Writing - history doesn't stand still

One of my unpublished manuscripts (98,000 words) is a dark sci-fi novel set in the near future, Time With A Gift of Tears.

It's 2033 AD. Tim Farman (aged 39), a successful historical novelist, uses a secret time-traveling laptop (TTM -- Type Temporal Machine) to transport him to past ages for research purposes. At the opening of the book, he’s visiting Roman Vindolanda (360AD) to discover psychological warfare training, and then goes on to King Arthur's Dark Ages Cadbury (519AD) where he saves Guinevere's life. During these time-excursions, he barely escapes with his life, so he decides on one more time, the near past, to Britain in 2020, at the outbreak of the Race Revolt...

As can be guessed, when this was first written, 2020 was a lot further in the future than it is now! 

The danger of writing near-future sci-fi is that time will catch up. Here, for amusement, is the timeline, showing the novels that Tim has written, plus other events:

TIMELINE

BC

20,005             Day of the Mammoth Time-jump

2053                            Gilgamesh of Uruk’s Amulet Time-jump

510                               Night of the Druids Time-jump

327                  Murderous Macedonian Time-jump

AD

33                                  Golgotha Witness Time-jump

360                               Vindolanda – The Border Spy Time-jump

519                  Cadbury  – A Geordie in Guinevere’s Bed Time-jump

1495                Vengeance from Vilcabamba Time-jump

1561                            Elizabethan Charade Time-jump – first ‘horse riding’

1752                The Lost Eleven Days Time-jump

1888                            The Victorian Cad Time-jump

1994                            Timothy Farman born

2000                Tim’s first test Time-jump – no book resulted

2009                12^th Terror Scare;

2011                UK nationwide riots

2014                Northwest Explosion (Sellafield terrorist attack)

2014                           African exodus; Iraqi exodus; racial uprisings in UK; all British police armed

2015                          Solent Islamic Fundamentalist nuclear blast; legalising heroin; Lawless August; Zimbabwe escapees

2016               Limited War; Britain expelled from Commonwealth

2017               Politically Correct Legislation; Typhoid epidemic; 13^th Terror Scare; 

PC Legislation revoked; Zimbabwe settlement

2018                Sellafield Accident

2019                           Puritan ethics sweep through UK; Asian Flu computer virus; Sexual Rebound to Puritan ethics

2020                           Race Revolt

Diary of a Time-traveller in the Race Revolt Time-jump

2023                Common Sense return to norm after Sexual Rebound

2025                Compromise Peace; Race Revolt ended

2030                First test Time-jump to 2000

2033                           Time-jump to 2020 (Age 39).

 

I'd been planning to rewrite the book anyway, but I suspect now I may need to take account of the two referendum campaigns that have riven the British Isles recently!  Proof, if it were needed, that history doesn't stand still!

Leave the Remains

Sounds like the title of a murder mystery, perhaps… 

As the EU Referendum approaches the closing stages (at long last!) and the hyperbole, scaremongering, idiocy, outright lies, dodgy statistics, self-serving expert advice and all the rest is put away (hopefully never to see the light of day again), what’s it all about, Alfie?

What, indeed. What seems to have been lost in the argument is that the once-named Common Market has grown and grown into the European Union, a dictatorial behemoth administered by unelected individuals paid for by the taxes from the member states’ workforce. They’re profligate with the money, unaccountable, and blatantly arrogant about any edict they wish to foist onto the collective membership (the people who pay their high salaries).

What’s it all about, Alfie?

The EU isn’t a democracy, it’s a bureaucracy, wasting tax-payers’ money on vanity projects to justify their well-paid existence.

What's it all about?

The vote isn't about 'leaving Europe' - it's about leaving the European Union. We're part of the European continent and always will be, communing, sharing, trading; we're also part of the wider world, too.

What do the UK papers say?

Leave                                       Remain

The Sun                                   The Guardian

The Daily Telegraph                The Observer

The Sunday Telegraph            The Independent

The Sunday Times                  The Mail on Sunday

The Daily Express                   The Times

                                                The Daily Mirror

                                                The Financial Times

Undeclared, last time I checked:

The Daily Mail

The Daily Star

The Morning Star  

There are powerful, well-considered arguments to be read, indeed, for both sides.

