ANGUS CACTUS
A comedy giant has awoken, rolled over on his side, adjusted his pillow, and gone back to sleep
THE BOOKS
To Hell or Sligo
ISBN-13-9880770074082
​
There is a thin line between truth and fiction, and you wont find it here. Some stories are not meant to be told.
A comedy of errors in which a quest to find a buried golden treasure pits a Vietnamese fighting monk and his mother up against three disparate sets of paramilitary gunmen, a religious commune of female supremacists, a stoner and his family, a Yorkshire terrier with anger management problems, a hotel in which everything that could go wrong usually does, and a crazy insular town in the west coast of Ireland situated in County Hell.
Some of this is a true story, and some of it is fiction, and each are equally absurd.
Beyond The Pale
ASIN: B00O39BCNS
In a post apocalyptic America, a young outlander is captured and processed as a new citizen of a high walled citadel. Unable to leave, he soon becomes the house-guest of a security officer whose life he saved in the outlands. A passage to freedom can be arranged, but his growing infatuation with the city and for his benefactor’s daughter makes him unwilling to leave. If he stays, he may be faced with compromising his beliefs for a woman he loves.
Then an unfortunate turn of events leads to him becoming an unwelcome guest in a city that appears increasingly dystopian and alien to him. Without any support in this foreign land, he must try to leave whilst evading arrest. Fortunately, there are those on the outside who have not given up looking for him yet.
It is the tale of the interaction of two alternative and conflicting cultures as exemplified through the interactions of two men who try to appreciate each other’s world. They share many joint interests but hold to different values.
Society is at the dawn of a transhumanist transformation that is using technology to master nature. However some outlanders who remain beyond the pale, feel that nature itself is about to change, and will transform everything in its wake.
The Fifth Seed
ISBN-68-3459876038524
​
A young outlander begins a spirit quest, which is not expected to exceed a handful of days. In this coming of age ritual, he must spend time alone in the wilderness and forego food, water, and shelter. He has to learn to place trust in his inner spirit, and intuition, and follow wherever it leads him.
It leads him to New Denver, a somewhat dystopian metropolis that is a showcase for a transhumanist future society. The young truth-seeker expects personal revelation and change. What he encounters instead is an adventure that brings change to all around him. Unfortunately, it also brings danger to the people he loves and threatens the existence of the outlander community that supports him.
A chain of events follows one another in a synchronistic fashion, which introduces intrigue, action, and romance to the story. These events are also the catalyst to a Machiavellian struggle between three major protagonists. One is an emerging sentient artificial Intelligence born out of the surveillance culture. Another is a controlling ancient subterranean race, and then there is the spirit-questor himself. His human physiology is so special that it represents an evolutionary leap forward for humankind. All three, potentially provide a blueprint for the future of humanity.
Set in a future landscape of the American mid-west, this story is as much about a father’s determination to find his son. The Fifth Seed also has some strong female leading characters and is a feel-good inspirational story, as much as it is a thought experiment into a potential future.
This story has a prequel called Beyond the Pale which is set 20 years prior to this one, and includes many of the same characters.
Walking Out
ASIN: B0178J5WYY
​
After the world ended and civilisation quite literally ate itself, life became impossible. But we try not to let that stop us. We remain hidden, we keep ourselves distracted, and that way we stay safe from the horrors that haunt the world outside. For out there is a forty year desolation: a wasteland void of human spirit, but full of hungry, once human mouths. Unfortunately, this is also where all the Spam is.
In order to eat we must leave safety and pick the bones of a bygone era. The golden rule out there is simple: Don’t get eaten. We stay out of sight, and when we can’t do that, we run. But every survivor knows that sometimes the only choice is to fight, and to fight good and hard. That’s what we know. That’s what we are. We are survivors.
Or, at least… I used to be.
It’s funny. When fate sees fit to number your days - when all chance of survival is taken from the survivor - only two things remain. There’s a fighter wondering how far it can get, and there’s a person contemplating how far they could have gone. When it comes to this, there’s really only one thing to do.
Grab your weapons. Collect your thoughts. Say goodbye.
The time has come for walking out.
Little Big Boy
ASIN: B00WRP0J8E
Little Big Boy tells the often harrowing tale of a small boy, struggling to cope in an environment of violence and fear, in 1970’s Dublin. All he wants is to be a big boy, but that comes with a price. At home, he faces an increasingly violent father and at school, he encounters new threats from other boys and more menacingly, from one Christian Brother in particular. In the midst of his turmoil, the one person that stands up for him and keeps him safe is his mother. But a series of seemingly unconnected events, conjure up a storm of epic proportions, with this little boy in its path.
Double Ugly
ASIN: B00LPEPLWW
After fifteen dispiriting years in the force, Detective Burke suffers a catastrophe that causes him to have a heart attack and leads ultimately to a heart transplant.
His police career in ruins, he invests in a restaurant, and by using his surveillance skills he gets honest feedback on the food and the service and elevates the restaurant to be the finest in Dublin.
When he eavesdrops on a party of criminals, he discovers something that connects his recent calamity to the stirrings of his transplanted heart.
As he is launched on the trail of a psychopathic killer, he learns of the killer’s victims, and confirms that he is in fact an urn to one of them.
Only by ridding the world of this murderer can he do the right thing by his heart, and be finally free of his bitter regrets.
Double Ugly by Jim Murray is captivating. It is a very well-written, fast moving crime novel. Jim Murray’s narrative is dense, with many interesting unpredictable twists, and the plot’s intrigue is well constructed. Murray’s writing style makes it a great read for noir fiction fans! Galina Roizman. Portland Book Review.