Saturday 14 February 2015

Ukraine Story

What's going on in Ukraine is horrible. I feel it, because Ukraine is close to my heart. I lived there for three years. Three of the best years of my life. It's a beautiful country, filled with beautiful people, and when I was there it seemed to be edging its way out of hard times.
Now its right back amongst them, worse than ever.
It was so good that I wrote a book about it. A book that's set in the ex-patriate community of Kiev, asa well as small town England. It's mainly about the kind of people that cross these boundaries, and about the kind of people, and adventures, they find when they do so. There's also a bit of steroid addition, some EFL, and a lot of anxiety.
Unsurprisingly I used a pseudonym. It's not for children. Be warned.
Tomorrow, February 15th, and the day after it's free on Amazon.




2019 advetures, here... https://sxswx365.blogspot.com/

Sunday 1 February 2015

The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, and why I might not write paranormal fantasy ever again.




I saw this movie. It's about an amazing genius, who contracts a paralysing illness, which kills everybody it touches.

Except him.

For no reason that anybody can understand, he survives, and goes on to become the most famous huge genius in the world, and publishes a book that more or less lays bare the deepest secrets of the universe, and time. Things that are pretty close to God, or magic.

And it's a true story!

The other one, starring the gorgeous Benebatch Cumberdict, is about a huge genius who joins the forces of good, against the forces of evil. He invents something thats even more magic than the ideas of the first guy. It's so magic that it lets him see into the minds of the bad guys and learn all their secrets (Gandalf, anyone?)

He saves the world, though nobody knows it (Harry Potter anyone?) then in the ultimate tragedy he is cast aside by society.

This one's true as well.

And the thing is, these stories - as well as being as close to magic and the fundamental battle of good and evil as anything I've ever seen - NEED to be told. These are your history. You should know this stuff. They're amazing movies, too, with amazing performances. Eddy Redmayne deserves an Oscar.

So, where does this leave me with my own, made up stories about magic and myth? I'm not sure. The way that in this blog I repeatedly come back to how, in the world, fact is stranger than fiction,  (examples HERE, and HERE) cannot be a coincidence. I'm lucky enough to have travelled a lot, too have seen a lot of amazing things, and it frustrates me a bit that I don't write about that, instead of making up amazing things.

My get out clause is that the King Arthur stories that I take advantage of, these are an important part of our heritage, too, and it makes me happy that I'm giving them a bit of exposure. Still, when I finish them I probably won't make anything else up. There are two many real stories to tell.

Of course I say 'when I finish them' as if its happening soon, when actually its years and years away.

Years and years and years.