Kudos to Nick Lovell and Clive Oseman who run Oooh Beehive tonight, they are running their Oooh Beehive UK Online slam championship- October and have asked me to be a judge here.
I have performed at a few over the years and won one and came second in another, so am looking forward to this on Zoom (Start at 7.30pm, UK). I can't put the Zoom code up online but drop Clive a email address at ooohbeehive@gmail.com if you fancy tuning in.
Here is the list of confirmed readers for Speak Easy next Thursday 07 October @ Dulicmer, Chorlton starting at 7.30pm.
All slots have gone and we are now operating a subs list (Anybody who wishes to go on that email me on aen1mpo@yahoo.co.uk)
Steve Smythe
Steve Jaffa Brown
Loll Perkin
Andy Npoet
Amanda Nicholson
Umor Haque (DrayZera)
Anthony Briscoe
Gordon Zola
Eve Nortley
Mike Booth
Polly Anna Rose
Jay Mitra
Antonia Fusaro
Amy King
Reggie Agulha Jr.
Kevin Bamford
Grant Curnow
Esther Koch
Sarah-Clare Conlon
Culain Wood
Daniel Wright
Sean McGlynn
Melanie Lisa
Roy Page
(Fwd from Civic Leicester and nothing to do with me but shared as could be of interest to some)
John Wesley's New Room in Bristol is hosting Black Lives Matter: Readings and Conversation on 7 October 2021.
The online event runs from 7.30pm to 9pm and features work shared by poets from a diverse range of backgrounds featured in the anthology, Black Lives Matter: Poems for a New World (CivicLeicester, 2020).
You can register to attend here
Poets taking part include, Rosalie Alston, Tanisha Barrett, Richard Byrt and Barbara Saunders.
The keynote speaker - poet, writer and historian Dr Edson Burton - will be sharing some of his own poetry and taking part in a Q&A with the two hosts, anthology editor Ambrose Musiyiwa and Rev Dr Catherine Okoronkwo, a vicar in Swindon who is also the Bishop of Bristol’s Advisor on Racial Justice. Both Ambrose and Catherine are published poets and writers.
Black Lives Matter: Poems for a New World is available for purchase online or through your local bookshop.
Somewhere around early Spring of 1991, I forget how (Probably through the efforts of a friend who I won’t name) I ended up becoming a regular at a almost long forgotten record shop just Oxford Street in Manchester called PowerCuts.
Powercuts (originally called Yanks) which was a second-hand record shop which sold their records at what was then a stupidly cheap price much cheaper and interesting than the likes off OurPrice, Virgin Megastore or HMV were selling them at. (Stock that they picked up stupidly cheap on twice yearly trips to America, something like a 1p a record and sold back at 99p or even cheaper sometimes making a massive profit margin allowing them to sell new albums at cost price under-cutting everybody massive).
Over time, I’ve forgotten much stuff I bought there and also a lot of what I actually bought but my first experience of the now late Richard H. Kirk came from there a month or two after I first went in there.
I remember the time well. I had just being taken on my job at Great Universal after 9 months on a Youth Trading scheme and after a error I got three weeks salary come through at once and my friend in the accounts team had asked me to go for a few beers with him after work.
However, when I was due to finish at 4pm, he knew he wouldn’t get into the centre of Manchester until at least 6pm, so I decided to pop into Power Cuts for a browse not really expecting to buy anything then got blasted out by Cabaret Voltaire’s Here to go as soon as I walked in.
By this stage in my life (I was just turned 19), I had already being engrossed in so much music that itself is a article in itself which I know confused and puzzled people at school from Scottish Folk / Traditional music, Country and Western Music, Bruce Springsteen, baggy music briefly (Stone Roses / Happy Mondays / Inspiral Carpets etc) then in a more left field turn, Spacemen 3, Durruti Column and perhaps even more surprinsingly Linton Kwesi Johnson (which is a story for another day).
Although I had had a varied music upbringing as you can see from the above, my knowledge is and was terrible of the popular music of the time, and this included heavy metal / rock such as Guns N Roses and Ac/Dc, which one of my friends loved and I simply couldn’t stand.
