Conexion is a Drug. Conexion is a Sci-fi novel – Paperback/Kindle

Posted on by Opher

Conexion is a Drug. Conexion is a Sci-fi novel – Paperback/Kindle

It’s the future. Conexion is a drug that takes you back through your DNA to the lives of your ancestors. The past sure is strange. Then we have aliens. Where do they come in? The past and future meet in this tense tale.

Excerpt – Conexion 

Nova City was the biggest place on the whole of Titan. Ten billion people lived in the honeycombed labyrinths carved into the rock under the protective dome of Titan’s rocky surface.

Despite the hopes of the early pioneers no sign of life had been found in Titan’s underground oceans. Far from the sun, which only appeared as a large star one hundredth the size of Sol as seen from Terra, but with the large globe of Saturn looming over it through the gloom of its hazy atmosphere, Titan had presented many problems for the early settlers – the frigid temperature being just one of the many. But Titan proved fruitful in many other ways and gave up its bounty in ice and minerals which amply supported the cost of its terraforming. Besides, new homes were required for the billions of human offspring. There was little option but to make use of any available rock that could be made habitable. Titan proved a useful tool in the re-homing of the progeny of Homo sapiens prolific fertility.

The trouble was that life was not fair. People were not equal. Life on Ganymede, Europa and Titan lacked many of the luxuries taken for granted elsewhere in the system. Pay was low and conditions were poor. People felt distinctly second class, outcast from the pleasures and artistic hubs of the major planets. It bred dissatisfaction and resentment. Many felt that they were getting the rough end of the stick and that their world’s resources were being bled away to support the lavish lifestyles of the planetary elite. That was why there were moves to break away and declare independence so that they could better their lot and free themselves of the shackles of the federation.

Then there was the social and artistic separation that was felt so acutely. The rich panoply of social and artistic life that was so abundant elsewhere was only focussed on the planets. Very little found its way out to the further regions. That sparsity of culture generated a provincial mentality. People felt abandoned and treated as second-class citizens. It created a sense of bitterness.

Nova City was ripe for Nationalistic terrorism and religious fanaticism.

This was the background that Jesus De Monde encountered, from which he had emerged. He was a truly charismatic figure who rose out of nowhere to address the concerns and fears of the extra-planetary masses who felt both oppressed and discarded. Jesus De Monde was a huge bear of a man with ebony black skin, dreadlocks, a sharp mind and a smiling face with glistening white teeth that seemed to always shine with love and optimism. He brought the people of the outer worlds hope and provided them with a vision of the future that was more promising than anything they had ever imagined before. With Jesus it was not ‘pie in the sky’ but the real possibility of progress and equality right now.

His message was clear – progress could be made without the threats of bombs and hatred, without the need for separation and segregation, without disunity or even the false succour of religion. By unifying the disaffected people and peacefully demanding greater rights they could win a better standard of life to that of their present iniquitous oppression of life while living out in the boondocks of the outer worlds. His passion and charisma made people listen and believe in him.  He made them believe that a better future could be achieved out there on the fringes. He promised them that their grievances could be addressed, and that they, the Moonies, as they described themselves, need no longer be second class citizens. He assured them that they deserved better

As testimony to his personal magnetism and growing power Jesus De Monde had managed to bring together representatives of the various religious and political factions to hold discussions about a way forward. The very fact of managing to get such aggressive and violent groups together under one roof was almost a miracle in itself. The fact that they were actually listening to him and taking his ideas seriously was beyond belief.

For all the oppressed people of the rim it was a giant step in the right direction.

Conexion: Amazon.co.uk: Forsythe, Ron: 9781729561782: Books

Reflections from a ditch Kindle/Paperback

Posted on by Opher

I wrote this novel based on my daily journey through the country roads into work. I imagined my protagonist trapped in a car, upside down in a ditch, slowly dying, drifting in and out of consciousness.

