Light-hearted look at the end of world

At just 28 years old Duncan P. Pacey has two published books under his belt. He says from the moment he could hold a pen there’s never been a moment when he hasn’t been writing or thinking about writing.

“I have never taken a creative writing course, but I did some screen writing at school and wrote a few short stories. People said they were good so I thought I would self-publish a book,” Pacey said.

“It took me three years to write my first book Smack-dab, in the Middle of Nowhere: A postapocalyptic comedy (Waste Book 1). “I made some terrible mistakes in my first book but that’s how you learn,” he said.

His second book Sievert & Gray, Detectors: A post-apocalyptic detective comedy (The Waste Stories Book 2) is about Sievert and Gray, Orckland’s finest detectors. When a distraught woman comes to them for help to find her brother who has vanished, they find politics gets in the way of their investigation.

Pacey studied dystopia books about people living alternative lives after the end of the world.

“They were all a little depressing. I wanted my books to have some comedy in them. I thought what if we talk about the end of the world Monty Python style. I really wanted to take a different light-hearted look at it. I’m hoping that readers might find themselves having a laugh at such a dark subject, without even realising it.”

He says there are two important aspects to writing good character. “First they must be believable. They are not comic book heroes. They are normal people. The other thing is you have to ask yourself if they good or bad people.”

Pacey says the feeling of holding his first novel in 2016 was immense. “It was like vindication — as if I had been working my whole life to get to this point. A dream come true for a kid with a one-track mind. It was actually really moving.” Pacey is already working on his third novel. His books are available on Amazon.