Rast Lives

I've been too involved with life things to get ready for book launches and signings of Rast, now I have the POD copies. Of course, they won't go away ... whereas the window frames that have been neglected for too many years need scraping and painting before winter sets in. Then there are the firewood expeditions to prepare for.

I actually hate the idea of climbing ladders to get to the roof where the last windows are. As much as I hate the idea of heading out to the forest to wield a chainsaw and cut down trees. My left leg has been paining lately and threatening not to be fit enough for such activities. I suspect it's psychosomatic.

I have to admit to being a convert to the ideas that we are all creatures of a mind-body gestalt, as well as a very Buddhist notion that we have created the world we recognise within our minds---and never experience the actual reality at all. Believing is seeing. By most people's understanding, a very topsy turvy world indeed. I guess that's where I get the fantasy writing from.

Rast was intended to be a topsy turvey story. I remembered all the men's adventure magazines of my childhood and youth, where the brave adventurers of modern western nations braved the mysteries and dangers of savage lands to carry forward the flag of empire and civilisation---and then turned it around. Today, the whole world has been turned around and the former movers and shakers of a pliant universe are being moved and shaken by populations that once were ignorant and passive, and by the very world itself---striking back at all the thoughless destruction wrought by those conquering heroes.

Of course, most Westerners do not believe these things are happening (or perhaps are the work of traitors within our midst) because they cannot see what they do not believe. Rast says that the simple and primative might have the better grasp on reality. Take warning all you doubters . . . the magic has alreay rebelled.