Escaping Reality [Paperback]

Geoff Nelder (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2005

The squashed nose on a wet pavement, followed by a brutal yet comic internment lead our hero to a gut-wrenching escape. A dangerous winter trek across the Northumberland Moors, even with a shocking surprising amorous interlude to raise the temperature a little, helps our criminal to survive however he can in the backstreets of Cumbrian towns. But he can't just hide, he has to find out who is after him and what he discovers is more than is good for him. Keeping just in front of a devious assassin, his frequently changed identity crosses to Amsterdam where he gets his friends into trouble. Can he find out what is really going on? Can you find out before him? The clues are all here.

Product Details

• Paperback: 228 pages
• Publisher: Brambling Books (July 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 095495632X
• ISBN-13: 978-0954956325
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,058,995 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Geoff Nelder is a freelance writer living in Chester, UK.
A former high school teacher of geography and information technology, he has had non-fiction books published on microclimates in the UK along with several articles in academic journals such as Weather, Geographical Magazine and the Times Educational Supplement. Geoff is a part-time journalist contributing humorous travel accounts to Cycling World.
He has had short stories published and won a commendation for a story in the Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Competition. He won first prize in the Cafe Doom short story competition in 2005. Besides his 2005 released humour novel, Escaping Reality, published by Brambling Books, he won an award for mystery thriller, Hot Air, to be published by a Dutch Arts Academy in 2009, and a Science Fiction block buster, Left Luggage is in the hands of an agent. Double Dragon Publishing published Geoff's Exit, Pursued by a Bee science fiction in 2008.
Geoff is an editor for Adventure Books of Seattle, co-editor of Escape Velocity - a print and ezine magazine of science fact and fiction. He has been a freelance editor of novels and short stories for several years. Geoff is the 2009 sort-fiction judge for the Whittaker Prize.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A hilarious road book, August 17, 2005

By 

Scouser32 (Liverpool) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Escaping Reality (Paperback)

I have now learnt how to get passwords, break out of
prison, survive on the moors, squatting laws and so
much more. Yet this is no textbook. Geoff Nelder kept
me reading from cover to cover with a hero made of
self-deprecating humour to survive his ordeals. I want
to try Glod, his favourite drink. I never knew that
sex could be so enhanced with bubble-wrap!

Escaping Reality is a fugitive story set in the UK and
Amsterdam. By having it written in the first person,
you really feel for the framed unfortunate Gerry. He's
a kinda antihero at first but somehow gains strength
when he survives everything thrown at him from Nature,
the police, the Dutch mob and amorous ladies. I
laughed out loud reading this on the bus, so be
warned.

This book is a kinda road book and should be a road movie!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How did you know?, August 17, 2005

By 

Liz Coffee Shop (Edinburgh, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Escaping Reality (Paperback)

LOL This book is incredible! I AM Wendy, the lusty busty librarian. Maybe Geoff Nelder has seen me in one of the libraries I work in. Hi Geoff have you been stamped in Edinburgh or Glasgow recently? He he. OK so, the Wendy in the book is a bit of a slapper unlike me, but her life, wit and erm desires are just me. And it's so cool to find a book that doesn't relegate librarians to dour sad wimps shushing readers all day. On a more literary note, I really liked the way the pace of the book changes, especially leaving the reader breathless in the last third leading to a clever denouement. More sex in the sequel, Geoff please.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Escaping Reality is unreal!, November 28, 2005

By 

B Baxter "B Baxter" (Glasgow, Scotland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Escaping Reality (Paperback)

ESCAPING REALITY - GEOFF NELDER
If you like your prison escape stories written with ironic humour, your international jewel theft books full of quirky musicians and your librarians sexy, this is the book for you. If you're never considered any of these apparently jarring concepts, now's your chance. Ostensibly a straightforward "I've been framed and I'll prove it" novel, Escaping Reality itself escapes reality and turns into a tour-de-force of plot-twisting, fell-walking, identity-hiding computer-hacking riotous turmoil. As a stiff-necked literary critic might say, it also underlines the existential meretriciousness of solipcism. The rest of us might say that it reaffirms the fact that we are all, ultimately, on our own. But don't let that get you down - the protagonist (he's no hero!) triumphs, gets his own back to some extent and even manages to have a surprising amount of naughty stuff on the way.
The book reads as if it has two parts - the opening mystery/who-dun-it set-up during which you think "That's couldn't have happened" and "That's just unlikely" and the second half - more of a thriller - in which you see that "Ah! THAT'S how it happened" and "Of course, that makes sense", all laced with quips, humour and an acceptance that bicycles sometimes have minds of their own. The action takes in prison life, what it's like to be a jobbing musician, good cops, bad cops and atmospheric, detail-drenched settings in Cumbria and non-tourist Amsterdam. Any more would give it away, and the plot deserves to be discovered as you read (and re-read, because you just won't get all the darker and complex undertones first time around).
Comparisons are invidious - and there's no other book to compare it to, anyway - but imagine an Alistair Maclean novel written by Robert Rankin after looking at too many Salvador Dali paintings on a rollercoaster. Or something like that. Better still, buy it and read it - you won't be disappointed.
But you might wish all librarians were a bit more like Wendy.