Bernard Jan's Blog - Posts Tagged "writer"

One of the best trilogies I've ever read. Scary, gripping, moving. Highly impressing.

Unlike some novels I have been reading with a serious effort like I was plowing through a field devastated by drought, The Wool Trilogy by Hugh Howey is exactly the opposite. A perfectly balanced deep fall through a silo, which forces the reader to keep falling and falling, unable to stop himself and put the the books down until he hits the end.

Science fiction? Maybe. But only for the reason of being set in a Dystopian future.

The scariest thing was looking at a daringly realistic portrait of our society today. What happened to humanity?!? Plausibly unintentionally (or maybe intentionally after all), upsetting parallels of the real world are screaming into our faces like a wake-up call. If we do not do something to light up the flames of humanity and share with our loved ones and the stranger on the street, we will all end up in our present-day versions of silos eventually to be suffocated and poisoned, reduced to mere things, numbers.

Howey gave us a masterpiece. But he has also shown us the safe path to our future. This is the gift we should cherish, even if we chose not to believe that silos could actually happen.

BJ
www.bernardjan.com

Ghost Flight by Bear Grylls

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Ever heard of Bear Grylls? I truly hope so, because this former soldier in the British Special Forces, the youngest ever Chief Scout to the UK Scout Association and an honorary Colonel to the Royal Marine Commandos is also an adventurer, writer and television presenter. His Facebook bio says that “Bear Grylls has become known around the world as one of the most recognized faces of survival and outdoor adventure.”

I first heard about Bear Grylls seven years ago when I was on my vacation visiting my friends in Sweden and we watched his Ultimate Survival (also known as Born Survivor/Man vs. Wild) on the Discovery Channel. Needless to say that Bear Grylls captured my attention on the spot, that I wanted to see more of him, making me check for him online immediately after returning home to Croatia.

I loved the concept of his show in which he was left stranded with his crew in an unfamiliar wilderness – rainforests, glaciers, deserts, islands, to name just a few – with only one goal: to survive and find his way back to civilization.

The similar pattern follows his entertaining and exciting thriller Ghost Flight. Packed with action, adventure, beautiful landscapes of the remote Amazon jungle where lies hidden a mysterious WWII warplane, Ghost Flight guarantees to keep even the most demanding fans of this genre glued to its pages. It is so easy to picture Bear Grylls, an ex-soldier and a survivor, as an ex-soldier Will Jaeger, also a leader of a team of former elite warriors in their quest to uncover the mystery of the hidden warplane and the secret of Nazi evil forces (Wir sind die Zukunft) that lie buried in it.

I am a sucker for WWII novels and I am a sucker for Amazon rainforest. When those two are combined, you have an explosive reading before you. You are drinking up a cocktail made of ghosts from not so recent past, to majority of people almost forgotten, but the ghosts which are patiently waiting for their moment of the rise of the new Reich, and a pristine nature beaming with both beautiful and deadly life.

Ghost Flight is a successful debut novel with interesting and well-developed characters, full of action, twists and turns and gripping moments. It is also a very detailed novel which probably might not help us in a fight against the rise of a new Reich if it comes to it, but it could very well serve us as a survival guide in a primeval rainforest if we ever find ourselves in our personal mission under the canopy of magnificent trees where neither evil Nazis nor modern-day humans got to leave their destructive imprint.

BJ
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Of Life, Death, Aliens and Zombies by Dario Cannizzaro

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Dario Cannizzaro is a 35-year-old writer from Naples who managed to mislead me with the title of his collected stories Of Life, Death, Aliens and Zombies and a completely black cover of his book outlined with red images of a syringe, stars, planet Saturn, a cross, a profile of a woman, a naked female body, a hand digging out its way through earth, a spaceship, a pierced heart, and a cloud dialogue with xxx in it. My mind was sidetracked into believing that I will be reading gory, horror stories of aliens, zombies, death celebrated and life taken, so I embraced myself for this dark and short journey.

I was so wrong. And I wouldn't put a blame for it on Dario Cannizzaro for choosing this title and Vico for “lending his design talent” for this book cover. Actually, now when I reflect on everything that I've read in nine stories on 104 pages (Preface, Thank you and Bio & Contacts pages included), they are rather logical and smartly chosen. Only my dark and twisted mind has been looking forward to the rivers of blood and aliens and zombies hunting down the remaining surviving specimens of mankind!

