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Biography
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my books
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Devil Wilkes !
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Binscombe
The
Haunted Library
Continuum
Whatever
Next ?
[
Downs Lord Triptych / The Two Confessions / Amy-Faith & the Stronghold]
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Own-trumpet
voluntary
Interview
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Favourite links
Much as I hate to see you go, if you must leave perhaps you would like to
visit some of my favourite people.
The Haunted Library.
See elsewhere on this site for a tribute to Rosemary Pardoe, Chief Librarian at the
Haunted Library.
Ash-Tree Press
Ghost Story Society
Web-sites associated with Christopher and Barbara Roden, an Anglo-Canadian couple
(and friends of mine) who seem to have access to thirty-six hour days wherein to
achieve all the things they do. Collectively, a mighty buttress of the
continuing English Ghost-story tradition.
British
Lawnmower museum
A personal obsession. The quest for the perfect push-mower has proved longer and
more fascinating than many a fantasy series.
CEP. The Campaign
for an English Parliament
Speaks for itself - though, alas, not loudly enough (yet)
CPGB. The Communist Party of
Great Britain
As CAMRA are to beer, so the CPGB (formerly 'The Leninist faction of the CPGB') are to
real, red,
communism - not the reconciled-to-dying-under-capitalism Guardian-reading
polytechnic pinkery of all the other brands. 'Jack Conrad', their leading light,
writes fairly well - and fairly and well, and, if you strictly restrict yourself
to the bubble-universe of the web-site and 'Weekly worker' journal, then for
whole seconds at a time, it almost makes sense. All too soon though, the
elf-spell fades and reality elbows back in. When the CPGB goes (Grim Reaper and
incurable factionalism ?) a major chapter of history will have been closed.
In the absence
of a decent Jacobite site [ * see below ], I recommend a browse within the CPGB site.
[ *
31/08/03 - said site now found. See: http://member.rogers.com/jacobites/
But don't
let that deter you from continuing to visit Uncle Jack Conrad ( or whatever he's
calling himself this week ) and his CPGB chums. [Update - July 2010 - Alas, the
Jacobites has vanished into the hypermist and/or heather, presumably laying in wait for a
dispatch from Bonnie Prince Charlie. Messages have been left for them to
get back in touch ]
See also the
splendid House of Bourbon legitimist site at: http://www.realcasadiborbone.it/uk/presentazione/index.htm
They may not
have replied to my e-mail but I still like them.
Ða Engliscan
Gesithas/'The English Companions'.
'A organisation formed in response to the 1966 public 'celebrations' (!) of the
Norman victory at Hastings. Its aim is:
' to bring together all those with a common
interest in the manifold aspects of the Old English period, its language,
culture and traditions, thus to create a common fund of information and
enthusiasm and to breathe a new life into our native language, literature and
art. To promote a wider interest in, knowledge of and affection for all aspects
of early English culture and tradition.'
Earthlight Publishers
[ Alas, now merely a shining memory }
Juliet
Mckenna
Ben Jeapes
Julia and Ben are two young guns on the British SF and Fantasy scene, and pens
(or keyboards) to watch. Which is not to mention ( save here ) James Stoddard, the
Texan ( but uncannily English in style ) author of 'The High House' and now
'The False House 'and whose website is at http://www.sff.net/people/james-stoddard/JSWebsite/Homex.html
Stoddard has created an admix of
Narnia-meets-Gormenghast only - dare I say it - better !
http://www.tekumel.com/
http://www.itd.umich.edu/~jmsaul/ept.html
[ Defunct as at July 2010 - try http://www.weirdrealm.com/tekumel/
instead ]
Two sites devoted to the life-work of Professor M.A.R. (Muhammad Abd-al-Rahman)
Barker, (to whom I dedicated my third book, To Build Jerusalem), an
American academic and linguist, who has devoted his life to the painstaking
realisation of his fantasy world 'Tekumel' and 'The Empire of the Petal Throne'.
Decades-spanning creativity of high beauty and strangeness which I cannot
recommend too highly. Sheer genius.
British
Fantasy Society
Rosemary Pardoe was a co-founder of this worthy body. A worthy stronghold
against the Null.
'Islam is in fact the last refuge for those conservative western intellectuals
who wish it were true that the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial
Revolution, the French Revolution, in short the 'modern world'. had never come
about. Islam is, indeed, the only remaining mental space in which these events
have not yet happened'. Ibn al-Rawandi'
And from that prelapsarian world comes the
home of Mr and Mrs Bewley ( a convert or 'revert', as he would prefer) to Islam of many
years standing, as well as senior figure in the Norwich Islamic Commune wherein
Richard and Linda Thompson dwelt (for a while). Allah has granted him a
beautiful prose style of almost Orwellian crystal-clarity and passion. There is
also anger there, true, but largely justified anger I feel. From this site and
its essays emanates the spectral perfume of blooms from that English garden
evoked by Gibbon, wherein, thanks to a change in the result of the Battle of
Tours (732 A.D.):
'the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat
into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now
be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a
circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet'
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