Spotlight – The Traveller’s Guide to Afterlives by Pete Malicki #excerpt #religiousfiction

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Synopsis

This is the most important book in the history of literature.

What if your afterlife was a dud? Would you want to spend your whole life following a religion if it led you to a terrible eternity? In this fun-filled guide I visit Heaven, Hell, Hades, and the afterlives of the Buddhists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Australian Aborigines.

The definitive book to change your (eternal) life!

“The Travellers’ Guide To The Afterlives” truly is the most important book in the history of literature.

Whether you’re deeply pious or a hardcore atheist, just imagine this: what if the afterlife really does exist? And what if the afterlife you end up in depends on which religion you follow?

What if some of the afterlives are great and some are awful?

Wouldn’t you want to know? Wouldn’t you want to spend your life following the religion with the best eternity? Because life is short and eternity is really, really long.

Despite being a lifelong atheist, I didn’t want to take the chance of being wrong and ending up floating in an infinite pool of embryonic fluid forever after. So I devised a way of travelling to the afterlife and returning to my body back on Earth. In “The Travellers’ Guide To The Afterlives”, I visit Heaven, Hell and Hades, as well as the afterlives of the Buddhists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Australian Aborigines. Join me as I recount my adventures and enjoy the tales of life, death, life again, more death, more life, a bit of sex, and an adorable couple of koalas.

Find out which religion will take you to the best afterlife so you can make an informed decision about your hereafter.

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Excerpt

I never was a religious man.
Until a couple of years ago, I hadn’t put too much thought into religion. I was your typical atheist. Whenever someone talked to me about God or Satan or the Bible, I would find as many ways as possible to prove them stupid.
I wasn’t a believer, but when push came to shove, I didn’t really care that much about religion, so long as it wasn’t smeared into my face like a clown’s pie. Whatever you want to believe behind closed doors is fine by me.
My views didn’t suddenly change when someone stopped me on the street to tell me the Good News, nor did I re-evaluate my beliefs after meeting some drunk guy in a pub who splurted out a surprisingly profound cliché I’d never heard before. There was no epiphany; no life-changing moment.
In fact, my views on religion haven’t changed much at all. Or more specifically, my views on the religious haven’t changed. I suppose I can’t call myself an atheist any more, seeing as how I visited Purgatory, Hades, Heaven and Hell, met tribal ancestors, was reincarnated, and dined with a bunch of long-forgotten gods.
It started, like many things start, with a catalyst. I met a girl at a party while I was living in Germany. She was obsessed with death – terrified of it. Not so much dying, but what happens afterwards. What if we just stop existing? What’s the point of that? What’s the point of living just to die and disappear?
I’d personally not worried much about the thought of my existence ending at the time of death. If that is our destiny, then so be it. We have no influence over it so there’s no point wasting our time with something we can’t change.
What we should be concerned about is if there is some kind of life after death. According to the popular beliefs of most religions, our lifestyles influence where we go after we shuffle off the mortal coil. If one follows a religion, one can end up in its afterlife.
So what if one of the afterlives was a dud? Imagine being stuck somewhere really crap for the rest of eternity. Imagine dedicating your entire life to being a good Christian, then discovering that Heaven is duller than three accountants debating stationery.
I decided then and there to visit as many afterlives as I could and write reviews on them so that humanity could make an informed decision as to where they will end up for the rest of time. My German friend’s well-justified fear of the unknown drove me to write the most important book in the history of literature; a handbook on life-after-death: The Travellers’ Guide to the Afterlives.
The problem was, I didn’t believe in the afterlife.
But like all good problems, there was a solution. I found my solution not in religion, where one might suspect would be a good starting place, rather, in spirituality.
The path was made clear by hippies.

About the Author

Pete Malicki is a versatile writer and a maverick of the arts and entertainment industries. He’s won writing awards all around the globe and holds a world record for running the longest short play festival in history.

As a writer, Pete began by writing five novels before broadening his horizons and diving into the theatre world. His first published novel, “Eyes And Knives”, was named book chain Berkelouw’s “Book Of The Week” upon its release. His fifth novel, “The Travellers’ Guide to the Afterlives”, is an endearing mock-autobiography affectionately thought of as The Most Important Book In The History Of Literature, because no other book tells you how to secure the best eternal life!

In theatre, Pete has had over 750 productions of 70 different plays in 20 countries. His plays have won 21 awards between them at nationwide/international events. “V.D.”, his full-length one-woman show, has toured Australia, England and New Zealand to great critical acclaim.

His speciality is writing theatrical monologues which actors love to perform. These have rich, textured characters and engaging stories, and with 200+ performances of them each year they are among the most popular and successful monologues in the world. Six volumes of these monologues have been published and a Complete Works anthology is coming soon to SmashWords.

Outside of writing, Pete is a heavyweight producer in his hometown of Sydney Australia. He’s run the world’s largest short play festival – Short+Sweet Sydney – four times and been the coordinator of artist development program Crash Test Drama for close to a decade. He founded The Monologue project in 2013, which offers live shows, a script resource and workshops for drama students. He’s directed dozens of award-winning actors and stood at the helm of major Sydney productions. On top of that, he runs workshops on business skills and monologue performance, works as an editor for New Holland Publishers and his own company Editors Australia, and holds regular writing courses.

He is also developing Monologue Master, an online educational resource for actors wanting to get better at performing monologues, and co-founded Horizon VR, a virtual reality production company.

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