Excerpt – Reflections from a ditch 

The whole damn world is run on exclusive little clubs geared to keeping people down – making outsiders of them. The real power resides in grubby little dives and huge faceless palaces. Quiet thin lipped men in suits look down their nose at you and feed sops from the table. Here nothing is important except power and power can be bought if you have the price and know whom to ask – having the right name and connections help. Behind the overt corridors of power there lurks a dim recess of real power. Narrow eyes watch your every move. The games are played out with winners and losers but the strings are pulled by the faceless power brokers. They use religion. They use drugs. They use politics and they are patient. They sit in dingy leather chairs and think in terms of centuries. Fashions come and go. Life goes on.

Love and intrigue? Nothing matters except the hypocrisy of the meetings behind the scenes. Rich or not those rooms are sealed to all but the necessary. You may even rise to sit at their table, but voice your views, as they smile, tilt their heads and acknowledge your genius, and it slides off them like shit off a window. Jeff and Blackie are meaningless little snotty kids with no value, worth or purpose other that to be manipulated like pawns on a board. Little pageants played out on inconsequential stages, which will not touch the minds of the masters – the fashioners of destiny. Us little zits, pimples on the face of the universe, worthless units to become consumers, their work force, and then die our grovelling little impoverished deaths in the meaningless mediocrity of everyday nowhereism. Suckered with the carrot of possibility – ‘You could become one of us – if you work hard – get lucky – get rich’. Bought with little sops – ‘Find your place in life’  ‘Be happy’  ‘There’s a place for you in Heaven’.

Bullshit.

And we are all, masters included, pimples of inconsequence, self-obsessed simpletons. In the face of a raging eternity, before the cataclysmic silence, we scream and stand our ground with the magic Tantric repetition of the word ‘I’. We are just leaving our mark for eternity, a name for ourselves, our place in history; just changing the world, imposing my views, sharing my perspective.

What I have to say and do is important, worth listening to.

 Listen!!!

Every true story is a work of fiction.

            Nothing matters in eternity. The sun will grow and the Earth will be subsumed. The sun will die. The universe will die. There is no God. Even a life made of air will fade away. Some way off all there will be is darkness and cold lifeless space. Long before that we will all be dead. There will be nothing to leave for eternity to mull – no fossils – no archaeology for future civilisations.

What does it matter if that’s a million years hence or four zillion.

What the fuck does it matter.

Every moment in the whole universe has contributed to this moment. This is true magic.

Reflections from a ditch eBook : Goodwin, Opher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

The young idealistic me – Bodies in a Window

Posted on by Opher

I wanted to capture the naïve innocence of that age in the writing. I wanted the writing to be as juvenile as the person I was. This is me at eighteen in 1967. I was full of it. Somehow I fitted this into the patchwork of the novel. Nothing could go wrong yet here I was standing next to the corpse of my father.

Excerpt – Bodies in a Window

I was on a high. I was eighteen years old and the whole world had opened up for me. It was like waking up from a long sleep. I was seeing so much. I was free to do what I wanted. There was nobody telling me what to do or ordering me about. I was shining with the brilliance of it. I felt like all the forces in the universe were conspiring to come together in some great ecstatic wonder. It all made sense. Every day was new – a great new adventure.

I had just read The Dharma Bums. Finished it last night. It was brilliant. I thought it was even better than On The Road. I reckon it was Kerouac’s masterpiece. I rate Kerouac as the best writer in the world. He was a crazy mad genius. He’d summed it up. Life was a mad journey. You had to live it to the max, get your kicks and seek out the meaning in it. There was an underlying truth to everything. All you had to do was dig it out. It made sense to me. There was a vibration running through the universe that connected us all. There was poetry, music and madness. I knew what I wanted out of life. I also knew what I didn’t want. I didn’t want a boring career like my parents were pushing me towards. I wanted a big dollop of Kerouac’s craziness. That would do me fine.

My parents were all caught up in this mind-numbing, unreal trip. I wanted none of it. I looked at their humdrum life and thought it was all such a waste. It was all empty. I wanted something much more exciting and real. They wanted me to get into some heavy bread trip. Who was interested in that? That was like dying. You only had so much time in this life and I wanted my life full of wonder not working my arse off in some career to earn money to buy things and then being too knackered when you got home to do anything other than watch some vacuous rubbish on the telly. That was like being some boring zombie. I certainly didn’t want to become some boring zombie like all those deadheads on the estate. I wanted a lot more than that. I wanted to live and find out what it was all about – life, love, poetry and madness. I wanted some of that craziness that Kerouac wrote about. I wish I could have lived in the US back in the fifties. I would have loved that. He was a true pioneer. That would have been just great.