Cannizzaro's stories are indeed stories about life, death, alien and zombies. They are stories about everyday life as we know it, life as it could be if things went slightly different (e.g. zombies walking among us, Pope admitting that aliens are gods we have been worshiping since the dawn of mankind), life and death that continue its perpetual circle despite the fact that aliens are watching us and we don't care much about it after the first initial shock of finding the truth that is out there, or that zombies are our new neighbors even though we do not see or hear them so we carry on with our daily life, normal as it can be under the new circumstances.

Cannizzaro's stories are also stories about love, passion and sex. In some we can so vividly taste the smells, fragrances and the bloodstream of Italy, in others we are faced with our own basic instincts, aspirations, cravings, hopes, dreams and memories. Some of them are not even two pages long, while others are a more complex and maybe even more demanding reading. All of them, though, are carefully written with Cannizzaro's beautiful style and meticulously chosen words and sentences.

Three of my favorite stories are Yet Another Zombie Apocalypse, The Best Place to Plan a Mass Shooting and The Announcement. If that describes me as an aspiring and sometimes misunderstood author who is scared shitless of zombies and hopes for aliens to come to his rescue, so be it. This is who I am. But these stories carry the weight of a deeper truth and hypothetical and yet not-so-alien reality, if we only allow ourselves to think outside the box we have been put and locked into.

There is one particular story I wanted to mention at the end and I am sure there is a good reason why the author saved it to end his first book of collected stories with it as well. Impurita is the most complex and in-depth story of them all, but what truly separates it and places it on a special pedestal is the beauty and love with which it is written, a strong and deep emotion and the poetry in every sentence through which it speaks to us. Would calling it a literary masterpiece be an exaggeration? I hope you will be able to tell me that after you read it.

BJ
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Without An Angel by Mitchell Bogatz

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Broken heart can cut like a knife, tear up your world and torture your body and mind as you drift between two realities. The old one you know, love and miss every minute of your life, and the new one in which you feel lost, abandoned and cannot accept it as your new life order.

Mitchell Bogatz wrote his poetry book titled Without An Angel during the hardest year of his young life, when he fell in love with an unavailable woman. His raw and beautiful poetry, devoid of any pathos, is filled with unrestrained lust and almost desperate yearning to be loved, cherished, needed and appreciated.

While going through his short, vivid poems and experiencing his emotional and somehow so familiar verses, we drink straight from the fountain of the author's personal, intimate life. We are reminded of our own passions, of our own struggle to get back on our feet and SURVIVE on the ruins of forbidden love, of our own longing to quit, just let go, disappear and be forgotten: Sometimes I wonder if I’d be happier on a beach somewhere, nothing in my pockets, with no one waiting for me to come home.

If you like poetry, it would be a shame to miss this powerful and honest collection of poems. Even if you are not too big a fan of the verse, do yourself a favor and spend some time with Bogatz's writing. His suffering and pain might surprise you with hope and strength it gives you when you are faced with going through life without your angel, or, even better, encourage you to swing your wings to go out and find it.

BJ
www.bernardjan.com



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Finders Keepers by Stephen King

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Upon reaching page 240 of Finders Keepers by Stephen King a thought stroke me. King cannot fail. What are the odds for that? Brilliant! This thought lingered and stayed with me until the very end of the book.

Finders Keepers, the second book in Bill Hodges Trilogy is a constant page-turner. A story about a vengeful reader obsessed with a retired writer spreads through 370 pages like fast and untamable fire. It burns its way to our hearts, brings us strong characters, lots of excitement and the fantastic plot! Again King has a surgically precise eye for the detail, which is a characteristic of his writing I probably like and admire most.

Brilliant! Five stars without much thinking!

BJ
www.bernardjan.com



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Ashley Bell by Dean Koontz

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


It was love at the first read. It started with Watchers twenty-three years ago and lasted more than seventy books up to this date.

Dean Koontz, like very few authors, managed to keep me expectant, eager, thrilled and enthusiastic about his books. His latest novel Ashley Bell is no exception either. What's more and to be honest, despite being an author myself, I am now lacking words to describe how I really feel about Ashley Bell.

Ashley Bell is a complex novel of more than 700 pages about a remarkable young woman Bibi Blair who is determined to do the impossible and: 1) fight, beat, outsmart and escape death, and 2) find and save someone named Ashley Bell. Both seems rather impossible and destined to failure. But not for Dean Koontz and not for Bibi Blair.

Ashley Bell is a poetic, dark, psychological thriller in which the master of suspense and mystery creates a parallel world with the ease of The Maker. Koontz daringly plays the literary God and takes us into parallel worlds created by his incredible imagination, convincing us to believe and live the impossible. Dean Koontz has already taught as that nothing in his books is impossible, that “impossible” universes, creatures and situations are possible, we only have to imagine them.

