About Jake Jackson

SF and dark fantasy author but also an editor of myths and legends books (including this book on world mythology) a writer/creator of over 30 how-to music books – Beginner’s Guide to Reading Music, Guitar Chords, Piano and Keyboard Chords, Songwriter’s Rhyming Dictionary, Play the Guitar Made Easy. Other publications include Advanced Guitar Chords, Advanced Piano Chords, Chords for Kids, How to Play the Electric Guitar, Reading Music Made Easy and Scales and Modes (Amazon author page here). Released the EP Jakesongs on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, Deezer etc and on CDBaby. All links on this page

With a lifelong passion for fantastic worlds of any kind, from movies to fiction, Quantum and Superstring theory, and art to music, posters, album and paperback book covers, I also have special interests which include various social and cultural turning points of human history. These include the early 3rd Millennium BCE (particularly Sumerian and Chinese), the era of 700–1000 CE in both East and West, the 1800s, early 1900s, 1960s and 2000s when, in each case, broad cultural and technological revolutions feasted on the body of the status quo. Many of the posts in this blog highlight these themes, with a particular emphasis on the gothic, fantastic, scientific and supernatural.

I’m currently writing a new album (called 451) and reaching out to a variety of friends around the world for their instrumental contribution. My weekly podcast, These Fantastic Worlds is going strong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher Vurbl (and more), and soon I’m opening it up for interviews with other science fiction writers.

Jake Jackson, Jakesongs album coverI’ve been in a number of bands, including Slice, The Harmonics, Starbank and continue to study Flamenco. Although I have a range of fine guitars (a battered 1977 Fender Strat, Rickenbacker 360, Westone Thunder bass, Rondriguez flamenco cutaway and several others) my other favourite musical instruments are Sibelius and Logic ProX, perfect for writing and arranging. My son is a professional jazz trumpeter, my daughter, a skilfull pianist, now studies in Bristol.

Twitter: jakejackson451 Facebook: TheseFantasticWorlds (for the SF and fantasy podcast), Pinterest: jakejackson451

A while ago I joined Red Bubble with an online store for some of my abstract paintings for prints, cards, phone cases, bags etc.

The companion websites to this blog are:

Jake Jackson Art which focuses on my abstract expressionist acrylic art.

Jake Jackson Music which focuses on my music books and album.

Jake Jackson is a long term creative pseudonym of Nick Wells, Publisher and Founder of Flame Tree Publishing

Photos of Jake Jackson by Therese Randall Photography

Comments 14

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  1. Thanks for the follow on the crazy and very weird world of Twitter. I have had a quick browse through your site and will be looking a lot more deeply later tonight as I love what I see. It is fantastic!

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  2. Pingback: William Blake’s Revolutionary Art | Bill Ectric's Place

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  3. I was hoping, if you liked the writing, that you’d post the Prologue in your fantasy podcast and I could share it with my readers 🙂

    If you really liked it, I was perhaps hoping that you might consider making the audio recording for the novel. But only if you really, *really* liked it. You know that feeling when you can barely finish your cereal, you’re so excited to read the next chapter of *that* fantasy novel? D’ya know, Jake?

  4. Hi Jake, nice to meet you!

    I’m a studant of math in Brazil and I met your blog looking for images related to fibonacci sequence. I wonder if I can use the image you created in this article (https://thesefantasticworlds.com/concepts-fibonacci-patterns/) to develop a logo that will be used by the math course at the university where I study?

    Your work is incredible and very interesting.

    Thanks,
    Sabrina

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      Hi, Thanks for asking, that’s much appreciated, and thanks too for the kind words. Certainly, please do use the image if you can find a way of adding a credit line and link to thesefantasticworlds.com website. I’d love to see the final version. Very best wishes, Jake

  5. Hello! I’m not really sure when you’re going to see this, but I’m an art major in a sequential narrative class and one of the projects is illustrating children’s books. I’m doing a story from the Myths and Legends book and I was wondering if you’d like to see it when it’s done. The story is the Coming of Darkness.

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  6. Hello Mr. Jackson,

    My name is Gabriel Mireles, an Anthropology Undergrad at UT Austin with an interest in Archaeology. I am currently collecting your series, “The World’s Greatest Myths and Legends.”

    I am enjoying the work thus far, they also make great reference material to find complete texts.

    I do have one critique and a question to follow it up, it seems to me that European cultures receive far more attention than other cultures around the world. For example, the book “Native American Myths” is incredibly broad, and I appreciate that the stories denote exactly what culture they came from, however, there is a specific book for the Norsemen, Celtic, and Viking cultures.

    I am aware that some degree of geographic or cultural categorization must occur, it would be an tremendous feat to cover all the cultures that existed in a place like say, Ireland, but for places like China, India, North & South America, as well as East and West Africa (these two in particular are dubious because the geographic labelling was done by imperialists), there is a lot to be desired in terms of examining specific, historically notable, cultures.

    My question is, can we expect books on specific cultures in these regions? For example. a book on the Ancestral Pueblo, The Mississippians, or Specific Chinese dynasties, or the Kingdoms of Aksum, Mali, or Kush and Benin of Africa, and even a few of the Sixteen Kingdoms of India would be amazing!

    Keep up the good work and I look forward to hearing back from you.

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      Hi, and thank you for your interest in the series. You are right to point out a key flaw in the works but there are many mitigating factors. The books are intended to be an introduction to the broad span of myth and folklores of the world. The sources of the texts, tend to be lean into on old-fashioned imperialist references because they are often the only ones available, but we do try to find other voices and consult widely. Overall the series aims to bring a sense of the world beyond the more obvious Celtic, Greek and Norse mythologies, introducing Polynesian Myths, Slavic Myths, Turkish tales, Korean folklore and tales from the various regions of Africa. The problem with Imperialist labelling of the African continent is not about West or East regions, but the colonial creation of countries such as Kenya and Angola which cut across tribal lands, so the books in the series try to present stories from tribes such as the Yoruba rather than modern nations such as Nigeria.

      Native/Indigenous American tales are especially complex though, because there are thousands of languages and hundreds of tribes, but more importantly many of the peoples regard the writing down of oral traditions to be disrespectful and (effectively) sacrilegious so there’s a fine line between educating people into the mysteries and themes of a people, and the fundamental undermining of an ancient tradition by writing them down. The books in the series are an attempt to bring the culture and origins of many cultures to the attention of the curious reader, to prompt them to further investigation and hopefully gain some understanding about different ways of thinking.

      We are expanding the series to cover leaders and warriors such as Alexander the Great, Hannibal and Cyrus the Great which allows a more historical context through a more specific lens. As the series develops we will explore more of the dynasties, kingdoms and peoples of the various continents, where we can find reliable sources and academic guidance to help us navigate the texts.

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