One argument goes that if the UK stays in, we can effect change.

That doesn’t seem to work. Reports suggest that of the seventy (!) changes the UK has voted for, the EU voted against. The arrogant bureaucrats don’t or won’t listen; they know best. If they had listened, if they had really wanted the UK to ‘remain’, maybe they should have tried harder when Mr Cameron went round with his begging bowl.

If the UK remains, expect to be sent to the ‘naughty step’. 

And that old-fashioned title, ‘Great Britain’ will be removed, since the coinage is tarnished. And it will be self-inflicted – much as it was shamefully removed from British Telecom and British Petroleum and British Home Stores (oh, certain rich individuals took more than ‘British’ from BHS, didn’t they? Their workers’ pensions!) Sorry, got sidetracked there...

One thing we can be sure of: exciting times lie ahead, whether we want the ‘excitement’ or not.

'If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea.' 
- Winston Churchill.

Well, the Common Market seemed like a good idea at the time...

Book review - Red Sparrow

The Cold War isn’t dead and buried, it’s still with us, very much so, if Jason Matthews’ debut thriller Red Sparrow (2013) is to be believed. And since Matthews is a retired Operations Executive of the CIA, the tradecraft and information letter-drops suggest authenticity. Mr Putin may even have avidly read a translation, particularly as he figures in the story. As an ops officer observed, Putin’s intent on putting together USSR Mk 2, and he will do it by any means possible, probably creating instability in the West and Europe in particular. There’s a deep psychological need to create a new, feared Russian Empire.

We first meet CIA agent Nate Nash in Moscow, clandestinely meeting with his asset, code-named MARBLE. The Russians are aware that a mole exists, but have no clue - so far. The meeting seems to go as normal, then mere chance thrusts them both into danger. The manhunt is on – and Nash is identified by the Russians as a foreign agent. The fact that he evaded the hunters is good news, but the bad news is that his asset, a major general in the SVR, the successor to the KGB’s First Chief Directorate, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, is at risk if Nash arranges to handle him further.

At about the same time, Dominika is a new member of the SVR, her recruitment engineered by her uncle, Vanya Egorov. Her career leads her to the Sparrow school, where she learns the techniques of seduction, then suborning targets by blackmail. Dominika’s background is veined with tragedy, her parents’ and her aspirations smothered by the system. Strangely, she is able to view coloured auras around people’s heads, signifying their moods, but keeps this arcane knowledge to herself. It comes in handy when dealing with conspirators, and even her uncle. Considering the controversial lineage of the Kirlian imagery of the 1960s-1970s, this is not too far-fetched, perhaps, noting that my spy heroine happens to be psychic!

Certainly, Dominika is depicted as a strong, sympathetic and convincing character.

Nash is redirected to Helsinki. His boss is Forsyth, a no-nonsense kind of guy, aided by Gable, a quick-talking, apparently glib yet cunning agent, very much in the mould of Tom Arnold’s character Albert Gibson in True Lies, providing light relief.

Before long, Dominika is tasked with going to Finland to ferret out any clues to the mole suspected to exist in the SVR. A fascinating cat-and-mouse affair begins between the attractive pair, each planning to recruit the other.

Disaster strikes and almost at the point where Nate and Dominika become lovers, they are brutally parted.

Dwelling in the shadows is Sergey Matorin, a ‘mechanic’, an executioner of the Russian secret service. This is a dark, unpleasant creation, his deadly cruelty given release in Afghanistan.

Matthews has imbued the story with authentic settings and knowledge about the Russian system and psyche. There are tense, suspenseful moments, and a few brutal interludes, and throughout there’s the constant stench of betrayal hovering. Even though it has 546 pages, it’s a fast read, because you become involved with the characters and want to know how their stories are resolved.

If you like espionage books, then Red Sparrow should greatly satisfy.

Soon, I expect to be reading the sequel Palace of Treason.

Footnote: I cannot fathom why he has inserted recipes at the end of each chapter, admittedly relevant to the food eaten in that chapter. I got to the point where I stopped reading them as they affected the narrative flow!

'Novel works on two levels...'

Many thanks to LesleyAnn for her review of Sudden Vengeance, a vigilante crime thriller which can be regarded as a 'guilty pleasure'...

