Showing results by author "Harry Parker" in All Categories

Let's imagine a man called Captain Tom Barnes, aka BA5799, who's leading British troops in the war zone. And two boys growing up together there, sharing a prized bicycle and flying kites before finding themselves estranged once foreign soldiers appear in their countryside. And then there's the man who trains one of them to fight against the other's father and all these infidel invaders. Then imagine the family and friends who radiate out from these lives, people on all sides of this conflict where virtually everyone is caught up in the middle of something unthinkable.

Harry Parker's life changed overnight when he lost his legs to an IED in Afghanistan. That took him into an often surprising landscape of a very human kind of hacking, and he wondered, are all humans hybrids? Whether it's putting on contact lenses every day or DIY biohackers tinkering in garages, Parker introduces us to the exhilarating breadth of human invention - and intervention. Grappling with his own new identity and disability, he discovers the latest robotics, tech and implants that might lead us to powerful, liberating possibilities for what a body can be.

Harry Parker comes from a long line of military men. He joined the British Army at 23, served in Iraq in 2007 and in Afghanistan in 2009. It was whilst on night patrol in Afghanistan that he had an accident which resulted in an IED explosion and the loss of both his legs. As well as completing a postgraduate degree in fine art, Harry has channeled the emotional and physical trauma of the accident into an impressive debut novel, Anatomy of a Soldier.

Captain Tom Barnes is leading British troops in a war zone. On all sides of this conflict, people are about to be caught up in the violence.... We see the characters not as they see themselves but as all the objects surrounding them do: shoes and boots, a helmet, a drone, a bag of fertilizer, a medal, a beer glass, dog tags, an exploding IED and the medical implements that are subsequently employed.