I have no diea how my friend who was and is still a huge fan of Guns N Roses and Ac/Dc still found out about Powercuts but I always remember coming out with a large bag of cheap vinyl everytime I went in and was partly responsible for me branching out into Industrial and punk
That and Cabaret Volitare.
When I walked in and they were blasting Cabaret Volitare’s Here to go which sounded so dubby but poppy, I knew I had to buy it in particular after I noticed that Adrian Sherwood had mixed it (who I had just got into through Tackhead’s Timing tick bomb recently after hearing it on a radio show somewhere) and stood at the counter, the guy who was there I do remember saying I should also get Live from the YMCA, their first album which I will enjoy even more, so I came out from there with what I discovered a wonderful 12 inch and a brutal industrial punk debut album which sounded like two completely different bands.
Two completely different brilliant bands.,
Hearing Richard H. Kirk, perhaps the key member of the group (and the only member of the group who stayed in the group throughout its lifetime) had passed away a few days back brought back a lot of memories of Power Cuts with its dusty smell and rails of cheap records and the excitement of when I played Live from the YMCA which was very different indeed from most music I had heard at that stage.
Kirk who aside from Cabaret Volitare in the 1980s produced so many albums I frankly lost count off including for example 1986's Black Jesus Voice for example which I only heard for the first time last year after picking it up for 29p at Powercuts (Got buried in a box during a move shortly after and never heard) but I was there when he re-surfaced by himself with last year’s ‘Shadow of Fear’ the first album by Cabaret Voliature (minus both Watson and Mallinder) in many years back, and it was incredible.
I got it curious more than anything else after not hearing the Cabs work in years or much of Kirk’s solo work, but it was post modern I guess taking a 80s funk / industrial into different genres which I hadn’t heard before and then with three more Eps / albums ‘Shadow of Funk’, ‘Dekadrone’ and ‘BN9Drone’ – all of which were the Cabs in vastly different work and would have fitted in wonderfully with the ambience of Power Cuts.
Sadly Mr Kirk I don’t think ever went to Power Cuts, but I would like to think if he walked in with me that day he would have seen what their use of dadism, punk, industrial, funk, dub and cut ups did to my own work with the blasting out of ‘Here to go’ and ‘Live at the YMCA’ did to everything I thought about music that day.
And that is something I will always be grateful for.
https://twitter.com/theadriaticmag/status/1441728987420581890
Plenty of news to follow shortly as I'm in a Podcast soon and a blog and have other news also to follow, but to start with a message of a forthcoming publication on 01 October 2021 where they describe me as "Andy N, who shows us the love implicit in continuing a legacy"
Hi all;
A few people have being asking about some of my playlists on my Youtube Page.
Some of them of course are my poetry performances and some are rare music by acts I like these.
These are the following (Some are more updated than others in case you are interested in going through them)
Mark Kozelek / Red House Painters / Sun Kil Moon - live covers and rare live versions
Easterhouse and related projects
Amanda Steel (Now Amanda Nicholson - Performance videos)
The Chameleons (Rare and unreleased)
A Means to an End (My last band which fused poetry and song)
From Inner Room to Outer Space (My Mix series)
Speak Easy (The Spoken Word Open Mic Night I co-run on Zoom archive)
A new writing project I have just subscribed to is ran by Diana Lund Nordstrom who I knew from several other Podcasts where she offers guidance to writers who are looking at writers who may have a book in the making.
My first session of this excellent, informative Podcast is with Kerrie Phipps, author of 'How to talk to Strangers' who made me think about writing in a very different light - helping me think not how I should write a book but the science of why I should write a book or the marketing of choice.
The Podcast itself is on Youtube here
On Friday last week, I did a live session for the show Friday Live with Phil Crowshaw where we talked about where my love of writing came from and how it branched out onto ambient music, Podcasts and co-running Speak Easy (the Spoken Word Open mic night).
This can be seen here
One of my poems "On horses minus their riders" has appeared in this book published 'Friends of Friendswood Public Library'.
I got my copy yesterday and it's wonderful also containing a excellent piece by my wife (Amanda Steel) called Broken Dreams.
Well worth your time picking up a copy from here
As can be seen on www.digitalvomit.com/dih-and-friends, D.I.H. (or distorted in hindsight) have being producing a series of anti Christmas albums for people who really don’t like Christmas or at least have a alternative viewpoint of the season in question.
