J.F.Penn

Dark thrillers where history, myth and the supernatural collide with the present.

prophecy

The Devil’s Bible: The Legend of the Codex Gigas

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The Devil’s Bible, properly known as the Codex Gigas or ‘Giant Book’, is the largest surviving medieval manuscript in the world. Standing almost a metre tall and weighing around 75 kilograms, it was written in the early 13th century at the Benedictine monastery of Podlažice in Bohemia, in today’s Czech Republic. It takes its name from a striking full-page portrait of the devil, and from the legend that a doomed monk wrote the entire book in a single night with the devil’s help. Taken as plunder in the Thirty Years’ War, it is held today in the National Library of Sweden in Stockholm.

I find that basing my writing on aspects of reality makes the fiction appear more real. Therefore I am always on the lookout for fascinating snippets of history, religion, art or culture that can bring a richness to the story.

Devil's BibleThe Devil’s Bible, also called the Codex Gigas, was one of those serendipitous findings as I was searching for an appropriate ‘MacGuffin‘ for Prophecy.

Legend tells of its creation at the hands of monk who sinned grievously. In order to prevent the punishment of being walled up alive, he promised to write down all human knowledge in one night. Finding himself overwhelmed and unable to complete the task, he bargained with the Devil – his soul for the finished book.

The Devil’s Bible contains the books of the Latin Bible but also spells, incantations, exorcism prayers and images of the Devil and the Kingdom of Heaven. There are pages missing which was brilliant as the search for the pages became a key part of the story that merged art history with religion, both passions of mine.

You can watch a brilliant National Geographic program on the Devil’s Bible – here’s the National Geographic article that refers to it.

For more information, you can view the following:

The Codas Gigas official page at the National Library of Sweden

The entire Codas Gigas scanned so you can see it for yourself

 

Psychology Of Religion: Obedience

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Psychology of Religion- ObedienceAs part of my Master’s degree in Theology at the University of Oxford (1994-1997), I wrote a thesis on the psychology of obedience in religious fundamentalism.

Escher Circle Limit IV Can you see the angels or the demons?

I used Abraham’s Biblical agreement to sacrifice Isaac (Genesis 22), the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin (1995) and the experiments of Stanley Milgram as part of my argument. Clearly these thoughts have stayed with me as they became the foundations of my novel Prophecy.

Stanley Milgram’s Obedience to Authority Experiments

This video gives you a good overview of the basic experiment which was replicated by Milgram all over America with all different strata of society. You may find it disturbing but remember the physical pain isn’t real. What is real is how the ‘teacher’ reacts. Even when they protest, they still continue once urged by an authority figure. Even when the subject is screaming ‘Let me out’, they continue. I first heard about this experiment when I was 18 and it has stuck with me. The vast majority of people would behave in the same way. That is a sobering thought when you consider the atrocities done because an authority orders it.

Milgram’s experiment Part 2 (video)

Milgram’s experiment Part 3 (video)

Caravaggio’s Sacrifice of Isaac

If you want to investigate this area further, I highly recommend ‘The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil‘ by Philip Zimbardo (Amazon affiliate link). This goes into the detail of the Stanford Prison Experiment as well as Milgram’s work and discusses the ways in which normal people de-humanize to commit evil. Wearing masks is a critical part of mob violence which I also used in the Sedlec child murder scene. There is more information at LuciferEffect.com.

On Abraham and Isaac’s sacrifice, you might find Soren Kierkegaard ‘On Fear and Trembling‘ interesting. (Amazon affiliate link)

Interview With Joanna Penn About Thriller Novel Prophecy By Natalie Wright

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Interview with Joanna PennAs part of the launch for my latest thriller Crypt of Bone [at the time of this interview, the book was published as Prophecy], YA author Natalie Wright interviewed me about the book and my inspirations for ideas as well as my writing processes. The video is 15:37 mins long and there’s an audio below if you would rather listen.

You can also download the audio here => JoannaPennInterview.mp3

In the video, we discuss:

  • Tell us about Prophecy, an action-adventure romp
  • How did you come up with your protagonist, Morgan Sierra, who is a kick-ass, smart, sexy woman who can fight? I talk about how Morgan is my fantasy alter-ego. We also talk about who would play the roles of Morgan and Jake in the movie version of the novel.
  • Where did the evil organization Thanatos come from?
  • On art history, religious symbolism and historic places. How much time does it take me to research and why am I obsessed by these things? How I found the Devil’s Bible and synchronicity.
  • On the God Helmet and some of the aspects that are real-life but have been twisted for the story
  • Have I been to all the places I write about? How I use Flickr for research. The symbolism of place.
  • My writing process is more set now I am working on the 3rd novel, Exodus. I explain how I work.
  • Where is the ARKANE series going?

