Vague Shadows of a Former Self - Volume 1

About the Book

An outlet for the most extraordinary vision of the contemporary world occurs in the seemingly endless commentary the teen-age prophet Sam gives vent to. He inherits the mantle from a certain Dougal. The latter a former colleague of his father, the founder of the infamous Think-Tank has subsequently become a much reformed character. Born again! He is responsible for loosening the boy's tongueconstitutional inability to communicate with anyone except his sister and his mother - and then only to a limited extent. Attempts to read his mind with the latest available techniques had failed. But after Dougal's intervention far from dramatic intervention, irrespective of audience, he will not be silenced. There's no stopping him. One can only note the diffusive nature of his commentary on the world around him and wonder where he gets it all from. Was he riddled with such preoccupations all along but either unable or unwilling to off-load them until his time had come?

The most prolonged example of this occurs when, to outwit a pack of guard-dogs he's literally crawling up the slope of a driveway in order to gain access to the home of a sternly beautiful young girl he'd caught a passing glimpse of earlier in the day. She's been kidnapped - held to ransom by supporters of Hormone City Football Club whose demands are victory over their Hormone United rivals the coming week-end. The pebble dashed surface is revealed to him as a sort of cuneiform record of repercussions in the wake of numerous events past and present, such that his own observations sometimes claim to set the seal on what lies ahead. One thing is certain. He cannot be said to be making it all up.

About the Author

The author was born in Apartheid South Africa but left there for Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) within a few years of leaving school. There he spent a twelve-year period, working in the mining industry, on and off in field exploration, then underground and finally in administration. After that he left for Britain in a move aimed at improving career prospects. When following a given period, nothing came of this, he settled down to writing.