The Free Radical

-by Adam L.

Well Niels, I have just completed your second book, and here are a few of my thoughts and the tip of the ice berg of my questions. First of all, I have to say the book “was an amazing, eye-opening, mind bending adventure!” When I began reading the book it had been a while since I had read the first one, so to start it took my foggy memory to kick in and find where I was in the world of Niels. After a short while the unforgettable characters that define your books came back to me and the pieces started falling into place. I found in this book there was a greater emphasis on the links between the different worlds within the book, you could feel the inevitable begin to happen, the worlds began to quickly fuse together and more and more their stories and characters interacted. Within the first part of the book I could certainly tell you were reaching the peak of your “communication” flow with the energies who were providing you with the outline of the stories, they were direct continuations from the first book and your creative energies went into overdrive and were chanelled through the dozens of qoutes layed out on pages 30-38, incredible stuff by the way and damn it takes a few reads to really get some of them. The night after I read them I think my unconscious mind’s interest was piqued and throughout the night I dreamed of qoutes and far out ideas, but as with most dreams I forgot them all haha.

After the beginning section the book had a great flow it was weaving back and forth from the usual stories but I could tell your messengers were slowly getting quieter, but the depth of the book and the effectiveness of it only got louder and more profound. It seemed that through this experience you were able to look deep inside yourself, deep inside the collective cosmos and begin to give your own more personalized views and thoughts, some of them were beyond my understanding at this point in my corporeal existence, but none the less it touched a deep, ancient part inside of me. The section that I enjoyed the most throughout the “meat” of the book was issue 23, where the characters of the new world are sharing stories, my favourite were, the collaborative mind (kym), tapestry of existence (Joseph) and compass for a pen (Harmony). They were great little tales which explained so much, thank you for those gems!

Just before and in the beggining of Part Next, there was a lot of I would call “static” it seemed that the signal of your energy channel was a bit fuzzy, slowly the static began to clear up and on the other side of it your stories began with a new found clarity. The story of the new earth and its “hero” Martin Dexter picked up with new enthusiasm and intrigue, Martin’s trip into the heart of the cosmos, through death and back and all the way to Mi-Fu, were out of this world and ended a fantastic read on a high-note!

A few questions: If we are the universe then what are we exploring, what is the sensory world made up of? have you met Martin Dexter? what is your relationship with MD? have you ever been to Mi-Fu?! Why the name Barfuss? Did Edwin really pass by MD? Will you still choose Edwin as the next editor?

Please write back Niels!

Adam