneness. There was no other reality outside of it, she intuited.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ahmed Mehreen (talk • contribs) .

These excerpts suggest that this book is a work of metaphysical fiction or what has been recently described as "Visionary Fiction":

• Growth in consciousness is the central theme of the story and drives the protagonist, and/or other important characters.
• The story oftentimes uses reincarnation, dreams, visions, paranormal events, psychic abilities, and other metaphysical plot devices.

At this time our Project Scope Policy only includes fiction that contains listed speculative fiction elements and/or sub-genres. To use the list of "visionary fiction" plot devices quoted above, visionary fiction or other metaphysical works are included if they use "reincarnation, ... paranormal events, psychic abilities" but "dreams, visions" are not enough for inclusion.

Does your book happen to have speculative elements in addition to metaphysical intuition? Ahasuerus (talk) 09:06, 15 June 2024 (EDT)

Dear Ahasuerus, yes, it does according to this definition: "There has to be a “speculative” element — the story has to imagine that something that doesn't actually/presently exist could in fact exist;" from Google

Page 320

Mila craned her neck and tried to listen.

“Leave a glass of water for the man’s spirit in the room where he died. The souls of the dead stayed in the house for forty days. They get thirsty and they come back for water— why? The glass was half empty. I clearly put a full glass on that table there. Why was it half-empty? Who drank? Who drank the water? Did the water evaporate and leave a half- empty glass? But it was the middle of winter. No, no. That was not possible. He had come, the dead man’s spirit had come, and he drank half a glass of water from that glass on the table.”

Page 338

She didn’t think she was dreaming. She was certain of what she saw. It was a clear vision of a man offering her a red flower on a solitary stem with a single leaf; it had even touched her nose; it felt cold; she also felt a heavy weight descend on her body as though the spirit was laying on top of her. The apparition had come to say good morning with a flower, then it disappeared in a moment. She felt light again. She realised that it had left. In her young mind, she couldn’t deny having seen this vision. Maybe, someone had passed away in the village, this—this spirit, had come to inform her of the passing.

The small ventilator in the room kept the air fresh. She was still coming to terms with the vision. Her mind drifted. She thought, as long as Mrs Chowdhury lived her future was secured. She would make sure as the head of family that Simul received her monthly payments. After her, it was either on Mila or Lutfun to bear Shimul’s costs. But Shimul

Page 337

being permanently disabled now, she may also lose this pension.

She felt like going to the toilet. The maid’s toilet was a bog, behind the neem tree in the front yard. An area which was unkempt and covered with hedges, spiky nettles and a rooty, ropey banyan tree: its tall, aerial roots hanging down.

Come to think of it, there was a man in her village aged twenty-five, who was called a tree-man because he was turning into a tree. Knotty roots had spread all over his hands, legs, and toes. She remembered him clearly. Was he still alive? This tree-man would have been eaten up by his own roots, surely, by now. Was it him? This apparition, she thought, but then, why would he come to her? She barely knew him. He was just famous for this rare condition, which was uncommon in her village. No one else had it. It was just him. What did the doctors say it was? A skin disease that all these root-like warts kept breaking out. If he could live with it, so could she with her disability.

But how was Rabeya going to take her to the bog across the front yard? She would probably either have to piggyback her or she would have to hobble on the crutch, balancing between her whole and half a leg.

As much as she preferred, Shimul couldn’t go to the bog alone. But she also didn’t want to wake up Rabeya. She slept peacefully. It was going to be morning soon. She could wait—what apparition could offer her a rose? It had to be a well-bred man. Her mind continued to look for a match and after man searches, she may have finally found one. It was— yes, it was, she was sure of it, it was Mr Chowdhury, whom they called Sahib. Sahib? Why would he offer her flowers when his beloved wife was still living? His own children were still alive. It was unnerving. Perhaps, he was trying to send a message through her. But she was no clairvoyant. Rabeya had just started to toss and turn in bed.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ahmed Mehreen (talk • contribs) .

Thanks for providing additional examples! The scope of the ISFDB project is limited to the subgenres that we explicitly list, but the part of the text where it says:

• "That was not possible. He had come, the dead man’s spirit had come, and he drank half a glass of water from that glass on the table."

suggests that there are some speculative elements (as defined in our project scope definition) in the novel, even though they may be ambiguous. Ahasuerus (talk) 12:40, 16 June 2024 (EDT)

(outdent) Based on the above discussion, I have accepted Incandescence. I made similar changes as listed for "The Blue, Red Lyrae" below. Please review the comments in following section for applicability to future submissions. Please let us know if you have any questions. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:37, 16 June 2024 (EDT)

Many Thanks, New Book, The Pacifist has many speculative elements. I have given you just three examples below.

