Kirjahaku

"Man of the New Millennium" is a book for us: the millions of people who want to see the end of mancruel and the start of mankind and the probably billion or so of us in this world, exasperated and disenchanted by worn-out templates, trying to find new ones. Wrapped in the most gentle of narratives, "Man of the New Millennium" leads us through the maze of history's travesties and today's duplicities to a future with a future, to a future whose potential is our potential, our potential as a species, and that potential special to all of us individually. "Man of the New Millennium" is a search for us in an age of me; it is a text for humanity in fictional dress; it is a book which changes hope from an ill-defined aspiration to a realisable ambition. It is a book of today which guarantees a quality tomorrow. "Man of the New Millenniu" is the third book of the trilogy which also comprises "The Prophet of the New Millennium" and "God of the New Millennium".

Two parents who, in facing death, face life. Perhaps for the first time. Titus, as well as being a father, is a grandfather. He has been kidnapped by his son in Colombia; Roni is a Glaswegian mother whose son, in twenty-four hours, will be executed by lethal injection. They are two novellas which, whilst they could exist separately, also complement each other. They are stories of doom, but not of gloom; stories, certainly of tragedy, but ingrained with both comedy and optimism. Their two principal characters surrender in order to fight on and traverse despair to find hope. They are two unremarkable people who, in finally accepting death, triumph over life, and become thereby remarkable indeed. Certainly, you will cry with Titus and with Roni, but also you will laugh with them. You will despair with them, and clutch at the same straws. Written with Dark's customary elegance, "Titus and Roni" is as mellifluous in its telling as it is compulsive in its tale.

It's the story they didn't want you to hear! Finally Prince Charming talks! In his time, the man was a cross between James Bond and Nelson Mandela. And yet what do we know about him? That his name is Prince Charming and that he fits a mean glass slipper! That's it. For generations Prince Charming has been Dr Watson to the Holmes of Cinderella and maybe even Charles to Diana. He was an amalgam of Jack Kennedy and Tom Sawyer, Spartacus and Jim Hawkins, John Lennon and Mr D'Arcy. Far from being the anodyne and lifeless character of legend, the Prince was a wild and fascinating man, whose often paradoxical character was forged in a youth crammed with intrigue and adventure. And love? Well, yes, there was some love; even (shock, horror!) some other girlfriends before Cinderella. But the romance of "Charming!" is one in the broader sense of the word: a romantic novel set in times considerably less romantic than they have been portrayed. Is there something familiar about those times? Something even contemporary? Well, if the glass slipper fits.

The mid-life crisis becomes the lifetime's crisis. The fling becomes the affair, the affair becomes the love affair. The love affair becomes the murder. Set within the chateaux and vineyards of Southern France, 'Al's Well' is a story of many kinds of love: of sexual passion and emotional desperation; of cravings for romance and danger and fulfilment; of lusts simultaneously for the intimate and the superficial; of proscribed love buttressing married love. At one level, 'Al's Well' is the tale of the adulterous affair between the sassy American, Trove, and the geeky Englishman, Mike. At another, it chronicles the consequent deepening of the relationship of Trove with her sculptor husband, Al. At all levels, 'Al's Well' is love under the microscope - but a microscope of lenses either chortling with laughter or crumpled in tears or both. Gregory Dark already enjoys a reputation for prose of enormous wit, charm and beauty. These qualities are again in abundance in this, his first book of which love is the central theme.

Susie is facing expulsion from her new school. For a theft she didn't commit. Why, she despairs, is life so unfair? To clear her name she resolves to find the real thief. She sneaks out of the house. For which offence she faces further severe punishment, this time at the hands of her parents. Why, she despairs to Mr E, is life so unfair? Mr E is one of her collection of toy frogs, collectively known as the Sufrogs. If Susie really wants to know, he suggests, maybe she should get a bit of distance between herself and the question. The Sufrogs have magi powers - not magic, the 'magi' inside i-magi-nation. Using which they can whoosh Susie anywhere. The clouds are some way away. Maybe far enough to give Susie the perspective she needs. Accompanied by six of her Sufrogs - and a large dollop of scepticism - Susie incants the magi words. - And whooshes through her window.

"The Prophet of the New Millennium" is not chicken soup for the soul. It is penicillin. It is not a head cold we're suffering from today, but galloping consumption. There is a growing understanding that, just as the body is best treated by a holistic approach, so the bodies politic and economic. But there are charlatans galore in the world of contemporary medicine; likewise in the world of complementary life-styles. "The Prophet of the New Millennium" does not provide any answers. It is designed to help readers find their own answers - indeed their own questions. It is designed to help them separate their own truth from fiction, and their own sanity from madness.