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AmeriCymru: Hi Brian and many thanks for agreeing to this interview. What can you tell us about your latest novel Acts of God ?

Brian: Thanks for the invitation! It's always good to communicate with compatriots and friends on the other side of the pond. I'm not sure how to describe the new novel. I hope it's got more depth to it than the average thriller, which tends to place action (normally violent) above character development or the interactions between groups and individuals. And many of the thrillers I have read over the years don't give you much of a sense of place. I'm a geographer by training, and a sense of place means a great deal to me -- like everybody else in Wales, I have hiraeth in my blood! But here the place that becomes a character in the story is East Greenland rather than Wales.

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AmeriCymru: Why there?

Brian: Well, because I went to East Greenland and its amazing fjord landscape in 1962 as a student, as joint leader of an Oxford University expedition. The area around Scoresby Sund is referred to -- with some justification -- as the Arctic Riviera, because of the freakish hot and dry weather normally experienced there during the Arctic summer. It's the only place in the world where I've ever experienced heat stroke! We had a fabulous time in the field over a period of eight weeks, but we had a few close shaves with disaster, and realised at the end of the expedition that we had been lucky to come out of it without any major injuries or even deaths. We were completely unsupported, a hundred miles from the nearest help if anything had gone wrong, and not even any radios to call for help. In retrospect, we took some crazy risks, as young men tend to do. We probably thought we were immortal.

But there were also some intriguing things that happened to us -- heavy aircraft high overhead, encounters with US military personnel, and of course a strong US presence at Keflavik in Iceland, not very far away. We were there, after all, at the height of the Cold War. In 1962 Gary Powers, the U2 pilot, was released. The USA was still recovering from the Bay of Pigs disaster. The Cuban Missile crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. The Berlin Wall was being built. There was tension in the air. So back in 1962 I suppose the seeds of this novel were sown in my mind -- and for over 50 years they have been slowly germinating. And a couple of years ago I worked out the theme for the novel and started work on the first draft.

Camp site on the Oxford Glacier in 1962.  Some of the incidents from the OU Expedition to East Greenland were used as the basis for episodes in the new novel

  AmeriCymru: And the theme is?

Brian: I don't want to give too much away, but let's call the book the first ever "Arctic Noir" novel! It's related in some ways to those dark and brutal "Scandinavian Noir" stories that have poured out of Sweden, Denmark and Norway over the past few years -- but this story does not have a dysfunctional detective or a homicidal maniac who leads the police in a complex chase through the murky winter landscapes of the Copenhagen suburbs. In the high Arctic the darkness is the blackness of the long winter night -- and symbolically the blackness imposed on a pristine wilderness and an innocent people by powerful nations intent on out-thinking and dominating other powerful nations. And there is a very dark villain too. The story follows several groups of people whose fortunes are intertwined. The action jumps from one group to another in a manner that is deliberately cinematic. But essentially, the narrative is about a group of young men who arrive in East Greenland on a scientific expedition and who find, even before they arrive in their fieldwork area, that strange things are happening to them and to their environment.

They experience one "Act of God" after another, and soon they are afflicted by deaths and serious injuries. They are not the only ones to suffer -- the small local population of Greenlanders is also caught up in strange events. As the death toll mounts, the explorers are too intelligent and too inquisitive for their own good, and they realise that their misfortunes can be traced back to a strange "mining settlement" in a red mountain called called Himmelbjerg, surrounded by glaciers and snowfields, some fifty miles away from their base camp. Gradually, they uncover a gigantic conspiracy which has its roots in the Cold War, and it becomes clear that they are being targetted by an implacable enemy with limitless resources who will not allow any of them to get out of East Greenland alive. The forces of darkness, by the way, are led by a man called Jim Wagner. And so the scene is set for the Twilight of the Gods.........

Author Brian John and two colleagues near the point of exhaustion, on Roslin Glacier in 1962.

AmeriCymru: So the story is an allegorical one, full of symbols?

Brian: Yes, it is. All good stories are allegorical to a degree, since every author is seeking to demonstrate universal truths through an examination of a unique set of circumstances affecting a specific group of people. The conflict between good and evil is played out in almost every work of fiction -- it's a universal theme. There's another theme too, which has been in my mind ever since I started planning this novel. It's the same theme that Alexander Cordell used in "Rape of the Fair Country" -- the loss of innocence, the violent despoilation of a beautiful wilderness, the loss of humanity, the cynical acceptance of collateral damage in pursuit of power and wealth. Greed and the lust for power lie at the heart of Cordell's story, as they do in mine.

But while he was dealing with mineral exploitation and industrialisation, I'm dealing here with geopolitics and military might. This is a Cold War story, and I have tried to capture the mood of the time. And as some of my readers have already remarked, the events which I've built into the story are not so fantastical that they cannot possibly have occurred in reality. Since I tend be have an optimistic turn of mind, I like to tell stories in which evil and brutality bring their own grotesque rewards, and in which virtue triumphs!

AmeriCymru: 'Acts of God' is very much a change of setting and genre from your 'Angel Mountain' series. What prompted you to explore new avenues?

