Showing results by narrator "David Laurel" in All Categories

ist eine satirische Fantasy-Erzählung, die mit ironischem Humor, schrägen Metaebenen und einer trocken-lakonischen Erzählerstimme das Genre einmal gründlich durch den Kakao zieht. Ein Hörbuch für alle, die Fantasy lieben – aber nicht davor zurückschrecken, darüber zu lachen.

Whilst Europe endured the Dark Ages in the 6th & 7th Centuries, devotees of Shiva and Vishnu in Southern India were creating the Bhakti Movement. Some of these exponents, as in our volume, were bestowed with the title of saint but some had the additional title of sant, swami or goswami. Broadly speaking, Bhakti poetry, as in Hinduism itself, is divided into ‘Nirguna’, the idea that the divine is formless as exampled by Kabir and ‘Saguna’, which interprets the divine as having physical form as captured by Mirabai.

In this volume whatever the odds stacked against our characters one thing is certain; they will prevail, and life will be good. But the journey is filled with complications and trials that only an author would dare put into words.

Mental illness though can still carry a stigma. A case of ‘you’re not trying hard enough’, ‘or knuckling down and getting on with it’. But in more recent decades mental issues have come to be recognised as an illness, a disease rather than an affliction. We all remember horror stories of lobotomy’s and electric shock being used to ‘cure’ what society viewed as anti-social behaviour but illness, mental or physical is very real. Depression, schizophrenia, breakdown, psychosis are alarming events to have or to witness.

In this collection of short stories some of our most popular and well-known authors are grouped together with an unfortunate tag: dead at 44. These authors are not run-of-the-mill or ten a penny; they are literary leviathans who left enduring works of literature and sadly may have left us many more had they lived. We will never know.