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Finding Something to Beleive In
Struth Mate! Is This Hell? is a mad, cosmic ride through a metaphysical reality where life, death, religion, science and philosophy collide. What was the inspiration that created the fantastic journey these characters go on?
I guess as we all age, we start to wonder what life’s journey was all about and seek some reassurance that it was worthwhile and that we leave behind some lasting legacy. To put this another way, I guess to be fully content we need something to believe in, some form of religion, however that may manifest itself.
On my own journey in search of a religion, my initial approach was to delve into science and established religions, believing that answers were already established. But unable to find solace and any meaningful connection, I eventually decided to start afresh and develop a sort of personal religion based on known facts and logic. “Struth!” at its core, is really the outcome of this search, with all the workings included, but wrapped up in a novel to provide drama and intrigue. I decided to publish it in the hope that it would provide others with an alternative perspective that may help shape their own views.
What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?
Having previously revealed the core model in the first book in this series, this second book took those ideas and extrapolated them to predict the future. The fate of mankind and the Earth is revealed by applying the model to the Bible’s Book of Revelation, decoding its meaning and creating a whole new literal translation that provides some thought-provoking insights. Furthermore, it attempts to consolidate the seemingly conflicting views of religion and science.
I have always been puzzled by the strange multiple personality disorder of the Christian God, who appears to have extreme mood swings. In this book the form and existence of Gaia, or Mother Nature, is revealed. It is she who has been the prime controlling influence over Earth’s development for millions of years, even aiding the rise of mankind … although she now believes that to be a mistake!
What experience in your life has had the biggest impact on your writing?
Without any doubt, becoming a father (x3). The miracle of birth and parenthood never failed to amaze me and brought with it a sense of awe and wonderment at nature. It certainly starts you questioning whether there truly is a God and how life began.
Turning your question around, the experience of writing has certainly impacted my life. Before embarking on this journey, I would have describe myself as an agnostic bordering on atheism. With my journey now nearing its conclusion, I would still describe myself as an agnostic as the ideas I have generated, although being logical and rational in my own mind, are still fictional and unproven. But perhaps now with a greater appreciation of the spiritual, my views have certainly shifted a little towards the religious.
When will book three be available? Can you give us an idea of where that book will take readers?
The third and final book in the series will focus on the very meaning of existence and provide plausible answers to those ultimate questions of life, the universe and everything. As to when it will be published, I can’t say. This is my retirement project and things move slowly these days.
Author Links: GoodReads
In this second book in the series, the search for meaning continues and we learn of mankind’s fate, how the Earth meets its end and locate the elusive “42”. On the journey we encounter Gaia, or Mother Nature if you prefer. Who or what is she? What is her connection with God and the Devil? Is she really able to influence life on Earth, change our environment, or even alter the course of evolution? Furthermore, by applying the “Struth!” model to the Bible’s Book of Revelation, reveals some thought-provoking insights and decodes its meaning to create a new literal interpretation. Here the returning Messiah takes on greater significance and is brought startlingly into focus.
WARNING: This product may challenge your existing beliefs
Struth Mate!: Is This Hell? (Struth! Book 2)
Ava Forme’s Struth Mate! Is This Hell? is a mad, cosmic ride through a metaphysical reality where life, death, religion, science and philosophy collide. This isn’t your typical sci-fi or religious satire, it’s a sprawling, layered universe that takes big swings at answering life’s biggest questions: Why are we here? What happens after we die? Are we just meat machines or does something greater move us? Picking up from the model of the universe developed in the first book in this series, this volume throws us into the “scosmos,” a parallel spiritual plane, where spirits use life (and specifically the heightened abilities of human life) to try to solve some of the universe’s ultimate puzzles.
I found the writing style both wild and strangely charming. Forme’s world is complex and stuffed to the brim with ideas. It’s like reading someone’s fever dream if that dream had been outlined by a philosopher-turned-sci-fi author with a very dry sense of humor. The way new words are formed by slapping an “s” in front of them (like “slife” for spiritual life or “swalk” for spiritual walk) is weird at first, but it grew on me. It added to the surreal, alien-but-familiar tone of the book. I especially loved how Don, our narrator, walks us through Heaven like a sarcastic Airbnb host explaining self-image manipulation, spiritual politics, and bisexuality in the afterlife like it’s all totally normal. His personal discomfort, curiosity, and heartbreak over his lover Lesley’s secret identity as the reincarnated spirit of Adolf Hitler is told with emotional vulnerability and dry wit that somehow makes it all land.
