Brian Kenneth Swain

I’ve just posted the first draft of an essay entitled “The Failure of Faith,” addressing an issue that has troubled me for some time, viz, how can intelligent people convince themselves to shut down their brains and believe the tripe that’s fed to them by religious leaders? It’s something I confess I will never understand, and I have no doubt I will piss off plenty of people with the sentiments and examples I’ve provided in the essay. Still, I think these are things that need saying, which is not to say that I’m the first or most prominent by any stretch of the imagination. I simply (and proudly) count myself in the company of folks like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchins. Thing ...

I am intent that this book be of at least some historical value in addition to being a novel of entertainment. To that end, I mean to intersperse between the chapters historical documents and excerpts therefrom, e.g. letters between Columbus and Isabella, papal bulls, letters of appointment, etc. I am currently spending a bit of time with the Alhambra Decree, which is the bit of paper that expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492. I am, however, having rather a bit of difficulty locating a copy of the decree by which Torquemada (Inquisitor General) was appointed to that post by Isabella and Ferdinand (under Pope Innocent’s direction). I think these are critical documents for putting the fictional bits of the story into their proper ...

Just spent three days in Vegas with the family celebrating mom’s 75th birthday. Much of that time I discovered the continuation of what has been happening for many of these past weeks, i.e. plot lines and character attributes for my new novel “Outrun the Devil” (OTD) refuse to stop spinning around in my head. I am currently reading Steinbeck’s “Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters” in which he talks about the same phenomenon, viz the existence of two worlds for someone trying to write a novel, these being the real world and the world taking form in the book. At this point there is virtually no moment of the day or night when something about OTD isn’t taking form (or perhaps breaking down) ...

Just getting going this evening on an essay about faith and how destructive it is to the human condition. The stimulus for this came, I think, from reading East of Eden, and in particular some of Steinbeck’s more trenchant philosophical musings that are scattered throughout the novel. It is an excellent story so far, and I am particularly taken by the pure evil that is the Cathy character. She and Dominique from The Fountainhead would make an interesting pair. ...

This is my very first actual blog, and even though I’ve been writing poems, stories and novels for years, I find this a bit intimidating, probably because it’s more of a real-time, extemporaneous sort of thing. I will likely just use this capability of the new web site to capture my own thoughts on future projects. We’ll have to see how it goes. For the moment I am just happy that the new site is up and running and I have a great deal more capability than I had on the previous edition. Stay ...

Excerpt from World Hunger Thursday, June 20th – 10:45 p.m. By the time Hemant Patel had discovered the cutter ant damage in his cornfield four weeks earlier, the colony had already been in residence for more than six months. In fact, the colony’s founder had been originally attracted to the field by the turning of soil in preparation for planting of the test crop. The loose rich earth was prime real estate for a new ant colony, particularly given its close proximity to the wealth of consumable foliage surrounding the outer boundaries of the field. Having two hectares of new, genetically enhanced corn arrive a few month later was an unexpected fringe benefit. The queen had flown into the Vanguard field sometime the ...

Click play below to listen to an interview with Brian and Kate Daniels. KRWM, Bellevue, WA http://briankennethswain.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/KateDanielsInterview.mp3 Click play below to listen to an interview with Brian and Diego Muligan from The Journey Home Radio Show, KSFR 90.7 FM Santa Fe, NM http://briankennethswain.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/DiegoMulliganInterview.mp3 Click play below to listen to an interview with Brian and Dr. Pat Worldwide on the Voice America Network. CHSR – Healthylife.net http://briankennethswain.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/swain1.mp3 Click play below to listen to an interview with Brian and Pat Greer on Eco-ology. KPFT, 90.1 FM – ...

JIM_MCCARTHY@TimesRecord.Com 11/16/2007 Special to Living Q. Where did you get the idea for “World Hunger”? A. A tough question to answer succinctly, but one I get asked a lot. First, I am an engineer by trade (Columbia University Engineering School) and a business person as well (Wharton School MBA), so two of the essential ingredients have been in place for some time. Still, I am by no means a biotech engineer, so that’s where the need for extensive research came in. I have had a long interest in genetically modified crops for the better part of the last 20 years or so, reading articles off and on, a few books, that sort of thing. The opportunity to build a story around all of that arose back in ...

‘World Hunger’: A scary first novel JIM_MCCARTHY@TimesRecord.com 11/16/2007 Former Brunswick resident Brian Kenneth Swain imagines a ‘what if’ scenario involving genetically modified foods that is sure to haunt his readers Special to Living “World Hunger” is both the title and the context of Brian Kenneth Swain’s provocative and riveting first novel. Swain, who grew up in Brunswick and now lives in Houston, takes the controversial topic of genetically modified foods out of the realm of dry and frequently arcane scientific discussion and delivers a page-turning tale of corporate greed that propels scientific idealism into an unintended fiasco— unleashing into a world already beset by ...

MEDIA COVERAGE Click here to read the Q&A with the author from The Times Record. PRESS RELEASES What if you had the ability to feed the world’s hungry? But then something went terribly wrong… Brian Kenneth Swain, author of World Hunger (iUniverse, Inc., August 2007), takes you from the front page of today’s news into the corporate hallways of Vanguard Corporation, a fictitious agricultural company led by a greedy CEO with money to burn and backers to answer to. “Although it is possible to make money and do good things, almost everyone, at some point, finds themselves in a position of having to weigh the ethics of their actions against the need for a livelihood…. but at what cost? This is the focal point ...