Shortlisted for the BFS Awards
Downriver to the sea (the black sea) the blood stream flows. The sun gone cold. No dawn beyond the void. In all this I see, a darkness in mind.
‘I never did buy the whole angels and demons thing,’ I say. ‘No way it’s as simple as that.’
‘It never is. But …’ He leans forward, as if he’s about to let me in on a secret: ‘… there are demons, John, though they’re not what you’d expect. And the thing is, you can’t run from them, much as you try. They’re always there, deep inside your soul. And you want to set them free.’
John Andras has debts to pay, whittling his life away as a prison guard. But a fateful encounter with one of the inmates is about to change all that ...
Because the warden has a special assignment for him, and he’s not the kind of man to take no for an answer. Now John needs a key, and the only one who knows where to find it is a shackled prisoner in a cell that shouldn't be there.
As his dreams grow darker, each step seems to be pulling him closer to the precipice.
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30K words Illustrated Novella with Graphic Novel insets.
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Book II of 'A Darkness in Mind' Series.
Book I 'Quest & The Sign of the Shining Beast'
The Prisoner
Praise for BOOK I of this series - Quest & The Sign of the Shining Beast
“A breathless ride into the realms of spirit, wonder, and terror. The words are sharp, the images sublime, the experience unique ... not to be missed.” Ian Whates - Author of Pelquin’s Comet
“I haven’t encountered anything quite like it before ... a darkly epic and nightmare voyage. A quite extraordinary feat of the imagination.”
Jim Burns - SF & Fantasy Artist“Epic and haunting. Viscerally realised ...” Ricardo Pinto - Author of The Stone Dance of the Chameleon trilogy
“Cockshaw’s visually haunting images perfectly suit Malan’s enthralling storytelling.” Jay Johnstone - Tolkien Artist
Print ISBN: 978-1-911143-47-5
E-Book ISBN: 978-1-911143-48-2
Release Date 09/03/2018
30K words Illustrated Novella with Graphic Novel Insets
ROBERT S MALAN is a writer, hailing from Johannesburg, South Africa. Though he currently lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, Africa’s unique and wonderful spirit remains indelibly etched on his psyche.
From an early age, he was drawn to studying a multitude of philosophies and belief systems. He is especially fascinated by myth-legends, shaped in no small part by his interest in Old Testament tales, and the ages that shaped the Mayan, Egyptian and Cambodian temple complexes.
A Darkness in Mind: The Prisoner is his second published work. He is presently working on follow-up entries for the series in collaboration with John Cockshaw.
JOHN COCKSHAW Is a North Yorkshire-based artist and alumni of Sheffield Hallam University (BA Hons Fine Art and Mres in Art and Design 2002, 2003).
His principal interests as an artist are sequential photography and graphic art, landscape painting and work with a fantasy/sci-fi flavour. His Tolkien- inspired art has been exhibited at events in Oxford organised by The Tolkien Society, Sarehole Mill in Birmingham, with the Sociedad Tolkien Española in Seville, HobbitCon in Germany and at NazgulCon in Sao Paolo, Brazil.
In December 2014, John curated an exhibition of international Tolkien- inspired artists at Curzon Ripon Arts/Cinema venue in North Yorkshire. Also a video artist, filmmaker and writer keen on developing his curatorial skills, John is most satisfied with multiple projects to work on.
5* "Malan again takes you on an intriguing spiritual journey as we follow the protagonist, John, in search of answers lying always just beyond his reach. Malan manages expertly to hold you in suspense and gives just enough detail regarding the mysterious prisoner, luring you in and keeping you reading and accompanying John to find the answers. This story has a unique quality of confusion between dreams and reality; it has many layers of interpretation largely due to Malan's use of rich imagery and allusions to a variety of spiritual sources. John Cockshaw's fine illustrations enhance this spiritual quality. Ultimately, Malan allows the reader to make up his/her mind about the message this story conveys. A very thought provoking story, skilfully told." By AM on Amazon.co.uk
5* "If you had the chance to clear your debts, have the job that you always wanted in somewhere nice and all you had to do was find the key would you do it This was the proposition given to John Andras a prison officer, and all he had to do was speak to a special prisoner.John was quite downtrodden with life, with lots of debt and wife he only sees in passing, he tends to go to work on autopilot. After sorting out an incident at work, things seemed to click in place and he became more confident in himself, so when he was offered a secret mission by the governor, he became a bold with his comments. However it started to go downhill once he met Seth. Not a lot is known about Seth. He reminded me of a new age guru as when he was getting abused in the prison, he was still calm and philosophical.Set in a prison this story had a sense of foreboding. Whilst reading this I could feel the oppressiveness of the prison and how bad prison life was. The violence was raw whether it was the guards or the prisoners. Something different in this book was John’s nightmares, they were depicted by some brilliant artwork and this made the story come alive as you could see what he was dreaming. The final scenes were built up to a dramatic showdown which I never saw coming. This was a quick read which left me wanting to know more about Seth and his philosophy." Yvonne on Amazon.co.uk
"The second collaboration between Malan and Cockshaw in their A Darkness in Mind series (the first, Quest & The Sign Of The Shining Beast, was published in 2016), The Prisoner tells the story of prison guard John Andras who comes to the attention of mysterious new warden, Elliot Danvers, when he intervenes on the behalf of a prisoner who is beaten by three other guards. The warden is impressed by Andras’ almost supernatural ability to defuse the situation and calm the prisoner, almost as if he willed it with his mind. Danvers makes the miserable Andras an offer the guard cannot refuse; help get information out of mysterious prisoner “Seth” in return for promotion and a transfer away from the stifling environment of Morningstar prison.
What follows are brief conversations between prisoner and guard, delving into the purpose of our continued existence and whether there really is any point to life at all. Seth seems to lead Andras down meandering paths that the guard at first assumes are distractions to keep him from locating the mysterious “key” the warden seeks, but actually drives Andras on a journey towards self-awareness. In between these thoughtful conversations, Malan offers us a small insight into the nature of the guard through interactions with friend and head of security, Freddie, and, more importantly, his relationship with his wife, Madeline. Malan shows a stagnant marriage through their very short encounters, usually for a couple of minutes in the morning before she leaves for work and a couple of minutes when Andras returns from a shift before collapsing into sleep.The evocative and mesmerising artwork provided by Cockshaw perfectly accompanies Malan’s poetic prose during the depictions of Andras’ enigmatic dreams.
Sometimes they tend to expand on the spiritual nature of the discussions between Andras and Seth, or Andras and the warden, the previous day. Sometimes they seem quite mysterious at the time of reading. But they foreshadow what is to come later in the book as Andras is driven to the very edge of madness by the exhausting soul-searching and the pressure put upon him by the warden and his henchmen. The reader, too, will feel as though they have been through an emotional wringer by the time they reach the climax.
Overall, Malan delivers an enthralling story exploring some of the more burning questions of human nature. The dialogue between his characters is intriguing and entertaining, while the descriptive language he employs, especially during Andras’ “dream sequences”, is often mesmerising, even more so when it is combined with Cockshaw’s artwork. While delivering a thoughtful and entertaining tale, Malan doesn’t spoon-feed the reader and there is much still left in darkness for the reader to interpret for themselves. And maybe just enough to suggest we should start from book one and become totally lost to the darkness in mind."
By THOMAS JOYCE - This is Horror
