Réal Laplaine's Blog, page 9
March 15, 2019
Recalling your mind
Recently, at least according to one news source, Volvo Corporation recalled upwards of 200,000 cars worldwide in order to fix a potential problem in the exhaust system.
January 31, 2019
R��al Laplaine, introduces his new book, THE OTHER
To see video presentation click HERE or click the image below.
January 18, 2019
"This book was incredible ..."
Until 22 January, you can get my new sci-fi and psychological thriller, THE OTHER, for 30% off release price. Use the code MY-DISCOUNT when ordering.
A recurring nightmare. An alien object discovered off the coast of Ireland. A race to unlock its secrets. Global warming strikes. Caught in the eye of the storm, Kaetlyn O’Sullivan is faced with her past life and decisions which could change the course of humanity. A sci-fi and psychological thriller.
“This book was incredible.” - Elaine M.
"An instant page turner..." - Marina Osipova, author of The Cruel Romance
Order at: www.reallaplaine.com
A recurring nightmare. An alien object discovered off the coast of Ireland. A race to unlock its secrets. Global warming strikes. Caught in the eye of the storm, Kaetlyn O’Sullivan is faced with her past life and decisions which could change the course of humanity. A sci-fi and psychological thriller.
“This book was incredible.” - Elaine M.
"An instant page turner..." - Marina Osipova, author of The Cruel Romance
Order at: www.reallaplaine.com
"This book was incredible..."
Until 22 January, you can get my new sci-fi and psychological thriller, THE OTHER, for 30% off release price. Use the code MY-DISCOUNT when ordering.
January 4, 2019
Now is the greatest period in literary history
To anyone entering the literary arena today, the sheer magnitude of published authors, most of them independent, could be daunting.
October 18, 2018
The Other
The Other is a new thriller novel, releasing on Christmas 2018. It's a novel I've been wanting to write a very long time and which has undergone various renditions inside my writer's world. It finally came together.
The Other is a story about an 18-year-old girl by the name of Kaetlyn O'Sullivan, born of Nigerian parents, and later adopted by an Irish couple living in a small town off the southwestern coast of Ireland, Kaetlyn begins to demonstrate unique attributes at a very young age. She is intelligent beyond her years, but in ways that are both remarkable and inexplicable. As she grows, her above average aptitude sets her apart, treated by her peers as "odd", insensitive and peculiar. By the age of 15, Kaetlyn begins to have a recurring nightmare, one that relentlessly visits itself upon her. She tries to fathom why, and why that same dream, all the while feeling the pressure building inside of her until one day she explodes and finds herself in front of a psychologist discussing the matter. As they delve into her past, they soon shockingly discover that the dream is actually a past-life experience - and the challenge becomes unlocking its secrets. At the same time, the Irish navy has just discovered an anomaly buried in a cliffside near her home. As fate would have it, Kaetlyn's past-life experience, and the discovery of this strange object, soon collide. She finds herself cast into a pinnacle role, caught in the middle of a global power-play, where she alone can access the secrets of this craft and save the world from a global meltdown, literally.
Pre-order the ePub (eBook) for 50% off the release price. The book will be emailed to you upon release. Pre-order at: www.reallaplaine.com
The Other is a story about an 18-year-old girl by the name of Kaetlyn O'Sullivan, born of Nigerian parents, and later adopted by an Irish couple living in a small town off the southwestern coast of Ireland, Kaetlyn begins to demonstrate unique attributes at a very young age. She is intelligent beyond her years, but in ways that are both remarkable and inexplicable. As she grows, her above average aptitude sets her apart, treated by her peers as "odd", insensitive and peculiar. By the age of 15, Kaetlyn begins to have a recurring nightmare, one that relentlessly visits itself upon her. She tries to fathom why, and why that same dream, all the while feeling the pressure building inside of her until one day she explodes and finds herself in front of a psychologist discussing the matter. As they delve into her past, they soon shockingly discover that the dream is actually a past-life experience - and the challenge becomes unlocking its secrets. At the same time, the Irish navy has just discovered an anomaly buried in a cliffside near her home. As fate would have it, Kaetlyn's past-life experience, and the discovery of this strange object, soon collide. She finds herself cast into a pinnacle role, caught in the middle of a global power-play, where she alone can access the secrets of this craft and save the world from a global meltdown, literally.
Pre-order the ePub (eBook) for 50% off the release price. The book will be emailed to you upon release. Pre-order at: www.reallaplaine.com
The Other
The Other is a new thriller novel, releasing on Christmas 2018. It's a novel I've been wanting to write a very long time and which has undergone various renditions inside my writer's world. It finally came together.
August 31, 2018
Women read more than men
According to various studies, women are now reading more than men.
