Rare Earth
about the book
A washed up TV reporter stumbles onto a corruption scandal in Western China. Pursued through the desert by a psychotic spin-doctor and a world-weary cop, he discovers the real China: illegal metal mines, a fashion-crazed gang of girl bikers, a whole commune of Tiananmen Square survivors and the up-market sleaze-joints of Beijing.
En route, he clashes with a stellar cast of people-traffickers, prostitutes and TV execs. But then the unquiet dead begin to intervene: ghosts from his own past and the past of Chinese Communism; the "spirits that hover three feet above our heads" of Chinese folklore.
Rare Earth is a story about love, journalism, ghosts, metallurgy, vintage militaria and large motorcycles set in the badlands of Inner Mongolia and Ningxia. It is about the west's inability to understand the East; one man's epic journey across a dying landscape, where "thousands of pairs of eyes peer beyond grimy windowpanes into the moonless sky, looking for something better."
About The Author / Editor
Read An Excerpt
This is what they see on the tape when they finally get to view it:
Vertical spectrum-bars with a high-pitched whine, the word CARSTAIRS in a digital font, and timecode in the corner of the screen beginning 03.00.00. That means the start of tape three.
The opening shot shows the inside door of a Ruifeng van. The cameraman has hit the record button to run the camera up to speed as he mikes-up the reporter. Now the sound channels kick into life, jolting the graphic equalizer.
"Hold on David, I'm not really sure we have time for this;" it is Georgina's voice, querulous but resigned.
"Maybe I get out first," Chun-Li suggests, off camera. "Pollution very sensitive issue in towns like this."
"I'm not surprised!" It is Carstairs, his voice betraying that alert distraction that takes hold of cameramen as they begin checking their levels, their battery power, stashing extras of everything into the pockets of their trousers.
"I think I'd better stay with the van," Georgina suggests.
"Yeah, no worries. Just me and Chun-Li." It is Brough's voice, calm and languid like it was when US Marines pointed a .50 cal machine gun at him from a Blackhawk, deep to his groin in water, one humid afternoon in New Orleans.
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Rare Earth
about the book
A washed up TV reporter stumbles onto a corruption scandal in Western China. Pursued through the desert by a psychotic spin-doctor and a world-weary cop, he discovers the real China: illegal metal mines, a fashion-crazed gang of girl bikers, a whole commune of Tiananmen Square survivors and the up-market sleaze-joints of Beijing.
En route, he clashes with a stellar cast of people-traffickers, prostitutes and TV execs. But then the unquiet dead begin to intervene: ghosts from his own past and the past of Chinese Communism; the "spirits that hover three feet above our heads" of Chinese folklore.
Rare Earth is a story about love, journalism, ghosts, metallurgy, vintage militaria and large motorcycles set in the badlands of Inner Mongolia and Ningxia. It is about the west's inability to understand the East; one man's epic journey across a dying landscape, where "thousands of pairs of eyes peer beyond grimy windowpanes into the moonless sky, looking for something better."
About The Author / Editor
Read An Excerpt
This is what they see on the tape when they finally get to view it:
Vertical spectrum-bars with a high-pitched whine, the word CARSTAIRS in a digital font, and timecode in the corner of the screen beginning 03.00.00. That means the start of tape three.
The opening shot shows the inside door of a Ruifeng van. The cameraman has hit the record button to run the camera up to speed as he mikes-up the reporter. Now the sound channels kick into life, jolting the graphic equalizer.
"Hold on David, I'm not really sure we have time for this;" it is Georgina's voice, querulous but resigned.
"Maybe I get out first," Chun-Li suggests, off camera. "Pollution very sensitive issue in towns like this."
"I'm not surprised!" It is Carstairs, his voice betraying that alert distraction that takes hold of cameramen as they begin checking their levels, their battery power, stashing extras of everything into the pockets of their trousers.
"I think I'd better stay with the van," Georgina suggests.
"Yeah, no worries. Just me and Chun-Li." It is Brough's voice, calm and languid like it was when US Marines pointed a .50 cal machine gun at him from a Blackhawk, deep to his groin in water, one humid afternoon in New Orleans.