New Year, New Books

It’s 2019, the year of Blade Runner! It’s time to go buy yourself a flying car and book a trip to the off-world colonies to get away from the constant rain. (I live in the UK and I’m used to rain, so I’ll be fine right here.)

January is a good time to plan for the coming year. Here’s what I aim to do:

More books!
No big surprise there, right? Arkship Prophecy is on pre-order right now, due out at the end of next month. Then there’s book six to think about. That’s the last volume in the main run of the Arkship Saga, although there are three prequels planned as well as several side stories.  
There’s also the prospect of me writing two separate licenced titles but those are not yet confirmed. They’re both science fiction but very different beasts. 
I plan to return to Tobin Artichoke later in the year with two more adventures, so I’m going to be busy.

Screenplays
I’m in the middle of writing a post-apocalyptic love story which I hope to finish in the summer. I’ve really enjoyed doing this and I hope I can do more of this sort of thing as well as writing books.

Events and talks
I’ve been doing less public events so that I can focus on writing, but I’ve not abandoned them completely. I’ve got a few school events coming up as well as some industry talks to writers and publishers.

Animation
I’m still working as an animator in between writing. There are more Doctor Who blu ray box sets coming out which include work from me.

My aim this year is to be productive but to avoid being the busy fool I’ve been in recent years. How about you? What’s your goals for 2019? Let me know what you’re up to.

Arkship Prophecy revealed!

The Arkship Saga continues with book five, Arkship Prophecy, which is now available to pre-order! Members of the Arkship Saga Facebook page have already seen the cover, but if you’re not a member then you can see it for yourself now! Just click this link!
See the cover for Arkship Prophecy
What’s it all about? Well….

As the Church of the Infinite forces its doctrine on the survivors of humanity, the battle-weary Prince Halstead finds himself torn between his desire for peace and the growing tide of resistance, led by his estranged wife Bara. As the survival of humanity hangs in the balance, Halstead must finally decide what the Infinite Gods want him to do, a decision that could change the balance of power across the Cluster forever.

Meanwhile, the followers of the prophet Gofal, in hiding from the brutal forces of the Church’s Inquisitors, work towards a better future, one that may demand the ultimate sacrifice of their outlawed cult.

Past and future collide in this fifth volume of the explosive Arkship Saga. If you liked Battlestar Galactica, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series or The Expanse then this might be the series for you!

“Aren’t you Trevor Hoyle?”

Yesterday, I was in Manchester for the Society of Authors Annual General Meeting. I’ve been on the committee of the Authors North sub-group for the last few years and, until yesterday, I was its Chair. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a story about how I got kicked off the committee, I was due to step down and hand over to the new Chair, the excellent Rhoda Baxter. My tenure as Chair was, thankfully, without incident. (Nothing was proved.)

I was helping to look after the registration desk when I heard a familiar name mentioned: Trevor Hoyle.

My brain began to buzz. How did I know that name? Then it came to me: Trevor Hoyle was the writer of one of my favourite books from my childhood, the first novel based on the BBC TV series, Blake’s 7.

“Aren’t you Trevor Hoyle? You wrote a Blake’s 7 book!”

I left the registration desk and caught up with a somewhat startled chap, as captured in this aggressive-looking picture taken by Colin Shelborn.

“Aren’t you Trevor Hoyle?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied, with all the nervousness of a man being accosted by a scary stranger.

“You worte a Blake’s 7 book!” I declared, like an idiot.

Trevor chuckled. “Well, I wrote three, actually.”

My collection of Trevor Hoyle books

Indeed he did. Here’s a selection of my own copies of those books, a mix of the UK and US editions. In fact, Trevor is an incredibly varied and prolific author:

“Trevor Hoyle has published fiction with John Calder: The Man Who Travelled on Motorways, Vail (a dystopian vision of Britain as a police state) and Blind Needle, a chase thriller set in the Lake District. His novel The Last Gasp is currently under option in Hollywood. In 2003 Pomona reissued Rule of Night (originally published in 1975), about skinheads in a northern town, which was Time Out’s Book of the Week and was highly praised in the Guardian and City Life. More recently Trevor Hoyle has written for BBC Radio 4. His first play, GIGO, won the Radio Times Drama Award, and another, Randle’s Scandals, about the rude Wigan comedian Frank Randle, was critically acclaimed. He also wrote and presented a feature for Radio 4, The Lighthouse Invites the Storm, in memory of the writer Malcolm Lowry.”

