About the author
David McGowen was born in Thailand, was diagnosed with a form of autism.
He is a Sci-Fi/ drama writer of novels and novellas based in Leeds, UK.
He primarily utilizes British and oriental themes, usually going for an East-meets-West theme and prehistory with a touch of surrealism and carnality.
His anthology is called: "The Red Stone Saga"
YouTube channel: KeepCalm&LoveDinosaurs
My work
Scoring low points in English at school, writing wasn't originally something I had in mind as a future pursuit as I was more proficient in art and people kept insisting that I take art courses. I would though experiment with writing stories that went nowhere as they were therapeutic and there was a time where I was writing and doing art in equal measure. I never graduated from high school or took up any English or creative writing courses.
In my pursuit of trying to write and publish a book, a process that took over 15 years including a writer's block that lasted two years where I couldn't write anything, it opened my mind to the world and broadened my scope, also changing the way I view what's going on around me, an idea can spark up at anytime - an idea that may just make whatever plot line you are working on more fluid or interesting. It is imperative that you have a notepad and pen within easy reach at all times!
I had my first book published through Austin Macauley, a grueling process which took 18 months. The experience of that though has allowed me to independently publish my other works.
Welcome to my portfolio. Here, you'll find the synopsis for each work, further down the page you'll find samples.
If you wish to buy the full book, click on the link to take you to Amazon for purchase.
My works are available in paperback and kindle.
Portfolio
Carnian Street
Emily wants out of Thewlington, an undesirable West Yorkshire city. While working to disassociate from her vulgar peers and awful neighbourhood she encounters various characters, all the while oblivious to the surreal prehistoric dramas that occurred on her doorstep.
Suitable for ages 16+
Cubs Don't Cry
Freya Carrington never follows the crowd. Conservative, precocious, short-tempered, an alcoholic, lover of spicy food, big cats living and extinct and an aspiring writer Freya is far from your average girl. Too smart for her own good she often alienates the people around her, lives bitterly amongst unassimilated immigrants in a rough part of Leeds, has few friends, is estranged from her mother but remains close to her father in Dublin.
Over the course of five years society’s expectations begin to shift too drastically, and Freya is vilified for her pessimism and conservative character.
Who out there understands me? She asks herself amidst all the madness that would surely take a higher power to bring down.
Suitable for ages 16+
Novellas
Turonian Sunrise
There are layers of drama and history involved in the journey of anything. Such is the case of a gold ruby ring meant for the finger of a beautiful young lady, that has its roots with surreal prehistoric events and at the sunset of one era and the sunrise of another, the common person would rather ignore.
Suitable for ages 10+
The Buckland Show
Freya is granted privy solo admission to a new event in Millennium Square, Leeds one of technological ingenuity, unparallel visuals and adaptive AI, prone to inspire millions in awe through its featured prehistoric exhibits.
Suitable for ages 8+
Turquoise
Spring 2021. The U.K. pubs have reopened after two more COVID lockdowns.
But it is far from happy times.
On a Sunday morning in Thewlington a humbled, conservative collector of dinosaur models heads to his regular venue only to bear the frustrations over the divided public and the anti-life of social distancing, while aware that not everyone though in this uncertain era is subjected to oppression.
Suitable for ages 16+
Before God
It is the late Maastrichtian. In a region that will one day be named Siam, an otherwise unregistered part of the planet from the bone beds of prehistory, its life as usual for a day, some of the fauna look familiar to that that will achieve historical status on the other side of the planet.
After an earth shattering calamity from the skies the life on the south eastern part of the globe pushes to survive. Though in their efforts none will be remembered.
Suitable for ages 8+
Samples
Carnian Street
The bus was coming downhill into Carlin Venture, during the day the repetitive grid of inner suburban housing could be seen spread out for a half mile on each side of Harewood Road as well as a few green spaces between them, which made the district look like a wooden artist’s palette with random green splodges of paint.
“You look tiered.” Gangster said all of a sudden. Emily turned her head and saw that he was looking straight at her.
“I’ am! A bit!”
“Did your cuckoo clock not wake you up in time?”
That was random! Emily smiled, nervously chuckling with them amusing noises along with various images of the bird appearing out from the clock playing in her head from memory.
