On Monday, June 18 at 5pm CDT, G.M. Lawrence will be interviewed by Cyrus Webb of Conversations LIVE Radio on his spellbinding, critically acclaimed, philo-thriller release, Q:Awakening!
Tune in to http://www.blogtalkradio.com/conversationslive to catch this exciting show!
Cyrus Webb is not only the host of the incredibly popular Conversations LIVE Radio show, but he is also the Editor-in-Chief of Conversations Magazine, and President of
Conversations Book Club.
This is sure to be a phenomenal show! Don't miss it!
Friday, June 1, 2012
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Phenomenal Review of Q:Awakening
Congratulations to G.M. Lawrence who has received yet another amazing review from book reviewer, Sigmarie Soto.
Ms. Soto's comments include:
"The writing in Q: Awakening is elegant and clever, providing multiple layers and insight into a variety of complex cultural, political, and religious components. While this is an action-packed, save-the-world adventure, there is significantly more depth due to the philosophical aspects and the conflicts among and within the characters as well as the motives driving each of them. And all of this can draw a variety of audiences ranging from diehard adventure/thriller fans to those interested in modern philosophical fiction."
"The read is captivating and enjoyably consuming in everything from character development to the vivid settings covering anything from New Zealand to the deserts of Saudi Arabia. "
"The quality of writing and imagination mixed with the detail and realness of the characters and places is quite refreshing. Since Q: Awakening is the first in Lawrence’s trilogy, the remaining novels have quite a bit to live up to as well as a lot of questions to answer."
"Given the complexity and adventure in this novel, a screen adaptation would also be successful and well-received."
Ms. Soto's comments include:
"The writing in Q: Awakening is elegant and clever, providing multiple layers and insight into a variety of complex cultural, political, and religious components. While this is an action-packed, save-the-world adventure, there is significantly more depth due to the philosophical aspects and the conflicts among and within the characters as well as the motives driving each of them. And all of this can draw a variety of audiences ranging from diehard adventure/thriller fans to those interested in modern philosophical fiction."
"The read is captivating and enjoyably consuming in everything from character development to the vivid settings covering anything from New Zealand to the deserts of Saudi Arabia. "
"The quality of writing and imagination mixed with the detail and realness of the characters and places is quite refreshing. Since Q: Awakening is the first in Lawrence’s trilogy, the remaining novels have quite a bit to live up to as well as a lot of questions to answer."
"Given the complexity and adventure in this novel, a screen adaptation would also be successful and well-received."
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Q: Awakening has been awarded ForeWord Clarion's coveted "Five Star Award".
Reviewer comments include:
"Q:Awakening belongs on The New York Times Best Sellers list."
"...G.M. Lawrence's Q:Awakening has box office blockbuster written all over it. Lawrence's book is exciting, tightly written, and best of all, smart."
"To call this a page-turner is not enough. The book, like the manuscript for which the cast of the novel is searching, is like opium."
"The cast of Q:Awakening is pure Hollywood in some ways, but with more depth than is common in the genre."
"Q:Awakening is a thrilling and thoughtful read - a quest not unlike the one Lawrence's characters...are embarked upon."
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Monday, April 23, 2012
Travel Journal
Amman Jordan
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Amman is dark, but very much alive. Although I am tired from a long day of travel, I've made arrangements to meet a Palestinian friend at a Lebanese restaurant beyond the stone walls of the Old City. But for now, I stand atop a tall building and gaze out into the vastness of the night, filled with glimmering yellow and white lights. Then I close my eyes and try to focus on the music of the call to prayer. But the sounds of trucks and taxis and radios blaring a crazy, confused Arabic hip-hop swallow it so that only a mumur remains. The air is cool and, despite the urban congestion and pollution, fragrant with a scent I do not recognize. If it weren't for the friend who awaits me, and the insistence of my hunger, I think I could stay here all night, breathing in the sweet smells and sounds, mesmerized by the canvas of the purple and black sky and the urban landscape that shapes its contours. And so I leave to find a taxi and make my way to what remains of the past that this place once was.
