Showing results by author "John Fraser" in All Categories

Blue Light comprises two novellas by John Fraser: 'Blue Light: After the End' and 'Starting Over'. We may like to imagine we know what the end of the world will be like – and maybe it will not be dissimilar to our own individual ends. 'Blue Light' shows what it’s like, the running down, the onset of rigor mortis, the new life sprouting, notwithstanding. About the author: John Fraser is the author of 18 works of literary and speculative fiction. He has lived in Rome since 1980. Previously he worked in England and Canada. The distinguished poet, novelist and Booker Prize nominee John ...

In 'Runners' John Fraser delivers, in his unique, distinctive voice, the story of a kind of redemption – even a kind of utopia – or as much of a utopia as we can possibly expect, given what we know about most of our political leaders … An unelected leader buys the office of deputy mayor. Although this ‘boss’ is a monster, he also has a rare, enlightened side. Where other leaders cling to power, he runs – but instead of running for office, he runs from office; he and his friends become the Runners – the running dogs. Runners is a contemporary remake of Machiavelli’s Prince ...

The latest work of fiction by John Fraser (‘the most original novelist of our time’, John Fuller, Whitbread Award winner and Booker Prize nominee) consists of two stories about aspiration, and how that is suited to a short reflective life, rather than a long happenstance. ‘O the Poor Horses’ tells of a super-athlete, climber and circus star, Pierre, whose aim is to reach the top of the tent, and then beyond – perfection of the body and its mind. When Pierre tumbles and is crippled, Dora, his assistant and companion, once his facilitator who has become a dead weight, must take on ...

The Other Shore focuses on a critical point in Soviet history. It deals with young Soviet intellectuals, bright but not brilliant, confronting a future threatened with war and stagnation, but still with the impetus of post-Stalinist regeneration. Rather than being a chronicle of the debates between neo-Bolsheviks, Leninists, social and liberal democrats, Trotskyists, Westernisers and traditionalists, it depicts a more modest but more frequently encountered search for commitment, for a meaningful political and social life, in a vast country where light and darkness flicker and alternate ...

A selection of John Fraser’s short stories and poems together with the novella 'Black Masks’. About the author: John Fraser is the author of 18 works of literary and speculative fiction. He has lived in Rome since 1980. Previously he worked in England and Canada. The distinguished poet, novelist and Booker Prize nominee John Fuller has written of Fraser’s fiction: ‘One of the most extraordinary publishing events of the past few years has been the rapid, indeed insistent, appearance of the novels of John Fraser. There are few parallels in literary history to this almost simultaneous ...

In three fables, John Fraser’s The Red Tank presents founding myths and 21st century epics – viewed with a kind of Martian ‘taken-abackness’. In our new globalised world, what happens to the little beings, our species, and their allies among the beasts – do they grow, becoming giant, innocent philosophers, or do they go off to rut and runt in the forest? The human project is once more immense: taming nature, securing peace, creating order. The protagonists are fabulous, easily the equals of ancient gods and heroes. In the first fable, ‘Chinese Whispers’, we try to subdue and ...

The latest tour de force in speculative fiction from John Fraser. The 'Military Roads' of this book, which consists of three tales running consecutively, are, first, the adventures of a narrator following the fortunes of a leader of a revolution in a distant country: second, a journey starting in the 'military road' which in Soviet times and before, ran from Moscow to the Caucasus: and finally, a mission undertaken from Italy, through North Africa, with the aim of recruiting a private army of bodyguards for a global tycoon. The narrator's amorous adventures, and his struggles to survive ...

The theme of the three stories that make up John Fraser’s latest literary tour de force, Animal Tales, is sacrifice. Sacrifice for others, for those close to one, or as a once-religious, generalised act. The context is a nature ‘personalised’ in the form of its animals – animals as the screen on which humans project their aspirations and their failures. In the first tale, the female protagonist suffers a series of disappointments – in her art, her civilisation, and the violation of her body. There remains for her only the self-denial and cleansing of consumption by an animal. In '...

John Fraser’s latest work of fiction follows the refugee Khalil in two related stories, ‘The Refugees’ and ‘Travels with Strangers’. We are all refugees seeking an entry to soCaucasmewhere when we’ve left somewhere else. Our knowledge is a raft that’s carried us on lumpy seas. We can forget all that when we arrive. It doesn’t serve. We don’t, of course, stop being refugees, not ever, but we have a lot of living to do while we’re forgetting where we were before. It’s a commonplace, to say we’re strangers to ourselves – not only when we are alone, but especially when...

John Fraser’s previous work of fiction, 'Hard Places', was a series of novellas concerning physical and moral dilemmas, left unresolved at the expense of the protagonist. This sequel, 'Soft Landing', is the opposite – a novel of quest and adventure, in which scruple is overcome, and demanding or impossible situations have outcomes favourable to the hero. The trail takes us from urban violence to Eldorado, the regime of a bikers’ club, and the secret finds of a prospectors’ camp. The last section shows all puzzles solved, and the protagonists’ return home with gifts. In keeping ...