“Why would I have a cuckoo clock...?” She asked as meekly as her smile, aware of how cute she did sound. Gangster shrugged.
“I don’t know what girls keep at home!”
A pitifully giggling Emily needed to ask him summat.
“Do you watch Corrie or Emmerdale?”
“What’s that? A type of cheese?” Gangster asked almost instantly and blinked, looking really confused. He didn’t sound like he was joking. Emily thought about it and really tried not to laugh. Come to think of it, yeah, it did! Like Wensleydale... She was familiar with the term ambivalence, where you had two different opinions about something. Gangster represented that. Emily surrendered to a cough of laughter – have you even lived? She wanted to tell him.
“You listen to any music?” She asked instead.
“Yeah, the sort that don’t sound like recruitment tools.”
You what?! Was there any limit to his randomness?
“And I don’t go to concerts.” He said. That was just bad! Emily went to any concert for any artist she was a fan of, whenever they were in the country.
A bunch of lads came running upstairs, being loud and obnoxious on purpose for attention, nearly tripping over as the bus moved and laughing about it.
Gangster didn’t look impressed by it, he glared at them with that same hostility he displayed to the crowd during the fire drill assembly, and it was good the lads only sat near the front.
“They don’t know it, but they’re the luckiest pricks in the world!” Gangster said, taking a sudden turn to the dark side of conversation, “They can just be loud and walk up and insult someone and walk away with their tongues and teeth!”
He fiddled about with the fingers of his right hand, tapping them against his knee then tenderly scratched the back of his neck.
“They’re just young lads being themselves,” Emily said trying appease any upcoming sorrow, “They’re gonna have partners and kids one day.”
Gangster stopped scratching then looked at her, his eyes said something like: “you’re one hundred percent wrong!”
“You don’t have to be an asshole to be a father...!” He said with his mouth. But then again, so many dad’s were!
“Respect is the last thing they deserve!” Gangster continued his ravings, “They spot you, patrol your line of sight, target and follow you home, bring all their friends around, each one uglier than the last and full of shit!”
Then he mimed a gunshot with his right hand in the direction of the lads sat at the front, his expression bitter and lips pursued and retracting tightly in very apparent anger.
“They all get away with it!”
Good thing them lads hadn’t seen that!
“You’re not a chav are you...?” Gangster asked, his tone almost to the point of rudeness, his imaginary gun hand pointed up at the ceiling.
Cubs Don't Cry
Freya had turned twenty one today and Dad had wired her £250 last night. With the time being 4:47 she had woken up far earlier than she needed to.
Frustrated, she swallowed some sleepy pills, drank some cider then fell back asleep.
She woke up at 6:59, groggy but not shaky, which allowed her to get herself ready. It wasn’t routine as usual; after showering she applied some bright pink lipstick, mascara and eyeliner, took a brown eyeliner pencil to her eyebrows and slipped in a pair of brass earrings that were in the shape of cat paws cutely enough.
Today’s order of business: Freya was to meet Fiora, Beth and Danni for a buffet at this fancy venue by the docks for five in the evening. Dad had already paid for it, but everyone had to buy their own drinks and the joint was supposedly pricey from what was heard.
Freya relished a buffet whenever she had the chance to go to one. She planned on starving herself until then.
For her 21st Freya would not be wearing a dress. She would not be wearing one of them oversized birthday badges or holding a balloon. She would not be partying with a massive congregation. And she wouldn’t yelp or scream like some ditzy bimbo when someone gave her a compliment.
Appropriately enough, instead of a tracksuit she put on a more formal looking outfit: a black turtle neck sweater, that had collected some white strands, a white and black vertically striped two-piece suit and her chunky black trainers for contrast.
But Freya couldn’t wait sitting on her arse until five. She took her handbag and left the flat, though her hair wasn’t necessarily that long enough to justify her usually long frugal take between cuts, opting for an inch trim, wash and blow-dry to chat with Mylene for the sake of company was worth it.
“Happy Birthday!” She said while cutting away then shifted right and peered down.
“I love your suit, Freya!”
“Thank ye!” Freya said, her makeup dressed eyes blinking.
Mylene had her hair worn back in a bun and was wearing a yellow dress with a red and blue floral patterning which was more than appropriate for the season. The new hit by Zayn “Pillowtalk” was playing, as it had been literally everywhere, and Freya never got tired of it.
