Brian Van Norman
Once a teacher, theatre director and adjudicator, Brian left those worlds to travel with his wife, Susan, and take up writing as a full time pursuit.
He has journeyed to every continent and sailed nearly every sea on the planet.
His base is Waterloo, Ontario, Canada though he is seldom found there.
With past awards in playwriting and short stories Brian turned his hand to historical novels. Three have been published:
The Betrayal Path (Amazon)
Immortal Water (Guernica Editions)
Against the Machine: Luddites (Guernica Editions)
A fourth novel :
Against the Machine: Manifesto (Guernica Editions)
Available: October 1 2021
Scroll down for details on the new release!
AVAILABLE AT:
- Guernica Editions.com
- Independent Book Stores
- Chapters/Indigo, Canada
- Amazon.ca
- Barnes & Noble, USA
- Amazon.com
- Waterstones, England, UK
SCROLL DOWN PAST THE BOOKS FOR BRIAN'S INTERVIEWS WITH
THE READING ROOM AND OPEN BOOK LITERARY MAGAZINE!
THE READING ROOM AND OPEN BOOK LITERARY MAGAZINE!
BRIAN'S STORY: A Waterloo author’s journey from ’60s ‘free spirit’ to speculative tech novelist/INTERVIEW. IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWS 'MANIFESTO' REVIEWS!
AGAINST THE MACHINE: MANIFESTO
A successful family man loses his job in a corporate downsize and turns terrorist to convey his plight to an uncaring public. The novel, though it stands alone, is sequel to the critically acclaimed: Against the Machine:Luddites.
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Mel Buckworth, dependable family man, loses his manufacturing job through recession. Having lost his sense of purpose his pride sidelines him as he discerns his lack of digital skills so apparent in his children’s generation. He is galled by his daughter Dani’s university friend, Stanley Best, who is about to achieve fame in the fields of nano technology and artificial intelligence. As Mel desperately attempts to find equilibrium he estranges his family, leaves his wife and enlists the help of a greedy grad student. Will Baker teaches Mel the skills he will need to wreak revenge on a system seemingly discarding him. As his aptitudes grow he begins to use the internet, the very thing he despised, as a weapon to inflict his reprisals. Slowly he turns terrorist to deliver his message: that humans will succumb to machines and the social system controlling them. As his acts grow more lethal, Mel knows he must make an indelible declaration. A “manifesto” to be remembered. |
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AGAINST THE MACHINE: MANIFESTO - REVIEW HIGHLIGHTS:
"An inspired concept..."
"A complex and vibrant world of science, pizza, sex and revolution."
"...questions about the nature of work, the effects of our wired world on the human psyche, and the ways in which people both love and hurt each other."
"An inspired concept..."
"A complex and vibrant world of science, pizza, sex and revolution."
"...questions about the nature of work, the effects of our wired world on the human psyche, and the ways in which people both love and hurt each other."
REVIEWS!
—David Menear, author of Swallows Playing Chicken
"A complex and vibrant world of science, pizza, sex and revolution."
Van Norman's ‘Manifesto’ is so richly dense and detailed with all of the descriptions so vivid that we are unwittingly taken outside of ourselves and magically transported to a different time and place. A complex and vibrant world of science, pizza, sex and revolution. ‘Manifesto’ xray’s the broken bones of the past and aims a powerful telescope at what’s to come. If this is the work of a wonderful writer...Van Norman is definitely doing his job. Find here, in the pages of ‘Manifesto’ the struggle of man against machine against man. The past raging against the present will surely define the future. You’re invited.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
—John Oughton, author of Higher Teaching
"questions about the nature of work, the effects of our wired world on the human psyche, and the ways in which people both love and hurt each other."
In Against the Machine: Manifesto, Brian Van Norman interlaces some unexpected threads. Updating the story of the original Luddite, a weaver who led others in smashing the new power looms taking their jobs, Van Norman introduces us to a dysfunctional family in Waterloo, Ontario. His protagonist Mel Buckworth loses his long-time industrial job, while the "winners" seem to be those at the local university riding the new cybernetics waves of AI, the Dark Web, and big data. Van Norman portrays how Mel, a jock who still plays amateur hockey and doesn't like to overthink things, gradually turns his focus to updating the legacy of the Unabomber.You end up both caring for Mel and his fractured family, and hoping that he doesn'tsucceed in his "against the machine" statement. Along the way, Van Norman raises questions about the nature of work, the effects of our wired world on the human psyche, and the ways in which people both love and hurt each other. Well worth reading.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
—Nancy Silcox, Waterloo author/journalist
"An inspired concept..."
An inspired concept by author Brian Van Norman. Take his fascinating and insightful study of the Luddite movement of 19th century England: Against the Machine: Luddites, then relocate the revolution to contemporary Canada in his sequel Against the Machine: Manifesto. Computers against the common man. A battle for survival.
—David Menear, author of Swallows Playing Chicken
"A complex and vibrant world of science, pizza, sex and revolution."
Van Norman's ‘Manifesto’ is so richly dense and detailed with all of the descriptions so vivid that we are unwittingly taken outside of ourselves and magically transported to a different time and place. A complex and vibrant world of science, pizza, sex and revolution. ‘Manifesto’ xray’s the broken bones of the past and aims a powerful telescope at what’s to come. If this is the work of a wonderful writer...Van Norman is definitely doing his job. Find here, in the pages of ‘Manifesto’ the struggle of man against machine against man. The past raging against the present will surely define the future. You’re invited.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
—John Oughton, author of Higher Teaching
"questions about the nature of work, the effects of our wired world on the human psyche, and the ways in which people both love and hurt each other."
In Against the Machine: Manifesto, Brian Van Norman interlaces some unexpected threads. Updating the story of the original Luddite, a weaver who led others in smashing the new power looms taking their jobs, Van Norman introduces us to a dysfunctional family in Waterloo, Ontario. His protagonist Mel Buckworth loses his long-time industrial job, while the "winners" seem to be those at the local university riding the new cybernetics waves of AI, the Dark Web, and big data. Van Norman portrays how Mel, a jock who still plays amateur hockey and doesn't like to overthink things, gradually turns his focus to updating the legacy of the Unabomber.You end up both caring for Mel and his fractured family, and hoping that he doesn'tsucceed in his "against the machine" statement. Along the way, Van Norman raises questions about the nature of work, the effects of our wired world on the human psyche, and the ways in which people both love and hurt each other. Well worth reading.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
—Nancy Silcox, Waterloo author/journalist
"An inspired concept..."
An inspired concept by author Brian Van Norman. Take his fascinating and insightful study of the Luddite movement of 19th century England: Against the Machine: Luddites, then relocate the revolution to contemporary Canada in his sequel Against the Machine: Manifesto. Computers against the common man. A battle for survival.
- Bruce Meyer, author of Grace of Falling Stars
"a fascinating study of why mankind needs to remain in control of his own designs."
In the second book by Van Norman (and one hopes this will be a trilogy) the battle of man against machine is played out in Waterloo County near Toronto where Mel Buckworth, a modern-day Everyman with whom readers can identify, is replaced by the onslaught of technology. In a conversational narrative, the reader is given a powerful sense of insight into the reasons why humanity is challenged by machines and why it is imperative that human beings remain masters of their own creations. This book is a fascinating study of why mankind needs to remain in control of his own designs.
--James Terry, author and moderator of “The Reading Room”
"a tour de force exceedingly well crafted and exhibiting an astonishing insight into the intricacies of people’s minds and human nature."
Against the Machine: Manifesto is, without a doubt, the single most powerful historical novel I’ve ever had the distinct privilege to read … Van Norman’s diligence and dedication to detail has created a tour de force exceedingly well crafted and exhibiting an astonishing insight into the intricacies of people’s minds and human nature … a tapestry of intrigue and subterfuge woven into the fabric of conflict between the classes and stitched together with the threads of love, passion and courage.
WATERLOO REGION
OPINIONWaterloo author’s journey from ’60s ‘free spirit’ to speculative tech novelist
By Joel RubinoffRecord Reporter
Sat., June 5, 2021timer7 min. read
Even at 71, Brian Van Norman looks slightly radical, with his long white pony tail and Jerry Garcia whiskers, a laid back muckraker out to overthrow the status quo.
Not that it’s the most prominent thing about him.
Edging into seniorhood, the once rebellious student protester who made his mark as a high school teacher, theatre adjudicator, Stratford director and author of speculative novels about the ravages of technology is easygoing, solicitous, polite.
A free spirit with a pedigree.
“One of the reasons for my success is that I try to never repeat myself,” confides the personable shape-shifter. “I’m interested in people.”
I can vouch for that. Half way through our interview I notice he’s asking me all the questions as I recount the sordid details of my suburban childhood and how I got my first writing gig.
“And then, when I was seven ... hey, wait a minute!”
I’ll say one thing for Van Norman: he knows how to hang.
But if you look beyond the folksy author who speaks knowledgably about “qubits of subatomic size” and says he’s more of a “social pupa” than an actual butterfly, you see remnants of the 18-year-old who marched around the University of Waterloo arts quad in 1968 to protest the use of napalm in the Vietnam War.
“You can’t even call it sophisticated as political theatre,” laughs the genial nonconformist.
“In a brilliant piece of guerrilla protest, a Waterloo antiwar group announced it would demonstrate the horrors of napalm by burning a dog.
“The quad was crowded with people, some intending to rescue the dog, many just wanting to watch the confrontation, perhaps a few concentrating on the actual issue — the savage weapons being deployed in Southeast Asia. On schedule, out came the protesters, bringing their dog to the fire and perhaps you can guess what kind of dog it was.”
Judging by your tone, a hotdog?
“Schneider’s finest.”
They were crazy times for the burgeoning student activist, who occupied the university’s administration office in a protest four years later, sang in a rock band and lived in Toronto’s hippie Yorkville district, where he saw Joni Mitchell perform in coffee houses, and moved back to Waterloo when the stench of drugs became impossible to ignore.
“I’m easily addicted and knew I wouldn’t make it,” confides the Orangeville native, who moved to Waterloo to attend university.
“But as a kid from a small town I revelled in the freedoms of the village and the exchange of ideas among people of different ideologies and backgrounds. I evolved into adulthood amid the characters of that place and time.”
Strategically positioned at the front end of the baby boom in the days when a general arts degree was a ticket to job security, he rode the wave of societal change straight into a generational clash with his conservative war vet dad.
“He was a very good father who was a kind and generous man,” he notes with the perspective of half a century.
“His service in World War II and the culture of his development a generation earlier made him a man who found it difficult to deal with a son in the midst of a cultural revolution. We clashed often.”
It was the tenor of the times. Old vs. Young. Don’t trust anyone over 30. Turn on, tune in, drop out.
“I came of age in one of the most powerfully dynamic times since the Renaissance,” insists Van Norman. “A free spirit is not the easiest kind of person to live with.”
It’s worth noting that despite his anti-establishment perspective, he didn’t drop out and move up north to live on a commune.
He didn’t blow out his brains on mind-expanding drugs in search of higher consciousness.
He didn’t throw caution to the wind, tilt at windmills and devote his life to fighting the establishment.
At 23, he snagged a job as a drama teacher at Cambridge’s Glenview Park Secondary School and, later, at Kitchener’s Forest Heights Collegiate.
“I think in most life matters, though I’m impulsive, I’m also practical,” he offers succinctly.
“I did not reject society. I tried to take a place within it and change what I could. That practicality was given to me by my parents. It also resulted in heated debates with my friends. One couple still believe I sold out to the establishment and I haven’t spoken with them for 40 years.”
People are complicated. Values shift.
In the end, Van Norman — artistic temperament and all — was drawn to hard work and reaching not just inward, but out.
“My whole career was an accident!” he confides in his wry, soft-spoken way.
“I was an English major with a half credit in theatre. Three weeks into the school year, both theatre teachers resigned. The principal called me into his office and said ‘I see you have a theatre background.’
“I said ‘I have half a credit. I got it to meet girls.’
“He said ‘Well, you’re gonna be meeting a lot of them now!’”
That half credit would be the key to his future as a department head, award-winning playwright, adjudicator at the former Sears Drama Festival and full-fledged theatre director.
After retirement, he travelled the world and embarked on a second career as a historical fiction novelist.
Which brings us to today, on a concrete bench in the rusted shadows of a repurposed Kitchener tire plant, where the COVID lockdown gives this revamped tech hub an eerie stillness as two worlds collide in one amalgamated glop of concrete.
It’s a perfect backdrop for Van Norman’s trilogy, a past, present and future look at the ravages of tech, with its soon-to-be-released middle instalment set in transformative Waterloo Region.
“It explores humanity’s interactions and relations with machines,” he explains of its thematic thrust.
“I try to infuse my characters with a sense of complexity beyond — or beneath — their more obvious character traits.”
“Against the Machine: Luddites” — dubbed “Quentin Tarantino meets Jane Austen” -- is set during the Industrial Revolution of 1812 England, where mill masters replace men with machines and Luddite rebels smash them to pieces.
“Against the Machine: Manifesto” (available Oct. 1) — dubbed “Breaking Bad Comes To Waterloo” — is set in 2012 Waterloo and tells the story of a dependable family man who loses his manufacturing job through corporate downsizing and, with no sense of purpose, hatches a plot for revenge.
“Against the Machine: Involution” (in progress) — dubbed “Carbon Vs. Silicon: Evolution turned upside down” -- is set in 2212 on “a broken planet” where two races face off against each other and the planet itself.
The unifying theme, as befits a novel by a former hippie who grew up reading “Brave New World,” “War and Peace” and — this would explain the exciting plot twists — “The Hardy Boys,” is the unyielding resolve of the human spirit.
“I’m concerned about where tech is leading us,” sums up the pensive author. “Because at some point we’ll hit the ‘Moment of Singularity’ where a machine is going to discover an error in its programming and make a fix before its operator. At that moment, it doesn’t need us anymore.
“Once we have a superintelligent A.I., it’ll be able to create a better version of itself. This kind of a race would lead to an intelligence explosion and leave old poor us — simple biological machines that we are — far behind.”
That sounds nuts, I tell him. Computers can’t think on their own.
“I remember reading Dick Tracy comics when I was 10 and thinking ‘Wouldn’t it be neat to have a watch that would talk to me!’” he responds, pointing at his knock-off Apple wristband, a minicomputer with Siri integration that, yes, talks to him.
“All I’m saying is that in my lifetime, when I was six, I remember hitching a ride on the back of a milk wagon pulled by a horse through Guelph. Now I can talk to all of my friends around the world literally by turning on my computer.”
I can see why this idea fascinates him — the social disruptions from tech rival the protest culture that defined his youth.
It is, in fact, what links the 18-year-old idealist pushing for change with the seasoned 71-year-old who travels the world in search of “holes in history” to fill with fanciful notions of what might have been and what could be in the years ahead: a ragged sense of optimism, punked by human experience.
