The book: Existential Anger – by Ned Alexander
Today I wanted to quickly mention some things about one of my books. I am a writer and I did start this blog partly to publicise them so it seems somewhat remiss of me not to at least mention them. So, don’t worry, this is not just an advert about the book but is also and opportunity for me to explain my reasoning behind why I have included some of the topics I discuss in it.
The first book what I wrote (For those who don’t know that Morcambe and Wise reference, I apologise for the horrendous grammar) is called Existential Anger. It is the first part of a trilogy of books about its main character, Martin. The trilogy is called the Martin Chronicles partly to parody, but also in homage to, the Martian Chronicles by the amazingly talented Ray Bradbury.
The book is based in the near future within and is set around the workings of a Fire Station in London. Martin is introduced to his new watch of colleagues having been transferred in from another Brigade and soon begins to fit in well. Unfortunately, due to an oversight and bad planning by Ersatz Industries, things start to go very wrong for him and he quickly finds himself not only fighting for his place on the watch but also fighting for his right to be on Earth at all.
My career so far, though involving other jobs, has mainly consisted of my work in the London Fire Brigade. The Brigade is far from perfect but their own rules and regulations prevent me from discussing their shortcomings on social media so that will have to wait for now.
That aside, much of my Brigade life has been fuelled by humour. When things get on top of us or stress creeps in then humour, often in the form of banter, reliably picks us back up again, dusts us off and points us in the right direction. This humour must seem dark to others sometimes but, trust me, it is what has kept us ticking for a very long time. Humour is something that seems to have been diluted and almost surgically removed by many of the changes in the Brigade over recent years and those of us that once saw it as a career (Er, the Brigade bit, not the humour bit…) now see it very much as another job that we clock into and clock out of only until we are released after completing our sentences and are allowed back into society. It’s a great shame and something that will sadly cause problems in the long run but, in the meantime, I keep myself ticking along by trying to inject the odd dose of humour into my blogs and into much of my book writing.
I also discuss possible future techs because I am a complete geek and love all things techie. It was also an excuse for me to introduce a huge transport system known as the conduit on which personal pods transport citizens to wherever they wish to go. They are completely automatic and the only vehicles exempt are emergency and military vehicles which are licenced to go off-grid.
One of the characters in the book has Asperger’s. My wife is an ‘Aspie’ (as she refers to herself) and it is something I shall write a lot more about soon, probably in a book dedicated to discussing a couple, one of who is an NT, the other an Aspie. See, art can imitate art, see…see?
There is also death. Death is so much a part of our reality that it seemed only fitting to discuss it and to introduce it to the book. I’ll not go into that any further in case I do introduce any spoilers. 
The book is available on Amazon and is produced in both paperback and e-book formats. Oh, for anyone on Amazon Prime, I think you can download this for free as part of your subscription. And if you do read it, please, please review it. Either negative or positive, all feedback is truly welcome.
In the meantime, I shall be continuing to blog and hope that those of you out there that read my posts enjoy doing so. Cheers, Ned.
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