BESTSELLING AUTHOR | PODCASTER | TEACHER
LEE CHILD
“‘Instantly immersive and compelling, rich and strange, human and humane, and most of all inspiring … an extraordinary story.’”
NATHALIE NAHAI
“A clarion call for our times, this visionary book dreams into being a new mythology of interpersonal power, eco-societal agency and democratic governance. ”
IAN RANKIN
“One of our best, most challenging writers is back…”
PAULA BRACKSTON
“What an incredible book! Any Human Power will challenge what you thought you knew about life, death, and everything in between. Stunningly original and thought provoking.”
OUT NOW!
Any Human Power
Dream deeply. Rise up strong. Change is coming.
The visionary new thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author Manda Scott
How do you help the people you love create a future you’re proud to leave behind?
From acclaimed author Manda Scott comes the seismic thriller of a lifetime. As Lan lies dying, she makes a promise that binds her long into the Beyond. A decade later her teenage granddaughter is caught up in an international storm of outrage that unleashes the rage of a whole, failed generation. For one shining fragment of time, the world is with her. But then the backlash begins, and soon she and her family are besieged by the press, facing the all-powerful wrath of the old establishment whose only understanding is power-over, not power-with.
Watching over the growing chaos is Lan, who taught them all to think independently, approach power sceptically and dream with clear intent. She knows that more than one generation’s hopes are on the line.
Weaving together myth, technology and radical compassion, this mytho-political novel breaks apart all we know of life, death and the routes to hope, asking us all to dream deeply and act boldly.
Exploring Any Human Power
Visions of Life beyond Death
Writing a novel from the perspective of someone who dies at the end of the first chapter (truly, this isn’t a spoiler) was always going to be…interesting. But it was part of the vision from the hill and if I’ve learned anything in forty years of shamanic practice, it’s that not all visions come in clear text, and when they do, messing with them in any way is a seriously bad idea.
The Future is already here
‘Any Human Power’ is based on this premise: that there are countless brilliant, highly motivated people coming up with brilliant, workable ideas that can bridge us at least to the emergent edge where we are putting into action all the things we know are the best of ourselves. What happens then is unknowable, but watching it happen will be one of the most exciting things imaginable.
Ways to a future we'd be proud to leave behind
I genuinely believed I’d stopped writing novels. I’d become a podcaster instead, a smallholder, a holder-of-courses where people could learn in real time the things that might yet still turn us away from the multi-polar cliff edge to which our dysfunctional culture is hurtling us with such terrifying speed. But…
PRIZE WINNING
A TREACHERY OF SPIES
Tracking down her murderer leads police inspector Inès Picaut back to 1940s France where the men and women of the Resistance were engaged in a desperate fight for survival against the Nazi invaders.
A story of murder, betrayal and a passion that will shape a life.
And a death.
LATEST NEWS – A Treachery of spies is one of the times top ten thrillers of the decade: link here
MY OTHER PROJECTS
Accidental Gods PODCAST
We have the power of gods to destroy our home, but we also have the chance to become something we cannot yet imagine, and by doing so, to transform the nature of ourselves – and all humanity.
Accidental Gods is a podcast and membership program exploring how we can create a future that we would be proud to leave to the generations to come.
The Thrutopia Masterclass
Imagine a future where our great grandchildren look back and say, ‘We’re here now, living lives we love, because they took the risk to change the way things worked.’
But Utopias that we don’t believe in can’t help us. We need stories that lay out a path from here to a future we’d be proud to leave to our the coming generations.
We need Thrutopias…
DREAMING AWAKE SHAMANIC PRACTICE
The Dreaming Awake contemporary shamanic practitioner training is run jointly by Manda and her senior apprentice, Louise Mayor. Courses are held both online and in person and are structured slowly and carefully to unfold the connection to the web of life that is our birthright and to which anyone can have access, enabling students to reach beyond the boundaries of consensus reality in order to ask for help.
BESTSELLING AUTHOR
PODCASTER & TEACHER
COMING MAY 2024
Any Human Power
Dream deeply. Rise up strong. Change is coming … the visionary new thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author Manda Scott
How do you help the people you love create a future you’re proud to leave behind?
From acclaimed author Manda Scott comes a visionary thriller of a lifetime. As Lan lies dying, she makes a promise that binds her long into the Beyond. A decade later her teenage granddaughter is caught up in an international storm of outrage that unleashes the rage of a whole, failed generation. For one shining fragment of time, the world is with her. But then the backlash begins, and soon she and her family are besieged by the press, facing the all-powerful wrath of the old establishment whose only understanding is power-over, not power-with.