The-Pacifist

His small chest heaving rapidly from the rising fever. Malcolm pointed up towards the ceiling. Mrs. Baxter saw something: sooty paw marks etched all over on the white ceiling walls. She left Malcolm in bed to investigate the marks and found out that they went straight down the tall chimney shaft. Page --59 What they found in there stopped them in their tracks. The walls of the room and the ceiling chalked up with indecipherable images that they had never seen before; walls which were once white, were no more, but instead smearedwith elongated little boxes etched in ink. Squinting, they realized these were small coffins squiggled all over.-P 124   about The Pacifist As she looked outside, she thought she caught a glimpse of something. Red eyes. A couple of burning eyes looked straight at her from the edge of the farm for less than a second. Then it disappeared--P 132 

about Moirae “ Babu, the apparition then scared his relatives out of the house by showing his nuance and making ghoulish echoes until they were convinced that this house was haunted and that they could not live here anymore.”

“chanting, ‘Babu says come come maa come to me He stretches arms Little arms Baby fingers stretches them as far as they would go Babu is leaving wait wait for me”

“me Dont go just yet Babu no no no” p-42

“Babu, the apparition then scared his relatives out of the house by showing his nuance and making ghoulish echoes until they were convinced that this house was haunted and that they could not live here anymore.”

“Tahu tried to hold something. Her hands went straight through the air as she stretched them out. Fingers parted and closed. She sat mumbling talking to her son, as she had a visitation from her little Casper, the friendly ghost. Society had abandoned her, condoned her, but she lived. While the lives of others were at peril, Tahu’s was not. Not any more at least since her husband perished; of late, she did not even suffer a scratch. She thought life was an illusion. She had become invisible, and an outcast to the rest of the village.” p67

Gatherings

I've had to reject your submission for Gatherings. You marked this as a non-genre publication. As such, it is not eligible for inclusion in the ISFDB. Our current rules of inclusion specify that we only index non-genre works by significant genre authors. You are welcome to submit any of your works that have speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, or supernatural horror) elements, but we will not be able to accept your non-genre works. Thanks for your understanding. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:37, 13 June 2024 (EDT)

I made an error. May I add Gatherings again? It is a collection of speculative short stories.

About my next book, The Blue, Red Lyrae

The Blue, Red Lyrae is about the power of mind. In this story, the mind of the character travels to various places to find a missing cat. The cat is a representation of abstraction that does not occupy any physical 'space' per say-- a concept in the mind, but the character goes around looking for it in various places and writes a new tale everywhere unrelated to each other through spacetime to harness the concept in the form of a missing cat. In the end, she realizes that the concept was never missing, it remained in her mind which had been eluding her--only to be understood through the power of the mind. The mind is like the ulmate black hole that pulls into it every thought and becomes a magnet repository of ideas--any kind of abstraction be it the laws of physics, maker of the universe of God Himself. Such things cannot occupy a concrete place but the space of the mind.

Thank you, Mehreen

I have accepted your addition of The Blue, Red Lyrae with the following changes:

• I updated the publisher to Impspired to match the publication.
• I filled in the format based on Amazon.uk
• I added the cover image from Amazon.uk
• I removed the pub note about the publisher. Pub notes are for notes about the publication. I added the publisher's URL and an equivalent note to the publisher's record.
• I added the Foreword (as seen via Amazon sample)
• As this pub consists of two novellas, I changed it to a collection and added the novellas. Please double check the page number for the second novella. As it was not included in the Amazon sample, I had to use their search function which gave me the page number.
• I removed the review. Review and interview contents are for reviews and interviews within the publication, not for items published externally about the book / author. Reviews contents are typically a magazine book review section, etc. We also do not list blurbs as reviews.
• I removed the novelization flag. Novelization means an adaptation of a movie, TV show, etc. into a book.
• I added the page count from Amazon.uk. As Amazon page counts are not always reliable, please double check and update if needed.
• I added the price from Amazon.uk
• I added a pub note regarding the difference in title from cover to title page (as seen via Amazon sample)

ISFDB has some conventions that need learning so please check out the help links in the welcome message above. And let us know if you have any questions (ISFDB:Help desk is a good resource for asking). -- JLaTondre (talk) 07:39, 15 June 2024 (EDT)

Many thanks, Mehreen My short story The Buraq is about Time-- a character who meets another human character in a spice bazaar and walks abreast with her chatting about many things on a stormy day. They go on a date.

They Move Away Like Waves

I have added a multi-genre collection comprising Short Story, Flash/Micro Fiction, and non-fiction-- They Move Away Like Waves by the same publisher, Impspired Magazine, UK. I want to draw your attention to Speculative/exploration sci-fi Celeste, Phases of the Moon (1st prize recipient of the May Flower contest from Academy of the Heart and Mind in 2022), and Moonless on Moon. I have pasted on flash fiction, Celeste, below for your convenience.

Celeste The children of the alley made clay dolls. They sat by a rubbish pile and dressed them all. She dolled them up, faceless at first. Then they gave them eyes and nose and curvy mouths. Legs and hands to dance with them at sundown. If this wasn’t enough, they also made tears with Lipids, Lysozyme, Lipocalin, Glucose, and Sodium. Wis ater, made out of H2O. Oxygen to breathe, blood to carry the oxygen to the brain; carbohydrates, proteins, and ethanol. Estrogen, to trigger euphoria. The brain, Cerebellum, and Brainstem. Skin to cover and protect.

