Tuesday, December 9th
Today's surprise is...
NO UP a novel by Jez Kemp!
Regular readers of Noisy may associate Jez with the excellent (and much missed) Chelmsford band F451, but since then he's been busy completing not one, but two novels and offering them for free download on the net!
The latest of which is the marvellous No Up , a futuristic tale of adventure where Internet-style communication is inescapable, body-swapping a reality and talking animals are encountered on a daily basis - it's well worth reading.
Jez's debut novel Devolution can also be found online, here's what we said about it in issue 7 of Noisy:
'Devolution' - Jez Kemp
It must be nice to be this talented. Not content with tearing it up with Chelmsford's finest punk band F451 until they split earlier this year, and now fronting a solo project, it seems that vocalist/guitarist Jez Kemp is also pretty handy with a pen and paper, or rather Microsoft word and a keyboard, such is the way in these modern times. It's certainly modernity that's the key to his first novel 'Devolution', described as a political thriller which sees chaos unfolding when electricity is cut-off in a far-off futuristic society. This startlingly good read initially owes a heavy debt to the abstractness of cyberspace novelist William Gibson, but just when you're itching for some good ol' fashioned excitement things go up a gear and the final few chapters match the high energy twists and turns of Neal Stephenson's early science fiction writing, and those of us who prefer our sci-fi gooey, gory and as alien-infested as a 1980's Arnie flick, will be pleased to know there's some monsters thrown in for good measure. In case you hadn't guessed by all this babble, I'm no literary critic – but go read this, because it's an incredible first effort.
Visit Jezkemp.co.uk to download the novels, or visit lulu.com to order a physical copy of No Up (as seen in the picture above).