author in East Chiltingtonabout the author?

Zsolt Kerekes - that's me

my home page
news - updates re my books
my social media? - Linkedin / X
Captain Feary's list of Pirate Books
Zsolt Kerekes - profile - Alliance of Independent Authors

temporary book cover image Jamie and the Tree Troll Among other past things, I'm recently the author of 4 rural fantasy books for children (which relate kids' adventures with goblins, pirates, tree trolls and dragons).

The most popular of these in the 2nd half of 2024 was Jamie and the Tree Troll a new legend of the South Downs in Sussex

What's next for 2025? I focused most of writing effort in 2024 to a speculative novel for adults in which a love of books is a main theme. It's called - The Goblins are Coming!

The boring bio:- the Goblins are Coming! - book coverI was born in revolutionary Budapest (1956), dragged up in 1960s Brighton (on the South coast of England) and now live in the little known parish of East Chiltington which straddles the South Downs between Lewes and Ditchling in East Sussex..

Before publishing the sort of books which almost anyone can read I spent 27 years as the editor of jargon stuffed tech guides and market data aimed at the clever people who built the cloud, your dotcom destinations and the chips in your phones and pcs.
the longer (2019) version

Zsolt Kerekes - now Writer at GoblinSearch - which as you can plainly see is writing unburdened by a business plan - was once best known for his fast typing and many editorial cut and pastes performed in the worshipful service of the dot in dotcom and memoryfication of computer storage...

- which content - having been mostly FTPeed like ticker tape in tappety clusters of frantic finger clicks splurged out in internet time - displays the typical DNA of a writing methodology not overmuch burdened by pausing for spell checks or reflecting on fancy literary niceties...

- such as whether the liberal use of dashes expunges the need for commas and colons - dashes being sufficient in themselves --- to subtly indicate a stylistic awareness of punctuation concepts in general while signalling that the author doesn't fret about the world wide standard distribution of punctuation marks in the English Language - so the next time he taps a reader-viewable character on his qwerty - which isn't a letter or numeral - he's not anxious about the need arising in later editing ("editing" being a procrastinational habit of offline writing which is best done after publishing - when it comes to web pages - if it is indeed ever needed at all) to defend the case for those exact (in-sentence contextual) X-Y spatial coordinates.

The existential question - have I got the commas in the right place? - being an espoused philosophy for writers other than he.

In December 2018 he retired from the web ad funded life with the sale of his mouse site (StorageSearch.com) which gives him the freedom to continue typing fast but with the novel luxury of being decoupled from any pressing need to aggrandize and monetize readers.

Where did these writing ideas come from? Where are they going? And is he secretly hoping to be paid one day according to the average length of the sentences he writes?

Or - and this is conjecture based on the evidence of what has been observed so far in these pages - paid according to a rarely applied formula which sum is in inverse proportion to the number of people reading them... Which as the readership approaches zero - would indeed make such a self publishing venture worthwhile.

If that were the case sadly it didn't work.

(Note the use of "were" above - indicating a polite awareness of the existence of grammar - which is another delaying tactic for writers - like safely crossing the street would take longer if you paused to appreciate the brand names of all the passing cars... Honestly, sic... what more can I say - but if you're still studying the preceeding sentence to triangulate the cracks in its structure then DIY guides of sentence-ological mastic are available.)

Returning to this author who - having sold his computing publishing potboiler and being of a certain age - had demonstrably cleared all self imposed hurdles to his retirement. So you might imagine that would wind down the voltage of the tippy tappy ticker tape. But he hasn't taken the hint and unplugged. Yet.

Maybe writing - in his case - is a due to a health problem. Being a fast typer may be an unfortunate addiction. Would he notice if the keyboard wasn't connected to anything?

Are you starting to feel you know enough already?

Those who had begun suspecting they had the measure of the author and his wretched "bio" long before they ever got this far - having seen enough warning signs in the title they would not be at all surprised by whatever drivel came next - most of which they will happily never see - as they are no longer with us - having much earlier than this point treble-clicked away.

What kind of bio is this anyway?

At least linkedin has limits on the word counts.

Or does it? - Have you seen his?

Don't bother.

And depending what year it is when you read this (and even if time travel has enabled you rejoin this type of conversation in a different sequence to that which I envisaged) you may not even know or care what linkedin was (or will be) anyway.

You could look it up on wikipedia but that might have gone too.

As I said in an article in 2001 - remember, the web has no memory! Or I think that's what I said. If it didn't before - it does now. (Fake history was established long before fake news.)

The stories we tell about ourselves depend on who we're telling them to and what we hope may happen afterwards...
  • the interview,
  • the relative you haven't met before,
  • the dating site,
  • the new neighbor,
  • the border guard.
Border guards... that reminds me.

Have you ever crossed a border while being shot at - by border guards in the country you were leaving?

