Category Archives: Martin Knox
WHY I WROTE SEVEN NOVELS
TURKEYS NOT BEES
I wrote this during the pandemic, because I was concerned about government overreach, within a spectacle of profit and votes from health, sport, food, employment and education. My purpose was to expose the bullying and racketeering.
ANIMAL FARM 2
I have updated Orwell’s 1945 political satire, with a sequel in which descendents of the farm animals suffer more totalitarianism, as the World reverberates from events controlled by Russia and the superpowers. My purpose was to reveal bullying and science fakery.
TIME IS GOLD
I wanted to celebrate human success using science, at the frontiers of athletic endurance, with the story of a marathon runner who in the future is able to use Einstein’s Special Relativity in her neural performances and break the World record.
SHORT OF LOVE
The story was conceived as a satirical love story which riffs on the usual conventions of commitment and monogamy, against his career as a high-powered executive, when her activism converges on the same ethical space. It is partly autobiographical.
PRESUMED DEAD
I wanted to celebrate the honesty of most public servants. An iconic politician confronts a self-seeking government and she mysteriously disappears. A novel transparent forensic investigation strategy is used to find her, exposing and arraigning the culprits.
THE GRASS IS ALWAYS BROWNER
This is speculative fiction, curious about Australia 250 years in the future, during dark times when the outlook for the people seems compromised by exigencies of population growth, energy supply, world trade, climate change, immigration, religion and political conflict. The epic story tells how indigenous national leaders deal with these creatively.
BRISBANE RIVER ANTI-MEMOIR
Coming. I investigate effectiveness of management river flooding.
Available from Amazon. Excerpts and reviews at martinknox.com
SIX NOVEL IDEAS
Below is a brief description of each of my 6 titles available on Amazon.
Turkeys Not Bees
Two young people oppose a nanny state takeover of sport and health.
Animal Farm 2
Orwell’s satire (1945) continues into modern times, with the farm under totalitarian control by pigs and threatened by superpower climate change alarm.
Time is Gold
A runner trains to run in flow and dilating time as predicted by Einstein, confounding her critics.
Short of Love
An engineer grows impatient with an undecided girlfriend and tries to delay closure with a commodity trade, until they will be better matched, with unexpected and satirical consequences.
Presumed Dead
A feisty woman politician holds the balance of power in a hung parliament. When she disappears, her partner leads a forensic reconstruction to find her.
The Grass is Always Browner
250 years in the future, Abajoe is the indigenous Prime Minister of Australia, with a gene for sharing with neighbours. He resolves religious conflict, eases immigration tension and brings peace to a nation transformed in many ways.
Reviews and excerpts are at: martinknox.com
SIX NOVELS TO DINE OUT ON
TURKEY NOT BEES (2022) is the story of Megan who self-coaches, with the help of her boyfriend Chance, using Heidegger’s phenomenalism. Will they be able to passively resist De Bord’s spectacle, appearing as a takeover by the nanny state of health, sport, employment and individual performances?
ANIMAL FARM 2 (2021) is a satirical fiction sequel to George Orwell’s totalitarian expose’ of fascist totalitarianism. The story updates the pigs’ control of the farm animals, from the Cold War, during perestroika and in superpower climate manoeuvring. Will the pigs retain control?
TIME IS GOLD (2020) is the story of how Maxi will run in the 2032 Olympic marathon coached by her boyfriend Jack, a physics researcher who trains her to dilate time using Einstein’s Special relativity theory, in a psychological condition called flow. Will they succeed?
SHORT OF LOVE (2019) is a satirical fiction story of how when Vicki plays hard to get, Tom commodifies their love and arranges to delay closure with her until later when he will have more time for her. Will their unconventional relationship succeed?
PRESUMED DEAD (2018) is a crime fiction story in which Jane, a woman councillor, disappears from a hung parliament in which she is a lone independent with a decisive vote. Her councillor boyfriend Phillip conducts an unconventional forensic reconstruction, by a think tank which explores the roots of corruption. Will they find her and will she be alive?
THE GRASS IS ALWAYS BROWNER (2011) is speculative fiction about Australian society 250 years in the future, when the nation is a republic and indigenous Abajoe is Prime Minister. The population of Meannjin (Brisbane) has dispersed following famine, flooding and a religious civil war. Abajoe strives for national stability and trade with neighbouring Bhakaria. Will traditional Australian culture survive?
Available on Amazon. Reviews: martinknox.com
FROM INDIVIDUALISM TO COLLECTIVISM AND BACK
This novel story of Chance’s personal journey commences in his 20s, when he suffers within the corporate morass of a job where competition is constrained by wokeism. Failing to conform, he quits the capitalist treadmill and goes back to university for a PhD to investigate risk-taking behaviour. He meets Megan, a champion athlete, who is researching motivation in employment-seekers.
Together they become absorbed in Heidegger’s phenomenology, which enables Megan to self-coach to success with elite performances. But the ‘Spectacle’, described by Debord (1967) takes control in many fields, including sport, with competition transformed into profit-making and to gain political control by the nanny state. Chance and Megan resist, opposing mandatory vaccination during the Covid pandemic and ending with non-violent civil disobedience. Their examples advertise individualism based on the thinking of some famous philosophers.
The novel Turkeys Not Bees is available on Amazon. Reviews are at martinknox.com
