With Chatbots and Large Language Models changing the world of writing and publishing dramatically, what happens when we introduce a sentient robot capable of feelings into the mix?Phil Kruger, inventor and serial womanizer, believes he has the answer in his creation, Victoria, the first sentient robot in the world, imbued with beauty, knowledge, and strength, and on a crash course to acquire human feelings through massive infusions of data. Arrayed against him are independent trade...

Shane Joseph revisits his favourite haunt: the in-between world of the immigrant, where the past is unresolved and the present is incomplete. His characters are damaged, trying to make sense out of their lives, often having to journey back in time and place to find answers.Bandu bilks tourists for a living; Jamie loses love and home to exile; Mark meets the woman claiming to be his daughter and is forced to face the ghosts of those he betrayed; Ralph hunts down his crippled uncle t...

Martin James is a true Canadian. Born overseas, he is beset by trials and tribulations while growing up. Against the odds, he escapes from his violence-wracked homeland only to find everything he holds dear in North America jeopardized as he tries to keep his personal and professional life intact.A modern-day Ulysses, Martin faces the quintessential question of the displaced, “Where do I belong?”Set in Sri Lanka and Canada, this novel brings the dilemmas faced by many immig...

Greed, desire, ambition, loss, illness, death, and the driving quest to find purpose in a meaningless world.—this literary collection tempts your palate with a multitude of themes and subjects, each more daring than the last. The characters in these 13 stories are wading through no man's land, wanting to escape, but first needing to complete their personal journeys through limbo.Opening with “Waiting for the Train,” in which a young girl and a forgotten writer contemplate suicide, ...

Sri Lankan refugee, Sam Selvadurai, fleeing the genocide in his homeland, settles in Milltown, on the northern shore of Lake Ontario; he buys an old hamburger shop and turns it into a gourmet South Asian restaurant, while the town folk eye him with suspicion . The restaurant and most of Milltown are owned by the unscrupulous but charismatic Art Hamilton whose wife committed suicide, while his troubled teenage son, Andy, languishes in a young offenders’ prison on the border of town after ha...

After a silence of twenty years, Jimmy receives an unexpected letter from his old friend and nemesis, George, inviting him on a trek along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. Arriving in Lima, Jimmy finds the ailing George as mercurial as ever. They begin their odyssey, catching up on the intervening years, reliving periods when their lives had intersected, and revisiting the events that destroyed their relationship.Both men are haunted by the enigmatic Denise, the woman they had lured...

With Chatbots and Large Language Models changing the world of writing and publishing dramatically, what happens when we introduce a sentient robot capable of feelings into the mix?Phil Kruger, inventor and serial womanizer, believes he has the answer in his creation, Victoria, the first sentient robot in the world, imbued with beauty, knowledge, and strength, and on a crash course to acquire human feelings through massive infusions of data. Arrayed against him are independent trade...

"THERE ARE NO right or wrong choices. If your choices do not lead to wisdom, you will get other chances. In this life - or in another," says Gunananda, a fi fth century sage, somewhere in Sigiriya.This prediction follows a motley collection of tourists arriving in present-day Sri Lanka on a four-day tour. Aggressive Australian journalist Sarah has troubling visions of a past life. She desires John, an idealist from Vancouver writing a thesis on fear. American expatriates Margaret a...

Avery Mann, a retired pharmaceuticals executive, is in crisis. His wife dies of cancer, his son’s marriage is on the rocks, his grandson is having a meltdown, and his good friend is a victim of the robocalls scandal that invades the Canadian federal election.Throw in a reckless fling with a former colleague, a fire that destroys his retirement property, and a rumour emerging that the drug he helped bring to market years ago may have been responsible for the death o...

Martin James has spent forty years perfecting the art of leaving Sri Lanka behind. A successful realtor in small-town Ontario, he has built a new family, a comfortable life, and a careful distance from the country that shaped and scarred him. But when his daughter's wedding brings him back to Colombo in April 2019, he finds a place caught between its old wounds and new ones — the civil war over, but the hatreds merely rearranged.When the Easter Sunday bombings shatter everything he...

Fake News!!! Will Smallwood, a writer suffering from the dreaded “block” and from troubling dreams, is plunged into a living nightmare when he is swept up into a misinformation campaign aimed at hijacking the Canadian Federal Election.On the run, Will is forced to confront his personal demons: his suppressed childhood, his stalled career as a historical fiction writer, and his lost love, Jacqueline. Does he have a second chance to get things right when he is drawn ...

Martin James has spent forty years perfecting the art of leaving Sri Lanka behind. A successful realtor in small-town Ontario, he has built a new family, a comfortable life, and a careful distance from the country that shaped and scarred him. But when his daughter's wedding brings him back to Colombo in April 2019, he finds a place caught between its old wounds and new ones - the civil war over, but the hatreds merely rearranged.When the Easter Sunday bombings shatter everything he...