‘The origin behind the infamous series of DIH with friends at Christmas began back in 2002’ The history quoting the notes on digitalvomit say ‘When for a one off joke as a side project from his more official work in DIH, Andy N one year decided with the help of one or two friends decided to do in his words ‘ A Christmas album for those people who don’t really like Christmas’ where in the space of half an hour (as was the original plan) – Andy and a few friends would murder, cripple and take the piss out of as many songs as they could.’
However,
as is the nature of the beast with this sort of thing sometimes
by the time the second album came along, it had become a D.I.H.
project where the three members of the band would between the three
of them and a ever increasing cast play around with the myth of the
Christmas which can often be funny, sad and thoughtful and sad
sometimes within the same breath.
Designed to produce a wide range of styles, the music contained within this series of albums is varied and can vary from acoustic singer songwriter to drone, deep ambient, experimental, fans of the spoken word, re-imaging of carols and classic songs and generally like their music to challenge and make them think.
After taking a break for Christmas in 2020, we are now taking submissions again for the 2021 album.
The album will be uploaded onto https://hicc.bandcamp.com/ (which has a archive of the albums from 2015 to 2019 – links to earlier ones can be found here - www.digitalvomit.com/dih-and-friends,
As the album will be upload on https://hicc.bandcamp.com/ , all submissions we would prefer being sent as a wav (Wetransfer etc is fine) to aen1mpo@yahoo.co.uk (Andy N). Please try and keep it to no more than 20 minutes per track (Don't mind more than one track in submission but no more than 20 minutes per track.
Closing date is mid-day on 12 December 2021.
Latest up from Spoken Label (Poetry / Author / Artist Chat) features a old friend of Spoken Label making her debut, Krystal Gypsey Orellano.
Krystal is described as "A Tampa, Florida native, Krystal “Gypsy” Orellano Weldon is a spoken word poet, writer and educator. Krystal is slowly transpiring as a creative nonfiction writer, being published in St. Petersburg College’s newspaper The Sandbox, Saint Leo University’s book the Sandhill Review and University of Westminster runner-up winner for the 2017 Mental Health Poetry competition"
Poems read out in this session include:
1. Immortal
2. Murder
3. Point of view
4. Freestyle Melody
5. Miles
6. Aunt Stacey
Krystal's two books can be easily be found on Amazon but for our UK readers, they are:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Evolution-Poetry-Krystal-Gypsy-Orellano-ebook/dp/B07M6Q6CFD
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0977KN87Q/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i0
The Podcast can be heard / streamed at:
https://spokenlabel.bandcamp.com/album/krystal-gypsy-orellano-spoken-label-september-2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgUv-Z29pkQ
https://radiopublic.com/spoken-label-6BalgM/s1!225a6
https://www.bullhorn.fm/spokenlabel/posts/krystal-spoken-label-september-2021
https://www.podbean.com/ew/dir-bu2fk-fe9ad60
https://podbay.fm/p/spoken-label/e/1631156400
https://tunein.com/podcasts/Arts--Culture-Podcasts/Spoken-Label-p1317427/?topicId=165674433
https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/spoken-label/krystal-spoken-label-l_S0GeTPryI/
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CTrgybeD82AfAUoUFeRkp265qa5ENDEAV6iiy00
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3g5AgtjTxzaVDwgDBNMn0V
I first got talking to Rosie Lawson through a mutual friend last year if my memory is correct, and finally met her for the first time at Speak Easy recently and loved the energy she brings to her work.
She is described as " a passionate poet based in Stockport. Her latest collection, Ascension and Growth, is available now – It is reflective of her spiritual journey of self love, to not only acceptance but adoration after a long battle with mental health." and agreed to answer the following questions in relation to her work.
Andy N:
First of all, for those who do not know you Rosie – can you please introduce yourself to everybody and tell them where your creativity came from originally?
Rosie Lawson:
I've always been a creative individual even from being small - I could always be found drawing, painting, writing stories or song lyrics! This only grew as I got older and learned more about myself and who I truly am. While academia has played a large part of my adult life, underneath it all I'm a creative and emotive being. Being academic was expected of me and while studying History and English to Masters level was absolutely brilliant, the most important thing it did for me was help me find my love for the English language again and how I could piece together words and phrases to create something wonderfully magical and moving.
