When I was about nine years old a group of local lads threw me into the deepest part of the Marine Lake, a huge man-made pool made by damming off an area of the harbour with a massive concrete breakwater. I had not yet learned to swim. It was sunny. The sky was blue. My mouth was filling up with salty water. I was trying to shout for help while flailing around in water too deep to stand in. It washed over my eyes and blurred my vision. The concrete ledge was covered with broken barnacles that ripped my hands bloody as I tried to pull myself up. The kids who had thrown me in watched me scrabbling away and laughed. They did not realise I was drowning in front of their eyes. Eventually, after what seemed like ages to me, but which could only … [Read more...]
The Serpent Tower
The Serpent Tower is an impregnable fortress built by an ancient, pre-human race, bristling with terrifying, magical weapons, watched over by unsleeping, sorcerous sentinels. It has never fallen to siege. Now it is the lair of the sinister sorcerer Lord Ilmarec who holds Princess Kathea, rightful heir to the throne of Kharadrea in his lustful clutches. In order to save his own life, Rik must penetrate the ancient secrets of the Tower and rescue the Princess from her uncle. And all the while he is pursued by an undead horror born from the vilest necromancy, created with the sole purpose of killing him before he can come into his birthright by a deadly conspiracy that plans to rule the world. Yes, it’s that old, old story, rescuing a … [Read more...]
Weekend Reading
At the weekend I downloaded Tarzan At The Earth's Core onto my Kindle and sat outside in the sun and read it in a few hours. This was a book I loved when I was fifteen. It involves Tarzan joining an expedition to the hollow world at the Earth's core, the dinosaur haunted setting of Burroughs Pellucidar novels to rescue David Innes from the clutches of the Korsars. It's an odd book which features a lot of running around, cliff-hanger endings and prehistoric monsters. It ends abruptly as if Burroughs had reached his contractual word count for the project and just shut the whole thing down. There is no real structure, very little characterisation and the writing is clumsy. And still, I not only finished the book, I enjoyed it, even though I … [Read more...]
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