Wednesday 23 April 2008

Earliest Novel

Relic of a fiery idealism

What it lacks in the novelist's craft it surely makes up for in terms of its youthful enthusiasm and idealism, but URANIUM FIST was my first attempt at writing a novel.

I trust my worth and work as a writer won't be judged on the basis of this work, I have moved on and developed in the craft since then, but even at the risk of casting aspersions on my capabilities, I chose to self-publish the novel as a free PDF back in 2006.

Publish and be damned, it was, in part, another a kind of -- potentially -- perverse pride in my work. For all its faults, I remain intensely proud of this work. It was after all my first piece of long fiction writing. So, I decided to make it available, as a historic example of my earliest writing efforts, and, perhaps, something of a literary curio.

The novel is unashamedly left-wing and political. In that, it reflected the political leanings and zeal of my youth, and something of the studies I was undertaking at university (where I wrote it). I was also consciously attempting to mimic some of the early 20th century writings on the Russian Revolution, attempting to capture the tone (simplistic, rather black and white, and tending towards the heroic or villainous in its archetypes). Even though it was something of a science fiction (space operatic?) tale, set on a distant Earth colony, I wanted it to have a certain retro feel. And so that's what I did.

At times, the political simplicity makes me cringe, as does my execution of the narrative, but I remain proud of it as my first attempt. We all have to start somewhere -- and I can think of worse places.

Uranium Fist is available to download free from Many Books, where it is offered in a wide variety of ebook formats.

Category: URANIUM FIST