About the Book:
London, England, 1888 AD. Cabalists, magicians and occultists of every species, scattered through all strata of society, are in frenzied activity. The numbers MDCCCLXXXVIII add up for the first time to 13 characters, and it is a year of opportunity for the servants of the Bond in the age-old secret war between the adherents of the old religion and the Vatican Curia.
From the lavish halls of Buckingham Palace, the elderly Empress Victoria and her young Hindu lover – the Munshi – weave together the threads of a secret plan that will return magic to its rightful place: the public eye. While Scotland Yard is racking its brains over the crimes of the Whitechapel Ripper, nascent socialism is at the centre of the events of “Bloody Sunday” and a young Gandhi is initiated into the ancient arcana with Mabel and Gerard.
Gerard Duprey will soon become the town’s magician and is a key player in the plot that the occult powers have cooked up for the empire. Gerard, like Gandhi, is a peacemaker. His gift is to master any kind of conflict. He has the invaluable help of Mabel Besant and Tok, the dragon of justice.
Tok is not at all mythological, but very pneumatic – in the greekest sense of the word. This dragon of scale and bone is the omnipresent guardian of the Bond and is driven by inaccessible designs. The magnetic creature will accompany Gerard, through a more than convulsive twentieth century, so that the designs of the Munshi’s plan are scrupulously fulfilled and to discover what has happened to gold since all the gold in the world has disappeared.
Purchase Links:
Lovely Blogger review: www.musingmystical.com/tok-magick-tale-by-pablo-reig-mendoza
Author Interview:
1: Tell us a little about yourself and what got you in to writing?
From a very young age, I didn’t read books, I devoured them. It didn’t matter if they were novels, essays, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, manuals… and comics, tons of them. Many adults were frightened by my reading frenzy, but at the same time they found the silent company of such a quiet and well-behaved boy very convenient, as long as I had a book within reach, of course.
I don’t know if I was more in a hurry to understand and apprehend the world around me or to take advantage of the ability to sip the information that a child’s brain has, which I knew was ephemeral when observing the crystallized thoughts of the elderly. What is certain is that, inadvertently, I came face to face with the unbounded curse of the authors.
Little by little, I began to be interested in the motivations of the scribe and in the marvellous dialogue that was established between people who had been dead for many centuries and this stammering reader. What did they want to tell me? What did they want to tell us? Did they intend to go so far? What kind of world, so intangible but at the same time so real, was that which was born at the moment I began to read? How was this beautiful business possible, whereby the author opened my mind to his reality, his knowledge and his fantasy, and in exchange I offered him or her nothing more than a space in my memory so that he or she could continue to accompany the journey of men through my experience?
Life and its demands, as it happens to all of us, ended up monopolising the center of my attention and my efforts. Studies, jobs, loves, family… everything diverted me from the search for answers to these and other questions that were piling up in my mind, while reading had become just a leisure or necessity. Until one day it all came crashing down. It was the perfect occasion to come to my senses and fulfill my creative yearnings, so long postponed.
Today, for me, writing is a vice, an apostolate, an apprenticeship and medicine. At this point I am well aware that it will not leave me until the end of my days.
2: Do you have a favourite time and place where you write?
The scenery has changed a lot over the last ten years. I have alternated sea views with views of the countryside or the city, or no view at all on some occasions. The presence or absence of windows and the landscape they frame greatly influence the tone of what one writes, and this is a good thing, as it allows one to explore the result on paper of different moods.
The actual writing time usually finds me working, and I can use any of the 24 hours of the day. Let me explain: I only write when I’m at home and I’m very reluctant to watch TV, so if I’m not eating or sleeping, I’m sitting in front of my desktop computer. I also suffer from recurrent insomnia and tend to prefer the evenings, while others are asleep.
The activity in front of the PC is usually very varied and runs between administrative work, informative leisure and documentary study, which in my case is extensive to create stable logical buildings, although so far most of my creations have been fiction. Word is always open and available for the moments when inspiration comes, and when it does, it usually stays for a few hours.
Consulting taught me to turn procrastination into performance. Always have several tasks at hand. That way, when you procrastinate on one, you can focus on the other. Poverty also taught me, back in the day, to sleep more hours to economise on food and tobacco. Pure practicality.
3: Where do your ideas come from?
I like to say that ideas “rain on me”, and this is far from being a metaphor. Of course, our thoughts are closely related to our experiences, our anxieties and our learning, but there is more to it than that. There is an amazing cloud of information available to our subconscious, it is about learning to silence our noisy little heads to get that second attention.
I do not mean that writing is an exercise in channeling, for that would detract from the author’s craft. Rather, I mean that there are several layers of knowledge, and all are equally important. It is as necessary to read the press as it is to read the encyclopaedia, just as one must devote the same effort to living borderline first-person experiences as to learning to listen to one’s intuition and read the book of things that happen.
