Books

The Seventh Dead: The UFO and the Underworld (A Memoir)

by Brian C. Short

The Seventh Dead is, on the face of it, a memoir of paranormal experiences, particularly surrounding UFO encounters and anomalous phenomena. On a deeper level, it explores the implication – arising out of these phenomena themselves – to burrow through the shadow aspects of the author’s own psychology, approaching that of a more collective or archetypal nature. In it, Brian C. Short examines the results of several hypnosis sessions undertaken to inquire into unusual experiences consciously recalled – experiences which often implied a deeper involvement than could be remembered – all the while maintaining an attitude of skepticism and reverence for the ambiguity of these resultant images. They are taken as “psychic fact” rather than literally so. That is the key to this approach: he is not trying to conclude anything about UFOs or so-called aliens, but to explore some of the questions – which seem inherently psychological – this subject raises, not only about the figure of the “alien” itself, but of the realm of fantasy and imagination it traverses, sometimes into apparent reality, and toward where it leads, the deeper aspects of mind. Neither does he dismiss the alien as unreal, as it appears to have agency and intelligence quite apart from, and more far-reaching than, Brian’s own. It is as honest an account of the phenomenon, and its fundamental role in the shaping of his life, as the author can give.

New People of the Flat Earth

by Brian C. Short

A man chases after a mysterious metal object that may not even exist — and his journey leads him on to ever-greater levels of madness, dissociation, and metaphysical conundrums.

After ten years in a Zen monastery, Proteus knows it's time to leave. A troubled, solitary man, he knows what he seeks is not to be found sitting in meditation. His problem is that, during his time at the monastery, he's discovered something strange inside his mind: the ability to connect with a mysterious, silent, metallic spherical object he calls Mosquito. His connection to this possibly extraterrestrial object, which seems to dwell on an existential plane of its own, gives Proteus a flimsy sense of purpose. So when Mosquito abruptly disappears one day, Proteus can't bear the loss, and he sets off in pursuit of answers.

Thus starts a surreal, philosophically maddening quest for meaning. Chasing the elusive Mosquito leads Proteus to in-between worlds where things do not quite hold together, and where the living and the dead must learn to live in and out of the boundaries of time. The further he gets from sanity, the closer he comes to something that may turn out to be wisdom.

Playful but unapologetically challenging, New People of the Flat Earth is a breathtakingly original novel that defies categorisation or summary.