“What you doing for today?” Mylene questioned.
“Getting hammered...!” Freya replied bluntly.
After that soothing segment of the morning and with a trim of hair that was literally glowing under the sun she went to the Wilko’s for some B vitamins and hand sanitizer then went to the regular, where she was served by Abdiel, a new staff member. He was a short black fella older than the others with the chunky physique of a bouncer that dissuaded trouble makers.
“Mentally impaired, queer social reject Machiavellian politicians...” Freya blurted randomly. Abdiel coughed with an addictive, almost feminine laugh and frowned smiling.
Abdiel wasn’t gay.
“Your gonna upset loads of people, Freya!” He said with an amusingly soft and polite voice without looking at her.
“I can live with that!” Freya said confidently.
She wished her neighbourhood was full of Abdiel-like characters instead of the loud, blissfully unassimilated barrel.
Four Zloy’s in and Freya had already unhealthily swallowed down a dozen B vitamins, which were to keep her focused and energised for her upcoming evening and were better than wasting money on buying coffees or energy drinks.
Freya was walking along Briggate to the buffet, there was a young male beggar pacing around and accosting people whom too politely responded to him with either an apology or politely dismissive shake of the head, only to be met by a crude, chavy-accented reply of “fucksake!”
Freya though was not so nice, and immediately held out her hand, palm facing him.
“Leave me alone!” She shouted. Was it too much to ask?
“Sorry to bother you...!” The defeated prick muttered without delivering profanity, possibly because she was a lass.
This understandable outburst attracted the attention of this plain-looking women in her late-twenties with ratty blonde hair, wearing a yellow bib and holding a clipboard who went straight up to Freya’s face.
“How are you today?” She said intrusively causing her to freeze.
“Off to dinner!” Freya replied not intending to start any trouble.
“How fortunate you are!” The chugger patronized, looking at her too straight in the eyes. “You know most children in Africa don’t get to have dinner?”
“What’d ye doin’?” Freya said insistent on a straight answer.
“You what sorry?”
What she got was a further attempt to humiliate her.
“Leave me alone, it’s my birthday!” Freya warned.
“Your birthday?” The do-gooder called out wanting to alert everyone like she had committed a crime.
“I’m twenty one, ye just sounded like a nine-year-old!” Freya said back at the same pitch hoping her words would be as effective as bullets, commotion followed like she had dared to take a shite on the entrance of a church.
“How rude!” The sentimental cabbage wailed.
Turonian Sunrise
A female cielodactylus broke off from the flock, raised her wings high and allowed herself to descend unhindered while the male jakapil, only halfway toward the clan ahead of him, brought himself to a stop and looked up to see the sun get blocked out by an enormous mass intruding high above to his right, that cast a shadow upon him like an instantly darkening sky.
A tree came crashing down mere feet in front of him, dividing his access to the clan, the tree bouncing multiple times upon impact, branches snapping and rustling loudly with their leaves flying off and spinning while a dust cloud spread outward.
The culprit was a predictable sight on the open plains, and not something that could be easily missed. To the right appeared its head, all the while large in comparison to the jakapil’s body was disproportionately short with nostrils at the end of its snout linked to a short, squarish head crest starting at mid snout that gave it shape saving it from appearing low, a jaw full of leaves and twigs disappearing from sight as the owner consumed them, with a flesh covered brown beak with combs of teeth beyond.
Trailing behind it was a long, cylindrical neck as long as most of the trees in the area were tall, flesh covered veins with sinewy textures running along the throat region and connected to an immensely large and bulky body, the flanks bulging outward of the ribs, walls of flesh with rivers of blood pumping beyond them, the heartbeats could be seen visibly pulsating.
The right frontal leg with a semicircular foot came forward and pounded down against the earth, sending what was nothing short of shockwaves for the male jakapil.
The small herbivore perilously found a way toward his clan, by darting between the enormous legs of the obstructive culprit. And a turn of his head discovered not just one, but multiple... Salvation ahead of him, the clan alerted the arrival of the male with receptive clicks, heads bobbing back and forth like thrashes of a tail and bodies rearing up and down, in a ceremonious greeting.