“I tend to present myself as a cynic, hiding the vulnerable idealist inside,” he notes when pressed.
“I don’t think I could write (my books) if I thought the world would blow up.”
As we say goodbye, I have one final question: “That hotdog protest that caused such an uproar — did it do any good?”
Van Norman laughs, voice thick with optimism: “Well,” he points out, “the Vietnam War is over!”
For more info, go to www.authorbrianvannorman.com
Joel Rubinoff is a Waterloo Region-based staff reporter and columnist for The Record. Reach him via email: jrubinoff@therecord.com
OPINIONWaterloo author’s journey from ’60s ‘free spirit’ to speculative tech novelist
By Joel RubinoffRecord Reporter
Sat., June 5, 2021timer7 min. read
Even at 71, Brian Van Norman looks slightly radical, with his long white pony tail and Jerry Garcia whiskers, a laid back muckraker out to overthrow the status quo.
Not that it’s the most prominent thing about him.
Edging into seniorhood, the once rebellious student protester who made his mark as a high school teacher, theatre adjudicator, Stratford director and author of speculative novels about the ravages of technology is easygoing, solicitous, polite.
A free spirit with a pedigree.
“One of the reasons for my success is that I try to never repeat myself,” confides the personable shape-shifter. “I’m interested in people.”
I can vouch for that. Half way through our interview I notice he’s asking me all the questions as I recount the sordid details of my suburban childhood and how I got my first writing gig.
“And then, when I was seven ... hey, wait a minute!”
I’ll say one thing for Van Norman: he knows how to hang.
But if you look beyond the folksy author who speaks knowledgably about “qubits of subatomic size” and says he’s more of a “social pupa” than an actual butterfly, you see remnants of the 18-year-old who marched around the University of Waterloo arts quad in 1968 to protest the use of napalm in the Vietnam War.
“You can’t even call it sophisticated as political theatre,” laughs the genial nonconformist.
“In a brilliant piece of guerrilla protest, a Waterloo antiwar group announced it would demonstrate the horrors of napalm by burning a dog.
“The quad was crowded with people, some intending to rescue the dog, many just wanting to watch the confrontation, perhaps a few concentrating on the actual issue — the savage weapons being deployed in Southeast Asia. On schedule, out came the protesters, bringing their dog to the fire and perhaps you can guess what kind of dog it was.”
Judging by your tone, a hotdog?
“Schneider’s finest.”
They were crazy times for the burgeoning student activist, who occupied the university’s administration office in a protest four years later, sang in a rock band and lived in Toronto’s hippie Yorkville district, where he saw Joni Mitchell perform in coffee houses, and moved back to Waterloo when the stench of drugs became impossible to ignore.
“I’m easily addicted and knew I wouldn’t make it,” confides the Orangeville native, who moved to Waterloo to attend university.
“But as a kid from a small town I revelled in the freedoms of the village and the exchange of ideas among people of different ideologies and backgrounds. I evolved into adulthood amid the characters of that place and time.”
Strategically positioned at the front end of the baby boom in the days when a general arts degree was a ticket to job security, he rode the wave of societal change straight into a generational clash with his conservative war vet dad.
“He was a very good father who was a kind and generous man,” he notes with the perspective of half a century.
“His service in World War II and the culture of his development a generation earlier made him a man who found it difficult to deal with a son in the midst of a cultural revolution. We clashed often.”
It was the tenor of the times. Old vs. Young. Don’t trust anyone over 30. Turn on, tune in, drop out.
“I came of age in one of the most powerfully dynamic times since the Renaissance,” insists Van Norman. “A free spirit is not the easiest kind of person to live with.”
It’s worth noting that despite his anti-establishment perspective, he didn’t drop out and move up north to live on a commune.
He didn’t blow out his brains on mind-expanding drugs in search of higher consciousness.
He didn’t throw caution to the wind, tilt at windmills and devote his life to fighting the establishment.
At 23, he snagged a job as a drama teacher at Cambridge’s Glenview Park Secondary School and, later, at Kitchener’s Forest Heights Collegiate.
“I think in most life matters, though I’m impulsive, I’m also practical,” he offers succinctly.
“I did not reject society. I tried to take a place within it and change what I could. That practicality was given to me by my parents. It also resulted in heated debates with my friends. One couple still believe I sold out to the establishment and I haven’t spoken with them for 40 years.”
People are complicated. Values shift.
In the end, Van Norman — artistic temperament and all — was drawn to hard work and reaching not just inward, but out.
“My whole career was an accident!” he confides in his wry, soft-spoken way.
“I was an English major with a half credit in theatre. Three weeks into the school year, both theatre teachers resigned. The principal called me into his office and said ‘I see you have a theatre background.’
“I said ‘I have half a credit. I got it to meet girls.’
“He said ‘Well, you’re gonna be meeting a lot of them now!’”
That half credit would be the key to his future as a department head, award-winning playwright, adjudicator at the former Sears Drama Festival and full-fledged theatre director.
After retirement, he travelled the world and embarked on a second career as a historical fiction novelist.
Which brings us to today, on a concrete bench in the rusted shadows of a repurposed Kitchener tire plant, where the COVID lockdown gives this revamped tech hub an eerie stillness as two worlds collide in one amalgamated glop of concrete.
It’s a perfect backdrop for Van Norman’s trilogy, a past, present and future look at the ravages of tech, with its soon-to-be-released middle instalment set in transformative Waterloo Region.
“It explores humanity’s interactions and relations with machines,” he explains of its thematic thrust.
“I try to infuse my characters with a sense of complexity beyond — or beneath — their more obvious character traits.”
“Against the Machine: Luddites” — dubbed “Quentin Tarantino meets Jane Austen” -- is set during the Industrial Revolution of 1812 England, where mill masters replace men with machines and Luddite rebels smash them to pieces.
“Against the Machine: Manifesto” (available Oct. 1) — dubbed “Breaking Bad Comes To Waterloo” — is set in 2012 Waterloo and tells the story of a dependable family man who loses his manufacturing job through corporate downsizing and, with no sense of purpose, hatches a plot for revenge.
“Against the Machine: Involution” (in progress) — dubbed “Carbon Vs. Silicon: Evolution turned upside down” -- is set in 2212 on “a broken planet” where two races face off against each other and the planet itself.
The unifying theme, as befits a novel by a former hippie who grew up reading “Brave New World,” “War and Peace” and — this would explain the exciting plot twists — “The Hardy Boys,” is the unyielding resolve of the human spirit.
“I’m concerned about where tech is leading us,” sums up the pensive author. “Because at some point we’ll hit the ‘Moment of Singularity’ where a machine is going to discover an error in its programming and make a fix before its operator. At that moment, it doesn’t need us anymore.
“Once we have a superintelligent A.I., it’ll be able to create a better version of itself. This kind of a race would lead to an intelligence explosion and leave old poor us — simple biological machines that we are — far behind.”
That sounds nuts, I tell him. Computers can’t think on their own.
“I remember reading Dick Tracy comics when I was 10 and thinking ‘Wouldn’t it be neat to have a watch that would talk to me!’” he responds, pointing at his knock-off Apple wristband, a minicomputer with Siri integration that, yes, talks to him.
“All I’m saying is that in my lifetime, when I was six, I remember hitching a ride on the back of a milk wagon pulled by a horse through Guelph. Now I can talk to all of my friends around the world literally by turning on my computer.”
I can see why this idea fascinates him — the social disruptions from tech rival the protest culture that defined his youth.
It is, in fact, what links the 18-year-old idealist pushing for change with the seasoned 71-year-old who travels the world in search of “holes in history” to fill with fanciful notions of what might have been and what could be in the years ahead: a ragged sense of optimism, punked by human experience.
“I tend to present myself as a cynic, hiding the vulnerable idealist inside,” he notes when pressed.
“I don’t think I could write (my books) if I thought the world would blow up.”
As we say goodbye, I have one final question: “That hotdog protest that caused such an uproar — did it do any good?”
Van Norman laughs, voice thick with optimism: “Well,” he points out, “the Vietnam War is over!”
For more info, go to www.authorbrianvannorman.com
Joel Rubinoff is a Waterloo Region-based staff reporter and columnist for The Record. Reach him via email: jrubinoff@therecord.com
OTHER BOOKS BY BRIAN
“If we don’t manage these machines and ourselves who make them, if we don’t marry what we make with who we are … then we’ll all become nowt but slaves!”
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English mill-masters develop a new factory system acquiring machines to replace men. A young worker leads Luddite rebels attacking mills and smashing machines. With increased assaults and even murder North England feels the grip of terrorism. Government agents attempt to suppress the rebellion. In 1812 there are more British troops in North England than fighting Napoleon. Against the Machine: Luddites relates the story of the diverse characters caught in this conflict. It unveils the exploitation which marked the Industrial Revolution, reflecting our own Technological Revolution: that of the 21st Century. |
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Reviews!
by David Reyes, The Book Commentary
"Van Norman has just established himself as one of the great storytellers in the historical genre, crafting a novel that is rich in history and culture and that absorbs the reader right from the very first sentence...."
Against the Machine: Luddites by Brian Van Norman is one of the novels I have read twice before reviewing, because of the beauty of the prose, the wonderful depiction of the social setting with its nuanced realities, and the skillful handling of characters.
The story takes readers to a historical setting in northern Great Britain during the Napoleonic Wars. Readers are introduced to a group of have-nots whose livelihood is gradually taken away from them by the industrial revolution that has replaced the work of human hands with machines. The luddites won’t have any of that, so they set out to destroy the machines. It’s a new war, and how far will it take them?
The narrative features a magnetic protagonist, the twenty-two-year old George Mellor, whose father disappeared from Huddersfield many years ago, leaving the family penniless. George has had to make his own way, “taking ship as a cabin boy advancing to sailor for seven years, until he’d returned to find his mother, Mathilda, remarried to Wood.” He is a natural born leader who possesses experience beyond his years and an almost carnal charisma.
This young man, together with his peers, Big Will Thorp, Thomas Smith, and Sam ignites a revolution that is about to disrupt society’s machinery. This novel narrates the story of the luddites and the havoc they cause to mill-masters who procure more machines to replace human labor. It is an attack on a system and on progress, for progress doesn’t advance everyone. Follow each character as they evolve through the chaotic atmosphere, and can the British troops stop the madness and the terror?
Brian Van Norman has just established himself as one of the great storytellers in the historical genre, crafting a novel that is rich in history and culture and that absorbs the reader right from the very first sentence: “It was snowing indoors.” His gift for character and plot sets this novel apart. The prose is flawless and filled with wonderful descriptions. There is an unalloyed quirkiness that entices the reader and while the characters are anti-revolutionary, they are so skillfully developed that it is hard to not share their sympathy, even in their worst moments. Against the Machine: Luddites is a spellbinding historical novel with unforgettable characters.
"Van Norman has just established himself as one of the great storytellers in the historical genre, crafting a novel that is rich in history and culture and that absorbs the reader right from the very first sentence...."
Against the Machine: Luddites by Brian Van Norman is one of the novels I have read twice before reviewing, because of the beauty of the prose, the wonderful depiction of the social setting with its nuanced realities, and the skillful handling of characters.
The story takes readers to a historical setting in northern Great Britain during the Napoleonic Wars. Readers are introduced to a group of have-nots whose livelihood is gradually taken away from them by the industrial revolution that has replaced the work of human hands with machines. The luddites won’t have any of that, so they set out to destroy the machines. It’s a new war, and how far will it take them?
The narrative features a magnetic protagonist, the twenty-two-year old George Mellor, whose father disappeared from Huddersfield many years ago, leaving the family penniless. George has had to make his own way, “taking ship as a cabin boy advancing to sailor for seven years, until he’d returned to find his mother, Mathilda, remarried to Wood.” He is a natural born leader who possesses experience beyond his years and an almost carnal charisma.
This young man, together with his peers, Big Will Thorp, Thomas Smith, and Sam ignites a revolution that is about to disrupt society’s machinery. This novel narrates the story of the luddites and the havoc they cause to mill-masters who procure more machines to replace human labor. It is an attack on a system and on progress, for progress doesn’t advance everyone. Follow each character as they evolve through the chaotic atmosphere, and can the British troops stop the madness and the terror?
Brian Van Norman has just established himself as one of the great storytellers in the historical genre, crafting a novel that is rich in history and culture and that absorbs the reader right from the very first sentence: “It was snowing indoors.” His gift for character and plot sets this novel apart. The prose is flawless and filled with wonderful descriptions. There is an unalloyed quirkiness that entices the reader and while the characters are anti-revolutionary, they are so skillfully developed that it is hard to not share their sympathy, even in their worst moments. Against the Machine: Luddites is a spellbinding historical novel with unforgettable characters.
by Will Fawley, Prairie Fire, A Canadian Magazine of New Writing
"This novel is a history, one that provides a window into the past. But it is also relevant to today. The themes of revolution and machines are apt for our times. It is this parallel between the present and the past that makes Against the Machines: Luddites a must-read in 2020."
Against the Machine: Luddites is Brian Van Norman’s third novel, and is a work of historical fiction that takes place in northern England at the beginning of the industrial revolution. The book follows the birth and progression of the Luddite movement, a revolution of workers who protested the adoption of machines which ultimately threatened their jobs in factories and mills.
Van Norman uses a well-researched historical setting to tell a tale that not only teaches us about the past, but offers a window into the struggles we face today with work, class, and the very real automation of our jobs. Van Norman paints a vivid picture of the dilemma: “To keep their fast waning trade, the mill owners sought technological answers. They began to employ machines to do the work of men: gig-mills, knitting frames, power looms and shear frames, all driven by water from streams in north England’s vales. So families who had spent generations working the wool lost their livelihoods and fell into penury.” (2)
The book opens with a fourteen-year-old named Ned Lud reaching a breaking point. Frustrated with how he’s treated as a mill worker, he takes a hammer to the machines. This single act sparked a flame that had been growing in the workers, and sent a powerful message that soon had people referring to those who would fight the machine as Luddites. While the plot begins with a singular event, the tension quickly grows into a sweeping novel that leads into full-blown revolution.
Van Norman did thorough research, and presents historical details in a modern, engaging way that makes the setting believable and absorbing. He also uses fiction effectively to fill the novel with action and intrigue. There are spies, angry mobs, deception, betrayal, murder, revenge, assassination, interrogation, torture, and full scale battles. There is always some new situation escalating, and new character dynamics evolving, with twists and revelations in nearly every chapter.
