Richard Cubitt

I reside in England and in August 2013 I graduated from the Open University with a First Class BA (with Honours) degree in English Literature.

I'm a fan of all genres of literature. Some of my favourite authors are as follows:

Classics - Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Dumas, Dickens, Milton, Dante, Henry James, George Eliot, Hardy, H.G. Wells, Virginia Woolf, Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe, H.P.Lovecraft.

Contemporary Literary: John Banville, Ian McEwan, J.G. Ballard, Cormac McCarthy, Martin Amis, Philip Roth.

Sci Fi - Arthur C. Clarke, Asimov, Dick, Frank Herbert.

Fantasy - Tolkien, Philip Pullman.

The Earth's True Children

Fiction, Literary, Tragedy, Greek, Sci fi, Fantasy

The Earth’s True Children is a mythical tragedy featuring an element of science fiction/fantasy, set in an ancient time akin to that of the classical Greek era.

Founded by a group of separatists who had become disenchanted with the decadence rife in the other six great northern city-states of the world, Anaxagorus and its citizens pride themselves on their knowledge and moral adherence. Hylax, the son of the late but revered pioneer of the city, has grown tired of government and seeks a simple life. Struggling to deal with his obligation to his father’s legacy and his own feelings of disillusionment with mankind, he tries to find a way of satisfying himself and his people. But when his old confidant, Abenader, returns half-dead from the desert and a person dear to him is murdered, a conspiracy threatens to usurp his authority.

Meanwhile, an age-old species has emerged from the confines of the earth. They have seen the future and know where man’s corrupting and insatiable desire to plunder its resources will lead. At once an intimate and epic study of power, 'The Earth's True Children' examines humanity at its best and its worst.

Holes in the World: Tales of Horror, Sadness, Regret, Murder and Rage 2nd Edtn

Fiction, Literary, Horror, Sci fi, Crime, Ghost, Supernatural

This book is an eclectic compilation of nine short stories.

It includes: Two versions of 'Silk' - a horror tale set underground, featuring a lurking aberration of nature. 'The Grief of Lawrence Gould' - a story of ghostly events that plague a would-be author suffering from the death of his wife. 'Masks' - where a young protege of the curator of the Capponi Library, Italy, is kidnapped. 'The Blockade Runner' - an action-packed science fiction story charting the exposure of high-level corruption. 'Hideous Humanity' - the outrageous and vitriolic journal of Nicholas Weir, a young man who has reached the end of his patience with 21st Century Society; and more.

Featuring a New Introduction by the author and a new, expanded edition of 'Hideous Humanity'.

Death: A Play

Fiction, Literary, Theatre, Play, Christian, Religion

Death, the renowned spectre of mortality, is in crisis. Feeling ensnared and unable to reconcile God’s divine plan with his own sense of morality, he meets with the Archangel Michael in a cloud above Sinai to discuss his predicament. Encountering a mad evangelist, a foul-mouthed oracle, a Klingon-speaking demon, and some of the most notorious villains in history, Death tries his utmost to resolve his doubts. But will he be able to achieve his goal without incurring the wrath of God?

Set in the present day, Death: A Mildly Amusing Play for Atheists and Agnostics, is a darkly comedic story that muses on Christian mythology and the power of storytelling. It assumes that John Milton’s Paradise Lost is the true version of events relating to the creation and fall of man, and that Dante Alighieri’s Inferno informs the basis of Hell.

Includes an introduction by the author and notes expounding upon the many ancient and contemporary references included within the text.

English Literature: From Romanticism to Postmodernism

Non Fiction, Literary, Classics, Literature, Criticism

English Literature: From Romanticism to Postmodernism is an anthology of 24 essays of varying length and complexity arranged to provide readers with an impression of literary theory as it has evolved from the Romantic period (1790s to the 1850s) through to the post-modern period (roughly defined as peaking in the 1960s and 1970s).

Through the contexts of Morality, Gender, Identity, Conflict and Social Awareness, these essays seek to enlighten the reader on the influences and techniques of some of the most highly regarded and critically renowned novels, plays and poetry. The works discussed feature Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, George Eliot’s Middlemarch, Emile Zola’s Germinal, Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and the poetry of W.H.Auden, Allen Ginsberg, and Seamus Heaney. Also discussed are debates about the meaning and function of Literature as perceived by critics.

This in an excellent introduction for all those seeking to study literature of the past two centuries. Also includes 3 bonus essays on Shakespeare’s Henry V, Euripides’ Medea, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s The Social Contract.

Nicholas Enraged

Humour, Literary

Nicholas Weir is exasperated by his job and his failing marriage. Eschewing them both, he seeks to claim back control of his life and embarks upon an intellectual odyssey in an attempt to better understand the world. Exploring a wide variety of Film and Literature, including the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Hermann Hesse, Jean-Paul Sartre, Aldous Huxley, Terry Eagleton and Czeslaw Milosz, he begins to strip away the thin veneer of civilisation to expose a society riddled with greed, inequality, deceit and hypocrisy. Unable to repress his anger and disgust, Nicholas ventures out onto the streets of London… Examining Social Theory, Religion, Evolution, Politics, the Benefits System, the European Union, and the 2008 Banking Crisis, 'Nicholas Enraged' is the chronicle of an outsider, a man who refuses to conform to received ideas and the general tenor of 21st Century society. Bursting at the seams with satire, surrealism, pitch black comedy and indignant polemics, it is also an outrageous, subversive, and profane work that challenges common literary conventions.

Nicholas Enraged sample