How do you know when you are right about something? 

It’s a feeling, isn’t it. 

A feeling of knowing you are right.  

But what if I told you that the parts of our brains that are responsible for feeling, and the parts of our brain that are responsible for thinking, are completely separate.  One part of our brains, the frontal cortex, controls logic and language. Another part, the hypothalamus, controls emotions and feelings.  One of the reasons that describing emotions can sometimes be so infuriatingly difficult – especially when we are feeling those feelings – is because the two sets of activities, thinking and speech, and feeling and emoting, require the use of two completely different parts of the brain.

This might seem an odd way to introduce a book about two thousand demons, some neo nazis, a jihadi and the dead guy who has to try and save Creation. These are some of the characters in my book, The God Particle, that the Author’s Lounge has kindly given me the opportunity to talk about.  Their story is what the book is about.  But they are not what the book is about.

You see, in my view – and I stress you are free to form your own – nobody has a monopoly on the truth. Nobody has a monopoly on stupidity, either.  What do I mean by this? As humans we are capable of both the greatest acts of kindness and the deepest savagery – often at the same time.  Most of us exist on a spectrum between the extremes of good and evil, leaning both one way and the other at some point in time.  But it also depends on who is judging your actions – as the old adage goes, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

But whilst I find these thoughts fascinating, I’m not here to lecture anyone.  The God Particle was written to entertain, and if it touches on a deeper meaning it does so, I hope, with a light touch that will make readers laugh at least as much as it makes them think…

My own first literary endeavour was inspired by reading Sue Townsend’s “Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4”, when of a similar age to the protagonist.  Inspired, I started to keep a diary myself, which my mother inevitably found.    I came home one day to find her reading it aloud to my brother and sister and all of them in fits of hysterics.  OK, so my privacy had been monstrously violated, but secretly I was delighted. The diary was written to be read.  And it was (if not always in the way I had intended) funny.  I was hooked on the humorous chronicling of the human condition.  

Other big influences on me were Douglas Adams, with both the Hitchhiker and Dirk Gently series – but also his environmental work with “Last Chance to See” (I went on to study Zoology at university), and later the inestimable Sir Terry Pratchett. One of the regular joys of my life for many years was a new Terry Pratchett book to read, usually around Christmas. That made me really easy to buy for.

Sadly, when Sir Terry announced he had Alzheimer’s, I realised that the well of his great humour would all too soon run dry.  So I started to write stuff that would make me laugh as much as those who had influenced me.  And my book is for those to whom these other authors, and those like them, have brought so much joy.

The thing they all have in common, beside razor sharp wit, is that whether it is through the eyes of a teenage boy, an unwitting interplanetary traveller or holistic detective, or witches, dwarves and trolls, all concern themselves with the fundamental question of what it is to be human. And they hold humanity up, without judgement, as the marvellous and frustrating condition that comes as a universe achieves consciousness of self.

It is following this path that I hope to tread with the Hercules Leek series, of which The God Particle is the first instalment. Hercules is something of an unfortunate character, dying as he does in the early pages of the book.  But from there on in, he never gives up, and for that I admire his tenacity.

Legion, two-thousand-demons-in-a-single-body, is an absolute hoot of a character to write.  Holding a grudge against the Creator that stems back to an encounter with Jesus in biblical times, he is now hell bent on revenge and the absolute destruction of the Multiverse.  He has a number of plans in progress to achieve this end, but the main one revolves around a group of hapless neo-nazis, who he blinds with visions of power and a monstrously misguided version of quantum physics.

To find out more, you will have to read the book, which is currently available on Amazon (Amazon Genius Link). I am currently also exploring other publishing avenues and the audiobook format.  One of the things that no one tells you as a self-published author is how the authoring part is only one of the many jobs you actually have to do!  In my dream scenario, the God Particle becomes a film, and without wishing to get ahead of myself, I have already cast most of the characters and know the songs that make up the soundtrack.

But in the meantime, it is on with promotional work for The God Particle, and continuing to draft the second book in the series, The Ivory Tower, coming soon…

You can talk to me on twitter @HerculesLeek.