Barriers and traps erected in the mind are more pernicious  than brick walls.Torn from his parents' fairy-garden by the Blitz, Ben is dragged through childhood horrors, ending up in the New World. It turns out to be more of the same. Sadistic members of a religious order, debilitating family battles, being punched and kicked to near death in the US south, driven into the deep dungeons of his mind by officious school administrators, and then destroyed by his wife, Ben finally buries himself in a decrepit "fixer-upper" on the Sunshine Coast.Out of that misery comes a light that draws him to Crescent Beach: his new-found love and a healing garden.

In his saga of a probable life of Quetzalcoatl of Mexico, Ben Nuttall-Smith gives life to scenes of Vikings, Irish monks, North American early peoples and Toltecs through his painter’s eyes via his much research into local flora and fauna. His action-filled, often lethal encounters with varying dialogues spin from poems to prayers in Latin and other rituals, until the reader’s imagination is fed enough to feel seasick on the Atlantic, or taste strange herbs, or be in awe of feather decorations. Nuttall-Smith is instructive and entertaining. 

Bernice Lever. Prize-winning poet and author

This far-reaching novel eloquently displays the author’s love of history and storytelling. Mad God of the Toltecs rampages from monastic life in the old world to exotic practices on a distant continent. En route the reader is treated to the lifestyles of impoverished Irish monks, marauding Vikings, the first nations in a new world and the early civilizations of what would one day become Central America. Ben Nuttall-Smith has crafted a fascinating tale of enormous scope.

Anthony Dalton. Past National President Canadian Authors Association Author of numerous non-fiction books about the sea and about exploration

Poems and stories.

A person of advanced years will have developed a certain perspective on the events that have brought him or her to that point.

One tends to shred away unimportant things and to dwell on what it was that has moulded one''s character. As such, a senior''s thoughts become the most personal of spaces. It takes, perhaps, reckless courage to expose those distilled memories for others to examine. Only a small number of survivors into elderhood will bother with, or be brave enough to, open up one''s soul in as much of a raw fashion as does Ben in these poems and recollections.

Barriers and traps erected in the mind are more pernicious  than brick walls.Torn from his parents' fairy-garden by the Blitz, Ben is dragged through childhood horrors, ending up in the New World. It turns out to be more of the same. Sadistic members of a religious order, debilitating family battles, being punched and kicked to near death in the US south, driven into the deep dungeons of his mind by officious school administrators, and then destroyed by his wife, Ben finally buries himself in a decrepit "fixer-upper" on the Sunshine Coast.Out of that misery comes a light that draws him to Crescent Beach: his new-found love and a healing garden.

In his saga of a probable life of Quetzalcoatl of Mexico, Ben Nuttall-Smith gives life to scenes of Vikings, Irish monks, North American early peoples and Toltecs through his painter’s eyes via his much research into local flora and fauna. His action-filled, often lethal encounters with varying dialogues spin from poems to prayers in Latin and other rituals, until the reader’s imagination is fed enough to feel seasick on the Atlantic, or taste strange herbs, or be in awe of feather decorations. Nuttall-Smith is instructive and entertaining. 

Bernice Lever. Prize-winning poet and author

This far-reaching novel eloquently displays the author’s love of history and storytelling. Mad God of the Toltecs rampages from monastic life in the old world to exotic practices on a distant continent. En route the reader is treated to the lifestyles of impoverished Irish monks, marauding Vikings, the first nations in a new world and the early civilizations of what would one day become Central America. Ben Nuttall-Smith has crafted a fascinating tale of enormous scope.

Anthony Dalton. Past National President Canadian Authors Association Author of numerous non-fiction books about the sea and about exploration

Poems and stories.

A person of advanced years will have developed a certain perspective on the events that have brought him or her to that point.

One tends to shred away unimportant things and to dwell on what it was that has moulded one''s character. As such, a senior''s thoughts become the most personal of spaces. It takes, perhaps, reckless courage to expose those distilled memories for others to examine. Only a small number of survivors into elderhood will bother with, or be brave enough to, open up one''s soul in as much of a raw fashion as does Ben in these poems and recollections.