Here's her review, to be found on Amazon.COM:

'When trust in the forces of law and order break down, when child molesters, rapists, thieves and murderers go uncaught or virtually unpunished then something’s got to give. Reading this tale of a righteous vigilante on the loose in the crime-ridden English town of Alverbank, I was reminded of a possibly apocryphal tale doing the rounds when the first ‘Death Wish’ movie was screened. The time was 1974 and New York a dangerous place to live. Charles Bronson was cast as a mild-mannered man whose family was devastated as the result of a violent home invasion. So he buys a gun… The story goes that whenever the film was shown in New York, every time Bronson blew some punks away, the audience stood up and cheered.

'A recent film ‘Harry Brown’ had elderly ex-soldier Michael Caine reaping revenge for the murder of his friend by a teenaged gang on his North London housing estate.

'And what with Marvel Comic heroes going back to the 1930s, stories of avenging angels are nothing new. Here, however, Morton’s writerly viewpoint offers a twist in the tale because the reader doesn’t know the identity of this masked avenger - The Black Knight – until the end. Several highly plausible possibilities are thrown into the frame while the police warn, the villains quake and the local press praise.

'This novel works on two levels, firstly as a crime mystery where readers become the detective and secondly by forcing each reader to question their own take on the morality or lack thereof of The Black Knight. In other words, would you stand and cheer like those folks in 1974 New York?'

Thank you, LesleyAnn!

 Available from your Amazon region here

I'm back

I'm back. Thanks for bearing with me during my absence from blogging!

I'm getting deeply involved in my third Tana Standish psychic spy novel right now, set mainly in Afghanistan in 1979/1980. The significance being the Russian invasion. However, I'm hoping to blog regularly even so.

Visitors...

As we have visitors from the Old Country, blogging will be somewhat curtailed for the next week or so... Back to normal thereafter.

Please continue to browse earlier blogs!

A treasure of a book

Odd Shoes and Medals is the memoir of the late Ron Hudson. It was pleasing to read this 4-star review: 

A most brilliant book. I was able to relate to most of this account, not only because I knew Ron but because I was in the Fleet Air Arm during the same time Ron was.

Most ex-servicemen will be able to follow this with some kinship especially those born around early 1940s and joining the mob when 17.

There is a lot of Ron's humour brought out; you sometimes have to read between the lines but it really is a great read, whether you were in the mob or not.

I treasure this book now, as sadly Ron is no longer with us, but anyone who knew him would know what a great story teller he was.

[I'd like to think Ron would like the review too!]

 Amazon K - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Odd-Shoes-Medals-Ronald-Hudson/dp/1484172140/ref=sr_1_20?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464869242&sr=1-20&keywords=nik+morton

Odd Shoes and Medals Ronald Hudson Non-fiction from Manatee Books.
 “War broke out when I was eight. My short pants had holes in the backside, which was doubly embarrassing because I didn’t have any underwear and anyone could see my bum. So I used to walk sideways to school if any other kids or grown-ups came by. Miss Grafton, the teacher, let me stay at my desk during playtime to avoid embarrassing exposure. She liked me a lot and I used to take love letters for her to an American soldier. “

These reminiscences cover a span of over seventy years and will jog several memories and remind people that the so-called poverty of present times is nothing compared to the 1940s and 1950s. Young Ron and his sister Audrey were shunted from one home to another, in excess of a dozen, ‘fostered’ by ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’, and indeed for many years the pair of them didn’t know where the other sibling lived! His absentee father barely gave him a thought – though he did present him with ill-fitting clogs, once…

Occasionally, he was shown kindness and, despite moments of great despair, he carried on and eventually joined the Royal Navy. Ironically, for the first time he found a place he could call his home: the navy. He travelled the world, saw the sights, and ‘learned a trade’. When he was demobbed prematurely by politicians, he embarked on a career in British Gas, and has a few amusing tales to tell about (nameless) customers! He set up his own business and became the oldest registered gas fitter in the country, until he retired at age eighty.

As told to Nik Morton 

[Ron died 11 April, 2015, aged 84]
See http://nik-writealot.blogspot.com.es/2015/04/rip-ron-hudson.html