The Christmas Tree

About the Book

Far out in the midst of a space composed of infinite sky hangs a giant Christmas Tree, as large as a mountain, but with no ground from which the Tree might grow. In the Tree’s boughs are set intricate, Swiss watchwork villages, amidst the saturated constellations of glittering multi-colored Christmas lights and giant hanging Christmas ornaments. Glorious snowstorms flower and tapestry the Tree, glittering it out eternally into the galactic night like a scene from a visionary Christmas card. In the villages in the Tree live people whose everyday lives resemble those of people on earth: people who daily go to work, go to the store to shop, etc. Travel throughout the tree is accomplished by strung lines of mobile ski-lift chairs that hum their way through the vast branches in young, electric singings. Into the Tree Muffin, a young boy of unknown origin, crash-lands in his passenger balloon during one of the Tree’s many blizzards. He is befriended by the sailorly old man Iskovar, an inadequate Santa Claus figure who delivers Christmas presents that are empty, and by the two children Tom and Twinkle Flinder. Hordes of flying portable television sets, which form the Tree’s local wildlife, buzz and harass Muffin and his new-found friends. Possible doom impends upon the Tree from the sinister ski-resort owner Vladimir Thudergust, who might be the Anti-Santa, just as there is anti-matter. Somewhere, however, the real St. Nicholas may have been kidnapped, and Muffin must go on a long journey to the other side of the Tree’s universe to find him if the Tree is to be saved from destruction. As if to make matters more complicated, Muffin finds himself falling into puppylove with Twinkle, and soon must try to rescue the whole Flinder family from Thundergust’s evil connivings.

About the Author

Christopher A. Zackey was born in Brattleboro, Vermont, and grew up on a farm outside of town. He began writing in third grade, and began producing his mature work in his early twenties. He has had stories and poems published in literary magazines, and has self-published a series of fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction chapbooks which he distributes to recipients in various fields. He is the inventor of a thinking system called The Mythology, which purports to be a qualitative, humanities-based “Theory of Everything.” For his creative work in mythology he has been featured in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in the World. He has produced a large body of literary fantasy fiction, hyperromantic or surrealistic poetry, and creative, metaphysical non-fiction. He has also developed a unique creative interdisciplinary reading theory he calls Geodesic Reading. He earned a B.A. in English from Brandeis University, an M.A. in English from Indiana Univeristy, Bloomington, and an M.L.S. degree from S.U.N.Y. Albany. He has lived in Vermont, Massachusetts, Indiana, Oregon, New York City, and currently resides in Upstate New York, where he works as a reference librarian. He is married to the artist Martha Zackey.