Ian Macpherson – författare

Something has happened in Europe. Fearing the approach of to Britain, Terry and Hugh retreat from their home to the remote highlands of Scotland, prepared to live a simple existence together whilst the fighting resolves itself far away. Encouraged by Terry, Hugh begins a journal to note down the highs and lows of this return to nature, and to process their concerns of the oncoming danger. But as the sounds of guns by night grow louder, the grim prospect of encroaching war threatens to invade their cherish isolation and demolish any hope of future peace. Macpherson’s only science fiction novel is a bleak and truly prescient novel of future war first published in 1936, just 3 years before the outbreak of conflict in Europe. A carefully drawn tale of survival in the wilderness and the value of our connection with others, Wild Harbour is both beautiful and heart-rending.

Published by Boydell & Brewer Inc.

As the year 2013 and the fiftieth anniversary of the University of Victoria approaches, Ian MacPherson offers a comprehensive history of one of Canada''s most progressive and visually beautiful campuses. A reflection on the people, history, and legacy of UVic - once known as Victoria College, a satellite of McGill University - Reaching Outward and Upward brings five decades of learning to life. From its beginnings in 1963, serving a mere handful of students in a hastily developed site, UVic has grown to become one of Canada''s leading universities serving over 20,000 students on one of Canada''s most stunning university campuses. Ian MacPherson examines how this transformation took place despite some difficult phases and all the challenges that accompany institutional transitions - the development of new faculties, growing student numbers, struggles over funding, equity issues, and computerisation. He looks at the university''s development during the presidencies of Howard Petch (1975-1990), David Strong (1990-2000), and David Turpin (2000-present), and suggests that new ways of knowing changed established disciplines and created new alliances among students and faculty and led to the creation of the numerous research centres for which Uvic is well-known. A visually rich book, including pictures, quotations, and sidebars, Reaching Outward and Upward is above all a story of the communities - on-campus, off-campus, local, national, international, physical, and electronic - that together form the University of Victoria.

A post-postmodern crime novel set on the clean streets of Dublin’s leafiest suburb, Sloot has at its heart an accidental detective who’d rather write his own Celtic-screwball-noir than solve the crime, and a narrator who loses the plot. Literally. Sound complicated? Not so. Thanks to a revolutionary structure, The Inquisitive Bullet, it’s simplicity itself.Detours include proof that psychoanalysis is the oldest profession, validation of the dictum `For what is comedy but tragedy with loose trousers’, and a brief aside on the possibility of an Irishman having multiple birth mothers. While the plot bullet speeds, inquisitively, towards its target – the final full stop.

"Life is good for reformed standup Hayden McGlynn. He's living in rent-free luxury in London's Kentish Town. His soon-to-be new agent is the hottest in the business. The rights to his autobiographical screenplay, set in his native Dublin, have been snapped up. The future is money. The future is success. The future is Hayden McGlynn.But Hayden has a problem. Screen Hayden is none other than Wolfe Swift, The Greatest Actor Of This Or Any Other Age. And Wolfe Swift, as he prepares for the part, becomes Hayden McGlynn! Is the world ready for two Haydens?He also has a second problem. He's committed one murder and got away with it. He hasn't committed a second murder. What if he gets done for that? Which leads to problem number three. The screenplay is autobiographical. Has Hayden inadvertently grassed himself up?Hewbris, a post-postmodern crime anti-thriller in the same vein as cult classic Sloot, posits five levels of comedy, lands Hayden with six biological mothers, and proves the existence of God through a joke. Which came as a shock to the author."