One of the Finest Authors You Have Never Read

Possibly last millennium my friend Steve Kirby, drummer with the band I played with “Spoon” (not the famous Spoon) lent me a book called the Day of Judgement by an author called Daniel Easterman called “The Day of Wrath”. I am not one for what might be termed “political thrillers” but this grabbed me by turning the expected stereotypes completely upside down.

Here is a brief introduction to the man from the FantasticFiction site:

In 1984, Daniel Easterman (Denis MacEoin) embarked on what was for many years his principal career, writing international thrillers. Under the Easterman name, he has published fifteen novels, many of them best-sellers. Among the best known are: The Seventh Sanctuary, The Ninth Buddha, Midnight Comes at Noon, Maroc, 'K', The Judas Testament, The Sword, and The Spear of Destiny.

As Easterman, he has been translated into about fifteen languages, including French, German, Spanish, and Italian. The most recent, The Sword, was published in 2007 and The Spear of Destiny appeared in spring 2009.

Under a second pen-name, Jonathan Aycliffe, he has written a further eight novels, all ghost stories in the classic English tradition. Naomi's Room has been optioned for film in Hollywood, and The Vanishment and The Matrix have recently been optioned by two British film companies.

He has recently worked extensively on radical Islam in the UK for the think tank Policy Exchange, has written a full-scale report on Islamic hate literature found in Britain (The Hijacking of British Islam). He has also written two reports for the think tank Civitas, one on Muslim schools in the UK (Music, Chess and other Sins: Segregation, Integration, and Muslim Schools in Britain), and one on the legality of shari'a law in Britain (Shari'a Law or One Law for All).:

Jonathan Aycliffe

Steve told me about the Jonathan Aycliffe pen name which was more for supernatural writing, ghosts and monsters although some of his writing as Easterman strays into mystical territory.

I read “Naomi’s Room” and “The Vanishment” both of which hooked me for that pen name as well. Those two books were disturbing and claustrophobically creepy, but I was hooked on both his writing streams by this time.

“The Lost” was slightly humorous , but still a great book featuring vampirism and a castle in Transylvania (which I recently learned was from the Latin for “The Place Beyond The Woods” as there is and American Transylvania University)

Then I came to “The Matrix” genuinely one of the most frightening books I have ever read, again full of mysticism, corpses coming back to life and creatures following the protagonists even when they believe they have reached safety. It is one of those books I only read again when I feel totally safe.

I am currently reading the Talisman and am halfway through and it contains many unsettling incidents and concepts but draws on the author's Middle Eastern knowledge.

Daniel Easterman

The political pen name but whether he hits alternate futures like “K” (very close to what Trump was going for), “Day of Wrath” where the terrorist religious fundamentalists are the Christians, then “Spear of Destiny” taking in religious mysticism mixed with the Bible and Quran, I am just surprised none of these have been turned into a sort of cross between Indiana Jones and James Bond film.

I do find all his output page turningly excellent. And the novels are never retreads of each other

Denis MacEoin

Under his own name has published extensively on Islamic topics, contributing to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the Oxford Encyclopaedia of Islam in the Modern World, the Encyclopædia Iranica, the Penguin Handbook of Religions, journals, festschrifts, and books, and has himself written a number of academic books.

Christopher Buck wrote: "Rituals in Babism and Baha'ism is a text-centered, information-rich study of the prescriptive passages of Babi and Bahá'í scriptures... is recommended strictly as a sourcebook, so long as the reader is aware that the Babi section is purely documentary and that the Bahá'í chapter treats in a predominantly philological fashion texts and prescriptive practices that are quite unknown to the vast majority of actually-existing Bahá'ís in the world."

The Sources for Early Bābī Doctrine and History.

Rituals in Babism and Baha'ism.

The Hijacking of British Islam: How Extremist Literature is Subverting Mosques in the UK.

The Messiah of Shiraz: Studies in Early and Middle Babism.

Music, Chess and Other Sins

Dear Gary, Why You're Wrong about Israel.

His books are widely available and he visits the Oxfam shop in Jesmond where I briefly worked pricing their music.

I would thoroughly recommend all of his work, as I have read most of his books more than once and enjoyed every one.