Yup! Time to man-up guys. Drop those cell phones, skip a game or two on tv, and sink your teeth into a book. Here are a couple articles of interest on this subject:
"There is ample statistical evidence showing that adult-women read more novels than men, attend more book clubs than men, use libraries more than men, buy more books than men, take more creative writing courses than men, and probably write more works of fiction than men. If, as a demographic, they suddenly stopped reading, the novel would nearly disappear." https://www.huffingtonpost.com/warren...
"A couple of years ago, British author Ian McEwan conducted an admittedly unscientific experiment. He and his son waded into the lunch-time crowds at a London park and began handing out free books. Within a few minutes, they had given away 30 novels. Nearly all of the takers were women, who were "eager and grateful" for the freebies while the men "frowned in suspicion, or distaste." The inevitable conclusion, wrote McEwan in The Guardian newspaper: "When women stop reading, the novel will be dead."
"McEwan's prognosis is surely hyperbole, but only slightly. Surveys consistently find that women read more books than men, especially fiction. Explanations abound, from the biological differences between the male and female brains, to the way that boys and girls are introduced to reading at a young age. One thing is certain: Americans—of either gender—are reading fewer books today than in the past. A poll released last month by The Associated Press and Ipsos, a market-research firm, found that the typical American read only four books last year, and one in four adults read no books at all." https://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...
I know it seems in this day and age of digital yahoo, where everything we could want appears to be available to us at the click of our smart phone, but there is nothing that replaces the fulfillment of the imagination and our minds, like books. And given these statistics, it is a scary proposition to consider that if families do not engender an interest in reading, but only hand their kids cell phones and themselves sit in front of HBO and Netflix, rarely, if ever reading, what does that portend for the future? Books are knowledge. Cell phones are, unfortunately, becoming more a source of controlled propaganda through social media and such. One must choose which is more important to the development of good character, a prudent mind and the ability to actually think for oneself, and not become just another cog in the endless spinning wheel of social media.
See more blog articles at https://reallaplaine.com/blog
Yup! Time to man-up guys. Drop those cell phones, skip a game or two on tv, and sink your teeth into a book. Here are a couple articles of interest on this subject:
"There is ample statistical evidence showing that adult-women read more novels than men, attend more book clubs than men, use libraries more than men, buy more books than men, take more creative writing courses than men, and probably write more works of fiction than men. If, as a demographic, they suddenly stopped reading, the novel would nearly disappear." https://www.huffingtonpost.com/warren...
"A couple of years ago, British author Ian McEwan conducted an admittedly unscientific experiment. He and his son waded into the lunch-time crowds at a London park and began handing out free books. Within a few minutes, they had given away 30 novels. Nearly all of the takers were women, who were "eager and grateful" for the freebies while the men "frowned in suspicion, or distaste." The inevitable conclusion, wrote McEwan in The Guardian newspaper: "When women stop reading, the novel will be dead."
"McEwan's prognosis is surely hyperbole, but only slightly. Surveys consistently find that women read more books than men, especially fiction. Explanations abound, from the biological differences between the male and female brains, to the way that boys and girls are introduced to reading at a young age. One thing is certain: Americans—of either gender—are reading fewer books today than in the past. A poll released last month by The Associated Press and Ipsos, a market-research firm, found that the typical American read only four books last year, and one in four adults read no books at all." https://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...
I know it seems in this day and age of digital yahoo, where everything we could want appears to be available to us at the click of our smart phone, but there is nothing that replaces the fulfillment of the imagination and our minds, like books. And given these statistics, it is a scary proposition to consider that if families do not engender an interest in reading, but only hand their kids cell phones and themselves sit in front of HBO and Netflix, rarely, if ever reading, what does that portend for the future? Books are knowledge. Cell phones are, unfortunately, becoming more a source of controlled propaganda through social media and such. One must choose which is more important to the development of good character, a prudent mind and the ability to actually think for oneself, and not become just another cog in the endless spinning wheel of social media.
See more blog articles at https://reallaplaine.com/blog
August 11, 2018
Why you should read books
If ignorance is the enemy of freedom, then reading must, logically, be one of the stronger allies.
According to some sources, the average person stops educating themselves (those of us privileged enough to have access to education) by the time they are thirty years-old. After that, if not even before, the bulk of people launch into a career and lifestyle which engages them in other challenges, few of which include actually educating their minds. While statistics and research vary, one research group (Pew Research) showed that upwards of 28% of adults surveyed in America had not read a book in the entire prior year. This, in one of the supposedly most educated nations.
We could blame the decline in reading on the rise of live-streaming television (Netflix, HBO et al), Facebook and other social media which has people's minds switched to another frequency, but there is another much more subtle and pervasive undercurrent at work.
How many media sources in your life are currently telling you to READ and increase your knowledge? Compared to the massive hourly assault on you by commercials telling you to buy a new car, to gamble, to buy this and that? It's practically nothing, and there is a reason for that. Literate people, people who delve into books and read often, are not so easily swayed nor are they so vulnerable to the constant barrage of commercialism selling society on a lifestyle of excess, as opposed to expanding their mental horizons. Sadly, we are being educated to wrap up our enlightenment period by our mid-twenties, launch into a career - and then be good obedient citizens. Few sources are telling us TO READ, and fewer still are telling us to keep expanding our mental horizons ... because ... well, reading frees the mind, whereas ignorance ... you got it.
