Making the Past Live in Words and Images
"A suspenseful and enjoyable read." Booklist
"…a richly re-imagined fable which goes far beyond anything the historical record alone might suggest." Russell A. Potter, Arctic Book Review
Perhaps, on a barren Arctic shore in the summer of 1849, knowing he was dying, a British Naval officer wrapped his journal in sailcloth and buried it beneath a lonely pile of frost-shattered stones. He was the last of the 129 doomed men of Sir John Franklin's lost Arctic expedition.
His name was James Fitzjames and for four years he had carefully recorded the expedition's achievements, hopes and, as things began to go horribly wrong, the descent into madness and eventual death of his closest friends. This is his journal.
"Wilson has managed to make his invented journal seem authentic and his account of the ill-fated adventurers seem plausible…one reads on, fascinated, to the bitter end." The Globe and Mail
When North with Franklin was originally published in 1999, I dreamed of it as a facsimile of the real lost journal. This supplementary hardcover volume is that dream made reality. It contains an updated text that takes some amount of the recent discoveries in the Arctic, presented as Fitzjames might have written it, and includes illustrations that he did draw, or might have drawn.
Perhaps Fitzjames' actual journal lies wrapped in sailcloth and buried beneath a lonely pile of frost-shattered stones on a barren island off the Adelaide Peninsula, or perhaps it has been preserved by the icy Arctic water, patiently awaiting discovery in a drawer in the Great Cabin of HMS Terror or amidst the ice-damaged wreckage of HMS Erebus. Only time will tell. Until then, enjoy this journey with James Fitzjames.
“The Final Alchemy by John Wilson is to a historical fiction lover the way a box of chocolates is to most of us—a delicious, luxurious, self-indulgent pleasure.” Amazon Review
An old man sits by the dying embers of a fire in London of 1669. The ghosts of the past surround him and a decades old guilt weighs him down. As a young man, Robert Bylot did it all: journeyed to the magical Spice Islands on a quest for the alchemist John Dee, communicated with angels through Crystallomancy, and searched for the fabled Northwest Passage with Henry Hudson. He has survived plague, mutiny and fire, and found happiness with an extraordinary woman, but nothing has assuaged the ancient guilt that tortures him—unless the old, stained book on his lap contains the answer. The book might be his salvation, or his damnation.
Through Bylot's memories and the words written in the book he holds, The Final Alchemy recreates a world at the tipping point between the mysticism of the Middle Ages and the rationality of the Renaissance. The possibilities for glory and profit appear limitless, but the risks are horrifying.
“I wasn't sure what to expect from this book, and that formed the excitement of reading this exceptional novel. There are intrigue, magic, a quest for the four Alchemic elements for a mysterious wizard, all woven together with the sketchy geography of the early Age of Discovery and the journeys of Henry Hudson through the unknown waterways of an unknown world…I have never read anything quite like this book, and I am a voracious reader. You must wait for the close of the story for the "final alchemy," but it is well worth the journey. Highly recommended.” Amazon Review
NOTE: The Final Alchemy is a novel for adults—a longer, more complex rendering of the tale woven for teens in the award-winning The Alchemist’s Dream
"…an astonishingly nuanced and masterfully told story…" Quill & Quire
Not all the Crusades were fought on the far edges of Christendom. In the thirteenth century, a bloody Holy War was fought against a sect of heretical Christians, the Cathars, who lived in Languedoc around the modern city of Toulouse. The war lasted decades and tens of thousands were murdered, mutilated or thrown on vast bonfires. A powerful culture of poets and troubadours, with its own distinct language, was destroyed and modern France created. The crusade spawned the Dominicans and the formal Inquisition, and the bitterness it created lasted 200 years into the brutal religious wars that devastated Europe in the Reformation.
When the armoured knights of Pope Innocent III swept south in 1209, most thought they would be gone by summer’s end but, led by the fanatical Arnaud Aumery and the ambitious Simon de Montfort, they stayed for three fiery decades. Caught up in the horror are two childhood friends. Peter—an assistant to the shadowy, enigmatic priest who leads the crusade—is convinced that the war against the Cathars is God's will, a mission that will lead him to the highest ranks of power in Rome itself. John—who finds himself drawn to the strange ideas of the heretics—simply seeks the peace to learn and understand through reading the forbidden books hidden in remote castles across the land. As the crusading knights destroy city after city and the flames of the Inquisition spread, Peter and John find themselves on opposite sides of a search for an ancient secret that may have the power to change the world.
