Sean Thomas is a British journalist and author. Born in Devon, England, and educated at University College London, he has written for publications including The Times , The Daily Mail , The Spectator and The Guardian , mainly on travel, politics and art. [1] [2] He has written, as a journalist, of his troubled early life, and multiple step-mothers [3] . His father was the writer and translator D. M. Thomas, who died in 2023. [4]
As a novelist he has used multiple pseudonyms. As Tom Knox, he specialises in archaeological and religious thrillers. He has also published erotic fiction under the pseudonym A J Molloy. More recently he has written novels under the pen name S K Tremayne.
His first Tom Knox thriller, The Genesis Secret, focuses on the Neolithic archaeological site known as Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, which Thomas visited as a journalist in 2006. [5] The book speculates on the genetic and sociological origins of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, with particular attention to the trait of sacrifice. Noteworthy for several exceptionally gruesome episodes, it was an international bestseller, [6] [7] [8] and has so far been translated into 21 languages. [9] The novel provoked controversy when the German Archaeology Institute complained that both a newspaper article and the book were based on "a falsified version of an interview with [chief archaeologist] Klaus Schmidt", which they argued constituted "a distortion of the scientific work of the German Archaeological Institute". [10] Thomas has since returned to the Göbekli Tepe site, and its new associated sites, the Taş Tepeler. [11]
His second Tom Knox thriller, The Marks of Cain was published in 2010. Centring on the Cagot community who lived in the Basque Country, and the troubled history of the German empire in Namibia, it too was an international bestseller. In Germany, the ebook version, published under the title Cagot, was notable for its experimental use of interactivity and alternate reality games. [12]
A third book, titled Bible of the Dead (or The Lost Goddess outside the United Kingdom) was published in March 2011 in the UK, and in the US in February 2012, [13] and focuses on the Khmer Rouge, while taking in the cave paintings of France, and modern Chinese Communism. More recently, Thomas has returned to Cambodia and written on the inspiration for this novel, when he attended the 2009 UN trial of Khmer Rouge apparatchik, Comrade Duch. [14]
In 2015, under the pseudonym S K Tremayne, Thomas published a novel called The Ice Twins , about a London couple who lose a child, one of identical twins, and thereafter move to a remote island in Scotland. At this point the parents begin to suspect they have misidentified the surviving child. The Ice Twins became a Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller in February 2015. [15]
The same novel, translated as IJstweeling, went into the Dutch top ten bestseller list, following its publication in the Netherlands in March 2015. [16] In May 2015, under the title Eisige Schwestern, the same book entered the Spiegel bestseller list, in Germany; the book went on to spend fifteen weeks in the German top ten. [17] In September 2015, The Ice Twins, in paperback form, became a number one Sunday Times bestseller in the UK. [18]
His second S K Tremayne novel, The Fire Child, became a top ten bestseller in Germany in January 2017, under the title Stiefkind. [19]
In January 2019, The Ice Twins became a Nielsen Silver Award winner, for selling 250,000 copies in the UK. [20]
His novel Kissing England won the Literary Review's "Bad Sex" award in 2000. [21] Thomas's fourth book Millions Of Women Are Waiting To Meet You [22] was a memoir of his love life; it was a best-seller, translated into eight languages, and was the Guardian newspaper's "paperback of the week" in May, 2007. [23]
Thomas has written extensively of his early, troubled life. In 1987 he was arrested, imprisoned and eventually acquitted, after a trial at the Old Bailey, of a rape charge brought by his then girlfriend. [24] [25] He has also described long struggles with drug addiction, especially heroin. [26] In 2003 he wrote, in The Spectator, of how an addiction to internet porn caused him to "wank himself into hospital"; [27] in a follow-up article in 2022 he described how this in turn led to a renewed literary career, thanks to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. [28] . He has recently admitted to alcoholism [29] , which he claims was "cured" by the weight-loss drug Ozempic.
He has two children, and lives in Camden, [30] north London. He has been married once, to Star Brewer. They married in 2017 when he was 54 and she was 21, they divorced in 2021.
David was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the third king of the United Kingdom of Israel. Historians of the Ancient Near East agree that David probably lived c. 1000 BCE, but little more is known about him as a historical figure.
The 9th millennium BC spanned the years 9000 BC to 8001 BC. In chronological terms, it is the first full millennium of the current Holocene epoch that is generally reckoned to have begun by 9700 BC. It is impossible to precisely date events that happened around the time of this millennium and all dates mentioned here are estimates mostly based on geological and anthropological analysis, or by radiometric dating.
The 10th millennium BC spanned the years 10,000 BC to 9001 BC. It marks the beginning of the transition from the Palaeolithic to the Neolithic via the interim Mesolithic and Epipaleolithic periods, which together form the first part of the Holocene epoch that is generally believed to have begun c. 9700 BC and is the current geological epoch. It is impossible to precisely date events that happened around the time of this millennium, and all dates mentioned here are estimates mostly based on geological analysis, anthropological analysis, and radiometric dating.
Graham Bruce Hancock is a British writer who promotes pseudoscientific theories involving ancient civilizations and hypothetical lost lands. Hancock speculates that an advanced ice age civilization was destroyed in a cataclysm, but that its survivors passed on their knowledge to hunter-gatherers, giving rise to the earliest known civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Mesoamerica.