The cast of characters is expansive, but largely focuses on the workers who resolve to fight against the machine. They are first introduced in John Wood’s shop, where a group of Luddites are meeting. Another John, John Buckworth, takes an oath to join a Brotherhood of workers who want to fight against the machines. Buckworth is uncertain about joining the group, but is soon convinced by his wife, Mary Buckworth, who is the only woman in the group. Her father owned a mill, so she knows the business and knows how to navigate the world of both factory workers and owners. Mary is a strong, fully-developed character who is refreshing amongst the boys’ club cast of the Brotherhood.
Over time, the Brotherhood gets more and more desperate, and begins manipulating people to join. What begins as an honest frustration and protest quickly escalates, leading to pre-meditated violence. The novel raises many questions about how people make their voices heard, and what is the right way to go about protest. Some turn to words, while others resort to violence in an effort to be acknowledged.
Van Norman does a great job of showing us this complex struggle, in which there really is no right answer. The author paints a full picture of life in northern England at the time, and all of the many groups of people affected by early machines. We meet not only factory workers, but the other side as well, the owners, and even a character responsible for delivering the machines to the mills. This complexity makes the political and social tension real, as no one singular person is right or wrong, and all of them are just trying to live their lives against the backdrop of revolution.
This multifaceted approach to the issues of the novel is what makes it so powerful, and is most evident in John Buckworth, because he is deeply conflicted and tries to see things from both sides. “‘You must examine … both sides … before you stoop to violence,’ Buckworth said… ‘These machines might become a blessing for you if society were different. There is an international economy which reaches far beyond our Yorkshire. These machines will allow us to join that economy, increase our trade. The machinery itself is not evil. Think how efficiently it works, how it does the most arduous part of a workman’s task!’” (8)
Midway through the novel, it becomes clear that this book is more than a simple history, and is deeply introspective as well. Mary Buckworth wonders, “Machines. Is that all we are? Machines to be worked then discarded?” (166). She seems to be getting at the central theme of the novel—humans against the machine. On the surface, the Luddites are fighting against the machines, but really the machines are just things. The people are really just fighting each other—the machinations of society—over resources, money, and justice.
There is an eerie moment where the book becomes almost too self-aware, and one of the characters muses something of a prophecy. “Someday we’ll have machines doing all our work for us. We’ll think the machines so important we can’t live without them! But what if they gain a mindfulness of their own. What if they learn t’ think?” (362)
This novel is a history, one that provides a window into the past. But it is also relevant to today. The themes of revolution and machines are apt for our times. This novel could easily be about robots taking our jobs in the twenty-first century, and the frustration workers feel over the way they are treated and compensated. It is this parallel between the present and the past that makes Against the Machines: Luddites a must-read in 2020.
Against the Machine: Luddites
by Brian Van Norman
Guernica Editions, Spring 2020, 412 pp., $25
ISBN13: 9781771834797
Van Norman uses a well-researched historical setting to tell a tale that not only teaches us about the past, but offers a window into the struggles we face today with work, class, and the very real automation of our jobs. Van Norman paints a vivid picture of the dilemma: “To keep their fast waning trade, the mill owners sought technological answers. They began to employ machines to do the work of men: gig-mills, knitting frames, power looms and shear frames, all driven by water from streams in north England’s vales. So families who had spent generations working the wool lost their livelihoods and fell into penury.” (2)
The book opens with a fourteen-year-old named Ned Lud reaching a breaking point. Frustrated with how he’s treated as a mill worker, he takes a hammer to the machines. This single act sparked a flame that had been growing in the workers, and sent a powerful message that soon had people referring to those who would fight the machine as Luddites. While the plot begins with a singular event, the tension quickly grows into a sweeping novel that leads into full-blown revolution.
Van Norman did thorough research, and presents historical details in a modern, engaging way that makes the setting believable and absorbing. He also uses fiction effectively to fill the novel with action and intrigue. There are spies, angry mobs, deception, betrayal, murder, revenge, assassination, interrogation, torture, and full scale battles. There is always some new situation escalating, and new character dynamics evolving, with twists and revelations in nearly every chapter.
The cast of characters is expansive, but largely focuses on the workers who resolve to fight against the machine. They are first introduced in John Wood’s shop, where a group of Luddites are meeting. Another John, John Buckworth, takes an oath to join a Brotherhood of workers who want to fight against the machines. Buckworth is uncertain about joining the group, but is soon convinced by his wife, Mary Buckworth, who is the only woman in the group. Her father owned a mill, so she knows the business and knows how to navigate the world of both factory workers and owners. Mary is a strong, fully-developed character who is refreshing amongst the boys’ club cast of the Brotherhood.
Over time, the Brotherhood gets more and more desperate, and begins manipulating people to join. What begins as an honest frustration and protest quickly escalates, leading to pre-meditated violence. The novel raises many questions about how people make their voices heard, and what is the right way to go about protest. Some turn to words, while others resort to violence in an effort to be acknowledged.
Van Norman does a great job of showing us this complex struggle, in which there really is no right answer. The author paints a full picture of life in northern England at the time, and all of the many groups of people affected by early machines. We meet not only factory workers, but the other side as well, the owners, and even a character responsible for delivering the machines to the mills. This complexity makes the political and social tension real, as no one singular person is right or wrong, and all of them are just trying to live their lives against the backdrop of revolution.
This multifaceted approach to the issues of the novel is what makes it so powerful, and is most evident in John Buckworth, because he is deeply conflicted and tries to see things from both sides. “‘You must examine … both sides … before you stoop to violence,’ Buckworth said… ‘These machines might become a blessing for you if society were different. There is an international economy which reaches far beyond our Yorkshire. These machines will allow us to join that economy, increase our trade. The machinery itself is not evil. Think how efficiently it works, how it does the most arduous part of a workman’s task!’” (8)
Midway through the novel, it becomes clear that this book is more than a simple history, and is deeply introspective as well. Mary Buckworth wonders, “Machines. Is that all we are? Machines to be worked then discarded?” (166). She seems to be getting at the central theme of the novel—humans against the machine. On the surface, the Luddites are fighting against the machines, but really the machines are just things. The people are really just fighting each other—the machinations of society—over resources, money, and justice.
There is an eerie moment where the book becomes almost too self-aware, and one of the characters muses something of a prophecy. “Someday we’ll have machines doing all our work for us. We’ll think the machines so important we can’t live without them! But what if they gain a mindfulness of their own. What if they learn t’ think?” (362)
This novel is a history, one that provides a window into the past. But it is also relevant to today. The themes of revolution and machines are apt for our times. This novel could easily be about robots taking our jobs in the twenty-first century, and the frustration workers feel over the way they are treated and compensated. It is this parallel between the present and the past that makes Against the Machines: Luddites a must-read in 2020.
Against the Machine: Luddites
by Brian Van Norman
Guernica Editions, Spring 2020, 412 pp., $25
ISBN13: 9781771834797
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by A.K. Hale https://www.amandahale.com/
"...is not only a great read, it is an important book that does what historical fiction does best – shines the torch of a specific historical event on a parallel contemporary trend."
Brian Van Norman’s novel – Against the Machine: Luddites – is not only a great read, it is an important book that does what historical fiction does best – shines the torch of a specific historical event on a parallel contemporary trend. The Luddites protested the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution; today we have all our eggs in the basket of the Technological Revolution. The parallels are obvious, as is the inevitability of the outcome.
In muscular language, earthy and poetic, Van Norman evokes the beauty and harshness of the Yorkshire Moors in a manner vivid for any reader, but especially so for this reader who spent five years of her youth on those blustery damp Moors.
In the midst of a war with France, challenged by Napoleon Bonaparte, the British government found itself threatened by a civil war at home, sparked by the dilemma of man versus the machine, compounded by poverty, injustice, and class oppression.
Using the hooks of violence, murder, sex and romance, Van Norman captures and holds the reader in suspense by ending each chapter with a predictive flourish. The battles are personalized by a broad cast of characters, focussing on the young Luddite leader, George Mellor. A dramatic prologue posits the original Ned Lud as a boy who rebelled not so much against the machines he smashed with a sledge hammer, but against the inhumanity of his employers. Machines are neutral, as is technology. It is all about how we use them.
The dramatic irony of this rollicking, terrifying tale comes when Mellor, through damage of his spirit, is himself rendered heartless and mechanical. His lover, Mary Buckworth, “found it curious he could not recognize he’d become the same as the tyrants he cursed.” As the fugitive Mellor is pursued to his inevitable end, he experiences a series of revelations, realizing himself “caught inside history.”
Van Norman’s book is visionary in its scope, illuminating humanity’s eternal struggle with wars and ideologies, only to be tricked across the generations by ever more elusive forms of enslavement. One is left with a deeper understanding of Nietzsche’s theory of eternal recurrence.
The research is impeccable, the details fascinating. The true meaning of “terrorism” is demonstrated together with its techniques. This is educational movie material.
In muscular language, earthy and poetic, Van Norman evokes the beauty and harshness of the Yorkshire Moors in a manner vivid for any reader, but especially so for this reader who spent five years of her youth on those blustery damp Moors.
In the midst of a war with France, challenged by Napoleon Bonaparte, the British government found itself threatened by a civil war at home, sparked by the dilemma of man versus the machine, compounded by poverty, injustice, and class oppression.
Using the hooks of violence, murder, sex and romance, Van Norman captures and holds the reader in suspense by ending each chapter with a predictive flourish. The battles are personalized by a broad cast of characters, focussing on the young Luddite leader, George Mellor. A dramatic prologue posits the original Ned Lud as a boy who rebelled not so much against the machines he smashed with a sledge hammer, but against the inhumanity of his employers. Machines are neutral, as is technology. It is all about how we use them.
The dramatic irony of this rollicking, terrifying tale comes when Mellor, through damage of his spirit, is himself rendered heartless and mechanical. His lover, Mary Buckworth, “found it curious he could not recognize he’d become the same as the tyrants he cursed.” As the fugitive Mellor is pursued to his inevitable end, he experiences a series of revelations, realizing himself “caught inside history.”
Van Norman’s book is visionary in its scope, illuminating humanity’s eternal struggle with wars and ideologies, only to be tricked across the generations by ever more elusive forms of enslavement. One is left with a deeper understanding of Nietzsche’s theory of eternal recurrence.
The research is impeccable, the details fascinating. The true meaning of “terrorism” is demonstrated together with its techniques. This is educational movie material.
by Alan Brooke
Brooke, Alan & Lesley Kipling. Liberty or Death. Huddersfield Local Historical Society (1988)
"Jane Austen meets Quentin Tarantino..."
AGAINST THE MACHINE: LUDDITES
No book could be more timely. As concern grows daily about the impact of technology on the planet, Brian Van Norman traces the origins of the first organised resistance to machinery during the infancy of the Industrial Revolution in England. His evocation of the Luddite movement in its Yorkshire heartland is vivid and inspiring. The passing of an old way of life before the Juggernaut of economic ‘progress’ is portrayed through a convincing cast of characters aligned on both sides of what the writer accurately depicts as naked class war.
Although many of the participants left little, or no, record of their hopes and fears at the time, Van Norman imagines and fleshes out the personalities to bring to life a time of political and social crisis that raises many questions paralleled in today’s conflicts. What drives people to political violence? Why do those in power lack empathy with the sufferings of the oppressed? Why, turning a question from the last actual written words of the Luddite leader, George Mellor, is a human ‘soul not worth more than work or gold’?
Inevitably the account revolves around the involvement of Mellor in the main events of the tumultuous year of 1812, when resistance to the introduction of machinery in the cropping (cloth finishing) trade escalated into armed insurgency and assassination, centred on the Yorkshire textile town of Huddersfield. Is Mellor a ‘freedom fighter’ or a ‘terrorist’? The story describes Mellor’s dawning awareness of the brutalising effect of the fight against machines as he struggles to reassert his humanity, while an arch-opponent of the Luddites, the cleric Hammond Roberson, also fears that the conflict has turned him into a ‘Zealot’, a crusader, a ‘warrior priest’. The dehumanising effect of violence is sympathetically depicted in the internal torment of these two characters.
Although a product of the novelist’s art, the story follows closely the actual events and personalities that inspired it. The corpulent magistrate, Radcliffe; the haughty and ruthless, counter-guerrilla commander, Captain Raynes; the hard-nosed mill owner, Cartwright; the Machiavellian solicitor and spy-master, Lloyd – all might appear to be stereotypes, but are in fact based on the available evidence in contemporary accounts, often from their own correspondence. The Luddites themselves left little personal record, but nevertheless, with insight and empathy, Van Norman succeeds in representing their fears of a rapidly changing world beyond their control and the doomed path their attempted resistance has forced them along.
The personal emotions and political ideas are set in a context often described in vivid detail, recreating a picture of the Regency period where romance and glamour co-exist with violence and squalor – Jane Austen meets Quentin Tarantino. The backdrop of the events is atmospherically portrayed, from the bleak Pennine Moors, to bustling, commercial Huddersfield and the muddy lanes of the City of York, with its’ daunting Castle and magnificent Minster. Some historical buffs may find a few anachronisms to quibble over but the broader canvas provides the reader with an authentic portal into an age when the foundations of the modern world were being laid. The intrusion of the ‘factory system’ into the rural world of the small scale craftsman was breaking down a social and economic order that had existed since the end of the Middle Ages.
The fast-paced climax of the story, the pursuit and arrest of the Luddites Mellor and Thorpe, is fictionalised but captures all the tension and intrigue of the time, as the insurgents were tracked down and the oath-bound solidarity and omerta of the Ludds was torn by recrimination and betrayal. One tragically absurd incident is in fact true. How the loss of a hat led men to the scaffold.
The link to present day concerns about technology is encapsulated in an imagined dialogue in which Mellor expresses an inspired vision of the future - a future dominated by machines. One prediction that is not fulfilled is that of the military commander, General Maitland. He asserts that after their trials no one will remember the Luddites. Over 200 years on, thanks to writers like Van Norman, the Luddites are not only remembered, but celebrated. For that alone this book deserves a place on the shelves not only of the general reader, seeking a well written historical adventure story, but of all those concerned about the direction of our technology driven world.
No book could be more timely. As concern grows daily about the impact of technology on the planet, Brian Van Norman traces the origins of the first organised resistance to machinery during the infancy of the Industrial Revolution in England. His evocation of the Luddite movement in its Yorkshire heartland is vivid and inspiring. The passing of an old way of life before the Juggernaut of economic ‘progress’ is portrayed through a convincing cast of characters aligned on both sides of what the writer accurately depicts as naked class war.
Although many of the participants left little, or no, record of their hopes and fears at the time, Van Norman imagines and fleshes out the personalities to bring to life a time of political and social crisis that raises many questions paralleled in today’s conflicts. What drives people to political violence? Why do those in power lack empathy with the sufferings of the oppressed? Why, turning a question from the last actual written words of the Luddite leader, George Mellor, is a human ‘soul not worth more than work or gold’?
