The final book in Blair Mackenzie Blake‘s trilogy Grumble’s Star (also including The Othering and The Paragon Junk) is out now for your reading pleasure! While I admit reading Blair’s musings may not be everyone’s cup of tea, there’s plenty of dense prose for those who enjoy that kind of thing to sink their teeth into. You can order it now on Amazon! Here’s a blurb:
While searching for a legendary treasure believed to have been buried at a rural Virginia location, Jack Atkins is given a fresh lead at an estate sale. Among the rare volumes in the library of the family’s patriarch, Grumble, is a dusty copy of Sir Francis Bacon’s unfinished utopian work entitled ‘New Atlantis’. Jeremy Pye, a fellow seeker of fortune that Jack befriends, is convinced that a finished copy was spirited away in the past and still remains concealed in a hidden vault, and that what this ‘perfected’ version reveals is infinitely more valuable than a hoard of gold.
While exploring the connections between a Maonic allegory embedded in cipher texts and those ingeniously encoded in the works of Shakespeare – in particular the bard’s swan song, ‘The Tempest’ – they unmask a cabal of illustrious figures known as “The Good Pens”. Meanwhile, Jack is smitten with Grumble’s great granddaughter, Callie, who is in possession of a family ‘heirloom’ – an artifact of unfathomable antiquity that, at times, appears to be sentient. This might explain why shadowy government types watch their every move, along with a mysterious presence that attempts to guide them on their quest with visions whose meaning they struggle to grasp.
Soon, the three are drawn to a private island near Bermuda, whose enigmatic owner is inclined to pleonexia – “an insatiable desire to have what rightfully belongs to others”. Living in a paradise that contains parallels with the enchanted isle of ‘The Tempest’, they are witness to undreamed of things that enduring myths of fantastic events in distant times give only a faint penciling thereof.
https://www.amazon.com/Grumbles-Star-Blair-MacKenzie-Blake/dp/0645209430/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1GQ93I2YCWBH3&keywords=blair+blake&qid=1676883138&sprefix=blair+bla%2Caps%2C350&sr=8-3
Some interesting bits in that blurb, and probably a coincidence but the use of “The Tempest” and “The Good Pens” to me invokes a Toolishness. I’m partway though The Paragon Junk at the moment, so hopefully will check this out in the near future!