The recent release of my first fiction book (Survival of the fittest: Metamorphosis) has made me really proud. Transferring nonfiction skills to the world of fiction is tough. It looks like I have succeeded, as according to the first three reviews in for the book. The book mixes philosophy with the dystopian deconstruction of society. You’ll love it. Go on, please…? Thanks to those who have already bought a copy.
I have also just done an interview with the Naked Diner podcast, details below.
The reviews for the book are as follows:
5.0 out of 5 starsBy John Kingston on 19 May 2016
I guess because it enables him to explore how ordinary people react to extraordinary circumstances, and thus to better explore their humanity. He takes a large variety of unrelated people, from a wide variety of backgrounds and lets us get to know them as people in a normal context before in each case seeing how they deal with what for some is a gradual unfolding of the crisis, for others, who for one reason or another have been insulated from its early stages, is a more sudden overturning of their worlds.
It is brilliantly done and leaves the reader looking forward to what I hope will be not too long a wait for the next volume in what could be a classic saga. Thoroughly recommended.
5.0 out of 5 starsBy Amazon Customer on 23 May 2016
The intertwining of different characters and their story arcs was particularly ingenious; some characters join forces, while some… well, some don’t!
Not everyone is likeable, and as in life, coincidence and luck plays a far bigger part in survival than any cosmic justice. It’s not that nice guys finish last, but when treating your neighbour as you would want them to treat you can lead to your neighbour attempting to chew off your face, you may need to adjust your moral compass.
Of course, given Johnny’s expertise as a philosopher, several important ethical issues are dealt with admirably: the nuances of personhood, euthanasia, rights and responsibilities.
If you enjoyed Shaun of the Dead and wished they would make some more rational decisions on The Walking Dead then this is the book for you!
The book left me yearning for more. I am very much looking forward to the sequel.
5 out of 5 starsIt’s autumn time here in Brazil, but it still feels like the summer still didn’t end in 2016: an early than predicted threat of a dangerous and deadly flu virus (H1N1 with already several deaths in the State I live), beyond the threat of the now (in)famous Zika virus spreading through the world. It could be now, in dozens , hundreds, thousands of years.. .Who knows?…We are always waiting the possibility of a deadly mutation or a new virus that could be much more devastating than the spanish flu, the plague or Justin Bieber. Change “virus” to an asteroid or another natural or man made cataclysm. Probability says that it’s certain to happen.
The book deals with what would happen to different people in one of these scenarios. How people, now comfortable and fully dependent on technology, will deal with a fast change in their lives, taken abruptly of their comfort zone, as if in a snap of fingers the entire species were moving fastly to a probable extinction. Not to far from what already happened to more than 99% of the species that once inhabited the planet.
Johny’s background in Philosophy can be “felt” in the pages. There’s material for philosophy discussions all over the book, from morals,moral relativism, free-will, the problem of evil, euthanasia, philosophical zombies, conscience and how to deal when/if one grasps the undeniable fact that humans are just chemical robots , just a bit fancier than other primates in terms of brain functions and the arising of conscience compared to “lower” animals. But fortunately for all audiences, Johny does not push any conclusions to the reader (as I already did in this paragraph), but just serves enough good thought material.
For the reader avid for an excellent material in the subject of free-will, I recommend the SUPERB book from Johno MS Pearce, called: Free Will?: An investigation into whether we have free will, or whether I was always going to write this book
And yes, the similarity of the author’s name is not coincidence.
I was recently interviewed on the fab Naked Diner podcast. The interview, as with whenever I talk, goes around the houses and covers a multitude of subjects from zombies to personal identity, US to UK politics, morality to parenting and Santa. Please, please check it out, download it, subscribe to it. At the very least, stream it now!
You can find the Naked Diner on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and YouTube. Check out podcast host Andrew Hall, a fellow Patheos writer on Twitter!, Instagram! and on Pinterest! Jack can be found on twitter here.
Let me know what you think, and discuss some of the ideas here!