Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Bigger Than 'Exodus'

Australian novelist Alan Gold sums up The Heritage Project on Radio National:

"It's a 3,000 year history of aspects of the Middle East told through 2 families who find themselves right at the very beginning, 1,000 BC, when King David and King Solomon's temple was being built, and then we trace them all the way through history right through to today." (The future of the pitch, Books & Arts Daily, 24/6/13)

Hm... the Middle East from King David to King Bibi? What's going on here?

And here's how Gold put it in another forum:

"For more than 200 years, novelists have confined their creativity to what happens inside the covers of a book. Today, with the exponential growth of the internet, authors can create an entire cosmos of inter-related characters and events, of which the novel might describe just a few; then the movie maker can pick up on linked events, a television series becomes part of the whole, then games creators, and of course the consumer, via TV, computers, tablets or smartphones can continue to participate in the creativity. This is a new and extraordinary realm of potential for authors and publishers alike." (The Heritage Project: A Storyworld from Mike Jones & Alan Gold, theliteraryplatform.com, 3/6/13)

Apparently, although The HP will begin as a novel, Bloodline (due for release in November this year), that's just the launching pad so to speak. After that, its extension(s), if all goes according to plan, could be coming to a screen near you...

Now all this talk of creativity turbocharged by technology is all well and good, but what about the The HP's content?

For an idea of what to expect here, either click on the 'Alan Gold label' below - or consider this little observation from a thumbs-down review of an earlier Gold novel, The Jericho Files (1993).

"Gold doesn't miss an occasion to pump up Israel's profile and generally make a fanfare of Jewishness. That's cool - I'm generally sympathetic to Israel - but when constantly repeated over hundreds of pages it can become annoying." (The Jericho Files, Alan Gold, christian-sauve.com)

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