A six-foot robot and a 43-foot-tall Buddha show why humans aren't all that bad after all....

Blazing Reader,

Robert Vaughan, at Just Right Media, sent me this note after reading my novel, All the Humans are Sleeping:

"You might find it amusing that my wife and I visited the Kamakura Daibutsu statue of the Gautama Buddha in Japan back in 1998. See the pic attached.”

He's referring to the robot Domestico's reference to a similar statue in chapter 11.06 of the novel:

"For all their missteps, humans exalted Mother Nature more than defiled her. Humans turned spruce trees and horsehair into violins that gave life to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Slaves quarried limestone and dragged it across a desert to erect the pyramids of Egypt. Miners sifted gold from the earth to cast a five-tonne statue of the Buddha in Bangkok. Leonardo rendered colours from mercury, saffron and insects to paint the enigmatic Mona Lisa. Michelangelo chipped away at a block of marble until a brave young man with a sling emerged. Edison ran electricity through camel hair to light up glass bulbs without flames. The Wright Brothers shaped wings and rudders that let them fly without feathers."

Now, the Buddha statue Robert visited was much taller and heavier. Japan's Kamakura Daibutsu statue is over 13 meters (43 feet) tall and weighs 121 tonnes. It is, however, not made out of gold like the smaller (three-meter tall) Bangkok Buddha I mentioned in my novel.

Here's the photo of Robert and his wife with the giant Buddha:

I always appreciate it when readers tell me they've been to places or seen things I mention in my novels. Especially when I haven't experienced them myself.

John C.A. Manley

PS If you haven't experienced it yet, Robert Vaughan interviewed me about All the Humans Are Sleeping back in December. We talked about the many moral and philosophical conundrums that the novel explores — as technology both empowers and threatens our liberty, humanity and perception of reality. You can watch or listen to the full interview on JustRightMedia.org.

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.