As several prominent members of the group split off he stood still in a rewarding state of submission as the clan members sized him up, sniffing at him. The response was quick, the verdict announced by the calls of one individual with a prominently assertive posture, of what could only be the lead female’s. This male was in!
Half the clan momentarily ceased their feeding as they looked up at their oversized neighbours stepping onto the scene.
The Buckland Show
After going through the door I have this thought: that should I be filmed, it should be done over behind my shoulder and with the cameraman further to the right so that everything ahead could be captured, similar to these generations of shooter video games.
I’ m met with this glow to my right from a HD screen almost a storey high and somewhere to four metres long with a simple hip-high barrier before it, and a dark blue board with white writing and fully detailed images of creatures along with various facts fixed to its centre. The wall is slanted to the right at a 120 degree angle, the same with the neighbour across which displays an easy to comprehend timeline: Triassic period, Jurassic period and Cretaceous period and all these sub stages between them with words I can’t even pronounce and don’t care to remember that entail millions upon millions of years, starting at 252 million years ago and terminating at 66 million years ago.
What happened to the traditionally fixed 65?
And also: all eyes on the exhibits from here and not me! I’m not some college lass with similar view points to some viewers!
The panel I’m seeing is the first exhibit. Switzerland, 235 MYA it says on the board.
[It shows a tea plate sized image of the earth as it would have appeared back then: the continents are all clustered together in that single super continent Pangaea, I and everyone else should be familiar with by now, the foundation of Switzerland at that time is highlighted by a red circle]
On the screen I’m looking at a 3D image of this tiny, sunlit island surrounded by clear water, it has a presentable peak and is covered generously with all this exotic vegetation I don’t recognise. There are fish swimming about in the water and the bottom has coral, algae and an abundance of shellfish I’d probably love on my seafood platter.
It looks like an enclosure zoos would keep otters or seals in or something. The graphics are top notch. I think I’m looking at a mere digital environment – though it’s the sort of thing that would make a class screen saver. I quickly realise this isn’t the agenda.
Walking into view from around the corner, heading down to the water is a male tanystropheus called “Dylan”.
Aside from my near inability to pronounce the name, which would unjustly offend the virulent far-left, my initial opinion is that Dylan is a an oversized lizard with his neck stretched out to the length of a python nearly two thirds of his body length – in total six metres long. It’s beyond ridiculous! Anyone with a fear of snakes should skip this exhibit!
The tanystropheus is a dark grey with small caviar black spots along his body and these larger coppery spots on his back and has a lighter underbelly, the colouration I reckon is like a cross between a marine iguana and a frog.
Dylan moves slowly and inelegantly in a lizard’s sprawl, he has partial webbing between his clawed fingers and toes, the fifth toe is elongated, his tail isn’t very long, it is thick at the base, seems to counter balance the extreme length of his neck, bares a banded patterning and managed not to drag along the ground.
The neck of tanystropheus isn’t wiggly, it has a rubbery firmness to it with the flexibility of bamboo, and Dylan can’t seem to hold it more than a few short degrees off the ground as he gently sweeps it left to right. It has the longest neck of any animal known in the fossil record, the fact file on the panel tells me. Ye kidding?
I’m impressed with the attention to detail, particularly the aspect ratio and environmental interaction; Dylan casts a shadow at the correct angle, rustles the foliage as he brushed past them, leaving footprints in his wake.
As Dylan neared the water he dipped his neck and showed some fluidity, almost like a snake moving into a rodent’s burrow. As he progressed further into the shallows he looked completely serpentine from below the waterline, until his limbs enter and he moved along the bed causing minimal disruption to the water.
Dylan had his eyes set on a small school of fish which are out of his reach by his whole body length. Despite this, the tanystropheus is able to bend his hind legs and lunge like a frog almost, the move causing him to glide through the water as smoothly as a canoe, his jaws open revealing an odd set of needle-sharp teeth which he successfully snatched a fish with. I wonder if Dylan will venture any deeper and swim.
Turquoise
Where was this alleged vigour in a time of crisis? These sorry excuses for men were most likely out drunk, bashing the vitality out of an innocent person on their way home, and perceiving the act as righteous in their thug philosophy.
How true this was, having experienced it myself.