Inevitably the account revolves around the involvement of Mellor in the main events of the tumultuous year of 1812, when resistance to the introduction of machinery in the cropping (cloth finishing) trade escalated into armed insurgency and assassination, centred on the Yorkshire textile town of Huddersfield. Is Mellor a ‘freedom fighter’ or a ‘terrorist’? The story describes Mellor’s dawning awareness of the brutalising effect of the fight against machines as he struggles to reassert his humanity, while an arch-opponent of the Luddites, the cleric Hammond Roberson, also fears that the conflict has turned him into a ‘Zealot’, a crusader, a ‘warrior priest’. The dehumanising effect of violence is sympathetically depicted in the internal torment of these two characters.
Although a product of the novelist’s art, the story follows closely the actual events and personalities that inspired it. The corpulent magistrate, Radcliffe; the haughty and ruthless, counter-guerrilla commander, Captain Raynes; the hard-nosed mill owner, Cartwright; the Machiavellian solicitor and spy-master, Lloyd – all might appear to be stereotypes, but are in fact based on the available evidence in contemporary accounts, often from their own correspondence. The Luddites themselves left little personal record, but nevertheless, with insight and empathy, Van Norman succeeds in representing their fears of a rapidly changing world beyond their control and the doomed path their attempted resistance has forced them along.
The personal emotions and political ideas are set in a context often described in vivid detail, recreating a picture of the Regency period where romance and glamour co-exist with violence and squalor – Jane Austen meets Quentin Tarantino. The backdrop of the events is atmospherically portrayed, from the bleak Pennine Moors, to bustling, commercial Huddersfield and the muddy lanes of the City of York, with its’ daunting Castle and magnificent Minster. Some historical buffs may find a few anachronisms to quibble over but the broader canvas provides the reader with an authentic portal into an age when the foundations of the modern world were being laid. The intrusion of the ‘factory system’ into the rural world of the small scale craftsman was breaking down a social and economic order that had existed since the end of the Middle Ages.
The fast-paced climax of the story, the pursuit and arrest of the Luddites Mellor and Thorpe, is fictionalised but captures all the tension and intrigue of the time, as the insurgents were tracked down and the oath-bound solidarity and omerta of the Ludds was torn by recrimination and betrayal. One tragically absurd incident is in fact true. How the loss of a hat led men to the scaffold.
The link to present day concerns about technology is encapsulated in an imagined dialogue in which Mellor expresses an inspired vision of the future - a future dominated by machines. One prediction that is not fulfilled is that of the military commander, General Maitland. He asserts that after their trials no one will remember the Luddites. Over 200 years on, thanks to writers like Van Norman, the Luddites are not only remembered, but celebrated. For that alone this book deserves a place on the shelves not only of the general reader, seeking a well written historical adventure story, but of all those concerned about the direction of our technology driven world.
by James Terry, The Reading Room
Published by Guernica Editions (April 1 2020)
Cover design by David Moratto
Front cover image by Diane Eastham and made by Photo Lab
Against the Machine: Luddites challenged my preconception of historical fiction novels and has emerged triumphant. Brian Van Norman has, without doubt, opened my eyes to a genre that hitherto I was predisposed to overlook. It is a skilfully crafted saga based closely upon events and people in Yorkshire, England, in 1812, full of twists and turns. Right from the first line, “It was snowing indoors.” it grabs your attention and won’t let go.
It is told from the perspectives of the characters, both real and imagined, on both sides of the uprising by the Luddites. The characters are meticulously drawn, strong and well developed, although I must admit, the large number was somewhat challenging. However, from Mellor, the protagonist, down to the seemingly most insignificant character, I found myself empathizing with their profound moral dilemma in pursuit of freedom, justice and basic human rights. Indeed, Van Norman paints such vivid portrayals of even the antagonists’ humanity and their foibles that, at times, you find yourself sympathizing with them in spite of yourself.
It is a tapestry of intrigue and subterfuge woven on the fabric of conflict between the classes and stitched together with the threads of love, passion and courage.
A wordsmith, Brian Van Norman is brilliant at creating a sense of realism so powerful you will smell the gun powder, sweat and fear as if you were witness to the events. He truly is a master of his craft.
Be sure to read Van Norman’s previous novels The Betrayal Path and Immortal Water.
Published by Guernica Editions (April 1 2020)
Cover design by David Moratto
Front cover image by Diane Eastham and made by Photo Lab
Against the Machine: Luddites challenged my preconception of historical fiction novels and has emerged triumphant. Brian Van Norman has, without doubt, opened my eyes to a genre that hitherto I was predisposed to overlook. It is a skilfully crafted saga based closely upon events and people in Yorkshire, England, in 1812, full of twists and turns. Right from the first line, “It was snowing indoors.” it grabs your attention and won’t let go.
It is told from the perspectives of the characters, both real and imagined, on both sides of the uprising by the Luddites. The characters are meticulously drawn, strong and well developed, although I must admit, the large number was somewhat challenging. However, from Mellor, the protagonist, down to the seemingly most insignificant character, I found myself empathizing with their profound moral dilemma in pursuit of freedom, justice and basic human rights. Indeed, Van Norman paints such vivid portrayals of even the antagonists’ humanity and their foibles that, at times, you find yourself sympathizing with them in spite of yourself.
It is a tapestry of intrigue and subterfuge woven on the fabric of conflict between the classes and stitched together with the threads of love, passion and courage.
A wordsmith, Brian Van Norman is brilliant at creating a sense of realism so powerful you will smell the gun powder, sweat and fear as if you were witness to the events. He truly is a master of his craft.
Be sure to read Van Norman’s previous novels The Betrayal Path and Immortal Water.
by Christian Fernandez,
"Contemporary readers can easily read the message of this book into their own experience with technology..."
A story that is intelligently plotted, expertly written, and that has a huge potential to seduce fans of historical novels, Against the Machine: Luddites by Brian Van Norman plunges the reader into the period in which the Napoleonic Wars took place and explores a historical phenomenon that is scarcely discussed in books, the threat that the luddites posed to the industrial revolution. While this is a novel that is well-researched with fascinating and colorful historical hints, it also explores the reality of change and how it affects those who do not stand to benefit much from it.
The industrial revolution is gaining grounds in Britain and with machines quickly replacing skilled labor. The mill-masters are laying off workers, replacing them with machines, a situation that doesn't sit well with George Mellor, a boy whose growth has been precocious and whose leadership skills come just as naturally. George has known what it is like to have nothing and his hardship has left a great impact on him. And he is not alone. His friends Big Will Thorp, Thomas Smith, and Sam are as disgruntled with the situation as is anyone losing work to machines. They start a revolution to disrupt the revolution, attacking machines and even getting involved with murder. But how far can they go before they are stopped?
Against the Machine: Luddites is a novel that is as relevant today as it is telling of the Napoleonic period, a story that brilliantly depicts what happens when technology replaces human skill. Contemporary readers can easily read the message of this book into their own experience with technology, including the AI tools and robots that have stolen work from many hands. Brian Van Norman weaves an unsettling sense of uncertainty into the story and brings to life a social situation that punctuated life in a specific moment in history. The characters are lovely, the prose exciting, featuring terrific descriptions and intelligently crafted dialogues. The humor isn't lacking and the accent of the characters is wonderfully captured in the dialogues. Real as all-get out, from scenes in the mill that depict the condition of workers to the rowdy clash against machines!
"Contemporary readers can easily read the message of this book into their own experience with technology..."
A story that is intelligently plotted, expertly written, and that has a huge potential to seduce fans of historical novels, Against the Machine: Luddites by Brian Van Norman plunges the reader into the period in which the Napoleonic Wars took place and explores a historical phenomenon that is scarcely discussed in books, the threat that the luddites posed to the industrial revolution. While this is a novel that is well-researched with fascinating and colorful historical hints, it also explores the reality of change and how it affects those who do not stand to benefit much from it.
The industrial revolution is gaining grounds in Britain and with machines quickly replacing skilled labor. The mill-masters are laying off workers, replacing them with machines, a situation that doesn't sit well with George Mellor, a boy whose growth has been precocious and whose leadership skills come just as naturally. George has known what it is like to have nothing and his hardship has left a great impact on him. And he is not alone. His friends Big Will Thorp, Thomas Smith, and Sam are as disgruntled with the situation as is anyone losing work to machines. They start a revolution to disrupt the revolution, attacking machines and even getting involved with murder. But how far can they go before they are stopped?
Against the Machine: Luddites is a novel that is as relevant today as it is telling of the Napoleonic period, a story that brilliantly depicts what happens when technology replaces human skill. Contemporary readers can easily read the message of this book into their own experience with technology, including the AI tools and robots that have stolen work from many hands. Brian Van Norman weaves an unsettling sense of uncertainty into the story and brings to life a social situation that punctuated life in a specific moment in history. The characters are lovely, the prose exciting, featuring terrific descriptions and intelligently crafted dialogues. The humor isn't lacking and the accent of the characters is wonderfully captured in the dialogues. Real as all-get out, from scenes in the mill that depict the condition of workers to the rowdy clash against machines!
By Scott Jones: Goodreads, Google Books
"A fast paced novel with excellent character development..."
Once in a while, not often enough, a historical fiction book comes along that doesn't feel like a history book; Against the Machine: Luddites is an exciting story and leaves you feeling like you've learned something worthwhile.
Mr Van Norman has taken a little known piece of British history (at least to me) and turned it into a gem of a book. While the term Luddite is not uncommon in conversation, the details of the origin of the term is quite a story. "Against the Machine" traces the Luddite movement in the early 19th century through the men involved in the uprising against the textile owners, the politicians, soldiers and the women who were dragged into the revolt.
A fast paced novel with excellent character development, Mr Van Norman does a good job of conveying the idealistic torment of George Mellor the leader of the movement as well as many of the peripheral characters, some likable, some definitely not.
I highly recommend this book.
"A fast paced novel with excellent character development..."
Once in a while, not often enough, a historical fiction book comes along that doesn't feel like a history book; Against the Machine: Luddites is an exciting story and leaves you feeling like you've learned something worthwhile.
Mr Van Norman has taken a little known piece of British history (at least to me) and turned it into a gem of a book. While the term Luddite is not uncommon in conversation, the details of the origin of the term is quite a story. "Against the Machine" traces the Luddite movement in the early 19th century through the men involved in the uprising against the textile owners, the politicians, soldiers and the women who were dragged into the revolt.
A fast paced novel with excellent character development, Mr Van Norman does a good job of conveying the idealistic torment of George Mellor the leader of the movement as well as many of the peripheral characters, some likable, some definitely not.
I highly recommend this book.
by Deborah Weisberg: Amazon, Goodreads, Google Books
"Many times I find myself returning to past passages and rereading material in exquisite appreciation."
"AGAINST THE MACHINE: LUDDITES" is the exciting long-awaited new novel by meritorious author Brian Van Norman. Without fail, Van Norman has again accorded us with yet another compelling narrative woven in history and dynamically relevant today. This time he has delivered the bedrock for the original Rage Against the Machines.
In contemporary terminology, "Luddite" is a profound label of insult and anti-progress used to describe those folks disgruntled with any form of new technology. In today's current High-Tech industry modern "Luddites" actuate modern technological rebellions, not by swinging 'Enoch's Hammer', but by weaponizing through the means of computer viruses and various malware zealously designed to disrupt the machines that antagonize and threaten them. Mr. Van Norman ingeniously takes us back in history to the brutal core of the original Luddite movement in order for us to ultimately understand ourselves and our own tortured revolutions.
Established in industrialized northern Great Britain during the 1803-1815 Napoleonic Wars, the original Luddite uprising consisted of organized gangs of malcontented and mostly anonymous men hell bent on destroying machinery mostly used in the textile industry. Provoked by deteriorating poverty-level wages, resulting starvation and the crushing threat of having their livelihoods replaced by machines, the Luddites evolved into the counter-revolutionaries of the Industrial Revolution (19th century).
In "AGAINST THE MACHINE: LUDDITES", partially an intriguing love story, Brian van Norman daringly seduces our sympathies towards these fervently anarchistic rebels. He teases our vigilant hearts open to passionate benevolence, especially flourishing with his main character, George Mellor. Leadership thrust upon him at an early age, Mellor labors through the emotional conflicts of adultery, moral principles and the boldness of his beliefs. Van Norman may have softened our feelings towards Mellor but we cannot avoid asking ourselves the question, "Are the Luddites dignified victims or ruthless terrorists?"
Through van Norman's vitalized penmanship we feel a remarkable empathy towards his characters and enthusiastic affection for Mellor's mates; Big Will Thorp, Thomas Smith and Sam Lodge. Noble men, struggling and committed to their deep beliefs. "It ain't the machines themselves, lads, but they're the mark of the maisters' greed. And that's why we must smash 'em!"
I am consistently impressed by Brian Van Norman's talent for and attention to detail, his careful research and strong character development. He has superbly mastered the art of illustrative picturesque writing that honestly should place him in the category of celebrated classical authors. Through his words you can smell the heavily scented wild heather and crisp snowfall and hear the rasping clash of grating unoiled machinery.
Many times I find myself returning to past passages and rereading material in exquisite appreciation. Slows me down but the book is much too good to sacrifice content for time. One of my personal indicators of a great book is how preoccupied one is with the story and characters while away from reading.
"Ned Lud did tha'!"
"Many times I find myself returning to past passages and rereading material in exquisite appreciation."
"AGAINST THE MACHINE: LUDDITES" is the exciting long-awaited new novel by meritorious author Brian Van Norman. Without fail, Van Norman has again accorded us with yet another compelling narrative woven in history and dynamically relevant today. This time he has delivered the bedrock for the original Rage Against the Machines.
In contemporary terminology, "Luddite" is a profound label of insult and anti-progress used to describe those folks disgruntled with any form of new technology. In today's current High-Tech industry modern "Luddites" actuate modern technological rebellions, not by swinging 'Enoch's Hammer', but by weaponizing through the means of computer viruses and various malware zealously designed to disrupt the machines that antagonize and threaten them. Mr. Van Norman ingeniously takes us back in history to the brutal core of the original Luddite movement in order for us to ultimately understand ourselves and our own tortured revolutions.
Established in industrialized northern Great Britain during the 1803-1815 Napoleonic Wars, the original Luddite uprising consisted of organized gangs of malcontented and mostly anonymous men hell bent on destroying machinery mostly used in the textile industry. Provoked by deteriorating poverty-level wages, resulting starvation and the crushing threat of having their livelihoods replaced by machines, the Luddites evolved into the counter-revolutionaries of the Industrial Revolution (19th century).
In "AGAINST THE MACHINE: LUDDITES", partially an intriguing love story, Brian van Norman daringly seduces our sympathies towards these fervently anarchistic rebels. He teases our vigilant hearts open to passionate benevolence, especially flourishing with his main character, George Mellor. Leadership thrust upon him at an early age, Mellor labors through the emotional conflicts of adultery, moral principles and the boldness of his beliefs. Van Norman may have softened our feelings towards Mellor but we cannot avoid asking ourselves the question, "Are the Luddites dignified victims or ruthless terrorists?"
