SHEFFIELD AUTHORS

Melvyn Tompkins
a.k.a. John Donkeyplonk

Melvyn/John  is originally from Essex but has lived in Sheffield twice; 1977 – 80 as a failed student and croupier, and 2012 to the present, as a postman and more recently, Santa Claus. He certainly has the zeal of the convert towards his adopted city, and absolutely loves it.

John spent most of his career in the civil service, where he certainly wrote a lot! But it wasn’t until he left it that he realised that he really needed to write and started out as an author. He describes his style as “quirky”, and likes to envisage an everyday situation and then imagine how it would develop if something truly absurd was plonked slap bang in the middle of it.

John lives in Hillsborough, and his novels are set wholly or partly in Sheffield. He has two sons and a stepdaughter, ranging in age from 21 to 35.

Prepare for the Zargian Delegation is a satirical romp through the Civil Service mindset – think a more up to date “Yes Minister” but with an added touch of alien. It will appeal to anyone who has experienced the “group think” of a bureaucracy or major corporation – or indeed to anyone with an irreverent sense of humour!

Junior civil servant Ian Baines is surprised when he is tasked to provide organisational and administrative support to the mysterious “Project Zarg.” He is even more surprised to find out that his boss is to be a nerdy Finance Director, Emmanuel Godley, who has been temporarily loaned to the Project to inject fresh and innovative business thinking. And when he discovers that the purpose of Project Zarg is to agree how to engage with beings from the Planet Zarg who are on their way to Earth to open negotiations ….
But how will the strange mix of civil servants on the Project decide to respond? Should we serenade the Zargians with the best of Earth music? Devise an interactive workshop? Or just blast them out of the skies before they even arrive? And why does Emmanuel Godley stick his head in a Perspex hood and constantly scratch his armpits? And who on earth are the “Leafies?”