Prophecy is available on Amazon Kindle for $2.99

Thanks to Natalie Wright, author of Emily’s House, for the interview.

Writing Religion, Scene Setting In Amazing Locations And More

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For the launch of Prophecy, I did an interview on GhostWriterDad, a great blog for writers. Here are 2 of the 8 questions. Click here to read the full interview.

Writing Religion, Scene Setting

1. Your books use aspects of religion as the basis for their stories. How have readers reacted to that?

I am personally fascinated by religion and actually have a Masters degree in Theology so I have studied in depth. It’s been a continued interest of mine and I’ve read and travelled widely to learn more. I find that religious story and myth are already deeply rooted in our society and that resonates with people even if they don’t believe in a specific faith.

From a commercial perspective I think Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code was so popular because it connected with something people already knew about. So I wanted to tap a similar theme, taking religious ideas and using them as the basis for action-adventure thrillers.

This is the Empire of the Dead. Paris Catacombs
Generally, people have taken the religious aspects as entertainment and also some education as I try to use real places and existing objects. Prophecy features the Devil’s Bible which is actually a real medieval book, and Pentecost involves a search for the bones of the Apostles, again based on truth.

I have the greatest respect for believers but at heart, I am writing fiction. Some people think the books aren’t Christian enough but I want to entertain and make you think. No preaching, more action!

3. Your books race through amazing global locations including famous churches and creepy ossuaries. Have you been to all these places and what’s your obsession with scene setting?

Travel is one of my obsessions and I have been to a lot of the places I write about over the last 20 years. Jerusalem in particular is a muse for me and I’ve been there 11 times. It’s woven into both thrillers and will return again. Certainly I’ll be needing another research trip there soon!

In writing my books, I actually start with the idea and then look at places that resonate with the theme. When I was gathering ideas for Prophecy, I went to the Paris catacombs and I knew that bones and ossuaries would be a great atmospheric thread. It turned out that the Devil’s Bible had been kept at the bone church of Sedlec in the middle ages and then I found the mummy crypt of Palermo in Sicily, both awesome locations.

As a reader, I love to learn about new places and descriptions of setting make a difference to the atmosphere of the book. In the writing process, I often plot the book by location rather than by plot on the first pass. One of the important elements for action-adventure is the movement and pacing so fantastic scene locations are critical, and amazingly fun to write!

Thriller Novel Prophecy: Author Joanna Penn Interviewed

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Thriller Novel Author Joanna Penn InterviewedIn this short interview, I talk to Trevor Lund from RevTrev.com about my ideas for Prophecy [Ed. note: this book is now called Crypt of Bone], how some of the scenes came about as well as my own writing process as a plotter.

Plus, some hints about the 3rd in the series, Exodus.

You can also get the audio here => ProphecyInterview.mp3

Psychology Of Religion: The God Helmet

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Psychology Of Religion- The God HelmetReligious belief and experience fascinate me. Much of how we experience God is based on where we live and how we are brought up, but there are many common threads across the world of spirituality. I am also deeply interested in psychology and neuroscience, and in particular, the intersection in the new field of neuro-theology.

We know so little about the brain and consciousness, let alone what exists beyond the physical. All of this leads to my interest in the God Helmet, whose technology I modified to become the headsets in Prophecy. The crude device from Persinger’s experiment is shown right but nevertheless, stimulation of the temporal lobe using a low magnetic field has resulted in some people experiencing religious visions.

As  the character of Dr Maria Van Garre explains in my novel Prophecy, both sides of the religious debate claim a victory from the results. Atheists claim God is just a neuro-chemical response, and believers claim God put that area of the brain there so we can experience Him. I leave your own interpretation up to you.

You can read an article on Wired: This is your brain on God

This slightly sensational video [6:58 mins] is quite crude but you can get the basic sense of the experiment. I used some of the experiences in Prophecy.

If you want to explore this further, you might like these books (affiliate links to Amazon):

Fingerprints of God: What science is learning about the brain and spiritual experience – Barbara Hegarty (2009)

The God Gene: How faith is hardwired into our genes – Dean Hamer (2005)

Ancient Cities, Sacred Sites: Ossuaries And Catacombs

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Setting is incredibly important in my writing.

Ancient Cities, Sacred SitesI often start with setting and then write a scene to fit the place, rather than the other way around. I’m primarily a visual person and the aspects of place in terms of resonance and spirituality are also important.

