Talk by Chris Godber on the Maximo Series September 30, 2023 – Posted in: Blog, Thoughts – Tags: maximo, novella, story, video
A 2 part series inspired as much by the ideas of French absurdist Albert Camus as it is by Phillip K Dick, The Maximo Diptych is a 2 part series of Novellas which chart the life and work of Maximo Zinov, a Moscow born Intellectual, Journalist, Detective and painter as he matures through the history of an imagined near future Russia recovering from an era of depression, strife, economic turmoil and war. Balancing his artistic work with his life’s passions, Maximo is an intelligent but also somewhat naive man who struggles to find the answers to the questions that haunt the society he was born into. Through the series of two books set across 50 years, the British author Chris Godber has blended fantasy, technological, political and existential themes of finding meaning and unlocking the metaphor of life’s occasional absurdity. Maximo is a complex idealist and romantic who works and strives to figure out his place in the world, as well as what it is to protect the weak, striving for justice in a world dominated by poverty and strife without breaking his spirit and romantic yearning for a world guided by the values of freedom and love he holds deep within.
This is a recording of a talk author Chris Godber did at Congleton Library in Cheshire and a Q and A session answering questions about the book.
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
05:10 Audiobook Extract from Romance in the Commieblocks
10:00 Reading extracts from The Silent Engineer
33:00 Reading extracts from The Eternal Ship
52:00 Q and A
