The Angel Mountain Saga rebranding celebrates 25 years.......

I know everybody loves to hate Amazon and Kindle, but the people in charge certainly know how to do promotion.  They have given a special page on their web site to the re-branding of the 8 Angel Mountain niovels, emphasising the Saga as an entity. 

Here is the text from the web page:

The Angel Mountain saga consists of eight novels, each one relating to a period in the life of Martha Morgan, Mistress of the Plas Ingli estate in West Wales. The books cover the period 1796-1859. Author Brian John launched a new career as a novelist in the year 2000 with the writing of "On Angel Mountain". It was published in 2001, and was an instant success. Under pressure from his readers, he wrote and self-published seven further books about his eccentric and incorrigible heroine (all under the Greencroft Books imprint) between 2002 and 2011. In each book an unnamed enthusiast seeks and finds a new diary, written in Martha's hand in the old Welsh Dimetian dialect which was, at the time, almost extinct. The narrative is written in the first person, and everything is seen through Martha's eyes.
The year 2025 marks the Silver Jubilee or 25th Anniversary of the launch of the Saga, which has become the best-selling fiction series ever published in Wales, with 150,000 volumes sold in a number of different formats and editions. Martha Morgan is seen by perceptiive readers as "Mother Wales", and the series as a whole is taken to be an allegory dealing with the struggle of a small and desirable country against a powerful and predatory neighbour.
This is the sequence of books:

The eight novels in the saga should ideally be read in the following order if you wish to follow Martha Morgan's life chronologically: On Angel Mountain (Book 1): Introduces Martha as a pregnant, suicidal 18-year-old who has a shotgun marriage and finds herself mistress of the Plas Ingli estate in 1796.
House of Angels (Book 2): Continues Martha's journey as she works to rebuild her life and the estate after a devastating fire and her husband's murder.
Dark Angel (Book 3): Further explores Martha's life and challenges in the "Wild West" of Regency Wales.
Sacrifice (Book 7): A dark tale filling a gap in the narrative of Dark Angel, focusing on traumatic episodes and involving the shady world of Victorian Secret Societies.
Conspiracy of Angels (Book 8): Set in 1810, this adventure story follows Martha as she gets involved in the anti-slavery movement and dices with death.
Rebecca and the Angels (Book 4): Describes Martha's involvement in the Rebecca Riots (1839-1844) and her attempts to improve the world around her.
Flying with Angels (Book 5): Covers the later years of Martha's life, including a final romantic fling and dealing with ancient family feuds.
Guardian Angel (Book 6): Deals with events following Martha's recorded death in 1855 and introduces a "new" heroine, Susanna Ravenhill. But who is she?

===================

All of the revamped covers are given due prominence, and there are links to the web pages for all 8 of the titles.  Let's hope that we see a steady increase in sales as a result of all the hard work -- especially by our son Steve, who designed the 8 covers.

Here is the link:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B074CFGRJ6?binding=kindle_edition&qid=1765186179&sr=1-9&ref=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_rc_tkin

The new Kindle book

 

The new book, with the title "Finding Martha Morgan", is now published exclusively for Amazon Kindle.  Here is the description of the book:

A compendium of eight short stories, each one relating to the discovery of a single diary written by the heroine Martha Morgan. These stories have previously been published as the introductory chapters of the eight "Angel Mountain" novels. The stories all have supernatural components, and may be considered by some to be ghost stories. The book also contains background information relating to the character of the heroine and the author's writing process. The final part of the book consists of a gallery of AI images created by Stephen John Svanholm, showing some of the characters who march through the pages of the novels.