His prose is a kaleidoscope of the most vivid colors and darkest shadows. It is a playground sanded with rarely seen scenes of violence and murders, chilled-to-the-bones moments and sentences poetically beautiful as sunsets. Our task is to imagine and bring them into life.

“If we were imagined into existence with a universe of wonders, then the power to form the future with our imagination must be in our bloodline.” – Dean Koontz, Ashley Bell

BJ
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When I was kindly invited by my friend and colleague Dario Cannizzaro, author of Of Life, Death, Aliens and Zombies – a great collection of short stories I was privileged to read and review – and a debut novel Dead Men Naked – to be released by the end of this year – to write a post about my writing pet peeve, my first thought was, oh no, I am going to publicly whine!

Whining or not, fact is that my biggest pet peeve is time, or better to say lack of it, accompanied by distraction. What on earth does that mean?

Well, time is all but relative and certainly I do not have it. As much as I try to organize my working day and the noise of my thoughts inside my head and the world outside it, I simply do not know, at this moment in time (again this precious word time!), when to sit down and start writing. (Maybe I should do that standing?! Or walking?! Or in my dreams, when I remember I had dreamed??)

I am not complaining, though it would be easier to do so! But after coming home from work, doing my regular networking hours, sending queries to literary agents (I am not doing that on a daily basis but nonetheless have to prepare myself mentally and emotionally for that sacred mission and highly important quest), writing posts for my blogs, updating my web page and social platforms, going through 50-100 emails depending on a daily e-traffic, I barely have energy to grab and read some book from my 90-something-high-pile of unread books (recently I regularly fall asleep and doze off more than once while reading because I am too tired to push my body and mind a little bit further), let alone write something. It's not that I don't have ideas and that my muse ran away to sell itself to someone else. I do! What I don't have is energy.

And TIME.

When I write I need to have my peace in order to escape this world and lose myself in my fictional world. This is when I switch realities, the real one with imaginary one. Yes, the imaginary reality is where I inhabit when I write, where I live with my characters, when I am a part of them and they become a part of me, where I make them miserable, kill them and mourn over them, where they break my heart.

Where we love each others.

In that world I don't want distraction with little or big things from this world I am trying to evade and forget, in that new world I have my new life which serves its purpose to create and build for the pleasure and entertainment of others. I am creating with love and dedication, revealing and showing what I love, with hope to share it one day with those who will appreciate it.

I don't want to be superficial and do it just for the sake of writing something and commercializing it. I want to do it out of love, to make something valuable and everlasting. My contribution to the world I will leave behind one day, soon enough.

So when I create, I need my peace and my time to write. Those are the diamonds I need to find and dig out from the muddy waters of my everyday life. When I find enough time, I will eventually find peace too. I will shut myself out from this world and move to another place and time. And if I cannot find time in this real time, I will dive into the well of my imagination, grab the remote and press pause.

As time continues its flux and events happen one after another without stopping, as seconds tick away one after another on their way to eternity and oblivion, my time will keep standing. My minutes will stretch into hours, days if necessary, and I will finish what I need to do. I will complete my task, my mission, my new creation I love and will gladly share with others who will appreciate it once I press play on my imaginary remote again and our times and worlds merge again into one on its continuous way into the unknowns of the future.

I thank Larysia, the poet from Canada who started this blog hop I am part of now and once again I thank Dario for introducing me to her.

With full confidence and great expectations I pass the question about writing pet peeves to my friends and fellow authors Angel Ramon Medina, author of the Thousand Years War Series and leader of the Hybrid Nation, and Jonathan Hill, author of Not Just a Boy, A Christmas Outing, FAG and the Maureen books . Don't forget to check out their web pages in the coming days to learn about their pet peeves! Thank you!

BJ
www.bernardjan.com
Bernard Jan

Lady Justice and the Candidate by Robert Thornhill

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Robert Thornhill is the author you cannot ignore, if nothing else than from the reason that he started writing at the age of sixty-six and that he has never learned to type other than with one finger and a thumb! When we add to that the number of 28 (!!) books he has written and published at his late but very prolific age, we are getting a small literary miracle!

Lady Justice and the Candidate is the first of Thornhill's books I had the pleasure of reading. It is a well-balanced mixture of humor, adventure and mystery, which tells us a story about the independent Presidential candidate Benjamin Franklin Foster who appears on the American political scene practicality out of nowhere and wins over the sympathies and hearts of American voters with his simple message of change and honesty with which he is supposed to clean America and restore it to its days of glory.