Andy N:
I know recently you have brought out a collection called, “Ascension and Growth”. Can you tell us more about this.
Rosie Lawson:
"Ascension and Growth" is my first poetry chapbook and it is a really important and personal victory, as it details my journey to self love adoration from a much darker place after a long battle with my mental health. It's been much less a journey of self-discovery, but an uncovering of my true self, once all the conditioning, marketing and social expectations were stripped away it shows what is left underneath - an excavation of the soul if you will. The book starts off in an unsettling place but gradually shows the transition to a happier, healthier understanding of the self and I really hope that people who read this collection of poems can resonate with some of my words and learn to find their own unapologetic, authentic selves.
Andy N:
I particularly liked the use of the seasons in your poetry in this collection for example “The Gift” and “Spring”.Are these regular themes / something you return regularly in your pieces?
Rosie Lawson:
I am heavily influenced by the seasons and depictions of nature, I'm very much a child of the earth and often get called a forest witch! I am very intune with the natural world and with having bipolar disorder I can see lots of similarities between myself and the changing seasons,
Andy N:
“Breathe” and “Growth” I feel are two companion pieces in a way similar to “The Gift” and “Breathe” in the sense they take you on a journey from Point A to Point B. Is this something you do regular with your pieces?
Rosie Lawson:
Yes absolutely. In this collection each piece is its own separate journey, but they link together to form a greater picture. I felt that writing in this way, for this collection in particular, helped make the transition through my emotions much more cohesive rather than jarring, which in reality they can be at times.
Andy N:
I know you have started a new series on Instragram as part of their IGTV called ‘Poems from the Bath’. Can you tell us more about that?
Rosie Lawson:
I love doing "Poems from the Bath"! It started one monday evening in the tub, as I tend to think of ideas for poems, or lines and imagery pop into my head while I have a long soak, so I thought I would start a series in which I share something new I've been working on. It helps people get to know the face behind the poetry too, which is always nice.
Andy N:
I know you have being reading out your poetry at nights recently, first of all starting at on Zoom and recorded videos before recently moving onto live readings? How have you found that experience?
Rosie Lawson:
Starting open mic nights on Zoom was great for me, as I do sometimes get nervous when sharing my work, so having the protective barrier of a computer screen actually helped encourage me to go to the live shows once they were back up and running. The live nights are something else, the atmosphere is amazing. Everyone has been so supportive and I've received some wonderful feedback. Now the nerves have subsided a little and I can never wait for the next one!
Andy N:
What plans do you have next for your writing? Would you like to bring out a second collection sometime?
Rosie Lawson:
I am working on a second collection already as it happens! My next project is called "Soft Love and Hard Liquor" and is a series of love letters to the people who have entered my life and filled the days with a forever.
It will feature small "Love Notes", a collection of haikus and poems created to reach out to different entities in my life, whether they be family, friends, pets, partners and even plants! Thou has not known love until thou hath grown a tomato! In all seriousness though, it's a collection that I am really looking forward to releasing - it's still in the early stages of writing but is coming together slowly. I cannot wait to share it with the world - watch this space!
Ascension and Growth is available NOW in paperback or on the Kindle store for all Kindle devices and the Kindle app for iOS and Android.
Link: Ascension and Growth eBook : Lawson, Rosie: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
Social Media:
Facebook: @creationsbyrosielawson
Instagram: @creationsbyrosielawson
Kofi: www.ko-fi.com/creationsbyrosielawson
Soft Love and Hard Liquor - Coming Soon
Speak Easy (Open Mic Spoken Word Night) is back with a special for Chorlton Arts Festival on Monday 13 September at Duclimer (567 Wilbraham Rd, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester M21 0AE) Chorlton starting at 7.30pm
All slots have gone and we are now operating a subs list if anybody wishes to go on it (Email me on aen1mpo@yahoo.co.uk if interested).
Confirmed readers are the following:
Steve Smythe
Andy Npoet & Amanda Nicholson
Mike Booth
Ben Willkommens
Penny Sharman
Jack Horner (aka Leon the pig farmer)
Sarra Culleno
Rana
Dave Hartley
Fokkina McDonnell
Antonia Fusaro
Esther Koch
Reggie Agulha Jr.
