The Rabbit Hole

Wunderbar early feedback to the upcoming novel, from the great, super-cool reviewer Elizabeth A. White (ta, mate!!):

"When Andrez Bergen burst onto the scene in 2011 with Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat, one of the most wonderfully creative and unique books I’ve had the pleasure to read, I wondered how he could ever possibly top it. 

"Well hold on, ladies and gentlemen, because with One Hundred Years of Vicissitude Bergen is once again taking readers on a wildly enchanting journey down the rabbit hole to an ethereal world rich with Japanese and pop culture, one which seamlessly melds history and the hereafter. Prepare to have your mind opened… then blown."


Check out Elizabeth's site here - well worth bookmarking for her taste in literature (and I'm not talking up mine!):
http://www.elizabethawhite.com/tag/one-hundred-years-of-vicissitude/

Eight Isn't Enough

Last weekend — after nearly driving myself to madness — I finished off my second novel (as I crowed about in undignified fashion below!) and on Tuesday, signed it to a new, rather cool publisher called Perfect Edge Books.

Yep, it goes without saying that I’m still over-the-moon at the present time, if somewhat exhausted, and to celebrate I quaffed a little saké.

Just a smidgeon, I promise.

Which brings me in a celebratory mood to this month’s Flash in Japan over @ Forces of Geek, and thereby to one of my favourite Japanese myths - which also revolves around saké, as all the good ones do.

I actually did the research on this subject a few years back, for an article on nihonshu (saké) in the pages of the late, lamented magazine Geek Monthly.

That was how I stumbled upon the tale of a monster with a taste for the hard stuff, especially rice wine.

In my new novel, One Hundred Years of Vicissitude, I decided to nick some bits of my old research and stick them into the story, albeit padded out with dialogue, and (hopefully) a bit more fun.

The monster myth was one of them.

So, let’s jump straight into the unedited, raw manuscript I just finished - there might be a typo or two at this stage.

Just click HERE to go to Forces Of Geek.

One Hundred Years of Vicissitude

OK, I'm relatively over the moon, and a few kilometres beyond that. Last Sunday morning, at 7:09am precisely (I'm going by the time-tag on the email I sent), I finished off my second novel.

It's titled One Hundred Years of Vicissitude, and this time the focus is... JAPAN.

Strange, that, since I've lived here eleven years.

Here's the current promo-teaser we're using:

Narrated by a man we suspect to be dead, One Hundred Years of Vicissitude tells the story of identical twin geisha born on the first day of the Great Depression - and one of whom harbours an Iago complex toward the other. Thrown into the resulting concoction are zeppelins, A-bombs, 1940s Tokyo, 1970s Melbourne, King Arthur, Red Riding Hood, saké, and comic books.

I'll mention more here as things unravel, but in the meantime I'm heavily smitten with Damian Stephens' mock-up artwork - see picture.