"…a brave book, an unsettling book, and one that is very much needed at this time." The Globe and Mail
The Heretic’s Secret (Single Volume Edition) comprises the complete Heretic's Secret Trilogy (Heretic, Quest, and Rebirth).
“…a fast-paced western adventure that ropes in subjects of prejudice, race, and death…a captivating and engrossing read.” Quill and Quire
Set in the harsh desert world of the Arizona Territory and northern Mexico during the 1870s, Written in Blood, the first installment of the Desert Legends Trilogy, follows young Jim Doolen as he attempts to find some trace of the father who abandoned his family ten years earlier. As he travels through a scorched landscape very different from the lush West Coast forests of his home, Jim crosses paths with an assortment of intriguing characters, including an Apache warrior, a cave-dwelling mystic, an old Mexican revolutionary and a mysterious cowboy. And with each encounter he learns something more of the strange world he has entered and adds one more link in a chain that leads back to his father-and a dark, violent past.
Jim comes to realize that his father's life was much more complex than he had imagined, and that, in discovering his past, he has opened the way to his future.
That future is told in Ghost Moon, where Jim meets Billy the Kid who draws him into a violent range war and its bloody conclusion on the streets of Lincoln.
The trilogy concludes with Victorio’s War. Jim becomes a scout for the Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry and finds himself in the middle of a brutal war to force Victorio's Apaches onto a reservation far from their traditional lands. As he begins to understand the plight of the doomed Apaches, he finds his loyalties divided, and seems destined to share their fate.
"Told in a terse, present-tense narrative, Jim’s adventures will thrill all fans of traditional pulp-style oaters." Booklist
"Has all the markers of a classic Western...Wilson's writing is vivid." CM Magazine
“…readers of westerns and historical adventure who like a mix of action and information…will be very taken with this book." Resource Links
"The story is very well written and…is full of tension and adventure…Recommended." Tri State YA Book Review Committee
"Wilson is a talented writer, hooking readers within the first few pages of his novel and carrying them along almost effortlessly through the barren lands of Mexico and the Arizona Territory…an enthralling trilogy…with incredibly relevant contemporary themes." www.keenreaders.org
“…a fast moving plot and complex characters…[make Victorio’s War] perfect for…fans of historical fiction and westerns...The themes of right and wrong, discussion of death, and the message of hope will be engaging and rewarding." VOYA
"This third volume of John Wilson's Desert Legends Trilogy is every bit as well done as the first two...Wilson's seeming asides and occasional real historical references…entice the reader to look further and more closely at what is presented before him...[A] well-paced tale.” Resource Links
“Readers…[of Victorio’s War] will smell the dust, hear the whizzing bullets and arrows, and experience the conflicted loyalties that are all part of Jim's story...An outstanding fast-paced tour of the Old West that will appeal to all ages." Tri State YA Book Review Committee
Over three decades as an author, John Wilson has often come up with ideas, thoughts and ephemera that either wouldn't fit into a novel or demanded to be expressed as a poem. Some saw the light of day in small literary magazines, some won awards and some simply waited patiently in a drawer. A few even thought that they would like to be accompanied by a sketch. They deal with history, both personal and general, and express everything from powerful emotions to nonsense. Here they are, collected in one place.
Glasgow Nights
Dark drunken Glasgow nights,
the sociability of bus stops
amidst the gobs of spit and wet discarded piles of
wasted beer and chips.
An old unshaven man prevents the stop from falling,
arms wrapped round the cold steel pole
with much more love than he has ever shown at home.
A pocket raggedly protects a brown-bagged bottle—
fortified, the label says,
as if its strength will stop the stomach heaves
and keep the drinker from the cold.
A boy goes past
nervously arrogant without his gang
caught halfway between being lord of the street
and just another one of father’s punching bags.
A woman passes hurriedly, eyes down,
late shift at the hospital,
already seen enough
to fill one night’s imaginings.
Taxis rumble by
distributing their loads
to other lives.
The old man coughs and swigs his wine
the bus is late—who cares
the stop is friendly,
what’s to go home to anyway?
Kids have left,
silent wife’ll never understand.
It’s never been the same since the shipyard closed.
He takes another drink, and slips
the bus stop, treacherous, has moved,
betrayed a friend.
The bottle falls and breaks.
“Fuck,” he slurs and weeps
to watch his hope run down the road.
Around his feet a blowing paper wraps
plastering his skinny legs.
An ineffectual kick opens up the sheet,
“Man Lands on Moon.”
the headline reads.