Sin [Kindle Edition]

Shaun Allan (Author), Alison DeLuca (Editor), Lisa Daly (Illustrator)

Book Description

Dead, dead, dead. Say it enough times and it becomes just another word.

What would you do? Could you kill a killer? Does the death of one appease the deaths of a hundred? What about that hundred against a thousand?

What if you had no choice?

Meet Sin. No, not that sort of sin, but Sin, crazy as a loon (you ask Sister Moon), and proud of it. Sin locks himself away in an asylum and, every so often, gets violent. That's only so they'll give him those nice drugs, though. The ones that help him forget.

It's a pity they don't work.

Sin, you see, has a serious problem. Well, it's not so much his problem, as ours - yours, mine and everyone else's. People die around Sin. He doesn't like it and there's nothing he can do about it. But someone else knows, and Sin has to stop them... and himself...

Flip and catch...

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Shaun Allan has made numerous radio interviews and, as long ago as 15 years, appeared on Sky TV to debate online/electronic publishing as opposed to more traditional methods. He once ran an online poetry and prose magazine and has won various competitions for his writing over the years.

He is currently researching the changing face of mental health care in preparation for the sequel to Sin.

Praise for Sin: 'Dark, disturbing and amazing.' 'An incredible read.' 'A masterpiece of genuine creativity.'

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Sin was just great, it is by far one off the best books I've ever read."

"This was a fantastic story."

"Sin is a ground breaking novel by Shaun Allan that grabs the reader from the first page and never lets go."

From the Author

Sin. You know, I can't entirely even remember where the idea came from? I think it 'popped' into my head as Sin the name rather than 'sin' the act or ideal. Even then, though, it wasn't particularly an idea.

It was just a name.

'Name's Sin.'

And then a short story was born.

I'd always wanted to write a novel. A full length book. I tried many times, but, for various reasons, I never finished. So I wrote short stories or poems. I don't write a specific genre, I write a story and it turns out how it turns out, so I could, effectively, write about anything.

I also, very rarely plan out a story. I start with the beginning and the middle and end vie for who's going to be next. With Sin's blog posts (singularityspoint.blogspot.com) in most cases I have that first sentence and no idea of which way it is going to go or what is going to happen.

Such it was with Sin. I was writing short stories, and that's what I did. I wrote a short story about a guy called Sin. I didn't know, until it happened, that people would die around him. I didn't know he'd find a two pence coin or that it would be the catalyst of everything else that happened to him. I also had no idea that he wouldn't know how to be quiet.

After Sin (the story) was finished, I went on to write other stories too. I went through a stage of writing only poetry, but that was fine as that's, simply, how it went. I don't force it, I write what I write. If I do try to make myself work on a particular piece, it goes horribly wrong and I end up deleting sections or whole works.
But Sin was playing in the back of my mind. Like Steve McQueen in the Great Escape (one of my favourite films), he was in the cooler with his glove and ball. He was locked up in his asylum waiting to sneak out and play with my head.

So, then, Sin grew. Again, I didn't know what was going to happen or where he might go, but he seemed to know himself. At one point of the book, he's walking, stranded, along a country lane. That's how I felt when I was writing it then. There was a long road ahead of me, and I couldn't see which way to go. Then a van pulled up and took me (and Sin) away with it.

For a whole year, I didn't write a single word. Not in Sin in poetry or in short story. There was nothing there. I had various issues going on, and the impetus to write was somehow lacking. But then things changed and suddenly Sin was flowing again. I could only manage little bits of it here and there - lunchtimes and so on - but he kept needing to be voiced. It helped that so much of myself and my experiences became part of Sin's outlook and history (such as the Seven Hills in chapter 13) as I could write almost as me.

When I went to Egypt last year, I was so in the zone that I wrote 15,000 words and could taste the end, though I forced myself not to think ahead in fear of spoiling it and over-thinking what might happen.

And now he's here and he's being described as 'an incredible read', 'a masterpiece' and 'dark, disturbing and amazing'. I can't describe how good that feels. Not least as that original short story was started ten years ago. I know that, during November, the NaNo writers producing 50,000 words plus in that one month. I wish I could, but i don't know if I'd be happy with those words. Sin's 105,000 took a decade, not a month or two.