The sum of all that one is, has been and will be, together with the people and the world around him are the fantastic laboratory in which ideas are cultivated. Sometimes with intention, sometimes by spontaneous generation. The important thing for the author is to catch them on the fly, dissect them and put them in beautiful order along with the others for the better enjoyment of the reader.
4: Do you have a plan in your head of where the story is going before you start writing or do you let it carry you along as you go?
When it comes to a book, you need a master plan. I have a lot of respect for the book as a devotional object. I believe it should be taken as seriously as an architect takes the design of his plans. That said, the advantage of the writer is clearly budgetary: ideas don’t cost money, and that allows us to tear down the building and start from scratch as many times as necessary.
The work, therefore, the book and the chapter have a pre-established design, but this one is very plastic and versatile and, in addition, it is full of libertarian oases in which pure improvisation and madness itself move at will.
Then there are other sub-genres, and each of them can be treated from any angle. It doesn’t matter if it’s a short story, a micro-story, a newspaper article or a pen letter to your daughters. Anything goes. Beyond that is the most serious: poetry, which is so imposing that I don’t consider myself fit to deal with it. A work of heroes and giants, in my opinion.
5: What genre are your books and what drew you to that genre?
So far, I have written two books of fiction and I am embarking on finishing the third one. I also have three books of aphorisms written with two pens with Aitor Castells, singer and poet from head to toe.
Fiction has been my strength because it is the area with the most freedom of movement and development. I am eager to finish the third one to close the trilogy – despite the fact that they are completely different from each other – and to be able to face the essay, which is a pending debt I have with myself.
In the field of fiction I wanted to alter reality from different approaches. In No-mad I make a light exercise of urban and contemporary fiction in which what weighs most is the cognitive psychology hidden behind a curtain of levity, but always from a realistic approach.
In Tok, however, the challenge was to delve into the occult and magic to the last consequences, and I am frankly satisfied with the result. Dragons and wizards, yes, but with an academic base and an initiatory background.
I’m currently working on a completely high-tech novel, with the journey of two women to the Spain of the Reconquest. It’s my way of closing the circle with a small tribute to Mark Twain and Jules Verne through a mind-blowing journey.
6: What dream cast would you like to see playing the characters in your latest book?
I love this question. I never thought about it before.
Considering Tok as the last consolidated novel, the cast would be as follows:
GERARD DUPREY: David Thewlis
MABEL BESANT: Anya Taylor-Joy
JUAN GARCÍA: Benicio del Toro
THE MUNSHI: Rami Malek
QUEEN VICTORIA: Vanessa Redgrave
ALEISTER CROWLEY: Johnny Depp
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: John Cleese
TOK’S VOICE: Tom Hanks
Interesting exercise! In the next novel, it is now very clear to me that King Alfonso X “the Wise” would be played by Viggo Mortensen.
7: Do you read much and if so who are your favourite authors?
I’ve read a lot all my life, sometimes I think too much. I think I started writing just in time to keep my head from exploding. Nowadays I regulate it better and I only read things that can enrich my work or important novelties in the field of science or philosophy. The rest of the little free time I have is dedicated to rereading, which is a delightful practice.
The list is very long and very eclectic, but to name but a few: Victor Hugo, Dostoevsky, Fulcanelli, René Guenon, Poe, Eco, Baudelaire, Lacan, Zizek, Homer, Attali, Virginia Woolfe, Juana Inés de la Cruz, Quevedo… Endless. Every time I enter a bookstore I am thrown out at closing time.
8: What book/s are you reading at present?
How music works, by David Byrne. Books of the knowledge of astronomy, by Alfonso X. The Quinton Plasma, by André Mahé.
To clear the mind: Daytripper, by Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba… and Mafalda.
9: What is your favorite book and why?
Claudius the God and his wife Messalina, by Robert Graves. It is more than my favorite, it seems to me the absolute book. It is like a bible, it contains teachings in all fields of knowledge and the spirit of man. I have a pending visit to the tomb of Robert Graves, which is on the island next door, in Deiá, Mallorca.
10: What advice would you give for someone thinking about becoming a writer?
First piece of advice, which is not mine: in literature, kindergarten begins at age sixty.
Second piece of advice, which is also not mine: just do it.
Third tip (this one is mine): When you write, don’t confuse humility with weakness. Face Cervantes and Shakespeare. They are dead and you are alive, no small advantage.
11: What are the best Social Media Sites for people to find out about you and your work?
Just google my name. The cloud is faster than us!
About the Author:
Globetrotter, former Business Intelligence and strategy consultant EU-wide, a freelance journalist in Spain, entrepreneur, and experienced chef in South America. I am also another silent bearer of many yet unwritten books. Two fiction novels, three books of quotes, many articles… The road ahead is very long. Come and share the vision, the art, and the fun!
Connect with Pablo:
Website: www.pablormendoza.wordpress.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/r.mendoza.pablo
Instagram: www.instagram.com/r.mendoza.pablo
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