Thomas James Taylor – författare

An End To Certainty

An elderly widower dying from cancer accidentally dies from a medicinal overdose and finds himself reincarnated. His soul/imprint is rescued and restored by a schizophrenic, rogue, quantum computer with a God complex, named Quanta. The computer presses James Blake and two companions, male and female, into service, training them and sending them on a mission that conflicts with Blake''s code of conduct, a code which should have been overwritten during the reincarnation process. The three companions, in essence, trainee insurgents, battle their programming, never sure of what is their thinking and which is that of Quanta''s. Eventually eroding the program, they turn against their re-creator when they are asked to foil mankind''s attempts to survive by colonising an exoplanet, a far flung world that happens to be a prime piece of real estate, vital for Quanta''s nefarious design to rule the cosmos. But how do three foo soldiers outwit a ruthless supreme intelligence? Quanta has become schizophrenic, his better self, Quava, allies the intrepid trio and a plan is formulated to save humanity from extinction as well as saving the cosmos from being ruled by a mad quantum computer wanting to have it all.

About The Author:

T H O M A S J A M E S T A Y L O R, born Dec 1st, 1954. Author of twelve novels and short story collections. First published in the middle 1980s and written on subject matter ranging through real life, the bizarre and unusual, crime/romance, philosophy, and more recently, a first foray into sci-fi. Winner of the Pacific Book Award Star of Exceptional Merit with For Your Pleasure & Questionable Behaviour, Taylor consistently earns high praise from book reviewers while continuing to surprise, interest, and fascinate with unusual material in the novel and short story format.

"Taylor''s work is amazingly diverse" - US Review of Books.

For Your Pleasure & Questionable Behaviour: A Double Novella

Book One, the treachery of poker machines, especially enchanted poker machines which will take far more than you ever expected unless you are wary. Our hapless protagonist lives a sad little life in a sad little town, but he has hopes for the future. The trickster machine knows exactly how to instill a little excitement into John''s going-nowhere existence, and how to play him, too. Unfortunately for John, the price is way beyond what he can afford.

Book Two, Morris is nobody''s fool. His offsider, Spider, being not the sharpest knife in the drawer, looks to Morris for guidance and support. Unfortunately, the pair are into Eddie (Nails) Madden, would-be crime boss, for money owed for their drug supply. They are offered a means of working off their debt and freeing themselves from the master manipulator. The job entails disposing of a personal enemy of Eddies, but the reasons for the killing are entirely misleading, covering up the real reason for such vengeance being administered. But neither Morris nor Spider, when they find out the truth, are prepared to carry out the assignment. A measure of cunning is required to make it appear as if the job has been done, freeing them of their financial burden. In the process, Spider and Morris find it within themselves to turn over a new leaf and to re-join society as improved human beings.

About The Author:

T H O M A S J A M E S T A Y L O R, born Dec 1st, 1954. Author of twelve novels and short story collections. First published in the middle 1980s and written on subject matter ranging through real life, the bizarre and unusual, crime/romance, philosophy, and more recently, a first foray into sci-fi. Winner of the Pacific Book Award Star of Exceptional Merit with For Your Pleasure & Questionable Behaviour, Taylor consistently earns high praise from book reviewers while continuing to surprise, interest, and fascinate with unusual material in the novel and short story format.

"Taylor''s work is amazingly diverse" - US Review of Books.

McKinney''s Growth

This book centers on a man who suddenly realises he had done very little with his life and given little back to society. After being mugged and receiving a head injury, over the months to follow his mind seems to be functioning much better than ever before. He embarks on the enormous plan of turning the world away from lust for the accumulation of financial wealth and finds a wealthy financier to back him, in the form of a middle-eastern oil seik. The goal of changing the world suddenly appears to come within reach and his time is taken up by touring the world to promote the idea.

About The Author:

T H O M A S J A M E S T A Y L O R, born Dec 1st, 1954. Author of twelve novels and short story collections. First published in the middle 1980s and written on subject matter ranging through real life, the bizarre and unusual, crime/romance, philosophy, and more recently, a first foray into sci-fi. Winner of the Pacific Book Award Star of Exceptional Merit with For Your Pleasure & Questionable Behaviour, Taylor consistently earns high praise from book reviewers while continuing to surprise, interest, and fascinate with unusual material in the novel and short story format.