Through van Norman's vitalized penmanship we feel a remarkable empathy towards his characters and enthusiastic affection for Mellor's mates; Big Will Thorp, Thomas Smith and Sam Lodge. Noble men, struggling and committed to their deep beliefs. "It ain't the machines themselves, lads, but they're the mark of the maisters' greed. And that's why we must smash 'em!"
I am consistently impressed by Brian Van Norman's talent for and attention to detail, his careful research and strong character development. He has superbly mastered the art of illustrative picturesque writing that honestly should place him in the category of celebrated classical authors. Through his words you can smell the heavily scented wild heather and crisp snowfall and hear the rasping clash of grating unoiled machinery.
Many times I find myself returning to past passages and rereading material in exquisite appreciation. Slows me down but the book is much too good to sacrifice content for time. One of my personal indicators of a great book is how preoccupied one is with the story and characters while away from reading.
"Ned Lud did tha'!"
HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY
by ANN CHAMBERLIN
“Parallels to technology’s stranglehold on lives and livelihoods today are seamlessly but not anachronistically drawn.”
1812. England faces Bonaparte and a war in America. Novels from this period like Jane Austen’s can ignore this darker side as ladies stroll through the grounds in floating empire gowns and meet dashing soldiers. On the other hand, in novels like this one, you can learn what those soldiers stationed on English ground—more of them there than were actually fighting France—were really up to as the Industrial Revolution took hold in Yorkshire and other counties in the north. The human cost upon which the likes of Charles Bingley made their fortunes initiated untold human suffering.
I found the first couple of chapters daunting as we were introduced to numerous characters: one group, the impoverished Luddites, who were trying to save their livelihoods against machines concentrating the means of production into fewer and fewer hands. On the other side amassed the owners of those machines and the mills they ran on water or coal power. These introductions made it difficult to sort one common English name from another.
After that, the more important characters came quickly to life, in scenes of debased cruelty as well as elevating heroism. I found the whole saga very engaging, particularly so as we come to understand that these are real historical characters, drawn from court records and lists of wanted and condemned men. Their descendants—including me—walk among us today. The research and style are commendable for accuracy and their ability to evoke the time period.
Parallels to technology’s stranglehold on lives and livelihoods today are seamlessly but not anachronistically drawn.
by ANN CHAMBERLIN
“Parallels to technology’s stranglehold on lives and livelihoods today are seamlessly but not anachronistically drawn.”
1812. England faces Bonaparte and a war in America. Novels from this period like Jane Austen’s can ignore this darker side as ladies stroll through the grounds in floating empire gowns and meet dashing soldiers. On the other hand, in novels like this one, you can learn what those soldiers stationed on English ground—more of them there than were actually fighting France—were really up to as the Industrial Revolution took hold in Yorkshire and other counties in the north. The human cost upon which the likes of Charles Bingley made their fortunes initiated untold human suffering.
I found the first couple of chapters daunting as we were introduced to numerous characters: one group, the impoverished Luddites, who were trying to save their livelihoods against machines concentrating the means of production into fewer and fewer hands. On the other side amassed the owners of those machines and the mills they ran on water or coal power. These introductions made it difficult to sort one common English name from another.
After that, the more important characters came quickly to life, in scenes of debased cruelty as well as elevating heroism. I found the whole saga very engaging, particularly so as we come to understand that these are real historical characters, drawn from court records and lists of wanted and condemned men. Their descendants—including me—walk among us today. The research and style are commendable for accuracy and their ability to evoke the time period.
Parallels to technology’s stranglehold on lives and livelihoods today are seamlessly but not anachronistically drawn.
OTHER NOVELS & REVIEWS
“Immortality, or its illusion, is the greatest gift of youth. It is a hard thing to grow old. It is not easy as one's limbs grow stiffer, each function less exact; when each thought is more memory than hope."
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An extraordinary tale of the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de Leon and a retired history teacher, Ross Porter. In parallel, interlaced plots both men suffer life altering crises. As age steals their powers they obsess in a quixotic search for the mythical Fountain of Youth. In separate centuries, yet with mystic connections, each man’s search reveals significant events in his life. In the depths of a Florida cypress swamp their quests culminate with astonishing results.
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Reviews for "Immortal Water"
from “Florida Friends” and “Neighbours Magazine”
by Pat Girard
Immortal Water by Brian Van Norman, Guernica Editions, 2018, 359 pages, ISBN 978-1-77183-243-4 (softcover) ISBN 978-1-77183-244-1 (EPUB), ISBN 978-1-77183-245-8 (Kindle).
Immortal Water is a striking portrayal of the very human fear of aging. The novel depicts two men from two time periods: the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de Leon in the 16th Century and a retired teacher named Ross Porter, in the 21st, both in the midst of mid-life crisis. In parallel plots the two men become obsessed with a search for the mythical Fountain of Youth. These protagonists sparkle into fullness as they struggle to remain vital while age steals their powers away.
Exiled by Diego Colon (Viceroy of the Spanish Indies) Juan Ponce attempts to recover his youth and regain his powers politically. He follows a mystic native woman, Mayaimi, who tells him she will lead him to a magical water in the land of her birth La Florida. As he voyages toward his destination Juan Ponce keeps a journal, writing about his past, wondering how he has failed.
Ross Porter visits Florida in retirement with his wife, Emily. Ross feels too young to have retired. His wife is dying from an incurable cancer. Ross reflects on his past, fearful of his future alone. When Emily dies he mistakes her last words as a sign. He decides, against all logic, to find the fabled Fountain of Youth disrupting friendships and family with his obsession. He too is led by a woman: a young, free spirited Angela Sayer who wants to become an eco-tourism guide through Florida’s wild, untamed places.
Immortal Water is poetic, intelligent and timely. Its theme reflects the fears of so many middle aged individuals in our current society where youth is venerated. With an elegant, convincing style Mr. Van Norman leads his readers on a magical journey.
From Goodreads:
Gorkem Y rated it liked it
Shelves: netgalley
"It is hard to thing to grow old. It is not easy as one's limb's grow stiffer, each function less exact when each though is more memory than hope. Yet so go the days, that are the ghosts of what was with the dull recollection of a change that came, and we were no longer young. "
Probably this is one of the most poetic and emotional descriptions regarding getting older that I've ever read. Mr. Van Norman sets very magical words to his readers to reconsider whether they have already pursued their dreams as elders or have already been pushing harder in order to catch them.
Immortal Water is a book that is entirely written about digging out diametrical perceptions of our lives. The writer reflects this perception between two characters: Ross Porter, living in the modern times and Juan Ponce de Leon, the Spanish conquistador. After Ross Porter's retirement, he starts to contemplate his life from the beginning to end along with the accompanying story of Juan Ponce.
To me, I really respected the writer's idea to create a very unique and original idea with the metaphor of water and discovering life as an individual in the light of the depths of history. All in all, Immortal Water is really a good book to read very divergent experiences about our lives. It pushes to reader to reckon with their own lives with a very poetic book. If you are into reading a different and a unique book, I highly recommend this. I am finishing my review with these amazing words:
"The settled life is the hardest off all: knowing you've stopped by the roadside, knowing your journey is done. Still, even among old men there are dreamers."
Have a great reading!
From Amazon:
An adrenalizing neoteric author who is definitely worth notice, Brian Van Norman has done it again. Following his first novel, “The Betrayal Path", he has fired up yet another captivating book that is nearly impossible to put down.
Mr. Van Norman possesses that rare gift of weaving original stories that both galvanize and seduce his readers. Set aside a weekend and climb into a comfy chair to escape into Brian van Norman’s latest intoxicating historical fiction!
In his latest novel, “Immortal Water”, Van Norman seamlessly braids the antediluvian expeditions of the declining 15th century Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon with his 21st century tormented counterpart, retired history teacher Ross Porter, to innovatively parallel the profoundly personal explorations of each main character.
We are originally introduced to Ponce de Leon through his secret journal; an insightful chronicle of de Leon’s most private thoughts and experiences. Van Norman cleverly guides the reader by his lyrical threading of the emotional restlessness afflicting de Leon throughout his long and dysphoric career. We candidly sympathize with the aging Spanish explorer’s agonizing fall from political grace, the loss of his wife and his wretchedness at being ostracized by his family and his friends.
In these journals we are also first acquainted with de Leon’s paradoxical albatross, the beautiful but savage and mysterious Calusa native guide, Mayaimi. We begin to understand the crucible de Leon carries; the despairing dichotomy of a life gone disastrously sour yet embracing the insular ambition to prolong that life. Haven’t we all yearned for that second chance, a second miraculously gifted voyage?
In a modern day parallel we meet Ross Porter. An Everyman who is intensely anticipating his own exploration in his aging years, content to be shared with Emily: his partner, his wife, his anchor. Porter is ultimately propelled into obsession by the cataclysmic loss of his cherished Emily. We commiserate as Porter’s vanishing acumen is set wildly adrift by his loss. As it is with Ponce de Leon, Ross Porter is also burdened with misery and a passionate quest to discover the means of prolonging his life.
With “Immortal Water’ Van Norman has hit the nail right on the head in defining the anguish of loss: loss of loved ones, the loss of self-worth and the deep bereavement of lost youth. Van Norman artfully elucidates the futile pursuit of mankind’s capricious hunt for more time, more chances, by using the ultimate backdrop of unobtainable human vanities, the eternally quixotic Fountain of Youth.
Van Norman has again proven his ingenious ability to actualize his characters with prolific creativity and marvelously exquisite prose; intimately familiarizing his readers with each well-developed personality he crafts into life. As well, quite appreciatively, van Norman’s quotations at the head of each chapter are carefully conscripted to enlighten the reader’s unfolding perceptions.
In both of his current historical fiction novels, Mr. Van Norman’s intensive research of his subject material is unquestionably the skillful support which leads to fortifying his complex character development. Entertaining and educational!
With rising anticipation, I am looking forward to Brian Van Norman’s next novel. What will he astonish us with next?
by Deborah I. Weisberg
Immortal Water is a striking portrayal of the very human fear of aging. The novel depicts two men from two time periods: the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de Leon in the 16th Century and a retired teacher named Ross Porter, in the 21st, both in the midst of mid-life crisis. In parallel plots the two men become obsessed with a search for the mythical Fountain of Youth. These protagonists sparkle into fullness as they struggle to remain vital while age steals their powers away.
Exiled by Diego Colon (Viceroy of the Spanish Indies) Juan Ponce attempts to recover his youth and regain his powers politically. He follows a mystic native woman, Mayaimi, who tells him she will lead him to a magical water in the land of her birth La Florida. As he voyages toward his destination Juan Ponce keeps a journal, writing about his past, wondering how he has failed.
Ross Porter visits Florida in retirement with his wife, Emily. Ross feels too young to have retired. His wife is dying from an incurable cancer. Ross reflects on his past, fearful of his future alone. When Emily dies he mistakes her last words as a sign. He decides, against all logic, to find the fabled Fountain of Youth disrupting friendships and family with his obsession. He too is led by a woman: a young, free spirited Angela Sayer who wants to become an eco-tourism guide through Florida’s wild, untamed places.
Immortal Water is poetic, intelligent and timely. Its theme reflects the fears of so many middle aged individuals in our current society where youth is venerated. With an elegant, convincing style Mr. Van Norman leads his readers on a magical journey.
From Goodreads:
Gorkem Y rated it liked it
Shelves: netgalley
"It is hard to thing to grow old. It is not easy as one's limb's grow stiffer, each function less exact when each though is more memory than hope. Yet so go the days, that are the ghosts of what was with the dull recollection of a change that came, and we were no longer young. "
Probably this is one of the most poetic and emotional descriptions regarding getting older that I've ever read. Mr. Van Norman sets very magical words to his readers to reconsider whether they have already pursued their dreams as elders or have already been pushing harder in order to catch them.
Immortal Water is a book that is entirely written about digging out diametrical perceptions of our lives. The writer reflects this perception between two characters: Ross Porter, living in the modern times and Juan Ponce de Leon, the Spanish conquistador. After Ross Porter's retirement, he starts to contemplate his life from the beginning to end along with the accompanying story of Juan Ponce.
To me, I really respected the writer's idea to create a very unique and original idea with the metaphor of water and discovering life as an individual in the light of the depths of history. All in all, Immortal Water is really a good book to read very divergent experiences about our lives. It pushes to reader to reckon with their own lives with a very poetic book. If you are into reading a different and a unique book, I highly recommend this. I am finishing my review with these amazing words:
"The settled life is the hardest off all: knowing you've stopped by the roadside, knowing your journey is done. Still, even among old men there are dreamers."
Have a great reading!
From Amazon:
An adrenalizing neoteric author who is definitely worth notice, Brian Van Norman has done it again. Following his first novel, “The Betrayal Path", he has fired up yet another captivating book that is nearly impossible to put down.
Mr. Van Norman possesses that rare gift of weaving original stories that both galvanize and seduce his readers. Set aside a weekend and climb into a comfy chair to escape into Brian van Norman’s latest intoxicating historical fiction!
In his latest novel, “Immortal Water”, Van Norman seamlessly braids the antediluvian expeditions of the declining 15th century Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon with his 21st century tormented counterpart, retired history teacher Ross Porter, to innovatively parallel the profoundly personal explorations of each main character.
We are originally introduced to Ponce de Leon through his secret journal; an insightful chronicle of de Leon’s most private thoughts and experiences. Van Norman cleverly guides the reader by his lyrical threading of the emotional restlessness afflicting de Leon throughout his long and dysphoric career. We candidly sympathize with the aging Spanish explorer’s agonizing fall from political grace, the loss of his wife and his wretchedness at being ostracized by his family and his friends.
In these journals we are also first acquainted with de Leon’s paradoxical albatross, the beautiful but savage and mysterious Calusa native guide, Mayaimi. We begin to understand the crucible de Leon carries; the despairing dichotomy of a life gone disastrously sour yet embracing the insular ambition to prolong that life. Haven’t we all yearned for that second chance, a second miraculously gifted voyage?
In a modern day parallel we meet Ross Porter. An Everyman who is intensely anticipating his own exploration in his aging years, content to be shared with Emily: his partner, his wife, his anchor. Porter is ultimately propelled into obsession by the cataclysmic loss of his cherished Emily. We commiserate as Porter’s vanishing acumen is set wildly adrift by his loss. As it is with Ponce de Leon, Ross Porter is also burdened with misery and a passionate quest to discover the means of prolonging his life.
