Ask the Author: Neil Jopson
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Neil Jopson
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Neil Jopson
For summer 2025 I have a very long reading list! But there are three books I want to finish before the Autumn nights start to draw in:
1. 'A Web of Our Own Making: The Nature of Digital Formation' by Anton Barba-Kay. An exploration of the digital revolution and how it is changing our human nature.
2. 'In the Wake of Galleons' by Robert F Marx. Spanish gold, pirates, diving for lost wrecks. Real life adventure from a man whose life reads like that of a Clive Cussler character.
3. 'The Creative Act: A Way of Being' by Rick Rubin. An exploration and guide to the creative act. Inspirational and meditative.
For summer 2025 I have a very long reading list! But there are three books I want to finish before the Autumn nights start to draw in:
1. 'A Web of Our Own Making: The Nature of Digital Formation' by Anton Barba-Kay. An exploration of the digital revolution and how it is changing our human nature.
2. 'In the Wake of Galleons' by Robert F Marx. Spanish gold, pirates, diving for lost wrecks. Real life adventure from a man whose life reads like that of a Clive Cussler character.
3. 'The Creative Act: A Way of Being' by Rick Rubin. An exploration and guide to the creative act. Inspirational and meditative.
Neil Jopson
It took John over an hour to get baby Sarah to sleep. Finally successful he crept downstairs, unaware his four year old stood in the next bedroom, ready to blow his toy trumpet.
Neil Jopson
This answer contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)[
What would the ruins of our civilisation look like? This idea fascinates me. If a catastrophe or series of catastrophes hit our modern society (not zombies or nuclear annihilation), something that caused population collapse and the abandonment of the cities, what would future humans make of the structures we leave behind? This interest is partly due to my love of stories of exploration and discovery of lost cities. The 'Incidents of Travel in Yucatan' by Stephens and Catherwood is a particular favourite of mine. I'm at one with those who find abandoned ruins of long dead societies romantic and entrancing.
In George R Stewart’s 'Earth Abides,' a plague wipes out most of humanity. Some survivors cling on at the edge of a dead San Francisco. By the novel’s end, their descendants have formed a type of primitive tribe and possibly the beginnings of a new civilisation.
Part of the appeal of the story is the description of the decay of the great cities of the United States and the infrastructure built to support them.
If I could travel to this world, it would be at the very end of the novel, after the death of the characters who remember the old ways. Our ways. Like an archaeological anthropologist, I would explore the ruins of the lost civilisation while documenting the tribes wandering amongst them. I would fancy myself as a new Stephens and Catherwood! (hide spoiler)]
What would the ruins of our civilisation look like? This idea fascinates me. If a catastrophe or series of catastrophes hit our modern society (not zombies or nuclear annihilation), something that caused population collapse and the abandonment of the cities, what would future humans make of the structures we leave behind? This interest is partly due to my love of stories of exploration and discovery of lost cities. The 'Incidents of Travel in Yucatan' by Stephens and Catherwood is a particular favourite of mine. I'm at one with those who find abandoned ruins of long dead societies romantic and entrancing.
In George R Stewart’s 'Earth Abides,' a plague wipes out most of humanity. Some survivors cling on at the edge of a dead San Francisco. By the novel’s end, their descendants have formed a type of primitive tribe and possibly the beginnings of a new civilisation.
Part of the appeal of the story is the description of the decay of the great cities of the United States and the infrastructure built to support them.
If I could travel to this world, it would be at the very end of the novel, after the death of the characters who remember the old ways. Our ways. Like an archaeological anthropologist, I would explore the ruins of the lost civilisation while documenting the tribes wandering amongst them. I would fancy myself as a new Stephens and Catherwood! (hide spoiler)]
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