Mission impossible or not? Not so important, as long as you enjoy reading this book. And if you don't believe me that Lady Justice and the Candidate guarantees you a relaxed and fun time – even when you have to hear about politics over and over again – see for yourself. Then be honest and admit to yourself that indeed you had had a laugh, while secretly cheering for that unusual and extraordinary candidate who at the age of 70 had more vigor and passion than some much younger politicians we all too well knew about.

BJ
www.bernardjan.com



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The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Can't say I love baseball. A few times I tried to watch it (and comprehend all the excitement and fuss about it) but I failed and gave it up. It did not catch my attention, and instead of getting my blood up and igniting passion in me, it lulled me to boredom.

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, a 605 pages long novel (Fourth Estate, London, 2012) about baseball star Henry Skrimshander at Westish College and fates of people connected to him, is anything but that. It is a thoroughbred, full-blooded, deeply moving, beautifully written tale about dreams, hopes, ambition, forbidden love, friendship, and many more.

Chad Harbach, an American writer and an editor at n+1 New York-based literary magazine, worked on his baseball debut novel for nine years. But as if that time had no effect on it, for each year of its creating only added to its flavor and quality. The Art of Fielding is a brilliant first novel you will not want to put down. Its characters are memorable, alive, realistic, the writing is flawless and tender, the novel itself passionate, gripping and all-consuming. It is a vivid reminder of more innocent times and ages we all sometimes crave for; melancholic and sentimental it touches our hearts and minds and squeezes the juices of humanity out of us.

If you had doubts whether I liked it or not, have no doubts any more. The Art of Fielding I loved from the beginning to the end, with every hope arisen and dream broken, with every single success achieved and love fulfilled, all the way to its sad and re-conciliatory end.

The Art of Fielding is the art of writing. We should all take it in our hands, read it with open minds and big hearts and pay respect to it. If this was the only novel Chad Harbach ever wrote (I hope not), it is the novel enough to find a place for him in the annals of American literary fiction.

Advice for the filmmakers: kindly pay attention to it!

BJ
www.bernardjan.com



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A Christmas Outing by Jonathan Hill

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I happened to be on a tram on my morning ride to work when David's mother rip-opens the parcel her daughter has sent as a gift from Australia and pulls out of it a vibrating pink penis with a gift-tag around it. David stares open-mouthed at the sight of it, his boyfriend Jamie drops the remains of the biscuit he is eating in his lap, David's dad is laughing. David's mother looks from her husband to penis and from penis to her husband and asks, confused, “What . . . What is it?!” This propels David's dad into an even louder laughter, which is followed by a sudden blare of rap music ringtone from his phone he still doesn't know how to turn off.

At this point David is really annoyed at his futile attempts and all distraction. It is all too much for him so he yells: “I’m gay and I’m going out with Jamie and I love hiiiiiiiiim!” This scene is an ultimate climax of a hilariously funny novella A Christmas Outing by Jonathan Hill.

It is Christmas market time and 19-year-old David is going to visit it with his parents. This time, though, his boyfriend Jamie is coming along. David has something very important to announce to his parents tonight and Jamie is there to support him. Coming out to his parents is too complicated and not easy at all and Jamie is going to be there to be by his side and help him in any way he can.

A Christmas Outing is teeming with funny scenes and brilliant and comic dialogues of one dysfunctional family which is trying to survive Christmas time. A dominating mother and a submissive father who keep arguing about every little thing (sounds familiar, anybody?!), David's Psycho Sister who fled as far away as possible from her family and who sends sex stuff as gifts to her parents – her mom especially, and David who is the whole evening laboriously plotting a plan to admit to his parents that he is different, that he has a boyfriend, so he can be accepted and be himself more than he ever was.

Jonathan Hill is a master of building a suspense and expectation around David's coming out. He makes us smile, giggle, snort and laugh from one situation to another throughout this whole heartwarming and honest comedy short story that will make everybody feel good despite the serious issue of coming out which it covers in order for everyone who is and feel different to become recognized and labeled within the set and acknowledged categories of our society. His characters are very functional, realistic and alive, and we have certainly met their real-life versions at some point in our lives.

After Not Just a Boy, A Christmas Outing is another smashing success by Jonathan Hill I had luck and pleasure of reading. My pleasure would be even greater if I didn't have to suppress funny sounds that were threatening to burst out of me in a hysterical laughter in a tram full of people when David from the screen of my smartphone mused: My sister is on the other side of the world, in a different time zone and season and still she manages to piss on the bonfire I haven’t yet lit.

Wonderful, simply wonderful!! Five grins as big and shiny as five stars!

BJ
www.bernardjan.com

p.s. Jonathan, maybe I should come out and admit that I fell in love with your writing?! (Here comes another big grin which you can see only with your mind's eye!)



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