With “Immortal Water’ Van Norman has hit the nail right on the head in defining the anguish of loss: loss of loved ones, the loss of self-worth and the deep bereavement of lost youth. Van Norman artfully elucidates the futile pursuit of mankind’s capricious hunt for more time, more chances, by using the ultimate backdrop of unobtainable human vanities, the eternally quixotic Fountain of Youth.
Van Norman has again proven his ingenious ability to actualize his characters with prolific creativity and marvelously exquisite prose; intimately familiarizing his readers with each well-developed personality he crafts into life. As well, quite appreciatively, van Norman’s quotations at the head of each chapter are carefully conscripted to enlighten the reader’s unfolding perceptions.
In both of his current historical fiction novels, Mr. Van Norman’s intensive research of his subject material is unquestionably the skillful support which leads to fortifying his complex character development. Entertaining and educational!
With rising anticipation, I am looking forward to Brian Van Norman’s next novel. What will he astonish us with next?
by Deborah I. Weisberg
"In the cool of the evening the flies returned to the field between forest and fort. Where there had been morning green was now blackened soot and blood. The ground was littered with scarlet. And the flies feasted upon it."
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An epic novel bringing history to life with a dynamic mix of factual events and human conflict. Filled with plot twists, intriguing characters and a complex love story the novel follows events of the three years leading to General Wolfe’s victory on the Plains of Abraham.
Alan Nashe, English spy, is summoned from the gaming haunts of Bath to a new assignment. Sent to Quebec, his mission is to discover the state of French defenses and find a way to sabotage them. But within the pit of espionage, fate hands Nashe a conundrum. The war within him begins to reflect that which roils around him. Enamored of French Quebecois culture and in love with an exquisite noblesse; Nashe wrestles with his conscience. Can he fulfill his duty to betray his new found friends or turn traitor and protect them? |
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Reviews for "The Betrayal Path"
From the Historical Novel Society - Steve Donoghue:
In Brian Van Norman’s expertly-researched and tightly-controlled debut, English spy Alan Nashe is called from his sordid relaxations in the resort town of Bath and sent on a new assignment: make the voyage to Quebec, then a hotbed of political activity in the years leading up to the famous death of General Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham, and spy for the Crown in the midst of the province’s treacherous cross-currents of espionage.
The novel is very much Nashe’s show, but Van Norman nevertheless does an excellent job of fleshing out his large cast of secondary characters, and he accomplishes this mostly through page after page of pitch-perfect dialogue and a good amount of wry, Flashman-style humor.
From Amazon.com – Deborah I. Weisberg:
AMAZING book!!! The story is absolutely captivating from Page One! Phenomenally well written and researched to the most minute detail. The creatively, deeply developed characters and story line capture your heart and imagination right off the bat.
I'm usually not a big history fan which makes it even more incredible that I fell in love with "The Betrayal Path'! My book club, especially my Canadian and upstate New York friends, are clambering to read this wonderful book! We're all hoping that Mr. Van Norman is working on writing more captivating historical adventures!!!
From Amazon.ca – Anonymous:
I found the book a thriller I could not put down. Intriguing characters, great plot twists and historical fact I never knew!
From Goodreads - Marc Stevens:
A very good piece of work in the tradition of Cornwell and O'Brien. We can only hope for more!
From Goodreads - Scott:
Excellent book a must read for anyone who enjoys historical fiction. A well written piece about the events leading up to and including the battle on the Plains of Abraham between Wolfe and Montcalm,a critical battle in Canadian history. The characters (both real and ficticious) are well developed and add depth to the story. Mr Van Norman has made this piece of Canadian history so exciting I hope he'll publish some more.
From the Cambridge Times – Bill Jackson:
There are many questions that historians don’t have answers for. The gaps are often replaced by theories, such as the one encapsulated by Alan Nashe – a character created by Brian Van Norman in his new novel The Betrayal Path.
From Barnes & Noble – Anonymous:
This was an enjoyable read; recommended for those interested in history!
From Chronicler – Charles Goulet:
Van Norman has truly brought to life the characters and period in the history of Canada. He has captured the true essence of the times and people who lived then. It is a great read full of adventure and romance.
From the KW Record –
The Betrayal Path is an entertaining page-turner with a plot that comes to a boil in Quebec at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759. Part of the fun for readers is in guessing which characters were real people and which are imagined.
In Brian Van Norman’s expertly-researched and tightly-controlled debut, English spy Alan Nashe is called from his sordid relaxations in the resort town of Bath and sent on a new assignment: make the voyage to Quebec, then a hotbed of political activity in the years leading up to the famous death of General Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham, and spy for the Crown in the midst of the province’s treacherous cross-currents of espionage.
The novel is very much Nashe’s show, but Van Norman nevertheless does an excellent job of fleshing out his large cast of secondary characters, and he accomplishes this mostly through page after page of pitch-perfect dialogue and a good amount of wry, Flashman-style humor.
From Amazon.com – Deborah I. Weisberg:
AMAZING book!!! The story is absolutely captivating from Page One! Phenomenally well written and researched to the most minute detail. The creatively, deeply developed characters and story line capture your heart and imagination right off the bat.
I'm usually not a big history fan which makes it even more incredible that I fell in love with "The Betrayal Path'! My book club, especially my Canadian and upstate New York friends, are clambering to read this wonderful book! We're all hoping that Mr. Van Norman is working on writing more captivating historical adventures!!!
From Amazon.ca – Anonymous:
I found the book a thriller I could not put down. Intriguing characters, great plot twists and historical fact I never knew!
From Goodreads - Marc Stevens:
A very good piece of work in the tradition of Cornwell and O'Brien. We can only hope for more!
From Goodreads - Scott:
Excellent book a must read for anyone who enjoys historical fiction. A well written piece about the events leading up to and including the battle on the Plains of Abraham between Wolfe and Montcalm,a critical battle in Canadian history. The characters (both real and ficticious) are well developed and add depth to the story. Mr Van Norman has made this piece of Canadian history so exciting I hope he'll publish some more.
From the Cambridge Times – Bill Jackson:
There are many questions that historians don’t have answers for. The gaps are often replaced by theories, such as the one encapsulated by Alan Nashe – a character created by Brian Van Norman in his new novel The Betrayal Path.
From Barnes & Noble – Anonymous:
This was an enjoyable read; recommended for those interested in history!
From Chronicler – Charles Goulet:
Van Norman has truly brought to life the characters and period in the history of Canada. He has captured the true essence of the times and people who lived then. It is a great read full of adventure and romance.
From the KW Record –
The Betrayal Path is an entertaining page-turner with a plot that comes to a boil in Quebec at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759. Part of the fun for readers is in guessing which characters were real people and which are imagined.
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It's a Long Story: Brian Van Norman on His New Novel and Class Struggle's Past and Present
While the characters of author Brian Van Norman's new historical fiction novel Against the Machine: Luddites (Guernica Editions) exist within the hardscrabble manufacturing towns of 19th century Britain, their struggle is easily relatable to those suffering the effects of an increasingly tech-focused economy in our present day.
As their nation wages a bloody war against Napoleon's army, English factory-owners begin to welcome new technology, replacing human labour with automation and the promise of a richer bottom-line. Faced with the loss of livelihood, one young man leads a violent resistance against the rising tide. As the entire country trembles in the grip of violence and uncertainty, the British government relocates more troops to Northern England, trying to quell the outbreak of homegrown terrorism.
Against the Machine: Luddites follows a diverse group of individuals during this chaotic chapter of human history, tracing their relationships and experiences against a backdrop of desperate acts and immense political corruption.
We're very excited to have Brian at Open Book today to discuss the many changes his manuscript endured since its inception, meeting a new friend during a research trip to England, and the disturbing similarities between the Luddites' struggle and our current economic imbalance.
Open Book:Do you remember how your first started this novel or the very first bit of writing you did for it?
Brian Van Norman:The first time I considered this concept was during the financial crisis of 2008, when thousands were thrown out of manufacturing jobs while an elite technologist class maintained high salaries. I watched the beginning of economic inequity, realizing that our 21st century society was only slightly better than the 19th century at resolving this boom/bust economy as new technologies altered the workplace.
In 1812, there was no welfare. In 2012, there were low-paid service jobs. There have been attempts at upgrading education, with slogans like “life long learning” describing the desperation and mass migrations by the poor to find any jobs to keep them solvent.
I believe it is common knowledge now that half of the world’s net wealth belongs to the top 1% while the bottom 90% holds only 15%. According to a 2017 Oxfam report, the top eight richest billionaires own as much combined wealth as “half the human race”.
I first wrote the prologue for Against the Machine: Luddites to get a sense of the style I would need to write the novel itself. I began by writing in a west Yorkshire dialect but, recognizing its complexity, eventually found a happy middle with just enough dialect wordage to give the novel a sense of time and place.
OB:How did you choose the setting of your novel? What connection, if any, did you have to the setting when you began writing?
BVN:Against the Machine: Luddites is a novel about the Luddites of 1812 Northern England who, when thrown out of work by new technology, attempted to stop the future by destroying the machines which replaced them. So threatened was the British government that more troops were sent to Northern England than were fighting Napoleon in that year.
That period so reflects our own with mass migrations, trade deals in tatters, economic tribalism between haves and have-nots, and acts of terrorism brought on by desperation.
Through my initial research I discovered much of North England to have been affected by the Luddite movement. After having stayed there a while, I decided on Yorkshire, with its brooding moors and old ruins of woollen manufactories. Also, a particular event occurred there which enabled me to stipulate the positions of every side of the rising.
OB:Did the ending of your novel change at all through your drafts? If so, how?
BVN:The entire novel constantly changed through its drafts as I found more depth in the characters I had chosen. Sometimes I followed my start plan, but in many other situations those characters demanded their own pathways.
The most significant change was because of George Mellor’s time in prison. He had discovered a philosophy to explain his complex relations since joining the Luddite cause. Though rather mystical, it gave the story a spiritual sense it had been missing up to that point. Of course his death, historically, was to be the climax of the novel. I discovered, however, as he had, that others live on. I found myself focusing on those most damaged by the passage of that year; those who lived amidst the terror yet were finding their ways to survive it. It led to an epilogue and now a sequel, set in 2012.
OB:Did you find yourself having a "favourite" amongst your characters? If so, who was it and why?
BVN:Perhaps my most preferred character in the novel is the most complex. Mary Buckworth, a parson’s wife with a mind much more abundant than his, takes a lover in the most forbidden societal gesture a woman of that time could make. She attempts to find her way through a middle ground of love and duty, but it inevitably collapses on her. Her words: “I have nothing left, George. Oh, I own this baggage around me but I’ve nothing left. I am the Luddite of my own life.”
OB:If you had to describe your book in one sentence, what would you say?
BVN:If we don’t manage these machines and ourselves who make them, if we don’t marry what we make with who we are … then we’ll all become nowt but slaves!
This statement, I believe, is the crux of social and technological evolution on earth. In research for the sequel, “Against the Machine: Manifesto”, I have found this statement at the heart of most neo-Luddite materials I have researched.
This is not going away. We humans will always quest for what we believe is better, even when it may not be.
OB:Did you do any specific research for this novel? Tell us a bit about that process.
BVN:Research is at the heart of most historical novels and this one was no different. There were plenty of diaries, military reports, historical analyses and other sources to look to while creating as realistic a world as possible with the stimulation of fiction to power it. There is a substantial reference list at the end of the novel.
Yet there are even more effective methods of research, the most important of which is visiting the ground where these events occurred. In some places it can be a wild land, the great moors of the Peak District Dales and the West Riding of Yorkshire. In others, one can glimpse the ruins of old mills and manufactories through greenery as nature returns to take back its own.
And, of course, there are the great cities of the north: Manchester, Liverpool, Huddersfield, Leeds, and York with their fine museums to assist a researcher.
As well, there are the memories and legends. In some of the towns, there are people living in the homes of their two hundred-year-old ancestors. Their stories can be as enlightening as any historical tome.
OB:What was the strangest or most memorable moment or experience during the writing process for you?
BVN:More gratifying than strange, I wrote to the Huddersfield Historical Society, telling them what I was planning and asking if they could help. Within a week, I was sent the name of a gentleman who was not only an archeologist but an anarchist and specialist in Luddism in the West Country of York. I was to stay at his two hundred-year-old cottage, and we would be driven by his wife to places I’d researched and others I’d never heard of until meeting this erudite guide and teacher.
I met him on a hot summer day outside his cottage. He was working on a paper and drinking Guinness. I joined him and we simply talked until dark, not always about my research. By the time that evening ended and the next day of touring began, he and I had become friends, as though our meeting was meant to have happened. Everything he explained to me was balanced, and every question I asked him was answered with clarity and aplomb.
We are still friends. I hope to return to Yorkshire to launch the novel this spring.
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While the characters of author Brian Van Norman's new historical fiction novel Against the Machine: Luddites (Guernica Editions) exist within the hardscrabble manufacturing towns of 19th century Britain, their struggle is easily relatable to those suffering the effects of an increasingly tech-focused economy in our present day.
As their nation wages a bloody war against Napoleon's army, English factory-owners begin to welcome new technology, replacing human labour with automation and the promise of a richer bottom-line. Faced with the loss of livelihood, one young man leads a violent resistance against the rising tide. As the entire country trembles in the grip of violence and uncertainty, the British government relocates more troops to Northern England, trying to quell the outbreak of homegrown terrorism.
Against the Machine: Luddites follows a diverse group of individuals during this chaotic chapter of human history, tracing their relationships and experiences against a backdrop of desperate acts and immense political corruption.
We're very excited to have Brian at Open Book today to discuss the many changes his manuscript endured since its inception, meeting a new friend during a research trip to England, and the disturbing similarities between the Luddites' struggle and our current economic imbalance.
Open Book:Do you remember how your first started this novel or the very first bit of writing you did for it?
Brian Van Norman:The first time I considered this concept was during the financial crisis of 2008, when thousands were thrown out of manufacturing jobs while an elite technologist class maintained high salaries. I watched the beginning of economic inequity, realizing that our 21st century society was only slightly better than the 19th century at resolving this boom/bust economy as new technologies altered the workplace.
In 1812, there was no welfare. In 2012, there were low-paid service jobs. There have been attempts at upgrading education, with slogans like “life long learning” describing the desperation and mass migrations by the poor to find any jobs to keep them solvent.
I believe it is common knowledge now that half of the world’s net wealth belongs to the top 1% while the bottom 90% holds only 15%. According to a 2017 Oxfam report, the top eight richest billionaires own as much combined wealth as “half the human race”.
I first wrote the prologue for Against the Machine: Luddites to get a sense of the style I would need to write the novel itself. I began by writing in a west Yorkshire dialect but, recognizing its complexity, eventually found a happy middle with just enough dialect wordage to give the novel a sense of time and place.
OB:How did you choose the setting of your novel? What connection, if any, did you have to the setting when you began writing?