Watching over the growing chaos is Lan, who taught them all to think independently, approach power sceptically and dream with clear intent. She knows that more than one generation’s hopes are on the line.
Weaving together myth, technology and radical compassion, this visionary novel breaks apart all we know of life, death and the routes to hope, asking us all to dream deeply and act boldly.
Exploring Any Human Power
Visions of Life beyond Death
Writing a novel from the perspective of someone who dies at the end of the first chapter (truly, this isn’t a spoiler) was always going to be…interesting. But it was part of the vision from the hill and if I’ve learned anything in forty years of shamanic practice, it’s that not all visions come in clear text, and when they do, messing with them in any way is a seriously bad idea.
The Future is already here
‘Any Human Power’ is based on this premise: that there are countless brilliant, highly motivated people coming up with brilliant, workable ideas that can bridge us at least to the emergent edge where we are putting into action all the things we know are the best of ourselves. What happens then is unknowable, but watching it happen will be one of the most exciting things imaginable.
Ways to a future we'd be proud to leave behind
I genuinely believed I’d stopped writing novels. I’d become a podcaster instead, a smallholder, a holder-of-courses where people could learn in real time the things that might yet still turn us away from the multi-polar cliff edge to which our dysfunctional culture is hurtling us with such terrifying speed. But…
MY LATEST PRIZE WINNING SPY THRILLER
A TREACHERY OF SPIES
Tracking down her murderer leads police inspector Inès Picaut back to 1940s France where the men and women of the Resistance were engaged in a desperate fight for survival against the Nazi invaders.
A story of murder, betrayal and a passion that will shape a life.
And a death.
LATEST NEWS – A Treachery of spies is one of the times top ten thrillers of the decade: link here
MY OTHER PROJECTS
The Thrutopia Masterclass
Imagine a future where our great grandchildren look back and say, ‘We’re here now, living lives we love, because they took the risk to change the way things worked.’
But Utopias that we don’t believe in can’t help us. We need stories that lay out a path from here to a future we’d be proud to leave to our the coming generations.
We need Thrutopias…
DREAMING AWAKE SHAMANIC PRACTICE
The Dreaming Awake contemporary shamanic practitioner training is run jointly by Manda and her senior apprentice, Louise Mayor. Courses are held both online and in person and are structured slowly and carefully to unfold the connection to the web of life that is our birthright and to which anyone can have access, enabling students to reach beyond the boundaries of consensus reality in order to ask for help.
FREE SHORT STORY
BEHIND THE BOUDICA SERIES
NEW YORK TIMES
JEAN M AUEL
“A powerful novel, alive with the love, deceit, wisdom and heroics of humanity”
PUBLISHING NEWS
“The new Mary Renault”
LUCID DREAMING: ANCIENT SKILL OR MODERN FAD?
Everyone dreams: not everyone dreams lucidly, but it’s there for those who want to step into a world (many worlds) where anything is possible. Here is the gateway to all possible futures, and the answers, if we persist, to all possible questions.
THE CELTS, WOMEN & SEX
“We consort openly with the best of men. You allow yourselves to be debauched in secret by the vilest.” – so said the consort of the Gaulish king to Julia Augustus, wife of the Emperor to the Roman Empress who cast aspersions on her morals. Celtic women were far more empowered than their Roman counterparts – and we’ve barely got back to what our ancestors took as their right.
BREAKING THE LEGACY OF ROME
THE OLD GODS &THE NEW
In Britannia, Aulus Plautius (David Morrissey) knows that to defeat the tribes of Britannia, you need to kill their gods. But who were the old gods of our tribal past? Are they still here? And if so, how best can we re-connect with them, to rediscover our heritage and our sense of connectedness to the earth.
BOUDICA
NEW YORK TIMES
THE ADVERTISER, AUSTRALIA
“All historical novels should be this good”
PUBLISHING NEWS
“The new Mary Renault”
JEAN M AUEL
“A powerful novel, alive with the love, deceit, wisdom and heroics of humanity”
SAINSBURY’S MAGAZINE
“It is so well written that its world of prescient dreamers and fearless warriors lingers in the imagination long after the final page”
CONTACT MANDA
Writing is an incredibly solitary occupation. It's always good to connect with people who share the same realities. So go on, get in touch...