The Mad Max franchise is generally considered the progenitor for the modern post-apocalyptic wasteland genre, focusing on the collapse of society and a nomadic existence, and perhaps very relevant for today. I do not usually comment on film and music here, although both are a big part of my life which have highly influenced my
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Driving home for the festive holiday Fairytale of New York by The Progues came on Radio 1. I noticed memorable lyrics sang by Kirsty MacColl sounded different and learned the BBC had changed the words of the song familiar to me. This revision made me think, is it ever appropriate to change works of literature,
This post contains a little historical swearing. Recently I listened to a podcast in which they discussed swearing in historical fiction. I very rarely swear myself, and seldom use it in my novels, not because of sensibility but rather relevance. Appropriate use of swearing is about fitting in with the society you live in, and
When people learn I am an author of mediæval novels, they often ask why is it called the ‘Dark Ages’. To many academic historians the Dark Ages are a thing of the past, a term no longer used. Some medievalists have even called for use of the term to be discouraged in popular culture, and
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People ask me why North Humberside and not East Yorkshire? Now that is the very odd thing. You see, I was born a Yorkshireman in Humberside, but then shortly after the unitary authority of East Riding ceased to be and I spent my entire childhood with North Humberside (see below), or at least as early
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There is a public house in Hull today called Hull Cheese, formerly the Paragon Hotel, and named after a famous Hull brew. Hull was renowned in 17th century accounts for its peculiar strong ale, termed the mightiest ale in England, which features in my Siege Earth novel, The Traitor Who Wore the King’s Crown. John
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The display of Hull’s excavated historic town walls in the early nineties stimulated the beginnings of The Traitor Who Wore the King’s Crown. A location reputed the ‘birthplace of the English Civil War’, where King Charles I was refused entry to the town in 1642 by a governor who is still reputed a traitor even
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‘Every conspiracy theory steers the public psyche toward imaginary perils, thereby distracting it from genuine threats.’ Umberto Eco. In trying to understand the theory of conspiracy for my novel The Treasures, I first looked toward Umberto Eco. Eco said himself in conversation with Paul Holdengraber (2011) that the conspiracy theory is something invented and does
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