Half way through dinner, I find myself conjured into a dream. The savory Shish Taouk (marinated chicken grilled over charcoal embers, oriental rice and tomatoes) and the Jordanian white wine (surprisingly good) have joined forces with my fatigue. I smile and laugh at a joke, then realize that I heard nothing that was said, and have merely reacted automatically to my companion's laughter and his infectious smile. I must remember to find a gift of jewlery for my wife, the voice inside my head reminds me, though it has nothing at all to do with the conversation, the joke or seemingly anything. Maybe it is the bold, alluring gold earrings worn by the Bedouin dancer, gyrating to the sounds of drums and a series of primitive stringed instruments whose names are a mystery to m. Who knows? Who cares? At least for the moment, I'm in a happy place with a good man made refugee by circumstances so very far beyond his control. I'm, unteathered from my cell phone and my laptop (they sit angrily, alone in my hotel room). I'm a free man in a distant free land (so many American's are surprised to know that Jordan is in fact a free, secular, and open society). It's as if I've become someone else. For a moment I feel that destiny might take me in a new direction. And well it might. For tomorrow, I take the first steps along a path that will lead me first to Saudi Arabia then at last to the dangerous and strangely beckoning land in the midst of revolution. "Syria calling," the jester inside my head sings to the tune of The Clash. We shall see. But first, I have things to do in Jordan and in the Kingdom. So more tomorrow from ancient ruins and the road to the deep southern desert they call Wadi Rum.
Amman Jordan
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Amman is dark, but very much alive. Although I am tired from a long day of travel, I've made arrangements to meet a Palestinian friend at a Lebanese restaurant beyond the stone walls of the Old City. But for now, I stand atop a tall building and gaze out into the vastness of the night, filled with glimmering yellow and white lights. Then I close my eyes and try to focus on the music of the call to prayer. But the sounds of trucks and taxis and radios blaring a crazy, confused Arabic hip-hop swallow it so that only a mumur remains. The air is cool and, despite the urban congestion and pollution, fragrant with a scent I do not recognize. If it weren't for the friend who awaits me, and the insistence of my hunger, I think I could stay here all night, breathing in the sweet smells and sounds, mesmerized by the canvas of the purple and black sky and the urban landscape that shapes its contours. And so I leave to find a taxi and make my way to what remains of the past that this place once was.Half way through dinner, I find myself conjured into a dream. The savory Shish Taouk (marinated chicken grilled over charcoal embers, oriental rice and tomatoes) and the Jordanian white wine (surprisingly good) have joined forces with my fatigue. I smile and laugh at a joke, then realize that I heard nothing that was said, and have merely reacted automatically to my companion's laughter and his infectious smile. I must remember to find a gift of jewlery for my wife, the voice inside my head reminds me, though it has nothing at all to do with the conversation, the joke or seemingly anything. Maybe it is the bold, alluring gold earrings worn by the Bedouin dancer, gyrating to the sounds of drums and a series of primitive stringed instruments whose names are a mystery to m. Who knows? Who cares? At least for the moment, I'm in a happy place with a good man made refugee by circumstances so very far beyond his control. I'm, unteathered from my cell phone and my laptop (they sit angrily, alone in my hotel room). I'm a free man in a distant free land (so many American's are surprised to know that Jordan is in fact a free, secular, and open society). It's as if I've become someone else. For a moment I feel that destiny might take me in a new direction. And well it might. For tomorrow, I take the first steps along a path that will lead me first to Saudi Arabia then at last to the dangerous and strangely beckoning land in the midst of revolution. "Syria calling," the jester inside my head sings to the tune of The Clash. We shall see. But first, I have things to do in Jordan and in the Kingdom. So more tomorrow from ancient ruins and the road to the deep southern desert they call Wadi Rum.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Travel Journal-Sharm el-Sheikh to Amman
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Sharm el-Sheikh Airport
It was a long journey south fording the silent, wind swept deserts of Sinai through the seemingly endless checkpoints and tiny Bedouin camps filled with children preparing for the Muslim holy days of Eid. Somehow the checkpoints seemed less ominous in the daylight, the soldiers less stern. Together we smoke and take tea as they study my papers and chat lazily among themselves. I wonder what the security will be like in Amman?