BVN:Against the Machine: Luddites is a novel about the Luddites of 1812 Northern England who, when thrown out of work by new technology, attempted to stop the future by destroying the machines which replaced them. So threatened was the British government that more troops were sent to Northern England than were fighting Napoleon in that year.
That period so reflects our own with mass migrations, trade deals in tatters, economic tribalism between haves and have-nots, and acts of terrorism brought on by desperation.
Through my initial research I discovered much of North England to have been affected by the Luddite movement. After having stayed there a while, I decided on Yorkshire, with its brooding moors and old ruins of woollen manufactories. Also, a particular event occurred there which enabled me to stipulate the positions of every side of the rising.
OB:Did the ending of your novel change at all through your drafts? If so, how?
BVN:The entire novel constantly changed through its drafts as I found more depth in the characters I had chosen. Sometimes I followed my start plan, but in many other situations those characters demanded their own pathways.
The most significant change was because of George Mellor’s time in prison. He had discovered a philosophy to explain his complex relations since joining the Luddite cause. Though rather mystical, it gave the story a spiritual sense it had been missing up to that point. Of course his death, historically, was to be the climax of the novel. I discovered, however, as he had, that others live on. I found myself focusing on those most damaged by the passage of that year; those who lived amidst the terror yet were finding their ways to survive it. It led to an epilogue and now a sequel, set in 2012.
OB:Did you find yourself having a "favourite" amongst your characters? If so, who was it and why?
BVN:Perhaps my most preferred character in the novel is the most complex. Mary Buckworth, a parson’s wife with a mind much more abundant than his, takes a lover in the most forbidden societal gesture a woman of that time could make. She attempts to find her way through a middle ground of love and duty, but it inevitably collapses on her. Her words: “I have nothing left, George. Oh, I own this baggage around me but I’ve nothing left. I am the Luddite of my own life.”
OB:If you had to describe your book in one sentence, what would you say?
BVN:If we don’t manage these machines and ourselves who make them, if we don’t marry what we make with who we are … then we’ll all become nowt but slaves!
This statement, I believe, is the crux of social and technological evolution on earth. In research for the sequel, “Against the Machine: Manifesto”, I have found this statement at the heart of most neo-Luddite materials I have researched.
This is not going away. We humans will always quest for what we believe is better, even when it may not be.
OB:Did you do any specific research for this novel? Tell us a bit about that process.
BVN:Research is at the heart of most historical novels and this one was no different. There were plenty of diaries, military reports, historical analyses and other sources to look to while creating as realistic a world as possible with the stimulation of fiction to power it. There is a substantial reference list at the end of the novel.
Yet there are even more effective methods of research, the most important of which is visiting the ground where these events occurred. In some places it can be a wild land, the great moors of the Peak District Dales and the West Riding of Yorkshire. In others, one can glimpse the ruins of old mills and manufactories through greenery as nature returns to take back its own.
And, of course, there are the great cities of the north: Manchester, Liverpool, Huddersfield, Leeds, and York with their fine museums to assist a researcher.
As well, there are the memories and legends. In some of the towns, there are people living in the homes of their two hundred-year-old ancestors. Their stories can be as enlightening as any historical tome.
OB:What was the strangest or most memorable moment or experience during the writing process for you?
BVN:More gratifying than strange, I wrote to the Huddersfield Historical Society, telling them what I was planning and asking if they could help. Within a week, I was sent the name of a gentleman who was not only an archeologist but an anarchist and specialist in Luddism in the West Country of York. I was to stay at his two hundred-year-old cottage, and we would be driven by his wife to places I’d researched and others I’d never heard of until meeting this erudite guide and teacher.
I met him on a hot summer day outside his cottage. He was working on a paper and drinking Guinness. I joined him and we simply talked until dark, not always about my research. By the time that evening ended and the next day of touring began, he and I had become friends, as though our meeting was meant to have happened. Everything he explained to me was balanced, and every question I asked him was answered with clarity and aplomb.
We are still friends. I hope to return to Yorkshire to launch the novel this spring.
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AUTHOR BRIAN VAN NORMAN IN THE READING ROOM
The room is softly lit, the walls lined with deep rich mahogany shelves filled with books and as you enter you notice there are still a few empty seats. A low murmur of amiable voices gently greets your ears and immediately you sense you are among friends. You sink down into the arms of a luxuriously padded wing back chair savoring the feel and scent of its buttery soft leather as all your cares drift away.
A hush falls over the room as a well modulated baritone voice begins, “Welcome to the Reading Room, my friends. We’re glad you could join our conversation. At the considerable risk of appearing sycophantic I am excruciatingly aware of punching above my weight class in this conversation.
Please join me in welcoming Brian Van Norman, author of the recently released novel Against the Machine: Luddites and, as you will learn, its sequel coming this fall with Guernica Editions: Against the Machine: Manifesto.
James: When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
Brian: Always a voracious reader from the age of three I was fascinated by the world presented to me through books. I first attempted writing when I was in a band at age 15 and wrote lyrics to our original songs. The concept of storytelling evolved from lyrics and I began to write short stories. I was a bit of a rebel and dropped the idea of writing for years in the pursuit of new experiences and eventually a university degree. Once I became an English and Theatre teacher I wrote some prize winning one act plays, short stories and poetry while I worked on research for what I hoped would be my first novel. So I suppose there was no one time when I consciously considered writing as a profession.
James: It sounds as if you were born to write.
Brian: Actually, thinking about it, it was always on my mind.
James: If you had a book club, what would it be reading and why?
Brian: I enjoy almost all genres of writing. I would suggest “War and Peace” by Tolstoy but in translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. This translation captures the simplicity of language Tolstoy employed as well as the power of his characters and plot. Simply put, one of the best novels ever written.
James: “War and Peace” 1,296 pages, I am impressed. I’m afraid that my attention span is too woefully transitory.
What do you like to do when you're not writing?
Brian: Before covid when I wasn’t writing I travelled. Both Susan, my wife, and I enjoy long stays in foreign parts. We’ve travelled to every Continent (including Antarctica) and sailed nearly every ocean or sea we could reach.
James: My wife, Christine, and I have enjoyed travel as well but our wanderings throughout most of North America in our motor home, a few islands in the Caribbean and Belize, Britain, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and Hong Kong pale in comparison. Perhaps we could swap stories sometime?
Brian: That would be fun! I’d enjoy that too.
James: What tactics do you employ when writing? (For example: outline first or just write)
Brian: If I’m writing historical fiction I always look for ‘holes’ in history; those unexplained moments which allow me to fill that gap with both imagined and factual characters. For instance, Juan Ponce de Leon’s log from his second voyage to la Florida was lost. This allowed me to create that voyage in fiction with Immortal Water, my second novel. I tend to use a rough outline but the characters often lead me another way. That is the strangest thing about writing, how so often characters start to tell their own stories.
James: How very astute of you, Brian. You make it sound almost elementary but I know it is anything but.
Do you use any special writing software? If so what is it, and why do you like it?
Brian: I use Word for both writing and editing. I like it because it’s flexible.
James: I too use Word. I’m still using the 2007 version.
Tell us three things about yourself that might surprise your readers.
Brian: I have had three careers in my lifetime: as a teacher, a theatre director and adjudicator, and as a writer.
James: Why did you choose to write in your particular field or genre?
Brian: I have always had a strong interest in history and historical novels. It’s fascinating to know where we come from and how we arrived at the place we are now as a species. I enjoy the exploration of how ordinary people actually lived in their different societies, cultures and civilizations. Writers are often told “write what you know”. I love Canadian history, and since grade 7 when I was introduced to early French Canadian and Quebec history, I’ve always wanted to write about Wolfe and Montcalm. It turned out I found a ‘hole’ in history there. Too involved to explain here but it let to my first novel The Betrayal Path.
James: How would you describe Against the Machine: Luddites to someone who has not read any of your previous novels?
Brian: The novel is literary historical fiction based closely upon events and people in Yorkshire, England, in 1812. The story is told from the points of view of characters, both real and imagined, on both sides of the uprising by the Luddites.
James: What was the source of your inspiration for Against the Machine: Luddites?
Brian: I have a strong interest in the tools we humans have developed over the course of our history and the resulting consequences of invention, both positive and negative. As a result of discussions with Guernica Editions I have embarked on a somewhat unusual trilogy which features interactions between humans and machines in varied locations but 200 years apart. That said, Luddites was the initial novel set in Yorkshire in 1812. The sequel is Against the Machine: Manifesto, and is set in my home of Waterloo Region in 2012 (I am thankful I didn’t choose 2020) and will launch this autumn. The trilogy should culminate in a third book set in 2212… so I am writing in three different genres approaching this topic which I feel is so significant to our past, present and future.
James: What was your hardest chapter or scene to write?
Brian: In Luddites, the most difficult were the first four chapters which introduced quite a number of characters. I chose two separate social occasions on either side of the English class divide and used as much action as I could to garner interest in these individuals. The chapters contained many names which somewhat countered the purpose of most opening chapters: enticing the reader into the book.
James: Your characters are meticulously drawn, strong and well developed, although I must admit, the large number was somewhat challenging. However, from Mellor, the protagonist, down to the seemingly most insignificant character, I found myself empathizing with their profound moral dilemma in pursuit of freedom, justice and basic human rights.
Brian: I hope you found most of them interesting as you got to know each of them through the novel.
James: Which part of researching Against the Machine: Luddites was the most personally interesting to you? Were there any facts, symbols, or themes that you would have liked to include, but they just didn't make it into the story?
Brian: Most interesting to me were the moors of Yorkshire, their beauty and their menace, and a man who became a personal friend. I was lucky enough to meet Alan Brooke, whose ancestors were Luddites, who lives today in the cottage they built and is an expert on the subject. Without him to take me around to the old overgrown mills, or explain the complex geography, or guide me up into the moors, I really don’t think this book would have been finished.
As to what I would have liked to include, there are too many to name. The editing process, and the editors at Guernica Editions are masters at it, involves the removal of whatever is not furthering the novel’s impact. Every writer out there knows the pain of rejecting the words you’ve worked over, and then the delight when the edit process proves so effective.
James: Out of the protagonists: Juan Ponce de Leon or Ross Porter in Immortal Water; Alan Nashe in The Betrayal Path; or Ned Lud or George Mellor in Against the Machine: Luddites, that you’ve written about so far, which one do you feel you relate to the most?
Brian: Ross Porter. He is a mix of myself and a colleague, more so than any other of the characters I’ve written.
James: What are the ethics of writing about historical figures?
Brian: It’s important, I believe, to research historical characters as deeply as possible. It would be difficult to make Joseph Goebbels, for instance, an upstanding character. However, there’s a quote from Gabriel Garcia Márquez: “All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret.” I think that most people do not believe they are evil or cause evil; they will rationalize their actions to make them agree with their moral code. A historian can cite the facts of a character and come to conclusions. A historical novelist is allowed more room to interpret, perhaps in bringing the secret life forward.
James: A most insightful and thought provoking premise, Brian. What advice would you give to a writer whose manuscript has been rejected several times and told he or she will never make it as a writer?
Brian: Keep writing. Keep submitting. I have a filing cabinet shelf full of rejections.
James: What is the most important tip you can share with other writers?
Brian: Be careful of vanity publishers or anyone who wants you to contribute financially. I made that mistake years back when I was desperate. They feed on fed up writers. Fortunately I got out of the contract due to a publishing flaw.
James: What was one challenge you had to overcome to become an author? How did you overcome that challenge?
Brian: I had to fight the negativity I received from so many rejections. I did stop writing for years at a time but always returned to it.
James: We’re very glad you possess such fortitude, Brian. What question do you wish that someone would ask about your books, but nobody has? Then answer it.
Brian: Question: Who is real and who isn’t in your novels?
Answer: None are real. They are all imaginary or interpreted.
The room is softly lit, the walls lined with deep rich mahogany shelves filled with books and as you enter you notice there are still a few empty seats. A low murmur of amiable voices gently greets your ears and immediately you sense you are among friends. You sink down into the arms of a luxuriously padded wing back chair savoring the feel and scent of its buttery soft leather as all your cares drift away.
A hush falls over the room as a well modulated baritone voice begins, “Welcome to the Reading Room, my friends. We’re glad you could join our conversation. At the considerable risk of appearing sycophantic I am excruciatingly aware of punching above my weight class in this conversation.
Please join me in welcoming Brian Van Norman, author of the recently released novel Against the Machine: Luddites and, as you will learn, its sequel coming this fall with Guernica Editions: Against the Machine: Manifesto.
James: When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
Brian: Always a voracious reader from the age of three I was fascinated by the world presented to me through books. I first attempted writing when I was in a band at age 15 and wrote lyrics to our original songs. The concept of storytelling evolved from lyrics and I began to write short stories. I was a bit of a rebel and dropped the idea of writing for years in the pursuit of new experiences and eventually a university degree. Once I became an English and Theatre teacher I wrote some prize winning one act plays, short stories and poetry while I worked on research for what I hoped would be my first novel. So I suppose there was no one time when I consciously considered writing as a profession.
James: It sounds as if you were born to write.
Brian: Actually, thinking about it, it was always on my mind.
James: If you had a book club, what would it be reading and why?
Brian: I enjoy almost all genres of writing. I would suggest “War and Peace” by Tolstoy but in translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. This translation captures the simplicity of language Tolstoy employed as well as the power of his characters and plot. Simply put, one of the best novels ever written.
James: “War and Peace” 1,296 pages, I am impressed. I’m afraid that my attention span is too woefully transitory.
What do you like to do when you're not writing?
Brian: Before covid when I wasn’t writing I travelled. Both Susan, my wife, and I enjoy long stays in foreign parts. We’ve travelled to every Continent (including Antarctica) and sailed nearly every ocean or sea we could reach.
James: My wife, Christine, and I have enjoyed travel as well but our wanderings throughout most of North America in our motor home, a few islands in the Caribbean and Belize, Britain, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and Hong Kong pale in comparison. Perhaps we could swap stories sometime?
Brian: That would be fun! I’d enjoy that too.
James: What tactics do you employ when writing? (For example: outline first or just write)
Brian: If I’m writing historical fiction I always look for ‘holes’ in history; those unexplained moments which allow me to fill that gap with both imagined and factual characters. For instance, Juan Ponce de Leon’s log from his second voyage to la Florida was lost. This allowed me to create that voyage in fiction with Immortal Water, my second novel. I tend to use a rough outline but the characters often lead me another way. That is the strangest thing about writing, how so often characters start to tell their own stories.
James: How very astute of you, Brian. You make it sound almost elementary but I know it is anything but.
Do you use any special writing software? If so what is it, and why do you like it?
Brian: I use Word for both writing and editing. I like it because it’s flexible.
James: I too use Word. I’m still using the 2007 version.
Tell us three things about yourself that might surprise your readers.
