Dark woods

'Dark Woods' is an attempt to answer the question, ‘Can one successfully combine metaphysical reflection with a narrative written in the thriller genre in a way that is accessible to a modern teenage readership? The book examines the relationship between the interior mental state of an individual, their intentions, and the exterior world. One example given is the baking of a cake: how one might create an image of that cake and subsequently assemble ingredients in the external world to create a physical representation of that image. Similarly, if we see a cake in the external world, we are able to store a mental representation of that object in our minds. The idea that the process might one day be reversed with objects that either never existed in the physical world or have since ceased to exist (i.e. given the right technology, thoughts, memories and ideas could be created in the external world by assembling or reassembling the physical components that either gave rise to them or would correspond with their mental image) is explored. The notion that such creations could then go on to exist independently of the mind that first postulated them is explored in the narrative. The old Strewelpeter nursery rhyme is used as a memory that becomes a living, breathing anatagonist. As far as I am aware, this particular combination of metaphysical philosophy, nursery rhyme and science fiction has not been done before – something which, I hope, affords it an element of originality.