The Imagination Thief (novel)
by Rohan Quine

The Imagination Thief by Rohan Quine is about a web of secrets, triggered by the stealing and copying of people’s imaginations and memories. It’s about the magic that can be conjured up by images of people, in imagination or on film; the split between beauty and happiness in the world; and the allure of various kinds of power. A Distinguished Favorite in the NYC Big Book Award 2021, it celebrates some of the most extreme possibilities of human imagination, personality and language, exploring the darkest and brightest flavours of beauty living in our minds.

 

For some great reviews of The Imagination Thief, click here.

Buy The Imagination Thief in paperback or ebook or audiobook format.

For some of the main talking points that stem from The Imagination Thief, see here.

NYC Big Book Award 2021—The Imagination Thief as Distinguished Favorite.

Awesome Indies Book Awards—The Imagination Thief approved.

 
The text of The Imagination Thief is identical in its paperback and audiobook and ebook formats. Beside that text, the ebook format also contains some photographic content, plus links to films and to a video-book version of the novel.
 

 

Synopsis of The Imagination Thief

Alone in his skyscraper office one night, Jaymi undergoes a transformation that will change his life: he acquires the power to see into others’ minds, and then to control and project their thoughts.

Realising the potential of his new gift, he hypnotises a media mogul into agreeing to broadcast an electrifying extravaganza of sound and vision emanating from Jaymi, the like of which has never been witnessed before, that will captivate millions worldwide. However, one of the mogul’s underlings has more subversive plans for milking Jaymi’s talent, involving the theft of others’ imaginations and most intimate memories for commercial gain.

The broadcasting of his visions takes Jaymi and his friend Alaia on a journey that plunges them into the underworld of Asbury Park—a seaside town once full of life and fun, but now half-forgotten. The half of this town beside the ocean itself is now almost a ghost town: ruled by ruthless gangsters and drug dealers, headed by Lucan, it is populated by lost souls and the beautiful who have fallen on hard times. Blackmailed into thieving the most private and primal memories and experiences from their imaginations, Jaymi discovers a web of secrets and provocations simmering beneath the surface of the town, about to explode.

When a waxwork of Lucan’s decapitated head is planted anonymously in his own bar, the fear bubbles over, as everyone becomes a suspect in this unforgivable challenge to his dominance. Then when another provocative waxwork appears—a naked full-body modelling of Angel, Lucan’s beautiful but tortured lover—then Jaymi knows the only way to save his friends will be to use his own gift to discover the perpetrator before Lucan does…

Delving into and celebrating the most beautiful and extreme possibilities of human imagination, personality and love, The Imagination Thief is mainstream literary fiction that also draws upon magical realism, horror, fantasy and humour. It explores the universal human predicaments of power, beauty, happiness, hopelessness, good and evil.
 

The Imagination Thief‘s synopsis is here too:

(This video is also on Vimeo and YouTube.)

 

Table of Contents of The Imagination Thief

(These 120 little mini-chapters are ever so short, nibbly and snackable…)
 

PART I. GHOST TOWN ARRIVAL: SPOTLIGHT WITH ALAIA

1. A funny turn at the office
2. The hunt for what my eyes can do
3. So now I’m on a mission
4. Sneak peek into a mogul’s mind
5. How to slap a mogul around
6. My absent default personality
7. Telling Alaia what’s hard to believe
8. The statue of black sugar
9. Alaia gets excited
10. Angles of glamour
11. Lunch with a shark
12. Relentless wakefulness in the belfry
13. The silver van to the ghost town
14. The smashed violin
15. Evelyn’s tour of the ghost town
16. Ready for our close-up
17. Sound & Vision
 

PART II   SUNDAY LATE: AFTERGLOW WITH ALAIA

18. The warm dome of smile
19. Flames, Lucan, Kev
20. Paranoia by the wire-netting fence
21. Angel’s wings in the dive-bar
22. No enchantment without ordeal
23. A declaration of war against Lucan
24. On the sky, that face
25. The figure in the crowd in the mirror
26. Shigem and I on the dance-floor
27. A devoted fan of Alaia and me;
28. Wet green eyes of Pippa in the take-away
29. Flight from Arverne
30. The small black toothbrush
 

PART III   MONDAY: ALAIA LEARNS MY SUBTERFUGE

31. We’ll all adore you
32. Evelyn picks imaginations to thieve
33. Theft one, and how to be ignored
34. Big Bang: song of death
35. Cheap champagne at Evelyn’s
36. Kim’s dead suburbia
37. Flash of weasel eyes through the keyhole
38. Kim’s amber days
39. Your painted face alive and smiling
40. Alaia gives me a grilling
41. It’s only a shell
42. The last music Kim heard before Shigem
43. Malaysian chilli peppers
44. The five times I hypnotised someone
45. A declaration of war against Kev
46. Another furtive escape
47. Pippa goes to greet a gentleman caller
48. Does Lucan hate Shigem?
49. Theft two, and nattering about bikinis
50. Unnerving things in Pippa’s bedroom
 

