More five star reviews for The Voyage of the Kresala

 'The Voyage of the Kresala is a new classic.'

The latest addition to The Seven Songs series now has two more five star reviews.

See the Amazon book page (link below)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00TXWJSE0

 CJM 05/2015

Five star treatment for the Kresala

It's good to see the first five star reviews of The Voyage of the Kresala appearing on the Amazon page. See:
 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00TXWJSE0

"A hero's journey in a classic sense ...," says one reviewer. "... a joy for both children and adults alike."

I'm really glad that the importance of the hero's journey has shone through for this reviewer.  In the book, Gentil truly has to travel into the unknown and face new dimensions within himself as well as in the world around, and therein lies the heroic journey.

For the same reason I wanted to include the "voyage" in the book title, and again the same reviewer notes that the boat herself "is at the centre of a mythic quest" in which all on board participate. All are in flight, but at the same time in search of a kind of redemption. Itxaso's mission binds them all on the physical journey, but for each one an inner quest mirrors the outer.

The quest gives meaning to life. I am reminded here of Viktor Frankl's renowned work in Vienna with suicidally inclined youngsters, where his therapy consisted in helping them to find a meaning and purpose for their life. We know that suicide is alarmingly common in young people in our own time, in the US being the second leading cause of death in youngsters from age 15-24.

It should be said here that my "seven songs" are all meant as songs of life and meaningfulness.This is the connection that all of King Abba's children have to make with reality, each in their own way.

Thanks to those who have taken the time and trouble to write their comments.

CJM  April 2015


 

A new sequel for King Abba

Check out www.kingabba.com for the latest sequel in The Seven Songs cycle, titled The Voyage of the Kresala.

This is Gentil's story, the younger of the two princely brothers. Escaping from the destruction of the royal palace, he arrives at a coastal harbour where he enlists as crew on board the yacht Kresala with his friend Alick. The two of them are ready and keen to go in search of adventure across the ocean.

But he soon finds himself entangled in the destiny of Nestor, Gorka and the mysterious Itxaso, who have a secret mission to fulfil, vital for the future of Europe.

Sail with Gentil on a journey of drama and adventure ....

CJM February 2015

Launch offer for Behind the Mountain

To mark the launch of the new ebook sequel, Behind the Mountain, an Amazon Countdown offer will apply starting Friday March 21, available on amazon.com. This promotion runs over five days with the biggest discount (81 percent) on the first day, reducing daily to the smallest discount (21 percent) on Day 4. The available discount will be posted on the Kindle Store page as each day goes by.

CJM

Behind the Mountain: Living with your book characters

The news is good. The royal children Fion and Dream, rescued from the downfall of the European royal court, are alive and well and being cared for by Margaret, the mysterious wise woman who belongs to the condemned Heretics movement. And where are they off to? They are going:

Behind the Mountain

Yes, the first sequel to King Abba (see www.kingabba.com) is finally available after a long wait.

There's a scene in Chapter 2 where the book really began for me, over ten years ago. I had gone to the Pyrenees for a month to do some writing and I remember standing on a bridge in a peaceful valley, watching the house martins fly up and down the stream. I was completely engaged with the peace and beauty of the valley, and maybe even saw it as a kind of refuge from millennial madness, the threat of which around then was quite in vogue.

I don't know that millennial madness has gone away. If anything it seems more and more threatening as we watch our absurd politicians and governments squabbling beside the rising waters. I write in a week where it seems that half of southern England is under water. The sea which for centuries lapped at the foot of Glastonbury tor (how else could Joseph of Arimathea sailed there...?) is now reclaiming its own. How did we let things get so bad? Surely through sheer stupidity and short term gain. Shouldn't we tear up the blueprint and start again? That is the message of my series The Seven Songs, which starts with King Abba and now Behind the Mountain.

Princess Dream is the character who can't see nature without wanting to take out her sketchbook and paintbox. She is not skilful with words, at least not in the beginning, but she grows in strength as her character develops, and takes a quite unexpected and adventurous path in this book.

Prince Fion has equally forced surprises on me. At one point I had a real struggle with him and, in paratrooper terms, almost had to shove him out of the plane so he would get back on his hero's journey. He is assailed by doubts and also, poor lad, thinks he has problems with relationships. Who doesn't? Especially at age fifteen.

It's quite a difficulty when your character won't do what you had planned for them and in this regard Fion has perhaps been the most problematic. However, an awful lot is being asked of him, to save the world amongst other things, so we have to be patient with him. His greatest tests are to follow, as his mentor Adhemar tells him. We shall see as the series develops.

Enjoy the read.