Perhaps the shooters were annoyed you didn't go via the designated channels.

Your argument is that you side-stepped the official exits because they were closed nets for people like you to get scooped up tidily and shot later. You didn't have the papers which told a more convincing story. And the authorities had temporarily suspended tourism. So - weighing up all the odds - better to risk being shot at from a distance while running than while tied up in a cellar at close range.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Or closer to the start in chronological time. If this were the complete baby to dotage life story that's where it would have been better to begin. More interesting from a grab the reader point of view. But this isn't that version of the bio.

Before I get back to the prosaic "author bio" - here's an alternative version of these shooting incidents from the border guard point of view. (I merely insert it here to show the importance of imagination when telling your life story. Adding the prefix "re" being even better. Re-imagining the past is a recognized tool for improving the autobiography writer / reader experience. Especially when the subject of the autobiography has never read a word of it. Hats off to ghostwriters. My budget didn't stretch that far in convertible lucre but was elastic in other dimensions.)

The shooting border guards (like those who long ago were shooting at my family - but missed in the dark) only shot people like us who didn't cross in the correct places because they wanted to hear how good their targets' stories were.

Life on the border as a guard was dull otherwise. And they felt like they were being cheated and missing something important when unsuitably-storied border crossers inconsiderately and provocatively went the wrong way.

If the border guards could only hear enough good stories from those kinds of people who came within range of their story nets they might be able to concoct a better kind of autobiography for themselves with once upon a time beginnings and happy endings.

But our business here - about the author? - isn't about interesting stories.

I assume you clicked on whatever it was because you wanted to know more - about this writer - Zsolt Kerekes - who is the Zsolthimself associated with GoblinSearch.com.

He most definitely isn't one of the hundreds of other more illustrious Zsolt Kerekes's which he discovered out there sadly after he thought it would be a clever idea to register the vanity domain ZsoltKerekes.com in 2011 - before having considered the possibilities for utter confusion - and deciding it would be better to let that domain registration lapse.

Having explained that he's not one of the interesting Zsolt Kerekes 's then please read on.

Are you? (Still reading).

Maybe you're addicted to reading literary articles on the internet.

This web site could be the cure.

writers revealed

The written work speaks for itself.

So why would you want to know the life stories of who wrote them?

Do I can detect a sharp intake of breath here from teachers of English Literature?

Maybe this page is not for you.

Just click away.

Is this another example of how low the barriers to self publishing books on the internet have sunk?

Discuss...

FYI - as a young teen I chose to drop studying English Literature in school as soon as it was permissable to do so - this being a decision - on my part - not triggered by any lack of love of books and writing but rather in my teenage-egotistically stubborn way - because I loved books and writing so much that I didn't want my future writing style to be intimidated, imprinted or buried by the weight of other people's analysis of tome tombs which I preferred to navigate or not (at some future time and pace of my own choosing) driven by a hard to describe satisfaction of reading books rather than a desire to forensically dissect them.

Although like all revealed plans which you read in autobiographies - other elements - later forgotten or which might pixelate the narrative momentum - may have been in the mix too but are more conveniently handled by their absence in chapter one and may lie out of sight and mind until they are rescraped to make an exciting appearnace in a later part of the narrative.

writers revealed while no one was looking and an apology in advance for "about the author(s)"

In my own reading life - I've been mostly content to read without knowing anything much about the lives of the people who wrote the books I enjoyed - unless they were writing about the real world (in which case if they were Winston Churchill or Admiral Doenitz or FBI Director - James Comey - they were writing about a script in which they had been principal actors).

However I can confidently state here - now from my vantage point of having written some accidental witness based histories related to the computer market (here's one and here's another) which overlapped my 40 years of working in that industry - that just because the author / actor in a real life series of events wasn't aware of something taking place - doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

The recording of history is affectected by points of view. Just as is the interpretation of market research.

As to writers of fiction - I might weaken my resolve of being blissfully ignorant of author life stories in general to sometimes (if I liked the books I had just finished) wanting to know a little bit more more - especially if I thought that visiting their "about page" or jacket / wiki bio might contain a follow up list of their other works to sample.

OK I don't know or care much about writer bios. Is that odd? Well that's me. So don't expect to find much here. I don't have much affinity with the genre.

I've been just as consistent in not needing to know much fan stuff about the personal line ups and appearances of musical bands and partnerships (not being able to name in a quiz - regardless of the prize - the line ups of any bands apart from the Beatles) no matter how much I liked their albums or operas. Sometimes knowing an author's background can put you off their work - just as seeing what your favorite musicians look like can act as a barrier to enjoying their published works.

bio / memoryfications of a SPARC-storage-goblin-guy

As my 8th birthday was approaching - it was obvious to me what I'd like as a present... a typewriter.