My chat to Trevor was brief – the registration desk was calling me – but it was a genuine thrill to meet someone who was part of my childhood. That copy of Blake’s 7 was well-read and fondly remembered.

My week: slow progress

The fifth book in the Arkship Saga, Arkship Prophecy is coming soon. No, really! Hey, I mean it! I’ve just been sidetracked by other work, which means that Arkship Prophecy might not appear until after Christmas. I really wanted it out before now, but hopefully you won’t have too much longer to wait.

And the third audiobook, Arkship Alliance, is also on its way. Mike Robinson is working hard to get this finished, and I’m sure it’s going to be worth the wait.

But right now, it’s my wedding anniversary. We’re celebrating 24 years together, which I can’t quite believe! Look, I had hair back then! As Delmore Schwartz put it (and Star Trek Generations immortalised) time is the fire in which we burn. But just make sure you burn brightly, and for a long, long time.

Farmageddon

I’ve been thinking a lot about an old project lately, one that almost took off in a big way. Farmageddon began life way back in 1991 as The Funny Farm, a daily newspaper strip in my hometown newspaper. It was created by my school friend Gordon Fraser and me as a way for us to flex our creative muscles. Gordon drew the strip, I inked it and we both wrote it (sometimes together, sometimes separably). We had a lot of fun with it and let our imaginations run wild. Even though the strip was set on a farm, we quickly populated it with talking dinosaurs, time-travelling inventors and visiting aliens. It lasted for two years before a new editor of the local paper decided to axe it.

But the Funny Farm didn’t end there. We developed it as an animated TV show and we went to the Annecy Animation Festival where it was optioned by Nelvana, a Canadian animation production company. It felt like we’d hit the jackpot! We talked about moving to Canada to be story editors and exec producers on the show, but it never went into production. The excitement faded and we went on with our lives. But years later the chance came to revisit it and do some more work on it. I was running my own animation studio and thought it’d be great to develop the Funny Farm, now re-titled as Farmageddon. We created 3D models of the characters, locations and props, and started to do some animation tests. You can take a look at our development blog from that time here.

We managed to secure some development money and we took the project to Cannes.

We had plenty of interest but, for lots of reasons, we never quite managed to get it off the ground, and it remains an itch that I didn’t quite manage to scratch. I miss working on it, and I miss playing with the ideas with Gordon, his devious sense of humour was a deep well of creativity. So, Farmageddon is almost thirty years old now and its still there in the back of my mind, just waiting for its day in the sun.

Farmageddon from Qurios on Vimeo.

Creating a book cover

Want to see how I went about creating the cover for Tobin Artichoke and the Queen of Heaven? Take a look at this short video on YouTube for in insight into the process.

And if you want to read the book you can find it here!

Celebrating the Arkship Saga

Exactly one year ago I released Arkship Obsidian, the first book in the Arkship Saga. Now the saga is four books and growing, and I can’t quite believe that I’ve managed to write and release over a quarter of a million words on the subject of big spaceships!

The saga so far consists of:

There will be a sixth book which will wrap up some of the story threads, then I’ve plans for a prequel trilogy which will explore the events leading up to the destruction of Earth and the exodus of humanity. So, lots of story still to tell.

Thanks to all the readers of the saga for your feedback and support over the last year, it keeps me writing! And if you’re new to the Arkship Saga then go grab Arkship Countdown and see what it’s all about.

Out Today: Tobin Artichoke And The Queen Of Heaven

Today’s the day! Tobin Artichoke and the Queen of Heaven is out now, and you can read it here.

What’s it about?
When an ancient artefact – The Queen of Heaven -is found in the junk of a flea market, Tobin Artichoke and his decapitated brother Drake find themselves on a quest that takes them from London to a secret cave under a nuclear power station, to Hell, the Afterlife and beyond.

In a race against time, Tobin becomes the reluctant representative of a distracted deity, and the fate of all humanity rests in his hands. But Tobin couldn’t care less about other people, and saving every living soul might just be the death of him!

Tobin Artichoke and the Queen of Heaven is the first book in a new urban fantasy series. If you like Douglas Adams, Robert Rankin and Terry Pratchett then this might just be your cup of tea!

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