PART IV   TUESDAY: ALAIA ACTS TOO HASTILY

51. Evelyn’s fling with Flames
52. Morning picnic with vodka and burning tyres
53. The meaning of a spotlight
54. Big Bang: return of the giant ship
55. A sighting of the weasel
56. Lucan’s and Angel’s sumptuous fight
57. How Kim met Shigem
58. How Shigem met Kim
59. Theft three, and Alaia lands Angel in the shit
60. Rik’s and Evelyn’s genius at hang-outs
 

PART V   WEDNESDAY: I LEARN ALAIA’S SUBTERFUGE

61. Alaia bites the bullet and calls Lucan
62. Pleasure to be you
63. I puzzle out Alaia’s subterfuge
64. Big Bang: run to the sun
65. Home in a nowhere town
66. Rain on corrugated iron
67. Overheard through the corn-chips
68. Movements through the wall
 

PART VI   THURSDAY: SECOND SPOTLIGHT WITH ALAIA

69. Alaia fakes for two audiences at once
70. Coldness on the beach
71. Alaia swirls in decreasing circles
72. The weasel at the window
73. A naked Angel on the front path
74. Golden on the beach for the last time
75. Attitude on the phone
76. The pussy-cats lost in translation
77. Snatching the divine on the corner of the street
78. Theft four, and Alaia extricates herself
79. High voltage for Angel
80. Who could ask for more?
81. A farcical audition for Rik
82. The Supreme Ruler and her space-cat
83. Low-budget snarls in the nightclub
 

PART VII   FRIDAY: ALAIA RECEDING

84. Angel tries to use me
85. Lucan spreads poison in the morning
86. Stared at on an empty beach
87. Fixing the weasel hunt
88. An interrupted drama and a dubious portent
89. Hunting the weasel
90. Pippa on the brink of no return
91. My lies about the Mint Man
92. Alaia slithers out of Lucan’s grip
93. Angel’s Baby Doll
94. Theft five, with suicide and soup-of-the-day
 

PART VIII   SATURDAY: ALAIA IN HIDING

95. Spanish baboons and tiny creatures
96. An inferior decapitation gesture
97. Lucan and Angel on the big screen
98. Porch-geese and Vietnam
99. Pippa a zombie through internal damage
100. Evelyn’s dance, with minimal effect
101. Desire as disease in Angel Deon
102. Shigem’s unimprovable situation
103. Theft six, with ambiguous bowing and curtseying
 

PART IX   SUNDAY: THE ANGEL ON THE CARCASS-BUILDING

104. Violence in the air
105. The trolls in the warehouse
106. A gunfight and a snippety exchange
107. Flicker of murder in Angel
108. I’ll never see your eyes again
109. A screech of tyres
110. What it’s like to die by gunshot
111. What it’s like to die by shriek
112. Stealing evidence from the crime scene
113. How to bungle an assault
114. Alaia and I are kidnapped
115. Shrieking eyes in the ghost town
 

PART X   GHOST TOWN DEPARTURE: REVELATION OF ALAIA

116. Revelation in the breakfast room
117. That narrow door
118. The feet beneath the sheet
119. Savagery, mystery, death and confinement
120. A ring, two spires and a wedding gift

 

The Films in The Imagination Thief, which are linked to from inside the novel’s ebook format, may be seen in the Vimeo showcase “THE IMAGINATION THIEF (novel) – Films inside the ebook – Rohan Quine” and in the YouTube playlist “THE IMAGINATION THIEF (novel) – Films inside the ebook – Rohan Quine”:

 

The 120 mini-chapters of The Imagination Thief‘s Video-Book format are here:

And in the Vimeo showcase “THE IMAGINATION THIEF (novel) – Video-Book format – Rohan Quine”.
And in the YouTube playlist “THE IMAGINATION THIEF (novel) – Video-Book format – Rohan Quine”. (If playback of any of the above videos looks at all fuzzy on YouTube, then you can quickly and easily adjust the YouTube video-player’s playback “Quality” setting, by doing the following: (1) if you’re on a mobile device, first touch the video image, then touch the three-dots symbol that appears in the top-right corner of the player, touch “Quality” and choose “1080p” (or the highest other setting available on your device, e.g. “720p”); or (2) if you’re on a laptop/desktop device, click the cog symbol on the lower edge of the video-player, click “Quality” and choose “1080p” (or the highest other setting available on your device, e.g. “720p”).)
 
 
Some short teasers for The Imagination Thief‘s Video-Book are here:

And in the Vimeo showcase “Teasers for THE IMAGINATION THIEF by Rohan Quine”.
And in the YouTube playlist “Teasers for THE IMAGINATION THIEF by Rohan Quine”.

Buy The Imagination Thief in paperback or ebook or audiobook format.

 

Add Rohan Quine’s The Imagination Thief paperback or Mobi or ePub format to Goodreads.

 
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