That said, Struth Mate! isn’t a light beach read. It’s dense. There’s a whole metaphysical system introduced in the preamble and “Chapter 0” that includes spiritual echelons, reincarnation mechanics, and a universal information network called the sinternet that provides access to all knowledge stored in dark matter. It’s a lot. But that’s also what makes it fun, if you like a bit of brain-stretching fiction. One of the more memorable concepts was the “Kali Objective,” a mission given to gods (yes, there are many, and they retire like presidents) to stop the universe from continually cycling from Big Bang to Big Crunch by understanding and mastering cosmic forces. It’s ambitious, almost laughably so, but it hooked me. I caught myself wondering, “What if?” more than once.
Emotionally, the book lands harder than I expected. The way Forme explores spiritual longing, identity, and purpose hit close to home. Don’s inner conflict, especially when he finds out Lesley is not only God now but also carrying the spiritual echo of Hitler, is both bizarre and strangely touching. It makes you reflect on how we process trauma, identity, and destiny. The book might be dressed in cosmic technobabble and telepathic networking, but at its core, it’s about people (or spirits) trying to find meaning and connection in a chaotic universe.
If you need linear plots, clear-cut good guys and bad guys, or simple language, you’ll probably get frustrated. But if you’re the kind of reader who digs The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy mixed with The Good Place, stirred up with philosophical rambling and a healthy dose of irreverence, you’ll be in for a hell of a time. I’d recommend it to fans of speculative fiction, agnostics wrestling with cosmic meaning, or just anyone who likes their sci-fi on the strange side.
Pages: 511 | ASIN : B0F32RBYYG
Search For Enlightenment
Struth! follows three men with different philosophical beliefs who contemplate the universe and its meaning. I think this original idea is intriguing. How did you come up with this idea and develop it into a story?
Actually, it’s two men and a women, but that’s not important here. The idea originally developed from my own search for some understanding of life and the world around us. I have always had an interest in science, which has provided mankind with some wonderful insights into the workings of nature and still continues to do so on an almost daily basis. However, being empirical in nature, it can never hope to answer those fundamental questions as to why things happen, only the what, where and how. In many ways science is still in its infancy and has to create unknown “dark forces” to allow observations to align with theories and established physical laws. It will even tell you that death is our final destination and there is no purpose to life. That seemed irrational to me, so I then turned towards religion. Coming from a non-religious background, with only a sprinkling of religious knowledge, I knew very little of the many different and distinct faiths. However, with over 4000 individually recognised religions in the world, which one holds the truth? They can’t all be right, and you could spend your whole life searching and still end up empty handed at the end. In frustration, I turned to philosophy for answers, that academic discipline for generating conceptual ideas. But even here, few understand the logic and rationale derived, and philosophers have never agreed on a single proposition. The only option I had left was to start from scratch and develop a sort of personal religion based on truths that I had already accepted.
Authors that have previously trodden this path have chosen to base an approach either on personal insights (if they happen to be a mystic or had the misfortune to suffer a near death experience), or on religious grounds by reinterpreting scripture. For others, fantasy provides unlimited boundaries where witchcraft and magic can evoke the impossible. When you analyse all of these options in detail, however, none provides that solid foundation necessary to create a truly believable hypothesis. “Struth!” takes a different approach, with the plot centred on a model of existence at its core that has been inferred from our own history. In our past, numerous pivotal events have aided our species’ rise to dominance and shaped our lives. These are not disputed, so become fixed points within the model. Furthermore, if you believe that life does have meaning, then these events could not simply have happened by chance; they too had purpose and must be connected in some way. With the minimum number of initial assumptions, and with elements borrowed from science, religion and philosophy, common threads can be found to create the links and plug the gaps. By joining all the dots, a bigger picture is revealed that can then be used to explore the natural and supernatural worlds in a defendable framework. It provides some plausible answers and thought-provoking ideas that can be easily understood and, in many ways, unify the conflicting ideas found in science, religion and philosophy alone.
I decided to write “Struth!” in my retirement, first to give me something to keep my mind active and occupied, but primarily because I wanted to share these ideas in the hope that others would find some connection and aid their own search for enlightenment.
2. What was your approach to writing the interactions between characters?
If you have already found a religion, no matter what that may be, then the path to enlightenment is already well trodden and is straight and well lit. If you are still searching for that “truth” then you become an explorer and the path is unclear as it meanders and branches all along its length. When you reach a fork in the path you have to decide which direction to take. To do this rationally and objectively, you need to keep an open mind and consider all ideas, no matter how unlikely and contradictory they may seem. As an engineer by profession, I approach writing in a similar way, so you will find that all the workings that went into solving a dilemma are openly out on display. The three main characters were specifically chosen to represent these opposing views, not just philosophically but also religiously, sexually and socially. It was therefore very easy for the characters to interact to express their own views, and in the end, I found a compromise solution which contains elements of truth from all viewpoints.