Here is the link:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Finding-Martha-Morgan-heroine-Mountain-ebook/dp/B0G2JK842G/ref=sr_1_9?_encoding=UTF8&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.21ArZOINC2oYqq3ywbdSv62s7jgql_ELRWxxZpOOdioJNaw1UilPYzFv5IcHa1ihFb05MCaa5CZuOxVUilNs8DpNMOLsoWSt9lf3oU2ZXm28TIYY0KbEl38UkKV0_BdGIGt4fX8_5R8H8yQUIsnu-pRdFwRgVzxBtb0LEbg38Lc3rui9cIOv2LDyyX-5u5DtD6CUEppqLytiDLplcJpKdrF1WJ8zuiZ7PYzJM5RsthA.XG-Oxc6b-PgTQMGXo1muRcZXDF8tmoU6z-dUyvvFs7U&dib_tag=se&keywords=B005SAZ200&qid=1765186179&s=books&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&sr=1-9

A bargain at £2.99 ---simply download it from the Amazon web site.  Enjoy!!

The Cold Moon in Tycanol Wood

 

A great photo from Hugh Thomas, taken on the night of the "Cold Supermoon".  Ty Canol is of course one of the "magical" places in the story of Martha Morgan, popping up over again in the narrative as a place of high passion and deepest tragedy..........

The Force of Destiny

 

Premise:  A pregnant and suicidal teenager learns from a mysterious wizard that she will live to a great age, and has to go through life knowing that in every crisis others will die but that she will survive.

What would you do if you knew that you would survive every dramatic episode in life and live to a great age?  Would you settle down to a mundane and quiet life, and concentrate on raising a family and having a mellow time?  Or would you take risks that would otherwise have been outrageous, knowing that your actions would bring the defeat of your enemies but also maybe collateral damage to your friends and family? 

This is the dilemma faced by our heroine -- made sharper by the fact that she has identifiable enemies who want her dead, her family destroyed and her estate dismembered?  Deep, deep issues.......

One of the issues, of course, surrounds the issue of future certainty, predestination, destiny, fate, karma, or whatever you want to call it.  From the earliest times this has been a theme in literature and storytelling.  

But there are subtle differences that we should be aware of.  KARMA is about action and choice, while fate is about a predetermined, unchangeable outcome.  In the concept of karma, individuals have free will and are in the "driver's seat" of their lives. There is flexibility.  There is justice. Your current actions influence your future, meaning you have the power to change your course at any time by making different choices. On the other hand, FATE is cruel and unforgiving.   It involves the development of events beyond a person's control, often regarded as determined by a supernatural power or a fixed, unchangeable path. In this view, your life is predetermined, and your choices do not matter to the final outcome.

So when Martha is told by the wizard Joseph Harries, when she is very close to death herself,  that she will live to a great age, and that she is in effect indestructible, what is she to do?  Her first dilemma is to decide whether to believe him, and her second dilemma is to work out how she needs to adapt or modify her own actions to cope with this reality.  Others -- presumably her enemies -- will die before her, but what about her family and friends, who might suffer collateral damage on an unacceptable scale because of her own reckless or selfish actions? 

There is of course a great debate to be had here,  between those who think that salvation is achieved through accumulated good works (karma as in Buddhism and Hinduism) and those who think that salvation is a gift received by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  In Christianity, it is of course accepted that good works and kindness are to be applauded, but they do not in themselves involve accumulated merit, or get one into Heaven.  That happens through redemption, as a consequence of Jesus Christ paying the ultimate penalty for human sin through his death and resurrection.  Here we are moving seriously into the realm of theology.......

There are occasions in the narrative of Martha's life where she gets into deep discussions with the clergy for whom she has little respect.  One such occurs when she tries to get the rector of Newport Church to give a church wedding to the ex-prostitute Patty Ellis, enjoying in the process a jolly debate on the differences between fornication and adultery.  Another comes much later in the story, where Martha is angered by the Church's apparent acceptance of injustice and suffering as "ordained by God" and its apparent belief that an acceptance of suffering and pain is somehow noble or worthy.  Suffering is good for you?  Hmmm.....

The great theme of Verdi's opera "La forza del destino" (The Force of Destiny or The Power of Fate) is that human lives and choices are ultimately subject to the overwhelming, relentless power of an inescapable destiny or fate that often leads to tragedy. Fate is the main character in the narrative. The opera suggests that the characters themselves are less important as individuals than their collective reaction to the workings of an irrepressible destiny. The "fate motif" in the overture serves as a constant musical reminder of this overriding force.

