tctaylor

April 13, 2017

The countdown to Operation Breakdown starts now

Bloodied yet defiant, the Legion fightback on Tranquility-4 starts here… Operation Breakout commences April 25th. Clear your diary because if you enjoyed The Legion Awakes and Fortress Beta City, you will want to move out with Lance Scipio and his comrades as they take the fight to the Hardits in this, the third novel in the Sleeping Legion series of bestselling military science fiction novels by JR Handley.

March 29, 2017

He writes! He talks! He has a new book out. It’s JR Handley!

Many readers of humanlegion.com have been in touch to ask whether JR Handley is a real person or a malevolent, alien gestalt intelligence from a hellish dimension intent on dominating our own. Others have inquired if the ‘author’ is really alive at all, suspecting he is really a rogue 1997 code branch of ‘Clippy’, the Microsoft Office Assistant. Fortunately for these concerned and possibly fictitious individuals, JR Handley has recently spent an hour chatting with Dead Robots Society hosts Paul E. Cooley and Terry Mixon, which you can hear here. Not content with this attempt to prove his existence, JR then proceeded to conduct an extensive interview with Sri Lankan techno-thriller author, Yudhanjaya Wijeratne. Alien intelligence or Clippy the Office Assistant, […]

March 22, 2017

Marine Cadet

After a good day tidying up the ending to Second Strike (honest, Ronnie!) I wanted to do a little experiment. Can you see an image below this text? Is it animated (UPDATE: you now need to click/tap on the image to get the big/flashy version), and if it does, is it irritating as hell? By the way, if you know Marine Cadet you might remember that when we first meet Arun McEwan, he’s getting into trouble deep underground in alien tunnels, and those are the tunnels you can see in the background of this image (okay it’s clearer in closeup). Don’t want to give too much away about the climax to the Human Legion series coming later in the year, but in […]

March 21, 2017

The Subjugation of Humanity

You are instructed to attend the Tawfiq Memorial in Victory City (formerly Washington DC) at midday on day 241, year 27, for a ceremony marking the formal subjugation of humanity. The people of Earth give thanks to our Hardit New Order liberators and wish our lives to have meaning and purpose. Even though the Human Legion has been destroyed, our continued service to the New Order remains essential to give some limited worth to our wretched existence. Failure to attend with enthusiasm will result in the public execution of everyone you know. ONE EMPIRE! ONE SCENT! ONE LEADER! By order of Romulus – Governor of Earth and Greater Terra under the gracious authority of Supreme Leader, Tawfiq Woomer-Calix. THIS IS […]

March 20, 2017

No Marine Left Behind: a new Sleeping Legion novelette

I’m lifting my head above the writing and publishing trenches for a few moments to share some exciting news about an imminent new Sleeping Legion book launch, a new audiobook deal, and more. If you follow JR Handley’s blog, you’ll already know about a novellete he’s been working on called No Marine Left Behind. Well, he’s no longer working on it because it’s done. Written, edited, rewritten, re-edited, finished! It’s now just his publisher standing between this killer new story and the readers who will love to read it. Yeah, well that’s me, so I’ll be brief because there’s work to be done to bring this out. I’ll be doing the fancy book description when it launches, but the story features Marines left […]

March 10, 2017

Cover reveal: Hill 435

The next Legion Bulletin going out very soon to signed up Legionaries will have download links to a new Human Legion short story. Actually, it isn’t new because it’s a slightly revised version of the story I sold to the Crises & Conflicts anthology by Newcon Press a while back, but since that hasn’t sold much, most of you won’t have seen this, and that’s a shame because I’m very proud of it. I can’t tell you too much about it because it would give away some of the twists, but there is plenty of action and hopefully a surprise or two. Today I’ve built the eBook and put some cover art together. I… ahem… have been known to occasionally have […]

March 4, 2017

For those in search of refreshment…

A sight for parched throats, following extensive personal testing I can attest that this device is suitable for coffee, whiskey, and coffee and whiskey. Other fluids to be used with this item at your own risk. A few diehard Legion crazies have been after swag for a long time now. I licensed all the images for this mug now, and I’ll be doing more. Best of all, now I have swag, I’ll be giving some away to random signed-up Legionaries every month. If you’re on the Legion books by the end of March, you’re in with a chance of a mug guarded by Lance Scipio and his SA-71 carbine. You can always sign up for free here. If you can’t wait, you […]

March 2, 2017

Welcome to Thomas, our new copy editor

Today I welcome Thomas Weaver to the Legion team. Thomas is currently sharpening his copy editor’s eyeballs in readiness to receive the third Sleeping Legion novel, Operation Breakout, which is already with developmental editor, Corey Truax. Welcome, Thomas, welcome. Thomas Weaver is a writer, editor, and blogger who got into professional editing almost by accident years ago when a gamer friend from university needed someone to copyedit a screenplay about giant stompy robots (mecha). Having discovered that he greatly enjoys this kind of work, he’s been putting his uncanny knack for grammar and punctuation, along with an eclectic mental collection of facts, to good use ever since as a Wielder of the Red Pen of Doom. Thomas is disabled and […]

February 12, 2017

BattleNet cyber attack

The fictional soldiers JR Handley and I write about in the worlds of the Human Legion are linked by BattleNet. Ammo state, health, secure comms, shared targeting information — there’s a lot of value in all those AIs and their humans acting almost as a group mind. Unfortunately, that makes BattleNet a target for cyber attack. The real-life BattleNet, the name for our forums, is also vulnerable. We’ve had thousands of fake accounts being created in the past few days. Everything looks safe elsewhere on the site, but the system is being swamped by malicious attackers. I’m temporarily suspending BattleNet. Thanks to everyone who used it, including some great advice from recon teams. I’ll reinstate it when and if I […]

January 28, 2017

Legion Bulletin #12 out now

Legionaries should have received Legion Bulletin #12 yesterday, featuring Ndeki’s rough guide to aliens (!), and downloadable computer, tablet and phone wallpapers for The Legion Awakes. If you’re using GMail then the Bulletin will be in the Promotions tab. If you join the Legion then you’ll get access to this and all past issues of the Bulletin.