The 7 year old version of me knew for sure - I want to be a writer.

My parents had a business selling, recycling and repairing typrewriters - so my birthday present wish for a noisy metal machine with occasionally sticky keys and finger messing ink ribbon changes - was not so outlandish - and was granted without any fuss. (Despite the expense.)

That was 1964 - in England - in a seaside town called Brighton - which was - by common agreement - in those days - located a mere hour's drive south of London. (It's further away now by road and rail.)

Having got the typewriter and with easy access downstairs in the workshop to infinite amounts of paper and typewriter ribbons and technical support - you might say the writing career got off to a good start - and for years I was stuffing my stories into a little plastic suitcase labelled - "in case of fire save this."

But writing technology aside (despite the comparative ease of replacing tyepwriters as they got worn out and acquiring a fondness for ink based pens too - which the shop also sold) - did not transition so deterministically into writing as a career.

You might say - my early ambition to be a full time writer - was suspended for 58 years. (Several things got in the way - or competed for my attention - as I got older. School, other hobbies and girls.)

Instead I spent 44 years of my life engaged creatively in the electronics and computing industry.

Like writing - this began as a childhood hobby. Unlike writing - with cautionary tales of writers who could only afford to buy cheaper typewriters - it was impressed on me - that electronics had a less risky way of being repurposed into a way of earning a living. "You can always do writing as a hobby" - must be a phrase that many other writers can remember being a roadblock which they were But in partial recovery of that primal writer idea - I might say in my defence that I did spend the last 28 years of that career as a self publisher - writing about the computer market. Now having sold my main computer publication and retiring (as a Christmas present to myself in 2018) I'm beginning a new phase.

Somehow in the past 28 years of self publishing in a reputable way - writing about real things and changing ideas in the computer market - I did manage to squirrel away enough hours to scribble some fictional stories - much of which content I never got around to putting on my story site - goblinsearch.com

Now I've got no more excuses. I have the freedom to divide my time to recovering the old and inventing some things new.

After all that past writing online - I'd like to think the best or the worst is still to come.

PS - On looking back at the above - and for the first time reading it - I asked myself - is it overly presumptious to write an "about the author" bio before he has written anything significant yet?

What's one more partial (and mayhap partially fictional) author bio more or less?

Ours is a profession in which whole worlds are daily invented.

examples of my past written works

the SPARC Product Directory

sample captures in the internet archive - 1996 to 2018

My first money earning book - was a self-published (in 1992) buyers guide about the computer market called the SBus Product Directory.

The original print version weighed 2 pounds and cost $79.

In 1996 it was renamed the SPARC Product Directory and began its speedy transition to being a free to view (web ad funded) web portal.

In those days SPARC based servers and the Unix derived operating systems Sunos (later Solaris) were popular building blocks in the telecoms and ISP based infrastructures which built the internet in the formative dotcom bubble years of the internet. My guide covered the hardware market from chips to supercomputers.

My favorite SPARC article (published in 1996 and updated till 2009) is - SPARC History - because I had close relationships with nearly all the companies involved in that market during a 20 year span of my career.


Penelope's Secrets

Everyone's got an unfinished novel right? This one of mine has been unfinished longer than most.

I started writing Penelope's Secrets in 1994 and circulated the first handful of chapters in paper book form. Then in 2000 I put it on the web and it grew to 78,000 words long.

It's set about 4,000 years in the future. (Maybe by then it will be finished.) The link takes you to the 2007 archived version of the text.

Scythia, a hill... "Only yesterday morning, and throughout the ages of history before, this tussock had been of no interest to anyone. Yesterday morning a single cow and a few sheep had picked over the choicest blades of fresh unchewed grass, and their dung showed how long they had ruled this little domain. The rabbit droppings sprinkled around the small mound of grass suggested that other creatures too, sometimes came this way. When night fell, the screeching of the fox was silenced for the first time by the clamping march of armoured men." Penelope's Secrets Foreword:- To whom it may concern...


StorageSearch.com

sample captures from 1998 to 2018 in the internet archive

In the 20 years from 1998 to 2018 I published an online guide to the storage and memoryfication markets called StorageSearch.com. In that period I wrote thousands of articles about this market ranging from predictions and unique market insights to plain old simple news coverage, comments and interviews with company founders and technology inventors. I sold the site in December 2018.

Indicative samples of my storage writing can be seen in


goblinsearch.com

In 2000 I wrote the story Alexander White and the Goblins as a surprise for the 4 year old son - Alexander - of a dear old friend who is also in the story.

That had consequences.

My sister Anna - whose life was being cut short by cancer - asked me to promise to write similar stories for her young children - Laura and Jamie.

That led to the writing of Princess Laura and the Unsuitable Dragon Suitors (which Anna heard in draft form) and Jamie and the Tree Troll (which I delayed writing until Jamie was a little older.