A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea.
Göbekli Tepe is a Neolithic archaeological site in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. The settlement was inhabited from c. 9500 to at least 8000 BCE, during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. It is famous for its large circular structures that contain massive stone pillars—the world's oldest known megaliths. Many of these pillars are decorated with anthropomorphic details, clothing, and sculptural reliefs of wild animals, providing archaeologists rare insights into prehistoric religion and the particular iconography of the period. The 15 m (50 ft)-high, 8 ha (20-acre) tell is densely covered with ancient domestic structures and other small buildings, quarries, and stone-cut cisterns from the Neolithic, as well as some traces of activity from later periods.
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) denotes the first stage of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, in early Levantine and Anatolian Neolithic culture, dating to c. 12,000 – c. 10,800 years ago, that is, 10,000–8800 BCE. Archaeological remains are located in the Levantine and Upper Mesopotamian region of the Fertile Crescent.
Nicholas Charles Sparks is an American romance novelist, screenwriter, and film producer. He has published twenty-three novels, all New York Times bestsellers, and two works of non-fiction, with over 115 million copies sold worldwide in more than 50 languages. Among his works are The Notebook, A Walk to Remember, and Message in a Bottle which, along with eight other books, have been adapted as feature films.
In archaeology, an enclosure is one of the most common types of archaeological site – It is any area of land separated from surrounding land by earthworks, walls or fencing. Such a simple feature is found all over the world and during almost all archaeological periods. They may be few metres across or be large enough to encompass whole cities.
Upper Mesopotamia constitutes the uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in the northern Middle East. Since the early Muslim conquests of the mid-7th century, the region has been known by the traditional Arabic name of al-Jazira and the Syriac variant Gāzartā or Gozarto (ܓܙܪܬܐ). The Euphrates and Tigris rivers transform Mesopotamia into almost an island, as they are joined together at the Shatt al-Arab in the Basra Governorate of Iraq, and their sources in eastern Turkey are in close proximity.
Douglas Jerome Preston is an American journalist and author. Although he is best known for his thrillers in collaboration with Lincoln Child, he has also written six solo novels, including the Wyman Ford series and a novel entitled Jennie, which was made into a movie by Disney. He has authored a half-dozen nonfiction books on science and exploration and writes occasionally for The New Yorker, Smithsonian, and other magazines.
David Gibbins is an underwater archaeologist and a bestselling novelist.
The Ice Twins is a 2015 psychological thriller, written by S. K. Tremayne. Screenwriter Isaac Adamson has adapted the novel for a film.
Magicians of the Gods: The Forgotten Wisdom of Earth's Lost Civilisation is a 2015 book by British pseudoarchaeology writer Graham Hancock, published by Thomas Dunne Books in the United States and by Coronet in the United Kingdom. Macmillan Publishers released an "updated and expanded" paperback edition in 2017.
Blanvalet is a German publishing house, based in Munich, which was founded in 1935 in Berlin and is now part of the Bertelsmann's Random House publishing group. Blanvalet publishes entertainment literature and non-fiction, first in hardcover, and as paperbacks since 1998. The publisher became well known with the novel series "Angélique". More recent authors include Charlotte Link, Marc Elsberg, Karin Slaughter, Diana Gabaldon and George R. R. Martin.
Şanlıurfa Archaeology and Mosaic Museums or Şanlıurfa Museum are located in the south-eastern city of Şanlıurfa, Turkey. The museums contain remains of Şanlıurfa, Göbekli Tepe, Karahan Tepe, Harran, findings from the Southeastern Anatolia Project and ruins found in the hydroelectric dam reservoirs of Atatürk Dam, Birecik Dam and Karkamış Dam. Both museums are located at Haleplibahçe Mahallesi 2372, Sok Eyyübiye/Şanlıurfa.
The Urfa man, also known as the Balıklıgöl statue, is an ancient human shaped statue found during excavations in Balıklıgöl near Urfa, in the geographical area of Upper Mesopotamia, in the southeast of modern Turkey. It is dated c. 9000 BC to the period of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, and is considered as "the oldest naturalistic life-sized sculpture of a human". It is considered as contemporaneous with the sites of Göbekli Tepe and Nevalı Çori.
The Gift is a Turkish drama fantasy Netflix series starring Beren Saat. It was written by Jason George and Nuran Evren Şit. The first season consists of 8 episodes and became available for streaming on Netflix on December 27, 2019. The series is an adaptation of the novel Dünyanın Uyanışı by Şengül Boybaş. The second season was released on September 10, 2020. The series was renewed for a third and final season, which premiered on June 17, 2021.
Karahan Tepe is an archaeological site in Şanlıurfa Province in Turkey. The site is close to Göbekli Tepe and archaeologists have also uncovered T-shaped stelae there. According to Daily Sabah, "The excavations have uncovered 250 obelisks featuring animal figures" as of 2020.
Marc Elsberg is a bestselling Austrian author. His works have been published by Blanvalet Verlag of the Penguin Random House publishing group since 2012. They have been translated into numerous languages, sold several million copies worldwide, and made into a series and a film.