But anyway, I’ve found Kerouac – and Ginsberg, and Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan and Roy Harper. There’s no end to it. I’ve finally woken up and come alive. The whole of life is a revelation. It feels like I’ve just woken up.

Not only that but I’ve met this girl and everything is great. I’m on a constant high. It never stops. Life is a buzz. There is a Zen to it. When you got it right it all came together. It is like all the currents in the universe are conspiring – a perfect moment. Marvellous.  It was certainly coming together for me right now.

I felt that I had it sussed. There was a vibe around and I was hooked into it. I could feel it. The music, poetry, beat stuff and now this girl. It was all in some perfect harmony. The world was a wonderful place once you got into the positive groove. I was riding the biggest wave and hooked right into that groove. Everything was coming together. Nothing could go wrong.

Bodies in a Window: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781986269544: Books

The Purpose of life – People, Travel, Writing and Reading.

Posted on by Opher

I left work early so that I could do the stuff I wanted to fit in to my life. Thirty-six years in teaching felt long enough. I loved teaching but running a school was hard work. When you were putting in fourteen-hour days there’s not much time for anything else.

I wanted to see more of my family and friends.

I wanted to write and develop all the ideas that I’d been sketching out. I had thirty-six novels I had roughly written and wanted to complete.

I wanted to travel. The world is an amazing place, full of amazing people, incredible culture, fauna, flora, architecture and geology. Nature and beauty. I wanted to see it all.

I wanted to read. There were hundreds of books that I wanted to savour.

Time and age were the enemies.

Well, I’ve travelled the world from Australia to the Falklands. Seen and touched komodo dragons, cobras and casawaries.

I’ve seen many of the wonders of nature.

I’ve seen some of the greatest works of art, architecture and fashion.

I’ve shared meals and good company with friends and family.

Enjoyed hundreds of memorable gigs, theatre and film.

I’ve read 378 books.

I’ve written 123 books.

That’s a lot to pack into a short fourteen years! There has not been a second wasted.

Surely this is what life is about?

Still going!!

A Shitstorm

Posted on by Opher

A Shitstorm

There’s a shitstorm on the streets

                The poets are all asleep

The world run by a clown

                Keeping their heads down.

The red caps came for Jeff

                But the singers are all deaf

It couldn’t happen here

                To the migrants and the queer

But the victimised

                Are normalised.

They are coming for the migrants

                Women and infants

They are coming for the woke

                Soon the other folk

There’s a shitstorm on the streets

                The poets are all asleep

Opher – 29.1.2025

A madness seems to have taken over. We’ve forgotten about kindness and compassion.  All you need is love. Those were the days.

All you need is hate is the new mantra.

They are coming for the migrants. They are coming for the woke.

They are busy burning books.

They will soon be attacking the queer.

Intolerance  rules.

They’ll be stonings in the square.

They’ll be burnings in the stadia.

Bodies in a window

Posted on by Opher

Bodies in a window

By

Opher Goodwin

Dedication

To Margery Olive Goodwin and Ronald Alfred Goodwin

Introduction

I had the concept for this novel in 1981. It has been festering annoyingly in the back of my mind for decades until I finally found the way of writing it.

Many of the characters in this book are embellishments and adaptations of real people, even myself.  It is the same with the events; they too are based on real situations. But this is a work of fiction.  It has come out of my imagination. Nothing is completely true. The characters I have created are often composites and much of what takes place has been altered – having said that there is a strong element of fact in nearly all of it – particularly the more unlikely parts.

I began writing this in February while on the cruise ship Magellan going up the coast of Australia. I completed the first rough draft in March while cruising around Vietnam.

Opher Goodwin 25.3.2017

Review

A very human moment of painful insight and personal crisis launches this intriguing multi-layered story. Several apparently disparate lives are examined through episodic and frankly-confessional first-person accounts which in their very different ways explore the question of how far we are free and how much we are constrained. How are we connected and what if we could see through the eyes of others? The style is fast-flowing, the language direct and uncluttered. As the old 50s cop show proclaimed: All human life is here! In this case, life and death …

Bodies in a Window: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781986269544: Books

Some have too much

Posted on by Opher

Some have too much

Some have too much

                                                And some none at all.