Gordon Zola
Eve Nortley
Elenia Gr
Grant Curnow
Tom Jenks
Michael D Conley
Steph Lonsdale
Ant Smith
Anthony Briscoe
We will be back for our usual monthly show in October 2021 on Thursday 07 October 2021 and I'll be taking bookings on Sunday 12 September from mid-day either by facebook message me here or email aen1mpo@yahoo.co.uk from mid-day.
Came across this on facebook before which is being ran by a gentleman who I don't know called Trevor Dwyer Lynch which may interest some Manchester based writers and thought I would re-share
"A night of writing ABOUT and FOR Alzheimer’s…
13th November in Stockport
Are YOU a poet, a writer, at any level, amateur or professional
Does someone you know have or had ALZHEIMERS ?
Have you Wrote or are
writing stuff about Dementia / Alzheimers
Would you like for it to be heard by an audience
If so please DM me or email TheLynch14@gmail.com"
I first met Steven Waling all the way back at a now legendary poetry discussion group in Manchester called Poetica back in 2007 when I was first starting to make my own inroads into the Manchester poetry circuit.
Moving to Manchester in 1980 himself, Steven won the Smith/Doorstop Pamphlet Competition with his first publication, Riding Shotgun, in 1988, and also that year as a prize-winner in the Lancaster Festival Poetry Competition.
Since then he has since had published a number of collections, including Calling Myself On The Phone (Smith/Doorstop) and his new pamphlet “Spuds in History”.
Spuds in History as published by Someroast poetry is the first part of a long term project under the title “Disparate Measures”. In this collection, we see the author’s longstanding interest in the cut-up and the askew brought into focus with his customary observational tendencies. It’s not just that he notices what other’s don’t but from a different angle, and often with a relatable compassion.
Spuds in History came out in January of this year, and as Steven advises me as all poets have found the last few months have been difficult “Well, I did manage to do a couple of pre-launch readings and I read at Manchester Poets early in the year so I at least managed to do a launch, unlike some people. However, any further possibility of launches and reading has largely shut down. I have made a couple of Facebook films of me reading from the book, but I haven’t exactly been as pro-active as I perhaps ought to have been. It’s difficult to get up the energy when everyday seems like the same. However, I am about to do a reading on Zoom this coming Tuesday, and I recently sent a review copy out so I’m finally getting my finger out a little. The worst part of writing sometimes seems to be the promotion of yourself; and I’ll confess to not being as good at it as I ought to be.”
I’ve seen both of the videos Steven refers to on his facebook page and they are colourful affairs which are to be expected as you would expect off him which he adds “I actually did enjoy doing them so I think I’d like to do some more. I wanted to do them because I thought it would be good to do something with my writing and give myself a little motivation. I think this lockdown can give you a feeling of being in limbo, so I needed to kick myself out of that. I was on a learning curve; I’ve never actually used the camera on my computer before and I think it took me some time to get it right. I’ve been on Zoom a few times since; so I’ve got used to the camera and the microphone a bit more. I’ve been thinking of doing a few more; but I think I need to be able to ‘target’ them a bit more and I’m not sure how to do that yet. I haven’t ventured onto youtube yet. I don’t really know how to ‘market’ them to get somebody to watch them. But I did enjoy the process, so I shall do more.
“Yesterday I joined the Writers’ Forum workshop where just over a dozen of us shared poems on line. “ He carried on “Writers’ Forum, by the way, has a long history, going back to the late ’50s, started by visual/concrete/sound poet Bob Cobbing and being the starting point for many British experimental poets, So to be involved with that is really good. They’d usually have met in a room over a pub in London, so it’s perhaps one of the few benefits of lockdown than one can make these contacts.”
“As to the future,” When asked about what next He added” I have put a book together and sent it to a publisher that a Facebook friend put out was looking for collections. I don’t expect to hear for a couple of weeks about that, but it was interesting to put another book together. It includes a few new ones but quite a lot that have not yet been in a book. Finding that opportunity at least gave me the stimulus to look at my poems again, and see that I’m not completely useless!”