I recall a pitiful defence reply from one of these supposedly upright individuals: Some of us are ready to go out on a shield. Are you?
Now that was such a hypocritical comment from one of these bona fide hooligans, ones that beat their own wives and any person they came across, trying to sound honourable despite lacking any morals to the notion! I had replied back to the Spartan wannabe: While I mean no disrespect, it’s going to be incredibly difficult to give your life to a country that bullies its own people.
From heart and mind, that was pretty candid.
No answer followed. I had him morally cornered, he was obviously offended in his own doomed isolationist way. Given the status quo, it made me wonder… If I wore a mask, would it mean that the words that came out of my mouth would not harm whomever I was talking to, the same way the government was assuring the public that they would not infect others? Just because restrictions were being eased, it didn’t give people the right to cough on others to demonstrate their sudden, revived liberties.
I approached the stand placed before the entrance which had a row of vertically set menus and a smaller horizontal stack of white track & trace leaflets, that had been the routine procedure since 4th of July last year.
I signed in as Patrick Chris Johncock, a fake name along with a false phone number and time of departure, because this government approved track & trace system didn’t work. Ask anyone with a healthy mind.
There were new staff about the place, but the sight of them wearing face masks was alarming enough as the restrictions. As for patrons it was mostly just guys about, the sight of healthy females other than bar staff were nowhere to be seen for the past few months, as though regionally extinct, or in laymen’s terms: rare as toilet paper last year.
In the corner of my eye was a major difference from all this, an object of immense desire in fact blossoming with the spring; a young lady, early-twenties, heavily tanned with long hair dyed black underneath and with a bright blonde top (like a zebra) tied back neatly into a high ponytail with some locks tucked behind her ears.
She was tall – not at the six foot mark – but taller than average with these wide shoulders the hands wanted to massage, and she had big thighs and fairly thick arms that were far from enough to be off-putting, her stomach flat.
Her potential for perfection was immensely distracting…
She was wearing a turquoise blue velour tracksuit with flared bottoms that seemed to glow like a gem under the springtime sunrays.
Women used to dress so differently yet consistently at one point in my earlier life, but now, after so long, there was a new wave of desirable fashion. One of which would eventually fade into annihilation.
Were generation woke gonna cancel her for being more attractive and better dressed than their low interpretations of presentation?
Before God
Nightfall, it was a moonless night. Further from the beach in a lightly forested clearing congregated a clan of yaiensis, a sibling but rival group of predators to the siamovenators, the same size and outward appearance but could be distinguished by their sleeker build, shorter toe talons, longer necks and lower snouts looking more bird-like in appearance.
They stood frozen looking up at the night sky with their heads held up high, angling and adjusting correctively, their throat pouches throbbing quietly as they vocalized passively among one another.
Despite the absence of the moon there was something else in the sky, just as bright and mesmerizing, yet ominous with streaks of light, just as vivid as ripping past the night sky. As they had the night prior.
The large, bulgy inquisitive eyes of the yaiensis caught the shine of the light show and glowed with the phenomenon distracting them from the colossal, shadowy figure behind them walking by the trees against the backdrop that abruptly stopped and slowly opened its jaws, displaying enormous teeth.
One yaiensis craned its neck back, observing the unknown creature that overshadowed them and sniffed instead of alerting its clan. Judging from the thick, stench of decayed meat it was a carnivore, an apex predator to be exact.
The larger predator silently moved on into the woods with the yaiensis returning focus to the lights in the sky.
With their meagre size they surely weren’t worth the risk of a pursuit.
Offshore, an andamanosaurus, a regional species of plesiosaur, was swimming up to the water’s surface to breathe. Its small, flat head with big black eyes and nostrils set high on its head surfaced, its disproportionately short jaws filled with interlocking needle sharp teeth and trailing behind it was an extremely long neck a little more than half the length of its 31 feet long, two ton body ending with a short, thick tail, that bore a short fluke-like crest at the end.
After filling its lungs with oxygen, while remaining unconcerned toward the white streaks of light falling across the black sky, the andamanosaurus submerged its head and used all four of its five foot long flippers to propel it into a dive, neck chasing it while the rest of its upper body arched and breached the surface then gradually disappeared beneath the water in a rolling motion.