The original ChatGPT “Skin up, f**k off, Dave’s a fat b******d.” These were the piping melodic sounds that greeted us slumbering students as we awoke in the house I once shared with my brother and his budgerigar, Blue. He had, of course, trained the tiny creature to utter inane profanities from dawn to dusk. We …
Author: davidjharrisonauthor
Thriller writer, author of Recursion. Likes existential horror, science and dogs.
The Tiger Who Came to Tea
By Judith Kerr This is the sequel to Life of Pi, although it’s from a different author. Richard Parker’s sailing days are over. He’s now called Ricardo, because he want to come across as more exotic. He’s Sumatran, you know. He is living in London with the other disgraced tigers, in a small flat owned …
The Tiger who Came to Sea
Life of Pi by Yann Martel Truth is fluid, faith is constant, and belief is everything. Imaginative souls are the most resilient. Pi is cast adrift on the ocean with only the untamed tiger Richard Parker for company. There is something deeper here that the author is exploring, something about the balance between instinct and …
The Giant Jam Sandwich.
Story and illustration by John Vernon Lord, verse by Janet Burroway LUNA: This is a wonderful children’s book. I remember, when my humans were small, I read them this and they loved it. It had the capacity to both sooth and entertain. The rhyming is alluring, addictive, and alliterative. The pace is quick, the humour …
The Vengeful Dead by John James Minster
With a dedication to Edgar Allen Poe, The Vengeful Dead knocks politely on the door of classic horror, but once open a fraction, it comes bursting in and wipes its muddy hobnails in places you wish it wouldn’t. You’ll need full sunlight and a stiff drink for this one There are eleven stories in this …
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
Breakfast of Champions is a strange one, but I think that's what makes it so special. It’s about two very different constructs, Kilgore Trout and me, Dwayne Hoover. Trout's a word processor, a science fiction guy, and I'm this business man who's slowly losing my grip on reality. We're from different worlds, but somehow our …
Dead Man’s Walk by Larry McMurtry
"Rangering means you can die any day,” Call pointed out. “If you don’t want to risk it, you ought to quit."McMurtry, Larry. Dead Man's Walk (Lonesome Dove) (p. 207). Pan Macmillan. Kindle Edition. LUNA: The first adventures of Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call are chronicled in Dead Man’s Walk. I say adventures, but really these …
Trigger Warning: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
THE FIRST DIFFERENCE Newt noticed about being grown up was that time didn’t pass as slow. McMurtry, Larry. Lonesome Dove (p. 113). Pan Macmillan. Kindle Edition. KURT: I can’t decide wether this novel is a psychological study of epic proportions, or an epic story of psychological detail. Perhaps it doesn’t matter, so I’ll simply say …
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Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt
“When a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment …
Beware of Darkness
At my grandmother’s funeral, my father’s eulogy spoke about her love and kindness, and how she showed it by heaping upon him ladles after ladles of food. Now that my father himself is slipping away, I realise that it’s the same with him, only his ladles are books and stories. Each of his published works …
David J Harrison 