While the characters in Verdi's opera are victims of random, cruel chance, Pagnol's characters in "Jean de Florette" suffer consequences directly related to their own moral choices. The central plot revolves around César Soubeyran ("Le Papet") and his nephew Ugolin illegally blocking a water source to Jean de Florette's inherited farm to force him to sell. Their greed leads to Jean's tragic demise.  The "force of destiny" reveals the truth in the sequel, "Manon des Sources". Manon, Jean's daughter, discovers their plot and exacts a form of poetic justice by blocking the source to the entire village, causing distress to her father's tormentors.  Then there comes a brilliant final twist.  The ultimate power of destiny is revealed when a dying César learns that Jean de Florette was, in fact, his own illegitimate son, the heir he had always longed for and for whom he had committed his terrible acts of cruelty. This shocking revelation demonstrates a tragic, yet morally balanced, form of destiny that ensures the perpetrators are crushed by the weight of their own past actions.

And in Shakespeare's "Hamlet", the full lines from the famous "To be, or not to be" soliloquy (Act III, Scene I) are:

"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?"

In this context, "outrageous fortune" refers to the unexpected and unwelcome hardships and random injustices that fate inflicts upon human life.

A reviewer long ago said of the Angel Mountain Saga that it is "Shakespearean in its scope".  Well, that was very kind -- and perhaps very perceptive -- of him.
 

I am not claiming that the Angel Mountain Saga deserves classic status as a work of art -- but I urge the reader to dig a bit deeper than the narrative itself in order to understand why people do the things that they do -- both good and bad.  And then, what the consequences may be.............

Iolo Morgannwg

Iolo Morgannwg might have looked something like this  as he wandered around Wales looking for ancient manuscripts, bits of folklore, songs and poems.  Did he smile much?  Not sure of that -- he is generally portrayed as a rather serious fellow........

Iolo Morganwg (Edward Williams) was a complex figure in reality -- often described as both a genius and a forger.  He was  labelled a "charlatan" by some scholars after his death.  His legacy is heavily debated, but most historians acknowledges his widespread fabrications, while also recognizing his immense positive impact on Welsh culture and national identity. 

Iolo, as a young man, was a stonemason and a farmer, and he spent some time in London.  He wandered all over Wales, and was not in his lifetime either wealthy or particularly famous.  Indeed, in 1786-87  he spent some time in the debtor's prison in Cardiff because of the failure of his stonemasonry business.  He owed  somebody £3.........  So to those whom he encountered on his travels he must have appeared as a very strange fellow, more like a vagrant or tramp than a pillar of the cultural establishment.........

Iolo was largely self-taught.  But he created numerous manuscripts and poems which he presented as ancient Welsh works, purportedly from the medieval period, but which were entirely his own work.  He invented the Gorsedd of the Bards and its associated rituals, presenting them as ancient Druidic traditions that had survived Roman times.  He created a supposed "Bardic Alphabet" (Coelbren y Beirdd) which had no basis in historical or archaeological fact.

The extent of his forgeries was not widely known during his lifetime; it was later scholars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who exposed them  -- and also acknowledged that some of them were really rather wonderful.

Despite the forgeries, Iolo provided the Welsh people with a crucial cultural re-awakening when it was most needed, effectively becoming one of the main architects of modern Welsh national identity.  The institutions he established, such as the Gorsedd (which is now an integral part of the annual National Eisteddfod festival), have endured and become important parts of Welsh life.  He was a genuinely talented poet, a radical political thinker (advocating for the rights of man, opposing slavery), a pioneer of the Unitarian movement in Wales, and a serious antiquarian who collected many genuine manuscripts alongside his forgeries.

His motivations?  Well, they were largely patriotic and local, aiming to elevate the reputation of Welsh language and culture, rather than for personal gain. Some theories also suggest his addiction to laudanum may have blurred the lines between fact and fiction in his mind.