Brian: I have had three careers in my lifetime: as a teacher, a theatre director and adjudicator, and as a writer.
James: Why did you choose to write in your particular field or genre?
Brian: I have always had a strong interest in history and historical novels. It’s fascinating to know where we come from and how we arrived at the place we are now as a species. I enjoy the exploration of how ordinary people actually lived in their different societies, cultures and civilizations. Writers are often told “write what you know”. I love Canadian history, and since grade 7 when I was introduced to early French Canadian and Quebec history, I’ve always wanted to write about Wolfe and Montcalm. It turned out I found a ‘hole’ in history there. Too involved to explain here but it let to my first novel The Betrayal Path.
James: How would you describe Against the Machine: Luddites to someone who has not read any of your previous novels?
Brian: The novel is literary historical fiction based closely upon events and people in Yorkshire, England, in 1812. The story is told from the points of view of characters, both real and imagined, on both sides of the uprising by the Luddites.
James: What was the source of your inspiration for Against the Machine: Luddites?
Brian: I have a strong interest in the tools we humans have developed over the course of our history and the resulting consequences of invention, both positive and negative. As a result of discussions with Guernica Editions I have embarked on a somewhat unusual trilogy which features interactions between humans and machines in varied locations but 200 years apart. That said, Luddites was the initial novel set in Yorkshire in 1812. The sequel is Against the Machine: Manifesto, and is set in my home of Waterloo Region in 2012 (I am thankful I didn’t choose 2020) and will launch this autumn. The trilogy should culminate in a third book set in 2212… so I am writing in three different genres approaching this topic which I feel is so significant to our past, present and future.
James: What was your hardest chapter or scene to write?
Brian: In Luddites, the most difficult were the first four chapters which introduced quite a number of characters. I chose two separate social occasions on either side of the English class divide and used as much action as I could to garner interest in these individuals. The chapters contained many names which somewhat countered the purpose of most opening chapters: enticing the reader into the book.
James: Your characters are meticulously drawn, strong and well developed, although I must admit, the large number was somewhat challenging. However, from Mellor, the protagonist, down to the seemingly most insignificant character, I found myself empathizing with their profound moral dilemma in pursuit of freedom, justice and basic human rights.
Brian: I hope you found most of them interesting as you got to know each of them through the novel.
James: Which part of researching Against the Machine: Luddites was the most personally interesting to you? Were there any facts, symbols, or themes that you would have liked to include, but they just didn't make it into the story?
Brian: Most interesting to me were the moors of Yorkshire, their beauty and their menace, and a man who became a personal friend. I was lucky enough to meet Alan Brooke, whose ancestors were Luddites, who lives today in the cottage they built and is an expert on the subject. Without him to take me around to the old overgrown mills, or explain the complex geography, or guide me up into the moors, I really don’t think this book would have been finished.
As to what I would have liked to include, there are too many to name. The editing process, and the editors at Guernica Editions are masters at it, involves the removal of whatever is not furthering the novel’s impact. Every writer out there knows the pain of rejecting the words you’ve worked over, and then the delight when the edit process proves so effective.
James: Out of the protagonists: Juan Ponce de Leon or Ross Porter in Immortal Water; Alan Nashe in The Betrayal Path; or Ned Lud or George Mellor in Against the Machine: Luddites, that you’ve written about so far, which one do you feel you relate to the most?
Brian: Ross Porter. He is a mix of myself and a colleague, more so than any other of the characters I’ve written.
James: What are the ethics of writing about historical figures?
Brian: It’s important, I believe, to research historical characters as deeply as possible. It would be difficult to make Joseph Goebbels, for instance, an upstanding character. However, there’s a quote from Gabriel Garcia Márquez: “All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret.” I think that most people do not believe they are evil or cause evil; they will rationalize their actions to make them agree with their moral code. A historian can cite the facts of a character and come to conclusions. A historical novelist is allowed more room to interpret, perhaps in bringing the secret life forward.
James: A most insightful and thought provoking premise, Brian. What advice would you give to a writer whose manuscript has been rejected several times and told he or she will never make it as a writer?
Brian: Keep writing. Keep submitting. I have a filing cabinet shelf full of rejections.
James: What is the most important tip you can share with other writers?
Brian: Be careful of vanity publishers or anyone who wants you to contribute financially. I made that mistake years back when I was desperate. They feed on fed up writers. Fortunately I got out of the contract due to a publishing flaw.
James: What was one challenge you had to overcome to become an author? How did you overcome that challenge?
Brian: I had to fight the negativity I received from so many rejections. I did stop writing for years at a time but always returned to it.
James: We’re very glad you possess such fortitude, Brian. What question do you wish that someone would ask about your books, but nobody has? Then answer it.
Brian: Question: Who is real and who isn’t in your novels?
Answer: None are real. They are all imaginary or interpreted.
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By using the Service, you consent to Weebly’s collection, disclosure, storage, and use of your Personal Information in accordance with Weebly’s privacy policy available at https://www.weebly.com/privacy. VII. LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES As part of the Service, we may provide links to or compatibility with other websites or applications. However, we are not responsible for the privacy practices employed by those websites or the information or content they contain. This Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected by us through the Service. Therefore, this Privacy Policy does not apply to your use of a third-party website accessed by selecting a link via our Service. To the extent that you access or use the Service through or on another website or application, then the privacy policy of that other website or application will apply to your access or use of that site or application. We encourage our users to read the privacy statements of other websites before proceeding to use them. VIII. AGE OF CONSENT By using the Service, you represent that you are at least 18 years of age. IX. CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY The Company reserves the right to change this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use at any time. If we decide to change this Privacy Policy, we will post these changes on this page so that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose it. Any such modifications become effective upon your continued access to and/or use of the Service five (5) days after we first post the changes on the website or otherwise provide you with notice of such modifications. It is your sole responsibility to check this website from time to time to view any such changes to the terms of this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to any changes, if and when such changes may be made to this Privacy Policy, you must cease access to this website. If you have provided your email address to us, you give us permission to email you for the purpose of notification as described in this Privacy Policy. X. MERGER OR ACQUISITION In the event we (or Weebly) undergo a business transaction such as a merger, acquisition by another company, or sale of all or a portion of our assets, your Personal Information may be among the assets transferred. You acknowledge and consent that such transfers may occur and are permitted by this Privacy Policy, and that any acquirer of our (or Weebly’s) assets may continue to process your Personal Information as set forth in this Privacy Policy. If our information practices change at any time in the future, we will post the policy changes here so that you may opt out of the new information practices. We suggest that you check this Privacy Policy periodically if you are concerned about how your information is used. XI. EMAIL COMMUNICATIONS & OPTING OUT We will send you Service-related announcements on occasions when it is necessary to do so. For instance, if our Service is temporarily suspended for maintenance, or a new enhancement is released, which will affect the way you use our Service, we might send you an email. Generally, you may not opt-out of these communications, which are not promotional in nature. Based upon the Personal Information that you provide us, we may communicate with you in response to your inquiries to provide the services you request and to manage your account. We will communicate with you by email or telephone, in accordance with your wishes. We may also use your Personal Information to send you updates and other promotional communications. If you no longer wish to receive those email updates, you may opt-out of receiving them by following the instructions included in each update or communication. XII. CONTACT US & WITHDRAWING CONSENT If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy or the practices of this Site, or wish to withdraw your consent for the continued collection, use or disclosure of your Personal Information, please contact us by sending an email to belmont@golden.net. Last Updated: This Privacy Policy was last updated on Sun May 27 2018.
Author (the “Company”) is committed to protecting the privacy of its users. This Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy”) is designed to help you understand what information we gather, how we use it, what we do to protect it, and to assist you in making informed decisions when using our Service. Unless otherwise indicated below, this Privacy Policy applies to any website that references this Privacy Policy, any Company website, as well as any data the Company may collect across partnered and unaffiliated sites. For purposes of this Agreement, “Service” refers to the Company’s service which can be accessed via our website at bvannorman.com or through our mobile application. The terms “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to the Company. “You” refers to you, as a user of Service. I. CONSENT By accessing our Service, you accept our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, and you consent to our collection, storage, use and disclosure of your personal information as described in this Privacy Policy. In addition, by using our Service, or services across partnered and unaffiliated sites, you are accepting the policies and practices described in this Privacy Policy. Each time you visit our website, or use the Service, and any time you voluntarily provide us with information, you agree that you are consenting to our collection, use and disclosure of the information that you provide, and you are consenting to receive emails or otherwise be contacted, as described in this Privacy Policy. Whether or not you register or create any kind of account with us, this Privacy Policy applies to all users of the website and the Service. II. INFORMATION WE COLLECT We may collect both “Non-Personal Information” and “Personal Information” about you. “Non-Personal Information” includes information that cannot be used to personally identify you, such as anonymous usage data, general demographic information we may collect, referring/exit pages and URLs, platform types, preferences you submit and preferences that are generated based on the data you submit and number of clicks. “Personal Information” includes information that can be used to personally identify you, such as your name, address and email address. In addition, we may also track information provided to us by your browser or by our mobile application when you view or use the Service, such as the website you came from (known as the “referring URL”), the type of browser you use, the device from which you connected to the Service, the time and date of access, and other information that does not personally identify you. We use this information for, among other things, the operation of the Service, to maintain the quality of the Service, to provide general statistics regarding use of the Service and for other business purposes. We track this information using cookies, or small text files which include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to a user’s browser from our servers and are stored on the user’s computer hard drive. Sending a cookie to a user’s browser enables us to collect Non-Personal Information about that user and keep a record of the user’s preferences when utilizing our services, both on an individual and aggregate basis. The Company may use both persistent and session cookies; persistent cookies remain on your computer after you close your session and until you delete them, while session cookies expire when you close your browser. Persistent cookies can be removed by following your Internet browser help file directions. If you choose to disable cookies, some areas of the Service may not work properly. III. HOW WE USE AND SHARE INFORMATION Personal Information: In general, we do not sell, trade, rent or otherwise share your Personal Information with third parties without your consent. We may share your Personal Information with vendors and other third-party providers who are performing services for the Company. In general, the vendors and third-party providers used by us will only collect, use and disclose your information to the extent necessary to allow them to perform the services they provide for the Company. For example, when you provide us with personal information to complete a transaction, verify your credit card, place an order, arrange for a delivery, or return a purchase, you consent to our collecting and using such personal information for that specific purpose, including by transmitting such information to our vendors (and their service providers) performing these services for the Company. However, certain third-party service providers, such as payment processors, have their own privacy policies in respect of the information that we are required to provide to them in order to use their services. For these third-party service providers, we recommend that you read their privacy policies so that you can understand the manner in which your Personal Information will be handled by such providers. In addition, we may disclose your Personal Information if required to do so by law or if you violate our Terms of Use. Non-Personal Information: In general, we use Non-Personal Information to help us improve the Service and customize the user experience. We also aggregate Non-Personal Information in order to track trends and analyze use patterns of the Service. This Privacy Policy does not limit in any way our use or disclosure of Non-Personal Information and we reserve the right to use and disclose such Non-Personal Information to our partners, advertisers and other third parties at our sole discretion. IV. HOW WE PROTECT INFORMATION We implement reasonable precautions and follow industry best practices in order to protect your Personal Information and ensure that such Personal Information is not accessed, disclosed, altered or destroyed. However, these measures do not guarantee that your information will not be accessed, disclosed, altered or destroyed by breach of such precautions. By using our Service, you acknowledge that you understand and agree to assume these risks. V. YOUR RIGHTS REGARDING THE USE OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION You have the right at any time to prevent us from contacting you for marketing purposes. When we send a promotional communication to a user via Weebly, the user can opt out of further promotional communications by following the unsubscribe instructions provided in each promotional e-mail. Please note that notwithstanding the promotional preferences you indicate by either unsubscribing or opting out in the Settings section of the Site, we may continue to send you administrative emails including, for example, periodic updates to our Privacy Policy. VI. WEEBLY Our Service is hosted by Weebly, Inc. (“Weebly”). Weebly provides us with the online e-commerce platform that allows us to provide the Service to you. Your information, including Personal Information, may be stored through Weebly’s servers. By using the Service, you consent to Weebly’s collection, disclosure, storage, and use of your Personal Information in accordance with Weebly’s privacy policy available at https://www.weebly.com/privacy. VII. LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES As part of the Service, we may provide links to or compatibility with other websites or applications. However, we are not responsible for the privacy practices employed by those websites or the information or content they contain. This Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected by us through the Service. Therefore, this Privacy Policy does not apply to your use of a third-party website accessed by selecting a link via our Service. To the extent that you access or use the Service through or on another website or application, then the privacy policy of that other website or application will apply to your access or use of that site or application. We encourage our users to read the privacy statements of other websites before proceeding to use them. VIII. AGE OF CONSENT By using the Service, you represent that you are at least 18 years of age. IX. CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY The Company reserves the right to change this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use at any time. If we decide to change this Privacy Policy, we will post these changes on this page so that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose it. Any such modifications become effective upon your continued access to and/or use of the Service five (5) days after we first post the changes on the website or otherwise provide you with notice of such modifications. It is your sole responsibility to check this website from time to time to view any such changes to the terms of this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to any changes, if and when such changes may be made to this Privacy Policy, you must cease access to this website. If you have provided your email address to us, you give us permission to email you for the purpose of notification as described in this Privacy Policy. X. MERGER OR ACQUISITION In the event we (or Weebly) undergo a business transaction such as a merger, acquisition by another company, or sale of all or a portion of our assets, your Personal Information may be among the assets transferred. You acknowledge and consent that such transfers may occur and are permitted by this Privacy Policy, and that any acquirer of our (or Weebly’s) assets may continue to process your Personal Information as set forth in this Privacy Policy. If our information practices change at any time in the future, we will post the policy changes here so that you may opt out of the new information practices. We suggest that you check this Privacy Policy periodically if you are concerned about how your information is used. XI. EMAIL COMMUNICATIONS & OPTING OUT We will send you Service-related announcements on occasions when it is necessary to do so. For instance, if our Service is temporarily suspended for maintenance, or a new enhancement is released, which will affect the way you use our Service, we might send you an email. Generally, you may not opt-out of these communications, which are not promotional in nature. Based upon the Personal Information that you provide us, we may communicate with you in response to your inquiries to provide the services you request and to manage your account. We will communicate with you by email or telephone, in accordance with your wishes. We may also use your Personal Information to send you updates and other promotional communications. If you no longer wish to receive those email updates, you may opt-out of receiving them by following the instructions included in each update or communication. XII. CONTACT US & WITHDRAWING CONSENT If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy or the practices of this Site, or wish to withdraw your consent for the continued collection, use or disclosure of your Personal Information, please contact us by sending an email to belmont@golden.net. Last Updated: This Privacy Policy was last updated on Sun May 27 2018.