I fly Royal Jordanian Air to Queen Alia airport in the capital city of only Arab country completely without oil. My flight departs from Sharm el-Sheikh at the tip of the Sinai, pressed hard against the turquoise waters of the Red Sea. It's a big airport, built for better days when tourists came more frequently and more easily. Now, in the aftermath of revolution and the violence that came with it, the Egyptian airport is nearly empty, a hollow cavern of near silence.
As far as I can tell, I am the only American. The few others are mostly Russians, drunk, unruly, pushy. Uncharacterisically, I take the small insults and indignities in stride, allowing them to have their way. After all, what's the rush? There are so few persons here, so many empty seats (the image). I get a coffee from the Bedouin vendor who speaks no English, take a seat and reflect on my passage through the desert, on the monks who live in the ancient monastery where I prayed only last night, on what it must be like to be a vendor of coffee in an empty airport, to be an inn keeper whose hotel is deserted, to be a citizen of a land where revolution has wrecked the economy but given the people a fresh, invigorating sense of destiny and self-determination. For a moment, no more, I am an Egyptian, overwhelmed by the dual emotional waves of fear and joy.
When I board the plane--so very empty--I marvel at how clean and bright it is, how pleasant the flight attendants are, how many small courstesies and kindnesses they show an American, with dust on his shoes and in his hair, travelling alone in a land where family and tribe are everything. I wish American planes and the frayed men and women who staff them could be as tidy, friendly and warm. I look forward to Amman, a busy, bustling city filled with educated people, automobiles, tall buildings and flickering lights. It will be such a change from the silence of the desert, from the turmoil that haunts the uncertain time on the heels of revolution.
When I arrive, I'll go into the Old City for a meal with a friend who once was a professor of history, a Jordanian, a family man now retired who in the late autumn days of his life has rediscovered his spirituality, praying to Allah five times a day, regardless of where he might be or with whom he might be. It's a discipline to be respected, like so many other attributes of the Jordanians. Then before dawn, we'll make our way into the southern deserts, going first to Petra, then further south and west to the expansive, stunning desert of Wadi Rum (where Lawrence of Arabia was filmed), and at last, when the sun is setting, crossing, quietly and without papers, into the forbidden land, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
More tomorrow.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Travel Journal-Wanaka, Central Otago, NZ
Wednesday, January 18, 2012Cental Otago, New Zealand
The world is indeed a mysterious realm. Coincidences happen in ways that make so very clear that there is so much more at work in the universe than we can comprehend. Consider the following (true story in all respects).
Tonight I was sitting in the bar of the infamous White House in Wanaka on the South Island of New Zealand drinking a Monteith's Dark (if you're ever in NZ, try it and remember that it was a surfing philo-thriller writer who steered you straight) with my friend Bruce Hopkins (who played Gamling, General of Rohan, in two of the Lord of the Rings movies). I was listening to the tales of flyfisherman who'd come down from the mountains and to the hopes and aspirations of the bartenter who was eight months preganant with her first child. It had been a long day, all the way from the Franz Joseph Glacier (where it was snowing lightly) to the wine country, stopping along the way for a swim at Bruce Bay (in the Tasman) and a quick, cold dip in the Blue River that comes down from the mountain peaks. I was ever so slightly in a dream as I sipped and listened and told tales of my own.
Peter, the owner of the most infamous bar/restaurant in New Zealand (ask the locals...or Peter...they'll tell you all about it!), magically appeared at my side. We started to talk about the first book in the Q Trilogy then he asked about the second book to be released next year, Q: Apocalypse. I told Peter, without giving too much away, that soon I'd be headed to Chennai, India (formerly Madras) to do research for the book since important parts of it will be set there among the Christians who trace their lineage to St. Thomas. Peter smiled then disappeared behind the bar. A moment later, he returned with the placard shown in this photo. It was taken from a hotel in Chennai during Peter's last visit there only a few months before. And so we ordered dinner (a wonderful smoked fish with a fine NZ Pinot) and talked of India and of other stories I'll save for another blog.
Now you tell me--I'm sitting in one of the most remote bars in the world, a stranger in a strange land, working on the plot for book two in the trilogy, drinking a beer and thinking about Chennai, India. A man magically appears at my side with a placard from that very town and a Gladstone bag full of stories of his adventures there. Coincidence or destiny? You decide.
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