3. What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
In many ways I gave my own mind free-range when it came to developing the story. It started by making just one assumption – Life does have meaning. If you believe that, then numerous questions are immediately raised and it starts you on a journey in search of answers. The end result is that the book has to almost develop a theory of everything in order to fully explain the how, what, where and, most importantly, – why.
If I have to pick a few highlights, then they would probably be: the nature of God, creation and the structure of the universe, how mysticism and the paranormal work, why we have such diversity in sexuality, and what role Earth and mankind play in the bigger picture.
Although initially unintended, it was also interesting that the structure of the universe proposed aligns with Douglas Adams “Answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything”, postulated in the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. It seems that many of the answers to life’s mysteries can be found in 42.
4. Will there be a follow-up novel to this story? If so, what aspects of the story will the next book cover?
I have only just started. “Struth!” was conceived as a trilogy, and the second book in the series is already well advanced. The first book is really an adventure story where the leading characters go in search of life’s meaning and to understand the world around them. In the second book “Struth Mate!” the journey of discovery continues from where the first ended, and we look into the future and what destiny holds for us all. We encounter Gaia, or Mother Nature if you prefer. Who or what is she? What is her connection with God? Is she really able to influence life on Earth, changing our environment, or even altering the course of evolution? We also learn that the end of the world is fast approaching. Here the Book of Revelations and the returning Messiah take on greater significance and are brought startlingly into focus. We also discover what 42 signifies.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
♥ “This is a very interesting book if one keeps an open mind. I rate the book 4 out of 4 stars.” – Official review, Online Book Club.
♥ “Struth! isn’t your traditional novel. Instead, it’s an unconventional blend of scientific propositions, theological musings, and philosophical reflections all wrapped into one highly innovative package. It will have readers pondering their beliefs, laughing out loud, and questioning the universe.” – Literary Titan.
“Struth!” is a thought provoking philosophical fiction novel aimed at those still searching for some meaning to life and existence. It follows the life and death of three friends who hold very different views on life, but who are brought together and then murdered in mysterious circumstances. Their subsequent journey of discovery takes them into an unfamiliar spiritual world, where nothing makes much sense. Only as they travel on will the nature of reality start to reveal itself and the truth behind their lives exposed.
At the core of the novel is a model of existence derived from a fusion of history, science, religion and philosophy. This unified theory is used to provide plausible answers to many of those previously unanswered questions that have long eluded mankind: What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything? How was life created? Who is God? What killed the dinosaurs? Are there really aliens out there? … Why do the Germans consider themselves the master race?
“Struth!” is not irreligious or hostile to individual established religions, but draws upon all sources of knowledge, keeping an open and logical mind to arrive at compelling explanations that can be understood by everyone.
WARNING: This product may challenge your existing beliefs.
STRUTH!
Struth! The debut novel of Ava Forme isn’t your traditional novel. Instead, it’s an unconventional blend of scientific propositions, theological musings, and philosophical reflections all wrapped into one highly innovative package. For the most part, this exciting book follows three main characters, Don, Ed, and Les. Each character represents a different theological viewpoint, as well as sexual identity and social attitude. For example, Don is a fierce atheist who revels in trying to prove God does not exist, while Ed is his opposite, a staunch believer. Les is somewhere in between, an agnostic who keeps an open mind.
The book begins with all three characters expressing their individual beliefs. They are then murdered in suspicious circumstances before finding themselves in heaven and being fast-tracked through the induction process, labeled as the “three wise men.” However, they soon come face to face with God and must wrestle with the fact that She and heaven, in general, is completely different from what any of them were expecting. In doing so, they discover the real spiritual truth, which Forme refers to as the Struth.
The author has structured this intriguing book to allow the characters to openly explore their own beliefs and how they relate to the world. Furthermore, in attempting to create a “theory of everything” that blurs the lines between science and religion, these alternative viewpoints are, in many ways, seen to converge and be equally valid.
The author tackles these big ideas with a grounded sense of humor, and as the novel’s plot gets increasingly offbeat, it also gets increasingly funny. At the same time, while the three main characters might start out as templates for different theological arguments, Forme succeeds in fleshing them out as likable characters. There are certain parts of the book that those with particularly orthodox religious views will likely find offensive. Forme does an excellent job of signposting these book sections and warning readers, but an open mind and a sense of humor are must-haves for this one.
Struth! is an incredibly innovative book, and Forme excels at asking big questions while making the reader laugh. This is one story that will have readers pondering their beliefs, laughing out loud, and questioning the universe.
Pages: 383 | ASIN : B078GHDSZ5
LITERARY TITAN 