Since he lived at the time that our imaginary heroine walked this earth, we had to incorporate him into our story.  He died in 1826 at the age of 79.  When he meets Martha in Ch 7 of  "Sacrifice" I have imagined him as a strange fellow, highly strung, very intelligent, and capable of offering sound advice to a troubled woman.  Above all else, he knows all about the Welsh triads.......

The Emperor of China

 

Here he is, splendidly imagined by Steve, using AI technology.  The Emperor of China, one of the most exotic and eccentric characters in the whole of the Angel Mountain narrative.  In the pages of "Guardian Angel" Martha gives him a bit of help, and he reciprocates.........

His name was John Wylde, and he really did exist.   His celestial empire extended for a few acres in the district called Pontystorehouse -- right in the midst of the industrial mayhem of 1840's Merthyr Tydfil. This fine fellow was at the top of the criminal pyramid, ruling over an assortment of thieves, thugs, prostitutes and pimps -- some were referred to as Rodneys, Nymphs and Bullies. His place of residence was excavated out of the Bethesda Cinder Tip, one of the more stable ash heaps adjacent to the Cyfartha iron works. He and his Empress lived in considerable style, surrounded by stolen goods, and "China" was effectively beyond the reach of the law.  Around 1500 people lived on and in the slag tips of the iron town, in incredibly primitive conditions. Truth or mythology? Who cares? Anyway, I could not resist pulling him into the narrative and playing a role in the adventures of our heroine Martha Morgan.........

More on the Empire of China and its colourful Emperor

 

Further to my earlier posts on this topic (in association with the Merthyr Tydfil section of "Guardian Angel") there is an interesting blog post here:

http://upsetvictorians.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-true-origin-of-china-nickname-for.html

It provides some interesting new info about the origin of the "China" name.  

Anthony Rhys says:  Most recently Joe England's excellent new book 'Merthyr: The Crucible of Modern Wales', says:  'Where the name China came from is unknown but it probably came from an imaginative journalist who saw the district as mysterious and dangerous. From the early 1840's Britain was involved in 'Opium Wars' with China.'   Keith Strange says as the Victorians became aware of the real country's 'strange culture and customs' they named another 'alien' society, namely Merthyr's underworld, after the same thing.

However, the new suggestion by Anthony Rhys is that the name came from an enthusiastic but unsuccessful Wesleyan "mission".  The Pontystorehouse hotbed of crime and prostitution was so notorious in the 1840's and 1850's that there were major campaigns by upright citizens to alert the inhabitants of the troglodite community as to the error of their ways, and to listen to the word of the Lord.  One of the leaders of this movement, one Walter Watkins, was a staunch Methodist and teetotaller, who frequently preached fiery sermons at the arch which led into the area of old slag heaps and ash dumps called "The Cellars". He was known as "Father Watkins" -- and he previously owned the Canton Tea house on Marthyr's High Street. He was a strict advocate of temperence, and preached that people should drink tea rather than alcohol. At that time tea was probably too expensive to be drunk by the prostitutes and bullies of the target community -- but all the tea for sale at that time came from China.

Walter Watkins eventually gave up on his campaign in despair, but as a joke the Cellars were re-named "Little China" 1843 and eventually became just "China", with the most powerful man in the locality taking the title of the Celestial Emperor.  At one time the Emperor was Benjamin Richards, alias Benny Blackstone, who was just 28 years old.  But the name I have built into the "Guardian Angel" episode was John Wylde, as a result of information gathered from Keith Strange's book.

I can well imagine that over a period of twenty years or more, there were crimninal power struggles within the Celestial Empire, as a result of which Emperors came and went with alarming frequency.  After 1850, conditions seem to have improved, and crime reduced, as indicated in Olivia Marsh's dissertation.

See also:

Olivia Marsh dissertation:

https://oro.open.ac.uk/85397/1/MARSH_A329_VOR.pdf

http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/china.htm

Keith Strange, ‘In Search of the Celestial Empire’, Llafur, 3.1 (1980), pp. 44 - 45

The Pontystorehouse shop around 1890 -- the arch on the left was reputed to be one of the

entrances to China.