The children were blind. Still, they melded a silken network of chemical medley into this unique creation. Even kindness, generosity, jealousy, and cunning— propensities—were inclusions of this concoction. They gave them a name, Clay Dolls who had everything they needed to dance with them. Except, there was one potent component, the children were circumspect—eternity, they reserved only for themselves, which the Clay Dolls found disturbingly lethal. The chemicals they had been tied with were eye-wash.

Every dance was long and nuanced; the children took a lot of care to choreograph. they took a butcher’s knife and pierced it through the Dolls’ hearts. They were blind; they didn’t see them die; but they had known it all along; this dancing was thrilling, in which the bodies putrified, not the chemicals. They used the same building blocks to make new dolls in tightly packed chemical knots. In their blindness, the children saw naught, what the Clay Dolls had asked for. They’d never even vi their reflections—let alone them—but Clay Dolls had eyes. They saw them— The Makers were insensitive, in wanton jouissance.No matter, the Clay Dolls matured over time. They developed a foresight, which eluded The Makers. The Dolls thought of a ruse to get even with them. They learned the ropes and progressed. While they danced with The Makers, they’d also begun to tutor themselves in natural herbs, potent in medicinal value. The Makers had taken them for fools—Clay Dolls. Surely, when they tried to butcher them, they realised they couldn’t kill em’ all. Some stood back up while some fell. The Makers comprehended with a sixth sense, but couldn’t do any- thing preventable. The Clay Dolls were gradually overpowering them. Knowledge had given them much boost.

Still, they continued to dance but far lesser kills, for The Makers to roost. More Clay Dolls survived as their skills exponentially exceeded The Maker’s expectations. However, The Makers found comfort that the ultimate power over the organic world resided in their hands. Only they were eternal and wise enough to govern these lands. Alt- hough, the creepy sixth sense alluded to them that the Clay Dolls were not only dancing in tight compartments under the blue but had traversed space as well, and now had the sense of space-time, the gaseous Canopus, and the laws of physics. Why the Clay Dolls were unstoppable, yet they were fettered? The Makers felt angst and conferred amongst themselves. The Clay Dolls were reaching heights too far in the sky. They needed to be cut down to size. Whoever knew about immortality would win this war. The Makers found solace that the Clay Dolls would not win because they danced to a mortal tune to which they had been attuned to since inception.

The Clay Dolls would never know how immortality worked, thereof, The Makers would always dominate. It rang true, the laws of physics did decree that in time every organic life would perish. The Makers had made sure that the Clay Dolls were just that—organic, and nothing more. The sixth sense allowed them the light of prediction. However, The Makers had not predicted this. The Clay Dolls persisted. Did they not de- duce that immortality was immutable and not bound by any strict parameters? Maybe, The Makers were delusional of galaxies that when they blossomed, they hinged on the laws of physics, alone. Who made The Makers, anyway? The Clay Dolls theorised that The Makers were subjected to the rule of law, too, not all that powerful—astronomical objects galvanised the stars. Where did black holes exist— wholly eating stars and whatnot? Galaxies could die and another could be born. Also, true to time. Since the Big Bang, this stretch of the solar system has occurred. It stretched and the stretching continued, theoretically, towards a gravitational collapse—Clay Doll’s collated and observed the true nature of the universe.

The Makers spun out of gasses, far surpassed the lowly masses—immortal creators just their luck, but, no interlocutors by any long shot. Both mute and blind, they made the Clay Dolls in their image. Albeit, the Clay Dolls were borne out of them but had not turned out eternal, but different—enigmatic and more. The fate of the Clay Dolls was sealed. Without oxygen, they couldn’t breathe. Without food, this variant would be deficient. All were designed in blindness, but the same law could be applied to The Makers in reverse— stars, the sun, the rains, the rainbow, and all the lovely confection that fell from them. In hindsight, they too died. They too were prone to destruction which the deluded Makers wouldn’t know. The Clay Dolls figured out the celeste. More lights sparked through their neurons than all the lights sparkled in the Milky Way. In this blinding paradox of the sixth sense, The Makers had not marked a proximate magnet—a spiral- ling blackhole they couldn’t flee; new stars were born, new Dolls were made—locked in a deadly dance—a game without a referee. Much to their delight, this much light the Clay Dolls had perceived. The knowledge that had given them an upper hand was that there were more things in heaven or on earth—no one was free from the strict laws of physics. Such choices had not existed. Not to date at least.

Cheers, Mehreen

I accepted your addition of They Move Away Like Waves. I had to make many of the same changes as last time. Please review the above comments on The Blue, Red Lyrae for applicability to future submissions. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:58, 16 June 2024 (EDT)