The Spoons That Are My Ears!

My new book, Adventures With Immortality, has recently been published in the USA by Oddness. It is a collection featuring stories all concerned with the theme of immortality. I think it contains some of my best ideas. Anyway, it's not easy finding outlets for this kind of fiction, i.e. stories that are more like pseudo-essays à la Borges with almost no characterisation, plot tension or opportunities for readers to achieve 'immersion'. This kind of fiction is more like non-fiction but with the difference that it doesn't have to be true or even possible in what it claims. I am therefore extremely grateful to the publishers for accepting the manuscript and publishing the book.

I am especially honoured and delighted that my book has been illustrated by one of my favourite artists working in the science fiction and fantasy spheres, Mike Dubisch. His illustrations are absolutely intergral to the progression of the text.

The hardback is available from most outlets that deal with books but I have been asked to prioritise links to Barnes and Noble and I am more than happy to do that... 

My stories examine the consequences of immortality by taking those consequences to a logical extreme. Among my science fiction reading friends, I often see discussions about immortality, usually in the context of asking the question, "How would you pass the time if you were immortal?" And people generally answer that they would do everything they had ever wanted to do, try every activity, acquire all knowledge, because they would now have unlimited time in which to do things.

But I wonder if people are failing to understand that a physiological change also produces psychological change. If you could suddenly fly, you would soon lose your (natural) fear of heights. The change in your physical capabilities would alter your psychology. So it is with immortality. If you had unlimited time in which to do things, all sense of urgency would be gone. There would be absolutely no motivation to do anything. Everything could be put off for another day and almost certainly it would be. And put off again and again forever. That is just one logical consequence of the quality of immortality taken to an extreme. I deal with this consequence and many others in the book.

The Coffee Rubaiyat has been published by Alien Buddha Press. It's a spoof of the first edition of Edward FitzGerald's translation of Omay Khayyam. 75 quatrains to match the 75 of FitzGerald's translation. The originals are all about wine. Mine are all about coffee. I preserved the AABA rhyme-scheme and mostly mimicked the metre (not always).

But it's more than that. It's a genuine prayer and eulogy to coffee. Yes, coffee, the second most traded substance in the world after crude oil (and a damn sight tastier). People often talk about how wine is bottled sunshine. Well, coffee is night in a mug, the kind of night where you feel energised but tranquil and want to go for a long walk to the sea. And when you reach the sea and see the surf washing the shoreline, you understand that this is the cappuccino of the gods.

Anyway, enough blather! The book is available from Amazon and elsewhere, and there is even a pocket-sized edition, which is smaller and cheaper than the main edition.