For Crypt of Bonemy novel, Crypt of Bone, I wanted to have the theme of bones throughout the book so these places were great inspiration. For a villain who wants to kill a quarter of the world, the dead are important witnesses.

Paris Catacombs

J.F.Penn in the Paris catacombs
In June 2011, my husband and I took a trip to Paris and visited the Catacombs which contain the remains of around 6 million people. By the 17th century, graveyards throughout Paris had become full up and the dead were poking from the ground. Decomposing remains were causing sanitary issues in the city at multiple locations. So it was decided to move all the bones to one location. After years of horse-drawn carriages moving the dead at night, the catacombs were full of bones. In 1810, it was decided to make the site more of a mausoleum and the bones were arranged into the designs that can be seen today.

You can see my photos of the catacombs on Flickr here and you can watch the catacombs in more detail in the video below:

Sedlec Ossuary, Kutna Hora, Czech Republic

I just had to use Sedlec as a key setting for my bad guy and his evil deeds. It’s a church but such a macabre place. I haven’t been in person but the images available are fuel for the imagination.

This video includes some great images including the chandelier that features in the climax of the book.

Capuchin Crypt of Palermo, Sicily

As I investigated the ossuaries of the world, I found Palermo. Again, I haven’t been there myself but the amazing pictures and video online made it easy to write about. It’s definitely on my list to visit! You will see how I have used many of the images in this video in my chapter set in the crypt. Rosalia Lombardo is the little girl with the ribbon – yes, she is real. I personally found the more fleshy bodies of the mummies far more disturbing than the bones at Sedlec which I have reflected in the way Morgan feels when she is down there looking for the Devil’s Bible.

Crypt of Bone is available here in ebook, print and audiobook formats.

 

Sharing image photo courtesy Wikipedia Creative Commons

Prophecy Cover And Back Blurb And Giveaway

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Exciting times! My next novel, Prophecy, will be coming out at the end of December (final edits still to come!) and I wanted to share the cover design and also the back blurb for the novel. I’d love to know what you think! It’s the next in the ARKANE series, kind of Dan Brown meets Lara Croft in a kick-ass thriller! Below I also share a giveaway for print copies of Pentecost which I am soon to ‘un-publish’ in the current print form. See below for all the details.

Prophecy, an ARKANE thriller by Joanna Penn

“I looked, and there before me was a pale horse. Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.” Revelation 6:8

The prophecy in Revelation declares that a quarter of the world must die and now a shadowy organization has the ability to fulfill these words. Can one woman stop the abomination before it’s too late?

When the medieval Devil’s Bible is rediscovered, the malevolent Thanatos organization finally holds the power to fulfill the prophecy through demonic curses that lie within. All they need is the vehicle to take the curse to the masses and the pale horse of the apocalypse will ride forth.

When mysterious suicides in Israel draw Oxford University psychologist Morgan Sierra into the fray, she joins ARKANE, a secret British agency investigating paranormal and religious experience, for their investigation. Partnered with Jake Timber, the two must stop the Devil’s Bible from reaching Thanatos before destruction is unleashed.

From the catacombs of Paris to the ossuaries of Sicily and the Czech Republic, Morgan and Jake must find the Devil’s Bible and stop the curse being released into the world before one in four are destroyed in the coming holocaust. Because in just seven days, the final curse will be spoken and the prophecy will be fulfilled.

What do you think?

I’d love to know what you think. Does this sound like your type of book? Please do leave a comment below.

Giveaway of print copies of the first novel, Pentecost

Pentecost sales are almost at 16,000 copies now and unsurprisingly, 98% of those have been ebook sales. It’s still ranking in the Bestseller lists for Religious Fiction in the US & UK and sporadically ranks for Action-Adventure. It currently has 57 reviews averaging 4 star in the US Amazon store & 16 reviews averaging 4 star in the UK Amazon store.

This means that a print book is basically a vanity project for me so I have something to give to my Mum & Dad 🙂 I still want to do print books but because of the extra design & pro-typesetting I want to use, it takes more money than ebooks. I am also un-publishing the current print version of Pentecost soon in order to republish at a smaller size, 5×8 instead of 6×9 as for my shorter books, this just looks like “more value” to the customer. Weird, yes, but true! I also want to correct a few mistakes and also add a chapter of Prophecy at the end. So the current print version of Pentecost will soon disappear and I’m giving away 2 copies on Goodreads – click here for the giveaway (currently pending approval by Goodreads by shouldn’t be long!). Check out the video below as I talk about the reasons why I am un-publishing this version and come join the giveaway!

Please leave your comments and valuable feedback below!