CJM

To mark the launch of the new ebook sequel, Behind the Mountain, an Amazon Countdown offer will apply starting Friday March 21, available on amazon.com. This promotion runs over five days with the biggest discount (81 percent) on the first day, reducing daily to the smallest discount (21 percent) on Day 4. The available discount will be posted on the Kindle Store page as each day goes by.

King Abba free download

There are two days left of a five day free download of my novel King Abba, which is available from the Amazon Kindle store. It is a science fiction fantasy with a difference, for both young and old.

So far the book has five star reviews from all reviewers.

Reviews and testimonials, along with a blurb and background to the book, can be found on: www.kingabba.com

Also a first post in what I hope will become a dialogue with readers.

CJM
April 12, 2013

King Abba: a review by Simon Robinson

Simon Robinson of www.transitionconsciousness.org has posted a generously favourable review of my philosophical fantasy King Abba which concludes:


"As well as a flowing plot that starts off as a gentle brook but gathers pace to rushing rapids, the chapters are littered with thought-provoking dialogue throughout. We are asked to consider what kind of reality we ourselves are living in ...

"The prose is poetic, never heavy, and the plot constructed to continually arouse one’s curiosity as to what will happen next in the adventure of the characters’ lives. It can certainly withstand very favourably next to Sophie’s World, while also being distinctly different in flavour, and I certainly hope it gains the recognition it strongly deserves."

See also the first (five-star) review on amazon.com which comments: "Well written and a great read, this kept me - and my 12 year old - hooked from beginning to end. It would be fabulous for a young adult or parent/teen book group choice."

Henri Bortoft and "the dynamic way of seeing"

Those who have arrived at Henri Bortoft's new book, Taking Appearance Seriously, must accept the risk that after reading it, they will never "see" things quite the same ever again. The book is a challenge, arising from Goethean thought and so-called continental philosophy, to all our neuronally embedded habits and "attractors" -- to invoke Allan Combs' nice mapping of chaos theory on to psychology. For a start, once you have read the book, you will probably before too long, once the floodwaters have receded, want to read it again.

Floodwaters? Yes, water played a significant part in the emergence of Henri's thought and teaching. A key image lies in the phrase "upstream". He uses this notion vividly in his exposition of how to dissolve our clotted habits of thought in perceiving events and language, nearly all of which arise in our consciousness as if "downstream", that is, already formed, patterned, without doubt or challenge. His own vision of "upstream" thinking came upon him as he was about to give a course for which, he suddenly realised, he was totally unprepared. He was standing on a bridge over a stream, lost in dismal thought about what he was to do, looking down the flow of the river. Then he turned and faced towards the descending waters for a few moments and then, suddenly, in a flash of inspiration saw how different was the experience of looking "upstream" at the waters not yet arrived but already arriving. With this single insight, he realised he could explain the difference between perceiving events and language as they come to us, and accepting them as already givens.

With this beautiful philosophical insight, poetic in its force, we have a tool with which to begin to become aware of our own habits of thought, our own tame acceptance of language and concepts which we have perhaps never questioned, and our own lack of real  dialogue in communicating with others. These are all themes which I explore through the questing figure of young Prince Fion in my book King Abba. Fion starts from the problem in his mind, inspired by looking around him at the vast palace library, that, although we speak of "knowledge", we have no real idea of what it is or where it comes from. Surely it must have existed somewhere before it arrived in all these volumes, he says to himself.

 This is the starting point for a hugely important journey, one that beckons to all of us.


CJM, December 10, 2012

King Abba around the world

 Henri Bortoft's review of King Abba has been posted on a Facebook page dedicated to Bortoft enthusiasts by Simon Robinson, who is a consultant and lecturer in chaos and complexity theory, innovation, creativity and sustainability. He is a member of BCI (Biomimicry for Creative Innovation) and lives in São Paulo, Brazil. He is also editor of the web page http://transitionconsciousness.wordpress.com/about 

For the post of the review, see:

www.facebook.com/HenriBortoft

 Bortoft's ideas, his exposition of phenomenology and hermeneutics, and his interest in Goethe, were all fertile ground for my approach to the writing of King Abba. In particular, I was interested in creative ways of perception, the struggle against ossified mindset, and a direct path to knowledge through experiential and sensory involvement in what we observe. My original interest in this, of course, came from writing poetry which I see as a pure form of experience rendered beautiful. The haikus which accompany this blog, which I have called Homage to Water, all arise from this aesthetic principle. King Abba's aim is to help young people arrive at their own realisation that much of what they learn and inherit as knowledge has to be relearned through their own soul experience.

More on this to come.

