Blog Archives
EIGHT NOVELS BY MARTIN KNOX
Available from Amazon at the links below, the fiction stories are speculative, optimistic, scientific and uplifting.
THE GRASS IS ALWAYS BROWNER
250 years from now, will neighbours in adjacent countries caste envious eyes on Australia?
Can Australia be united by a central, rational, scientific government under Prime Minister Abajoe? The story has a manifesto to avoid sectarian conflict in secular Australia.
PRESUMED DEAD
In a city governed by a bipartisan duopoly, could self-interest of political parties corrupt politics and cause the disappearance of Jane Kenwood, an iconic woman city councillor?
Can her boyfriend Phillip Keane, a forensic scientist, unravel the political skulduggery?
SHORT OF LOVE
Tom and Vicki meet at university but their affair is delayed by their careers, which involve
unethical corporate trading between Canada and an African country. The story is a satire. It exposes Tom’s corporate capitalism and his attempt to trade his girl friend in a commodity short. How will Vicki respond?
TIME IS GOLD
Maxi, an elite marathon runner, trains following advice given by a physicist, psychologist, neuroscientist and a Zen Buddhist. Her think tank discuss philosophies in endurance performance. Her boyfriend Jack depends on her success for his PhD thesis. When sports promoters try to stop her using a winning training technique, will they succeed?
ANIMAL FARM 2
The story sequels George Orwell’s satire Animal Farm (1945) and updates it to recent times. The pigs’ totalitarian control continues on Caruba, where the Social Republic installs missiles adjacent to the Democratic Union. The animals learn English and climate science in order to contest the closing of their coal mine, their only source of employment. Will the animals overthrow the pigs? Can the animals farm without the pigs?
TURKEYS NOT BEES
Megan is an Australian pole vault champion in training for the 2032 Olympic Games, whose career is halted by nanny state overreach, preventing her from using a new training method. She and her boyfriend Chance are individualists, opposed by collectivists who level competitions to bring success to outsiders and profits to investors. Will Megan and her boyfriend Chance be able to successfully oppose mandatory restrictions in a pandemic with non-violent resistance?
BRISBANE RIVER ANTI-MEMOIR
A fresh look at the floods by Cartesian and then Heideggerian phenomenological analysis, identifies actions river authorities should take to protect homes from flooding and damage. For people whose homes are exposed to risks of all kinds, the author’s prescription, based on Nietzsche’s philosophy, could be enlightening.
THE CAMEL, THE LION AND THE CHILD
A self-determined man’s career is transcendent, trying to end the Cold War and parallels Nietzsche’s story Thus Spake Zarathustra, when his spirit adopts roles of a camel, a lion and finally a child, in this fable of self-realisation.
Links to Amazon bookstores are shown above.
Reviews, excerpts and posts are on my blog martinknox.com
WHO WILL WIN IN PARIS OLYMPICS?
The 2024 Summer Olympics will be held in Paris from 26 July to 11 August. It is too late to commence training now, but existing training programmes can possibly be stepped up and include new techniques, or training can be commenced for 2028 and 2032, or other events.
Time Is Gold is a fiction novel (2020) https://tinyurl.com/4zzkvzcs by Martin Knox, chronicling the career of marathon runner Maxi Fleet.
She learns to run ‘In flow’, a psychological technique by Mihaly, that helps her qualify and compete.
Her training and performance are managed by Jack Cram, a PhD student boyfriend, who coordinates technical advice of experienced runners, scientific experts and a Zen archer. He extends Einstein’s Special Relativity theory for neuroscience, enabling her to perform faster in dilated time. Will she break the World record?
Turkeys Not Bees (2022) https://tinyurl.com/hwn74md2 also by Martin Knox, is the fiction story of Megan McLean, a pole vaulter in training for the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane. She is helped by her boyfriend, Chance Finething, who helps her to use Heidegger’s phenomenology to self-coach and train ‘in flow’. Their new technique is opposed by authorities, who try to hold them back with the herd, when their approach to individual performance sets the bar too high for them. Megan wants competition like turkeys, as individuals, unlike bees whose work and reproduction are controlled by their colony. Will Megan be able to succeed?
The stories relate philosophy and science to training and performance for endurance and field events. The stories narrate the ambitions, fears, discussions and performances of the athletes leading up to the Olympics. The story focusses on the beliefs of elite athletes and how adopting new beliefs depends on accurate scientific advice.
Martin Knox is an engineer and science teacher who writes about individuals who explore novel ideas.
His blog with reviews and posts is at martinknox.com
Books are available on Amazon from the links above.
INDIGENOUS LEADERSHIP OF SECULAR AUSTRALIA
The Grass is Always Browner is an epic speculative fiction novel by Martin Knox.
Australia 250 years in the future has a democratically elected government led by the Yabras, an indigenous dynasty with a gene for sharing.
Abajoe, 21, lives with family members in an empty apartment building in Meanjin, the almost deserted state capital city, evacuated after famine and flooded by rise in sea level. He grows food hydroponically and experiments with hybrid meat animals, half rabbit and half possum, to discover limits to population growth by dynamic modelling under harsh Australian conditions, with grass always browned by drought. His findings influence immigration policy and relations with Bhakaria, a crowded neighbouring sectarian nation, with large population and territorial ambitions. The epic story follows his life and loves as Prime Minister in a culturally divided nation, surviving by insurrection and forging a new future for all the people learning from sectarian conflict in history.
Australia is small in population and needs a unified response to external threats.
Martin Knox lives in Australia and has authored seven novels on various topics. This book has a manifesto for a new Australia under scientific government. It extrapolates recent trends and learns from famous leaders, such as Nelson Mandela.
Book available on Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/yc5mzmm8
For reviews and other writing see author blog: martinknox.com
BRISBANE RIVER TRUTH ALERT
Youtube.com/watch?v=LsS3w5TcnU
Science is not able to predict large scale phenomena like floods with certainty.
In a speech he gave at Harvard on May 26, 2023, the actor Tom Hanks told graduates at their commencement that the nation needed men of iron and women of steel, like them, to be ‘superhumans’, a newly incorporated justice league of avengers, who could rescue TRUTH in the nick of time.
‘Because truth is no longer empirical;
‘Because truth is no longer based on data;
‘Because truth is no longer common decency;
‘Telling the truth is no longer the benchmark for public service. It’s no longer the salve to our fears or the guide to our actions. Truth is now considered malleable, by opinion, by zero-sum end games,’ he explained.
‘Imagery is manufactured with audacity, with purpose to achieve the primal task of marring the truth with mock logic to achieve with fake expertise, with false sincerity.’
. . .
‘Now, literally, you can’t believe your eyes,’ he said. ‘Someone will report the way you wish it, full of alternative facts.
‘Rejigging the rules of the playing field depends on where you are on the money food chain or on the moral spectrum.’
Hanks exhorted the graduates to hold TRUTH sacred, unalterable, chiselled into the stone of the foundation the Republic. He wanted them to volunteer honesty, honour and sincerity to expose truth: ‘If you don’t, who will?’
Australia is without a Bill of Rights and is unable to make a similar call to arms. TRUTH is also under threat in Australia and the need is similar.
My novel Brisbane River Anti-Memoir presents TRUTHS about threats to many Brisbane residents from the river, as perceived by my phenomenological analysis, requiring government responses. A superhero makes appearances calling for TRUTH, JUSTICE AND A BETTER TOMORROW.
The book is available on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/24jad5ku
My blog with reviews of my books is at martinknox.com