I have other similar stories published, written, unwritten and promised still to follow.


Chiltington Lane

In 2016 I started an infrequently updated blog called Chiltington Lane to describe some of the little things which left an impression on me or which I had noticed in the quiet rural lane in East Sussex where I lived.

See also:- Where inexactly is Chiltington Lane?
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Zsolt's scribbles

1992 to 2025

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The 1990s were the "listicles" decade of my 3 decades self publishing career - as I said in a linkedin chat with Roz Morris - in October 2023 - having first encountered that word myself in an article - 5 Ways Writing Has Infiltrated My Life - which Roz had posted an alert to on linkedin.

1992

SPARC Product Directory 1996 print edition

SPARC Product Directory

In 1992 I self published an independent guide of hardware compatible with the hot processor tech SPARC(r) (Scalable Processor ARChitecture) invented by Sun Microsystems which was the most popular choice for companies building the internet infrastructure for email, and later web servers, ecommerce and search-engines.

see also:- my article - SPARC history - from 1987 to 2010


Initially I thought I might do 2 editions. To avoid infringing trademarks I called it the SBus Product Directory (SBus being the interconnection bus in SPARC systems.)
sparc product directory home
3 years (and about 20 print editions) later Sun and its branding agent SPARC International suggested I should change the name of my book to the SPARC Product Directory as they liked what I was doing.

I said - I can't afford the 6 digit $ annual licensing fee which was the going rate in those days to license the SPARC brand.

They said - we'll give you a special deal. So I renamed my guide, and my company ACSL got the full legal protection from pirates for my book.

In 1996 I transitioned it to a web site and an ad funded business model.

In 1998 I widened my reach of list based guides with StorageSearch.com which was the first publication to defragment the enterprise storage market with guides for every storage technology and product type from chips to tape libraries.
StorageSearch.com founded in 1998 by Zsolt Kerekes

In the 20 years from 1998 to 2018 I wrote thousands of articles about this market ranging from predictions and unique market insights to plain old simple news coverage, comments and interviews with company founders and technology inventors.

Indicative samples of my storage writing can be seen in When I sold StorageSearch.com in December 2018 I retired from the computer writing life and turned my writing efforts to writing fiction unburdened by a business plan.

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my books published in 2023




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Alexander Woytes and the Goblins  - paperback book

Alexander Woyte and the Goblins

The goblins have kidnapped Alexander (age 4) who lives in the Hampshire village of Privett. Alexander's Dad sets off with the local hunt to find and rescue him.

see also:- Books set in Privett



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book cover - Alexander Woyte and the Pirates

Alexander Woyte and the Pirates (and Goblins)

A much afeared Portsmouth pirate ship frozen in an arctic storm 300 years ago has melted free due to global warming and is now running amok.

What's the connection to the disappearance of the young Alexander and the goblins from the Old Book Shop in Petersfield who were supposed to be watching over him?

see also:- Books set in Portsmouth



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Princess Laura and the Unsuitable Dragon Suitors

Princess Laura and the Unsuitable Dragon Suitors

When the young Princess Laura secretly rescues a baby dragon from her father's hunt the dragon predicts that - one day in the future she will be the cause of his death.

When Laura is 18 her father presents her with a choice of suitors - one from each of the surrounding kingdoms. Laura's chosen suitor must kill a dragon to prove his worthiness to the King.

What can she do to make sure that doesn't happen?



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Jamie and the Tree Troll: a new legend of the South Downs in Sussex

This is a story of the hidden South Downs near Ditchling in Sussex where once upon a time in a grand cold house lived Jamie and his family surrounded by creeping dark woods and in this tale you will learn what's really underneath the hill in Underhill Lane, and some Saxon history and legend and stuff of magic too.

see also:- Books set in Ditchling



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My Pact with the Goblin Queen - book cover

My Pact with the Goblin Queen

Inspired by memories of spooky walks as a teenager 50 years ago in the Brighton of 1973 - this horror story (1st published on my web site goblinsearch in April 2004) is now available as an ebook on all major platforms, and an audibook on Google Play.

Fear is the new quantum entanglement. ...see this story's home page

see also:-

Books set in Brighton and Hove (mappit.net)

Books with Brighton settings (mybrightonandhove.org.uk)
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my books published in 2025

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the Goblins are Coming! - book cover
the Goblins are Coming!

Great deeds done for love of family do not list in scrolls of wars.

Yet how best stop the tides of war return and live at ease together?

Memories fade. Can be remade.

Victors write true histories whose meanings time wipes slippery.

For those who can read them - words of Olden cast new warnings.

The goblins are coming, 1, 2, 3.

Hide in the cellar. Hide in the tree.

A novel of books past and future by Zsolt Kerekes - Spring 2025