 CJM, December 9, 2012

King Abba:a review by Henri Bortoft

I have read "King Abba" with much enjoyment. I think it is beautifully written, and therefore a joy to read, but also it kept me wanting to know what was going to happen next. ... It gradually begins to dawn on the reader just what a difference there is between the artificial environment which is ultimately a product of intellectual reason - but is mistaken for reality - and the genuine reality of the living world that we encounter through the life of the senses, and we cannot help but see this reflected in the way we are living/not living today. For this reason alone, apart from its sheer enjoyment value, I think it would be very good if this work were to be published today. So when can I have the next volume please?

Henri Bortoft author of The Wholeness of Nature and Taking Appearance Seriously (Floris Books).

Details of King Abba can be found here.

King Abba has arrived!

I have been very fortunate in my years as editor to work with exceptional and bright people dedicated to refashioning ideas in science and philosophy. We are going through a time of enormous change in our western culture, and the old paradigms no longer stand the test of time. Many of our accepted practices and beliefs have brought us, and our planet, to a place of extreme vulnerability and dire ugliness. Tragically, we have mostly been unaware of the damage we have been causing, and those voices that called for change were mostly ignored. Governments and institutions that should have been protectors of society and landscape, have played into the hands of commerce and short term profiteering.

Against this background, I wrote King Abba, a philosophical fantasy for young people, equally for any thoughtful person unhappy with current values and practices in science, technology, economics and government. My aim was to open up questions which are not often asked in our educational system, and introduce doubts and queries where we take so much for granted as if there were no other way of seeing things. As so much of what we accept is actually absurd, there is a comic element in the book, too. It can be seen as a satire of our times and our present society. The book is written as an adventure story, but stops now and then (more than conventional publishers would like) to ask questions.

King Abba is now published as an e-book, and details can be found here.

Captureland: a novel

The images in the holiday brochure are irresistible: sun and sand of tropical beaches bordered by palms, washed by translucent seas, where lovers amble hand in hand along the edge of the water. What could be more blissful? Where do I sign up?

 When you arrive, of course, you'll find that the deserted beach has serial hotels hogging the shoreline, while busloads of star-struck lovers arrive and leave daily as the great wheels of the tourist industry churn without end.

There will be a hidden world, too, mostly unseen by the visitor, in the the surrounding towns, villages and countryside. This wider local population remains out of sight, especially in the hotel formula known as “all-inclusive” (which should really be termed “all-exclusive”), the average visitor getting only a fleeting glimpse, on arrival and departure, from the windows of the airport bus. They may take note, briefly, of townships, ghettos, shanty-towns, the ramshackle effects of poverty, dust and dirt, run-down vehicles, and neglected infrastructure.

 Maybe, too, they’ll catch sight of areas of fine villas with enclosed gardens displaying high-profile security protection. Some of this extreme contrast may remind them of the troubling and chilling depiction of Rodrigo Plá’s excellent film La Zona (Mexico, 2007), where slum and rich condominium sit side by side.

            But the bus will soon pull in past the gate-keepers and into the walled paradise of the beach hotel. During the visitor’s stay, those “other people” of the parallel world of the slums and townships will remain visible only in the form of the myriad waiters, bartenders, cleaners, cooks, laundry servants, and so on, who silently keep the great ship of leisure steaming along.

Then, after the holiday in paradise, the visitor will return home via the same rapid bus journey to the airport, none the wiser about the greater landscape of the country they have blessed with their foreign currency.

            What of the impact of such tourism on all those workers, and on their lives? What of the impact on their families and communities, back in the ghetto homes where they live, and where they return at night? What of the impact on local agriculture and resources, traditionally based on providing for local needs, and unequipped to deal with the vast daily appetites of the thousands upon thousands of invading hotel guests?

            Captureland, my novel written for young people, but equally for any inquiring person, takes a look at this other unexplored world beyond the hotel gates, with its shanty-town communities built on land seized by squatters (hence “capture land”).

In the story, based on true events, a young white boy comes to work in a Caribbean beach hotel but soon finds himself allied with a group of black friends in their daily fight for survival amidst poverty, injustice and violence. We see the parallel world now through his eyes, as he shares the joys and hardships of his breddren, born and raised in the ghetto but with an irrepressible spirit and zest for life.

I wrote most of this book on site, in the Caribbean, where after a whole lifetime of travelling without incident, I was mugged within twenty-four hours of my arrival. The telling of the story, then, has a certain edge to it – which doesn’t take away from my exploration, and admiration, of the deeper customs and values of traditional communities faced with the ruthless and insatiable demands of the modern consumer world, otherwise known as "Babylon".

The book will in due course be available through Amazon, but there is an opening 25% discount until January 31, 2012, on all orders from Lulu (see link above and order using code LULUBOOKUK305). An e-book version is also available from the same site, and eventually Kindle, etc.

CJM