Some live in mansions

                                                Some under the wall.

Not from hard work

                                                Neither from indolence

Some laze about

                                                No ounce of common sense

Others do the work

                                                Labour all the day

Others do what they like

                                                Every day is play.

Some believe in fairness

                                                Some believe in justice

For others it’s all just self

                                                It’s greed they practice

Some have all the power

                                                Some barely survive

Some are on the way out

                                                Others just arrive.

Opher 22.1.2025

If we had a completely blank page and the ability to organise the world.

Do you think we would create a world like we inherit today?

Would we have countries?

Would we have billionaires and poverty?

Would we put the power in the hands of the wealthy?

If we could design a social system from scratch what would it look like?

Extract from the antinovel: 53 and imploding Kindle/Paperback

Posted on by Opher

I live in a nice house that is three hundred years old. The doorways and ceilings are low because people were smaller back then. Even I have to occasionally duck. It used to be a farm, a pair of two-up two-down cottages, and a shop and now it is my home. The mortgage is completely paid off. I own it. Except in reality I am merely passing through. I will leave it to my wife and then my children. It will be lived in by others after me. It will be altered, decorated, knocked around, improved and no evidence of me will remain. I am passing through.

I love this house. It is warm and cosy. It has room to stretch out. We have invested much time and energy into making it a home. It houses my books, records, CDs and computers. I am comfortable here. There is a sense of history in the walls. They lean and tilt, the floorboards creak, and the ceilings sag. It is happy with the way it has settled into itself and redolent with the memories of unseen people. I have grown into it and lean and sag to the same extent in sympathy.

I am passing through.

53 and imploding eBook : goodwin, opher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Yet more from 53 and imploding Kindle/Paperback

Posted on by Opher

Another little glimpse into the world of this biographical novel – a biography of thoughts, feelings and observation; a snapshot in time.

53 and imploding 

That’s why we had to make rules.

I’m quite in favour of most of the rules. They limit the things that the evil fuckers can do. You see, I use the word evil. We invented that to describe the vicious cruelty of a percentage of humanity. We imagined it as a cosmic battle between good and evil. It is not. It is merely life. It is a fundamental feature of humanity. We enjoy violence, pain and are excited by blood and death. We adore cruelty. Of course, most of us have blotted this out because we have been taught that these things are wrong. Only evil fuckers do these things because they are deranged. We are the good people. We believe in the rules. We do not want to be seen as evil fuckers and we do not even want to see ourselves as evil fuckers. The evil fuckers do these things. They have penetrated the restrictions and given vent to the feelings inside. They enjoy the power of being evil fuckers. They like the fear they engender. They get a buzz out of cruelty.

Bear baiting, cock fighting, dog fighting, bull fighting, gladiatorial fights and stoning to death are all cruel activities carried out by evil fuckers in the past or evil barbaric fuckers in uncivilised countries. Except these evil fuckers are or were considered ordinary people by everyone and themselves. Those cruel displays were eagerly visited by the masses of ordinary people. They sat and ate their equivalent of popcorn and oohed and aahed as the victims got ripped to pieces before their eyes. That’s real. Our civilised revulsion is a thin veneer covering a festering propensity towards violence.

There are no rules.

We make it up as we go.

We probably need the rules because deep down in our genes we are all evil fuckers.

I have to check down into myself to see if I can find the symptoms. I crane my neck at accidents.

53 and imploding eBook : goodwin, opher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

All Right!

Posted on by Opher

All Right!

All right! Alright!

                I’ve been better!

All right! Alright!

                Water’s wetter!

Shazam!

                Magic word!

Sesame!

                Phoenix bird!

All life in a sunset.

All dreams in the night.

All possibility

In the spectrum of twilight.

Opher – 15.12.2014

I always find that an open fire or the glow of a sunset release the mind so that it can wander free. That’s magic.

It opens doors into thoughts and renews the spirit.

Fires and sunsets heal.

Your mind can wander through memories and thoughts, drift effortlessly, at peace.

That glow is magic.