Stranger than fiction

One reason I haven't been blogging much recently is because I have - hem - Been Writing A Novel.

I don't want to say much about you, as I want you all to buy it an d make me rich, but I will say that it is set in a slightly dystopian New Zealand, where the government hasdeclared a state of emergency and rules through a series of decrees, granting themselves and their minions whatever powers they think they need.

I've applied a bit of light satire to some recent events in New Zealand - there's a full blown civil war raging in Te Urewera, between the government and Maori separatists, and cargo containers are used to house excess prisoners. But I didn't think the central, enabling idea of the novel would actually become reality as I was writing. But the Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Bill seems to have been drawn from the pages of my magnum opus.

Though never, even in my wildest imaginings, did I vest Gerry Brownlee with supreme power ...