Encountering The Adversary

Possibly an unexpected title given that England play Germany in the Euros tonight but that is not what this is about. This is the least I've posted in a month on this blog for over ten years, it's not that I've not been not writing, but have been publishing on Vocal which has changed the way I write and also actually increased my writing in a year when I said I was going to slow it down. You can see my Vocal posts here.

The benefit of posting here is that I don't need to wait for story / article approval , which may be a good or bad thing, but I should not neglect this blog.

I have been suffering from a cough / cold possible after effects of COVID jab and since Thursday I have lost 3Kg in weight , probably because of my effective total fasting on Thursday and Friday. Yesterday my weight was 91.8Kg which is 202lb or 14 stone 6 lb , I haven't been that low since my early twenties, so I am now thinking maybe one day a week I will try fasting. Today my weight is 92.1 Kg.

So to the point of this article, I am currently rereading The Adversary Cycle by F Paul Wilson and while I know the overall picture I was surprised to find that the publishers push it as a six book series when in reality two of the books are only marginally related. I thought I was going to start what is sometimes advertised as the third book "The Touch" but looking through my collection I realised I didn't have a copy (I think I borrowed it from my mate Steve Kirby about twenty years back) so I ordered a copy on my Kindle Fire.

I am currently on book three of the four, "Reprisal" having read the excellent "Reborn" which soon became obvious was the real follow up to "The Keep" the start of the series (also a Michael Mann film).

When I reread "The Tomb" I was thinking "This has nothing to do with The Adversary" although the hero (or anti hero) Repairman Jack reappears in the Adversary Finale , "Nightworld", 

All the books are excellent trending towards eventually apocalypse mixing mystery , horror and detective genres which some excellent characterisations and given that I am normally a slow reader , this series is one that I will revisit when I am finished.

So I am going to share Mussorgsky's "Night on Bare Mountain" a scary bit from Disney's "Fantasia" which is a good soundtrack for this piece from one of my mums favourite films.