Brian:  I wasn't exactly bored with Martha Morgan and her Angel Mountain adventures, and am as fascinated by her as ever -- but shall we say I was getting rather complacent? After eight novels dealing with the same group of people in early nineteenth-century Wales I began to feel that I was in the comfort zone, and that there was a danger that my writing standards might start to slip. So rather than risking that, I decided to take on something more challenging -- an Arctic Noir story set in the Cold War of 1962. That of course involved huge changes in my storytelling technique, in the style of language used by the characters and in the interpretations of landscapes, political contexts, personal relationships and almost everything else. Also, in the Angel Mountain books I used a particular format -- an introductory chapter describing the discovery of another diary volume, and then a narrative unfolding in a diary format. Using a female voice, too!

This new novel has enabled me to experiment with a quite different narrative form -- third person, a relatively straightforward timeline, and several groups of players as the drama evolves. And for a change the real stars of the story are men! That having been said, there are just two women in this story -- but they are both absolutely critical to the manner in which the central crisis is resolved.  

AmeriCymru: Where can readers find 'Acts of God' online? Is there a website?

Brian:  The book is already available in both paperback and Ebook for Kindle. There is also a dedicated web site which is getting a wonderful response from readers.

This is the link to my web site, where I have a purchasing facility for both European and American readers:

Acts of God

And here are the other key links:

Acts of God ( Kindle ) Amazon.co.uk

Acts of God ( Paperback ) Amazon.co.uk

Acts of God ( Kindle ) Amazon.com

Acts of God ( Paperback ) Amazon.com

Polar bears such as this one inevitably play a role in a novel set in the Greenland fjords

AmeriCymru: While this story is obviously a full-blown adventure story with a dark conspiracy at its heart, it seems that you are also fascinated by the East Greenland landscape. Are you being paid by the Greenland tourist office?

Brian: If only! Maybe I should send them a bill? Seriously though -- of course I'm fascinated by the East Greenland landscape. It's one of the most exotic locations possible -- by far the most spectacular fjord landscape on earth, richly textured, washed with vibrant colours and ringing with birdsong and the sounds that come from glaciers and rolling and melting icebergs. I still have a large collection of digitised images from my own expedition in 1962, and during my research for this story I have dug up hundreds of amazing photos from more recent travellers into the area. I've put the best of them into a number of albums which anybody can access, including these:

Acts of God on Pinterest

East Greenland on Pinterest

Oxford University East Greenland Expedition 1962 on Pinterest

East Greenland is already becoming an important tourist destination, but access into the fjords is strictly limited to around two months every year, because of the ubiquitous East Greenland pack-ice belt. The Greenlanders are still involved in hunting, and it's important that their way of life should continue without too much interference from anybody else. But the wildlife resources are fantastic, and the tourist authorities are pushing "eco tourism" as hard as they can, with many visitors now coming in by air. That extends the tourist season, and now we are seeing trekking and "adventure holidays" in the area in the spring months as well, when the light is bright, the fjords are still frozen, and the snow is still thick on the ground. But tourism has to be handled carefully -- the area lies outside the East Greenland National Park, and great sensitivity -- and maybe tourist "rationing" -- is needed if this delicate wilderness is not to be damaged by those who seek to protect it.

AmeriCymru: Are you planning any further instalments in the 'Angel Mountain' saga?

Brian: Never say never. My faithful readers, who have bought 75,000 of my books since the series started, keep on hassling me and asking for more! All I can say at the moment is that there are still some long gaps in the story which are waiting to be filled. There are some interesting characters too -- like the wizard Joseph Harries -- who would make interesting central characters for other stories. Then we also have the next generation of the Morgan family, now that Martha is finally in her grave. I'll keep the matter under review!

AmeriCymru: What are you doing for Christmas?

Brian:  Nothing very exotic. I hate the very idea of Christmas in a hotel, or away from home. So it'll be at home, all being well, in the company of my wife, two sons, one daughter-in-law and two teenage grandsons. In our family we are lucky, since my wife Inger is Swedish and since we therefore have to celebrate Christmas twice. Christmas Eve (Julafton) is the important day in Sweden, so of course we have to celebrate that properly with all the correct rituals and food. Then we do it all again on Christmas Day, this time with the full turkey dinner in the evening. By Boxing Day we are all desperately in need of fresh air and exercise -- so whatever the weather, according to tradition, we all go for a long walk either on the cliffs of the north Pembrokeshire coast or else up our local mountain of Carningli. Up there, of course, on the mountain, we can commune with the resident angels.

AmeriCymru: Any final message for the members and readers of AmeriCymru?

Brian: Keep up the good work! It's great to see you and so many others participating in a real project designed to keep the Welsh flag flying in North America. Hiraeth is alive and well, and I've always believed that a "sense of belonging" is at least as important as a sense of place to all of us, as human beings, if we are to lead interesting and fulfilling lives. I don't think there is any conflict at all in feeling Welsh as well as being American, or Canadian, or whatever. If I'm asked what I am, I will always answer than I am a Welshman -- but that doesn't stop me from feeling British and European as well. So keep the dragon flying, keep cheering on the Welsh rugby team, and keep on buying Welsh books! Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!