“Here’s another shorter collection, a conceptual piece, that I really ought to send off. I read most of it at the Writers’ Forum meeting, and it seemed to get a good response. So that will go next I think. “ He concludes “When I get a bit of space, I’ll do another couple of films too. I’m still writing too, that doesn’t seem to stop. Sometimes about the Covid situation sometimes not. I seem these days to build my poems up rather than splurge and then cut back.
More about Steven’s new collection can be found at:
https://someroastpoetry.wordpress.com/
Steven can be found on facebook at:
https://www.facebook.com/steven.waling.5
(Originally published on 09 August 2020 on the Sunday Tribune)
Without this appearing to be nothing to but terrible, terrible approaches blogs on this blog for any of the Podcasts I run, I have one more conversation I want to share with you before moving on (and hopefully not getting bad approaches although personally I’ll believe it when I see it).
On Matchmatcher.fm, Spoken Label which I am going to talk about does clearly state the following in the programme information “I am more interested in Poets, experimental musicians and fiction writers. People writing self help books, Entrepreneurship, Erotica and anybody trying to help me out with production / promotion / art are not of interest to me and likely to get a rejection and suggest to everybody to please review my archive below before getting in touch to save us both of us wasting our time. “
Most of the time this is fine, and although I do get unsuitable guests approach me on occasion, I don’t get the kind of example I am going to share today very often.
I’ll reripnt the conversation word for word, only editing the name of the writer and the book:
M:
Hi! I would be delighted to be on your show! My book, ****** ***** is currently on Amazon and well, I am tons of FUN!
As I always do when I receive a request like this, I do have a look on Amazon to see what the book is about and in this case, I came across this blurb.
Blurb of book:
You
never know what is happening on the other side of the front door.
When you add in extensive wealth and luxury, like in my case, it
takes that to a completely different level.
Our
marriage
is full of love, adoration, and most of all mutual respect. I married
my best friend. With a mixture of temptation, lust, and sexual
pleasures we fell into a lifestyle we were constantly surprised by
each other which pushed our sexual boundaries beyond our wildest
imaginations.
We never
thought that through it all,
We
would begin to find my voice and my power. Our
journey to finding myself is not unlike many women before me, just
with a few added mind-blowing orgasms.
*
Well, straight-away if you look at my guidelines this sounds like Eriotica to me as soon as I started reading the extract so I rejected it with my standard stationery:
Me:
Hi - Thank you for your recent message regarding Spoken Label. If you read our profile, you will see that Spoken Label has no interest in books such as this and are therefore turning down your kind request automatically. Good luck with with your book, but if you don't mind some feedback you should really research the Podcasts you are contacting before sending a message like you have and properly research everything as Podcasts like this will turn you down automatically. Spoken Label
*
Half a hour I then got the following message in response from M:
M:
Hi. I actually did read your entire profile, and since my book is barely erotica, I thought you may still be interested. My book covers a lot of very important topics in a fun and spicy way, it is not a self help book, nor is it a full on erotica book. Thank you for the write back, but as an author and someone who reads contracts for a living as a REALTOR®, I do read every word very carefully. I did however think you might want to give some authors that don't fit in your box a try because we do have a lot to offer. Have a wonderful day!
*
I’ve not responded here and won’t be wasting my time here for a whole host of reasons that are clear but the basic gist is she clearly has not listened to one of my Podcasts and if she had listened to a few or even looked at the guests I book for it.
If she had, she would know the fiction writers I bring onto the Podcast may cover topics such as Science Fiction, thrillers, Non Fiction etc – Erotica is not one of them as it would not fit into the structure I use for Spoken Label.
The lesson from this for all writers is to research your markets and even if you are turned down by the Podcast not to start react against it like the above, as word could pass around about you and cause all kind of trouble for you.
* An Audio version of this review will appear on the Book Review Podcast Reading in bed in early september (readinginbed.bandcamp.com)
Blurb:
Strengths:
The book focuses on Tim Rackley who in the first book of this series was a member of the Justice Dept who was ex-communicated after his daughter was killed and he went on the rampage.
I’ve not read the first book in this series but one of the strengths of this book was the fact it was very easy to get into with no notice of the first book, as it was touched on but not rammed in your face.
