Author: johnmartinauthor
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I’m being followed by a Moon Rabbit shadow
According to a long-standing urban myth, the Great Wall of China can be seen from the surface of the moon. The idea was firmly debunked by astronaut Michael Collins in his 1988 book Liftoff. How he even determined this is a little puzzling to me. Collins, after all, remained in lunar orbit while Neil Armstrong and…
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Two things will happen in my next novel
In the final book of my Windy Mountain series, someone will get married and someone will die. They may even be the same person. I haven’t decided yet, so please go easy on me. That uncertainty probably tells you a lot about me. I try to write blog posts weekly because they behave themselves. They turn up, do…
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I’m not who you think I am. Wheely.
I can’t continue the lie. All this time I’ve been masquerading as a short, overweight, unfit former journalist called John Martin. But my real name is Urs Freuler — and in the 1980s and 1990s I was one of the world’s greatest cyclists. Six foot two. Muscles on muscles. Legs like tree trunks. Born in…
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The case for me as a piece of Australiana
Exhibit A: Name, Heritage and Pure CoincidenceA man named John Martin was a convict on the First Fleet. He was a Black American and a political prisoner. So it’s wildly unlikely I’m related — but you never know. Australia was built on improbability. Until recently I thought I had Locke blood on my mother’s side.…
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Tastebuds have a mind of their own. Cheers.
When I told my mate Orville the beer tasted like pyrethrum, he stopped mid-sip and looked at me in the careful way people do when they’re deciding whether to ask a follow-up. “How do you know what pyrethrum tastes like?” he said. I said this was a misunderstanding of the senses. Smell, I explained, is…
JOHN MARTIN'S TALES 