Don't be a slave to the media-obsessed-culture. Pick up a book and expand your mind - and keep doing it. Soon, you'll realize that your mind craves it, because it's healthy for the soul.
According to some sources, the average person stops educating themselves (those of us privileged enough to have access to education) by the time they are thirty years-old. After that, if not even before, the bulk of people launch into a career and lifestyle which engages them in other challenges, few of which include actually educating their minds. While statistics and research vary, one research group (Pew Research) showed that upwards of 28% of adults surveyed in America had not read a book in the entire prior year. This, in one of the supposedly most educated nations.
We could blame the decline in reading on the rise of live-streaming television (Netflix, HBO et al), Facebook and other social media which has people's minds switched to another frequency, but there is another much more subtle and pervasive undercurrent at work.
How many media sources in your life are currently telling you to READ and increase your knowledge? Compared to the massive hourly assault on you by commercials telling you to buy a new car, to gamble, to buy this and that? It's practically nothing, and there is a reason for that. Literate people, people who delve into books and read often, are not so easily swayed nor are they so vulnerable to the constant barrage of commercialism selling society on a lifestyle of excess, as opposed to expanding their mental horizons. Sadly, we are being educated to wrap up our enlightenment period by our mid-twenties, launch into a career - and then be good obedient citizens. Few sources are telling us TO READ, and fewer still are telling us to keep expanding our mental horizons ... because ... well, reading frees the mind, whereas ignorance ... you got it.
Don't be a slave to the media-obsessed-culture. Pick up a book and expand your mind - and keep doing it. Soon, you'll realize that your mind craves it, because it's healthy for the soul.
July 16, 2018
Existential thriller - what is it?
From the start of my writing career, I was plagued with this question: what genre am I writing in? I knew what I wanted to write about, but finding a classification for it in the world of books so that readers could identify my books from other authors, that was the problem. So, here we go, I write existential thrillers. Everyone knows what a thriller is, they come in different genres, such as crime, sci-fi, etc. How does existential fit into it?
Merriam Webster's dictionary defines the word existential as: "... grounded in existence or the experience of existence"
In a literary sense, as it applies to writing, one could view existential thrillers more or the less the same as philosophical thrillers. The table is up for debate on accepted definitions, but generally speaking, it is defined as: Philosophical fiction, also existential fiction, and refers to the class of works of fiction which devote a portion of their content to questions normally addressed in philosophy. These might include the function and role of society, the purpose of life, ethics or morals, the role of art in human lives, and the role of experience or reason in the development of knowledge. Philosophical or existential fiction works can include science fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction- and of course, thrillers.
If you have read books such as, Aldus Huxley's A Brave New World or The Island, Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm, and so many more, then you have read an existential or philsophical thriller.
Existential thrillers generally carry a strong message to the reader. It's not only about the thrill ride, the theme or the protagonist's challenges, it is just as much about the existential perspective on our world. In his book, 1984, George Orwell introduced the concept of "Big Brother" - an authoritarian state, to the world, becoming a classic existential thriller.
In the main, my books fit this category. So while you are getting a good read, you are challenged to think about perspectives offered.
This is not soapboxing, it is simply offering the reader the opportunity to question, challenge or weigh up the factors on the table before them.
There you have it, existential thrillers. Enjoy!
See the full blog post at https://reallaplaine.com
Merriam Webster's dictionary defines the word existential as: "... grounded in existence or the experience of existence"
In a literary sense, as it applies to writing, one could view existential thrillers more or the less the same as philosophical thrillers. The table is up for debate on accepted definitions, but generally speaking, it is defined as: Philosophical fiction, also existential fiction, and refers to the class of works of fiction which devote a portion of their content to questions normally addressed in philosophy. These might include the function and role of society, the purpose of life, ethics or morals, the role of art in human lives, and the role of experience or reason in the development of knowledge. Philosophical or existential fiction works can include science fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction- and of course, thrillers.
If you have read books such as, Aldus Huxley's A Brave New World or The Island, Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm, and so many more, then you have read an existential or philsophical thriller.
Existential thrillers generally carry a strong message to the reader. It's not only about the thrill ride, the theme or the protagonist's challenges, it is just as much about the existential perspective on our world. In his book, 1984, George Orwell introduced the concept of "Big Brother" - an authoritarian state, to the world, becoming a classic existential thriller.
In the main, my books fit this category. So while you are getting a good read, you are challenged to think about perspectives offered.
This is not soapboxing, it is simply offering the reader the opportunity to question, challenge or weigh up the factors on the table before them.
There you have it, existential thrillers. Enjoy!
See the full blog post at https://reallaplaine.com