In John Fraser’s novel The Storm, three policy experts are at a conference, where their principals are swept away by a storm. One of the experts is held for ransom, but is released in time to join the others as they discuss the new, leaderless, dispensation. They try various strategies to achieve power – the ex-Yugoslav, suspected of war crimes, and possible under-age sexual misdemeanours, proposes infiltrating the bureaucracy, but is unsuccessful. The initiative seems to lie with Melinda, the best-connected expert, who is also an adventurous musician. They consider an incursion into ...

Thinking Scientifically is John Fraser's latest wildly original, experimental work of fiction: three stories ('The Opera', 'Round the World', 'The Shaft') centred on one theme: while we can think scientifically, can we be scientifically? We can train as scientists - but that's a job, and when we stop doing it - we're the same chimpanzee types as everybody else. When we think scientifically, what happens to all the other layers, the modalities, systems, of thought and being: the magical, the religious, the hunting and the gathering, the philosophical, the artistic...? The characters in the ...

John Fraser’s latest work of fiction, The Future’s Coming Everywhere, comprises two thematically linked stories. In the first, Candice, echoingboth Voltaire's Candide – a disillusioned idealist and world traveller – and Zadig, the last wise, just king of Babylon – Candice sets out to find power and wisdom. Her reason is dwarfed by a huge powerless electronic brain, functioning without purpose or control. She is compelled by office politics to flee, through the natural park she herself created. Managing to evade pursuit, regaining her autonomy and mobility, she finds the people she...

An Illusion of Sun is the first of John Fraser’s 19 novels (18 published, one forthcoming). ‘I wanted to do a novel that smelled of fascism (I hope not a fascist novel!) –’ Fraser says ‘– the slaughterhouse, the canals, the fruit – every kind of South and Central European fascism, from Franco to Tiso and Dolfuss, its impregnation of other discourses, from “democracy” to “socialism”. It was intended to show how that virus had penetrated the bourgeoisie, its philosophy and its theorists, the ornamental style itself the modesty veil thrown over.’ The novel is located in...

'When people are forced to leave their home, in the new place they're often told to 'behave themselves' or be sent back, to to somewhere else. In jail or equivalent, they – everyone – may be let go early for 'good behaviour'. Behaving well is a condition for staying somewhere – even somewhere you don't want to be – and 'going back' may pose dilemmas even more problematic than behaving badly. You find yourself in a chain of ill-fortunes and tragedies – a nakba, a catastrophe as one aspect of it has been called. What other rules exist, except our efforts at 'behaving well'? But, you...

Two novellas by John Fraser with the common theme of complicity. The Way Back explores the experience of war, of civil war, of flight, rejection, scams and endless voyages. In Elementary Exercises, protagonists who feel they're privileged - as critics, artists, 'free spirits' - engage with authoritarian regimes and contexts, sad relationships conceived as necessary to escape from difficult situations. John Fraser has lived near Rome since 1980. Previously, he worked in England and Canada. Of Fraser's fiction the Whitbread Award winning poet John Fuller has written: 'One of the most ...

The Observatory is a novel about political commitment and liberation. Set in 1968, it reflects the high season of Guevara in Bolivia, and the attempts to insert a revolutionary 'foco' in places where objective conditions are politically ripe, but where the subjective element, and the most rudimentary organisation, are absent. Guerilla intellectuals, loaded with visionary enthusiasm, arrive like space travellers, igniting the revolutionary straw and engaging armies, but too respectful to damage the traditions and culture of those who are to be liberated ... About the author: John Fraser is ...

The Beach consists of two new tales from John Fraser What is a human life worth? If you save someone's, what is it worth to you - and if you seek a reward, how do you get it, whatever it may be? Is that life, perhaps, the only valuable thing there is, that has value only to the person who wins twice - getting their life back, and not having to give a reward? The characters in The Beach seek answers to this question - what is a life? what worth does it have? - travelling through many remote places and civilisations. Memoirs, Memorials examines a devious spy - a spy on the secrets of life. If...

In Down from the Stars, John Fraser's latest speculative novel, an assistant to a distinguished astrophysicist, is tormented by the fate of the Soviet space dog, Laika, incinerated above the earth. Losing the confidence of his master, and losing his girlfriend, he is increasingly drawn into local political life. Having an affinity with the arts, he becomes responsible for the policy of art tourism, which, with organised crime, is the speciality of the place. After many adventures and disasters, and growing complicity with criminality, a new boss forces him and his associates to leave. ...

Happiness needs time - you need to know what the past was like and, even more inscrutable, what the future might entail. Torsten is an agent, travelling with the overbearing Manlio, a fixer, in South America; seeking merchandise for his boss and sponsor, Odette. Trade and capitalism bring little, and nothing that is gratifying. Odette hosts Elise, a beautiful elusive photographer, Torsten's distant delight - but she can be known, it seems, only indirectly, through images. The three travel the world, by balloon. They are cloud-high - too far up to find their goal. Torsten, disappointed, then...