Authors Electric

I love secret histories - the sort of history that doesn't get taught in schools. About ten years ago, following a divorce and house move, I began writing a rather strange spiritual/historical novel based on a 13th-century Mongolian prose poem called  The Secret History of the Mongols . Subtitled 'The Origin of Chingis Khan', this is a fantastic account of the young Genghis Khan, his childhood sweetheart Borta, and his blood brother Jamukha. It ends when the great Khan, who throughout the story is known by his boyhood name of Temujin, takes the title 'Genghis' and becomes Khan of all "the people who live in felt tents" (in other words, yurts - or, to give them their proper Mongolian name, gers ). This makes it ideal YA material, since the characters are of the right age and most of Genghis Khan's bloodbaths and empire building are still in the future. A couple of YA publishers and agents looked at the result, suggested various changes to make it m...

I’ve just finished reading Twilight and its sequels New Moon and Eclipse . For the first time. If you haven’t heard of Twilight , you’re probably that person who got left behind on Mars when the tour bus left. You’d have to have been on another planet to miss the uprising of the vampires in fiction, television, film and just about every other media outlet. Vampires aren’t new – Bram Stoker created Dracula (it’s free on kindle) and even then it’s alleged that his vampire was based on Eastern European mythology – don’t shoot me: I’ve done no research for this blog post. But Dracula was dark, the spin-off films were dark (think all the old Christopher Lee films and the more modern Van Helsing ) and this breed of vampire is a dangerous beast. Then came Stephen King with Salems Lot (James Mason has the sexiest voice in the film version), Anne Rice and her Interview With The Vampire (the film version lost credibility for me - Tom Cruise? Really?) and the occasional other vampire...