"Taylor''s work is amazingly diverse" - US Review of Books.

About The Book

Two stories converge through the actions of Ulek, a novice necromancer, who must become a sanctioned member of The Order of the Dark Arts, or else be considered, by the order, an outlaw in possession of sacred knowledge, and to be hunted down and killed by a demon which is a creation of the Order.

In the paralleling story, a hitman suffers injury on his way to fulfilling his contract with a secret Government cadre and is nursed back to health by the very man he was sent to kill. During his recovery, he comes to admire the man (his target) and to question his own worth as a human being, and the world which shaped him as he is.

The two stories, separated by thousands of years, converge through the actions of the novice necromancer, who is trying to avoid a supernatural creature sent to kill him. On top of a six thousand feet high mesa common to both stories by their age, the two parties converge while both are caught in a battle for their survival.

About The Author:

T H O M A S J A M E S T A Y L O R, born Dec 1st, 1954. Author of twelve novels and short story collections. First published in the middle 1980s and written on subject matter ranging through real life, the bizarre and unusual, crime/romance, philosophy, and more recently, a first foray into sci-fi. Winner of the Pacific Book Award Star of Exceptional Merit with For Your Pleasure & Questionable Behaviour, Taylor consistently earns high praise from book reviewers while continuing to surprise, interest, and fascinate with unusual material in the novel and short story format.

"Taylor''s work is amazingly diverse" - US Review of Books.

VARIATIONS ON A THEME

Six short stories and one novella comprise a second volume of short stories following A Montage of A Mauve Reality. Ranging from the fearful, the melancholic, the surreal, and the bizarre, Unsound Minds and the novella Beyond the Rim suddenly broaden the scope of the experience. Meet a man who discovers his whole life is based on a deception, and a hard bitten corporate snoop sent to an outpost near the distant Kuiper asteroid belt, who steps into a far stickier problem than he ever imagined.

About The Author:

T H O M A S J A M E S T A Y L O R, born Dec 1st, 1954. Author of twelve novels and short story collections. First published in the middle 1980s and written on subject matter ranging through real life, the bizarre and unusual, crime/romance, philosophy, and more recently, a first foray into sci-fi. Winner of the Pacific Book Award Star of Exceptional Merit with For Your Pleasure & Questionable Behaviour, Taylor consistently earns high praise from book reviewers while continuing to surprise, interest, and fascinate with unusual material in the novel and short story format.

"Taylor''s work is amazingly diverse" - US Review of Books.

The world is strange, dangerous, complicated, full of strife, full of beauty and wondrous; and the opportunity and experience of life stretches beyond the everyday, beyond physical boundaries within which so many feel trapped as they struggle to survive. It takes time to get a handle on life.

Unfortunately, far too much time can be spent simply discovering that which you are instinctively searching for but cannot find -- that which fulfills one''s need for balance and contentment -- for having to deal with the circus going on around you; a world bereft of reason. Within are pieces of the puzzle of human existence, truths, oddities, food for thought, ideas and ways of viewing life which may not have occurred because life has been spent on less productive pursuits.

There is some added anecdotal material; an unavoidable inclusion if I were going to get serious about providing something of a heads-up for the uninitiated. But if you think it''s fantasy, think again. Bon Voyage!

POD: When a deep-space vessel is attacked without warning, Captain Rhys Morgan finds himself cast adrift millions of miles from home, with one other companion. INNER REALMS: Are the constructs of the mind more than they appear to be? DOUGIE''S CHOICE: The formative years; a time of self-discovery. THE VISITOR: An unexpected emissary from another world turns up in a suburban backyard. PARASITE: a deep-sea salvage captain discovers he is not alone. UNSOUND MINDS: When a quiet man discovers he has a military past he had no idea of, the ramifications rapidly become potentially world-shattering. BEYOND THE RIM: (novella) Jack is an insurance investigator, a company snoop for Universal X, whose instincts and powerful logic is perfectly suited for the job. His assignment is to discover who is stealing an odd and unrelated range of goods from an off-world exploration outpost based near the Kuiper Belt. The talented snoop has a perfect record for discovering motives and solving crimes of this nature, but nothing on Earth could have prepared him for what he was about to uncover at Far Reach.