Now, though, possibly because he's taken so long to become fully formed, he's so much more of a real person. My 'dark half'. He has a sequel already started, and he 'writes' regular diary entries from his asylum in the form of his blog.

He took ten years of my life to get here, but it feels like he's helped my life actually start now he's arrived.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 522 KB
• Print Length: 307 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0615562000
• Publisher: Fantasy Island Book Publishing (May 31, 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00883KV3C
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #429,584 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars W-O-W January 16, 2012

By Gramm1e

Format:Kindle Edition

When my new friend at work told me he was a writer I thought, "Yup. Sure. OK." We all write don't we, in one way or another. I'm forever helping my daughter with phrasing her uni assignments; composing personal and business letters to all and sundry; I've even written short items about ancestors for my family tree website.

To humour him (and because I was intrigued) I downloaded this book and started to read it. And carried on. And on.

Now I know what a "page-turner" is - and what they mean about not being able to put it down.

"Sin" is amazing. There's a little bit of him in all of us, I think - we all carry perceived guilt for things that go on around us, or regret a minor action that caused a major event.

But no-one else could have expressed Sin's thoughts and feelings in the way Allan has. There is this marvellous insight into the way the mind works; such imaginative use of words and rhythm ; colourful ways to describe black and white. The characters are sharp, yet completely blurred, so the reader feels an intimate relationship with them only to have that dashed in the next sentence or paragraph. One is constantly changing from knowing all that is going on, as if experiencing it oneself - and loving every minute, to feeling a total outsider - and grateful to be so.

The story twists and turns, flowing from Sin's thoughts to the reader's consciousness. Never, ever can one predict what happen in the next sentence, let alone the next paragraph or page.

I loved it. And I'm constantly nagging now for the follow-up volumes. Thank goodness for the blog (...) to keep us informed about goings-on in the asylum.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An intriguing story December 9, 2011

By wistfulskimmie - Wistfulskimmies Book Reviews Blog

Format:Kindle Edition

This is the story of Sin. A young man who checks himself into a psychiatric hospital because he can kill people just by thinking about it. He then tries to commit suicide by teleporting out of the hospital but he ends up on a beach somewhere. Not knowing what to do or where to go - he is visited by his dead sister. She has come to show him that all is not as it seems and is his doctor as benevolent as he first appears or does he have some skeletons in his closet?

This was a fantastic story. Written in the first person (not an easy thing to pull off but the author manages it and then some) I was really able to get in Sin's head and feel his anguish as the revelations start to pile up. It was a good solid page turner and the ending was suitably explosive. For a story with so few main characters I was certainly gripped from beginning to end.

I totally recommend this because it's different. And that in and of itself is its appeal.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars OUTSTANDING August 28, 2012

By C. D. Sutherland

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Shaun Allan gives you more than expected with this stream-of-consciousness onslaught of what initially appears to be the ramblings of an insane man, who insists he is really a sane man who has a little problem--he causes buses to crash into buildings, earthquakes to appear on the other side of the planet--all sorts of catastrophes small to large, communal to personal. How does he do it? Simple, it's all done with the flip of a boomerang two-pence coin, and he just wants it to stop. Stop it does not.

The plot builds much like a solo flight in a first-generation jet climbing to its maximum altitude. Storing kinetic energy on the long ascent for such a moment as with a quick side-push of the stick and a stomp on the rudder, the vessel flips upside down and then the pilot pulls backward on the stick. The jet goes downward into an ever-increasing g-load, pointing earthward and then beginning the long, hard pull back to the horizon, shoulders aching, furrowed brow beaded with sweat, fighting to keep awareness as the heart pumps against the unnatural pressures. Then remarkably, the readers like the pilot discover they are on a course 180 degrees in the opposite direction, at a completely different altitude and with a near placard speed registering on the dial. Yes, we're going somewhere now.

You'll want to read this one.

Bravo, Mr. Allan.

C.D. Sutherland, author of
The Dragoneers: The Chronicles of Susah Book One

More About the Author

A writer of many prize winning short stories and poems, Shaun Allan has written for more years than he would perhaps care to remember. Having once run an online poetry and prose magazine, he has appeared on Sky television to debate, against a major literary agent, the pros and cons of internet publishing as opposed to the more traditional method. Many of his personal experiences and memories are woven into Sin's point of view and sense of humour although he can't, at this point, teleport.