Neil Mach's Blog - Posts Tagged "neil-mach"

I am often asked how I came up with the idea for The Last Music Bearer:

I was imagining a world in which there was NO MUSIC. Then I read about Islamist Extremists who were trying to stop music being played in the African country of Mali (music is an intrinsic part of their culture ) and I began to wonder - could that really happen? Could organized religion really stamp-out music altogether?

So I re-imagined a world where music had actually been banned and eradicated by a supreme religious authority. My fantasy is set in Britain during the Middle Ages. Around 900AD in the British Isles - the rule of law comes from the church of Rome. Regional Kings were not omnipotent, so they had to take their lead from the Holy Empire. All power and all influence came from the church – and much of this power was exercised by secretive monastic communities.

In my story, one such group of secret wandering monks was still bringing the gift of music to small communities ... In fact they were offering Music Therapy. But another (more radical) sect were intent on hunting them down and wiping out the last vestiges of music for good.

My story follows a young adult (Elis) who is trained to be a Music Bearer by the Music Bearing Monks and also follows his hunter ( a member of the sinister Black Hounds) whose 'God Given' task is to exterminate Elis and all his kind.

http://lastmusicbearer.com/

Gypsy Boy by Mikey Walsh

My rating: 3 of 5 stars






I have Roma blood running in my family and through my veins, so thought I should read this. It is an anguished story and part of it [though nothing so bad, I'm pleased to say, ever happened to me] resonated with my experiences in a personal and emotional way. Certainly, the requirement to be physically strong and punchy was something I experienced as a lad. Also my father hated the idea that I might grow up into a “poof” [his words.]

This story is often humourless and gloomy ... and reminded me a lot of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes. Except that McCourt's writing is more entertaining and laugh-out-loud funny. I wish this had been the same. But it's far more grim.

Probably this seems stronger and less forgiving than Angela's Ashes because of the inbuilt repression and persistent nagging pain of flagrant homophobia that seems present in every agonized little recollection.

True or not [and to be fair, this biography definitely did ring true to me] this is not a pleasant journey to take. Even though the writing is quick and easy and things get more entertaining as we get into it Poor Mikey ... who goes from one unpleasant disaster to the next in a brutal semi-existence ... can never seem to escape from the brutal life.

Like I say, reminiscent of Angela's Ashes but with less death. And little or no lightness.

Maybe I'll try Caravans and wedding bands by Eva Petulengro next...



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Illuminae by Amie Kaufman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars




Graphics in novels are not new — explanatory deviations, little illustrations, and other non-linear devices were used to add contextual colour to stories during the Age of Enlightenment.

Illuminae 'feels' fresh because it's set within the space opera genre and makes use of photocopied documents, censored emails and transcripts of interviews as well as other graphics...

My persistent and enduring thought, while reading this [ “to read” might be too strong a verb? Maybe one “absorbs” a work like this] is this — it's set in 2575 so why, why, why in the age of futuristic weaponry and sophisticated technologies — do they still have emails, written duty-statements and call-logs?

It's as if Kady and Ezra and all the other peoples who populate these “worlds” [actually they live aboard ships for the most part] are throw-backs to a time and place that even us back here in 2017 have travelled way beyond.

I realize that interplanetary science fiction romances are basically old-style Westerns set in rickety science futures where clans clash and boys meet girls... but in Illuminae there is hardly any attempt to manufacture science wonder...

That said, it is a very realistic tale that parallels current events [gas attacks in the Syrian Civil War, for example] and the quick-fire and often funny text, delivered for pure entertainment, reminded me of the works of Harry Harrison.

The sentient A.I. was reminiscent of Arthur C. Clarke's HAL 9000 in that it is totally reliable and yet can never be fully trusted. And other add-on characters are just a bunch of Starship Troopers or drop-outs from Battlestar Galactica.

So innovative it ain't... But lack of originality aside, this is still an epic work.

It's a novel that embraces those heroic conventions we love so much... in other words it's a treasure chest of old-style adventuring, and absorbs other genres as it goes, such as film noir, whilst it spits out gangster jargon and retro space-chat. And in that respect it is more like something done by Jim Steranko... but for Generation Z readers.

You'd almost expect this to be an obscure fan publication but it's not. In fact I'd even go so far as saying that it feels decentered and futuristic [which it's not] and that's because it is so well executed.

So it's not modernist or revolutionary? No, not at all. It's simply a riveting yarn delivered in an easily chewable format and as retro as retro could be.

I loved it. I pawed and re-thumbed every single page. And want to read it all over again...



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