The Program itself is the story of what happens next when Rackley is offered redemption by a very rich couple to infiltrate a dangerous cult to rescue a vulnerable young woman.
From reading this, it certainly appears that Hurwitz has done his research with this cult and writes with a frightening level of detail about the methodology behind aggressive recruitment techniques, financial corruptions and mind control and the book is very well paced set up into four parts usually all at around the spot on point needed.
Rackley is a well wrote troubled hero who I never felt was never in any danger of being converted into joining the cult but was presented just flawed to show what damage it did cause after the events of the death of his daughter.
The main baddie “Terrance Donald "TD" Betters” if I am honest really stole the book from Rackley as I did enjoy the fact you could see he was a scam artist very, very quickly and some of the control elements he did on people such as his Lillies was really, really creepy.
Weakness:
At 460 pages or so, it did seem somewhat long and in the middle the pace did flag somewhat and the ending did seem a bit rushed / cutting off quickly.
I was very uncomfortable with the way Rackley didn’t get involved trying to stop the murder of one of the women in the cult and a number of the cult characters were a little bit too roughly sketched out for my personal tastes.
Rackley was a decent enough hero, but I would have loved to have seen Evan Smoak from the Nowhere Man let loose in this kind of setting as I got the feeling he would have being a lot more direct than Rackley and perhaps that is what was needed with this book. It was a very well wrote book however and considering it was wrote in 2006, didn’t feel too far away in places in style from his nowhere man series.
I may read the other books but that will be after Nowhere Man 7 next year which I am looking forward more.
8/10
* An audio version of this review will appear on the book review Podcast Reading in Bed in early September *
Blurb:
A
breakthrough in human cloning becomes one woman’s waking nightmare
in a mind-bending thriller by the Wall
Street Journal bestselling
author of the Gibson Vaughn series.
In
the near future, advances in medicine and quantum computing make
human cloning a reality. For the wealthy, cheating death is the
ultimate luxury. To anticloning militants, it’s an abomination
against nature. For young Constance “Con” D’Arcy, who was
gifted her own clone by her late aunt, it’s terrifying.
After
a routine monthly upload of her consciousness—stored for that
inevitable transition—something goes wrong. When Con wakes up in
the clinic, it’s eighteen months later. Her recent memories are
missing. Her original, she’s told, is dead. If that’s true, what
does that make her?
The
secrets of Con’s disorienting new life are buried deep. So are
those of how and why she died. To uncover the truth, Con is retracing
the last days she can recall, crossing paths with a detective who’s
just as curious. On the run, she needs someone she can trust. Because
only one thing has become clear: Con is being marked for murder—all
over again.
Strengths:
This book is set in the near future where due to massive advances in medicine and technology cloning has now become a reality for those rich enough to afford it.
Skipping the first twenty or so pages which I’ll come onto in the weaknesses, the book really starts when Constance D’Arcy awakens in a cloned body with no memory of the past eighteen months.
The idea in this book is a really good idea and the world is set up really well, and the perils and pitfalls in this book are pretty good with the far right reglionious aspect of the book added a nice touch to the parnoid nature that the main character Conn when she literally had no idea who to trust and at one point ended up sleeping on the streets.
I also liked the fact she wasn’t immedately likeable as a character and liked the hard edgeness of her as a character and the way she didn’t take shit off anybody and didn’t let anybody stop her try to find out what has happened in those 18 months leading up to that point.
Weaknesses:
Once I got off the first twenty or pages, which I didn’t think were really needed and didn’t seem to go anyway, the book was a steady 4 stars until the last 50 pages which the story came close to losing any kind of believability where twist after twist seemed to build up which after about the third or fourth one, it came close to choking the tension off of everything after too many twists, subplots etc.
I’ll not reveal the twists that came up but I felt, one or two of the twists may have worked not three or four which perhaps the author could have held back until the second book if there was such a demand for it and cost it marks for me as this could have being a easily 9 out of 10 for me and I’ll keep off the sometimes 2d nature of a number of the male characters in this book (It’s kinda telling that the best male character dies at the end of the book and will cause the writer some problems in the second book I suspect).
Anyway, a fair enough start to a series. I’ll probably read Book 2 and despite the fact having faults, it’s the best book I’ve read on Amazon First Reads in quite some time.
7.5/10
