The Human Legion

September 1, 2023

The Six Secrets of Chimera Company

#3 – “How to channel the Lord of the Rings” Catch the Rainbow August 18th, 2023 saw the release of the sixth and final book in the series: The Last Redoubt. To mark the end of the series I’m publishing the Six Secrets of Chimera Company, in which I’ll delve into one aspect of the series that I find particularly cool, and then spill a few secrets for each book in turn. If you just want to race ahead and buy the book, here’s the series link on Amazon Amazon.com | amazon.co.uk | amazon.oz | amazon.ca You can also try out the series by reading one of the three Chimera Company prequel novelettes (one for each of the following three […]

August 30, 2023

The Six Secrets of Chimera Company

#2 – “Ice Planets are really… cool!” Into the Void Rocket engines burning fuel so fast… yes, we blast up into the night sky with the launch of the sixth and final Chimera Company book. The Last Redoubt. To mark the end of the series, and to get your reading juices flowing, I’m publishing the Six Secrets of Chimera Company. In it, I’ll be delving into one aspect of the series that I find particularly cool, and then spilling a few secrets for each book in turn. If you just want to race ahead and buy the book, here’s the series link on Amazon Amazon.com | amazon.co.uk | amazon.oz | amazon.ca You can also try out the series by reading […]

August 17, 2023

The Six Secrets of Chimera Company

#1 – “I’ve got your six…” Stand by for Exciter The factional nightmare of Warhammer 40,000… The lived-in galaxy of adventure of Star Wars… And as we shall see, a pinch of Lord of the Rings… Yes, it’s Chimera Company. August 18th, 2023 sees the release of the sixth and final book in the series: The Last Redoubt. To mark the end of the series, and to get you juiced up to read, I’ll be publishing the Six Secrets of Chimera Company. In it, I’ll be delving into one aspect of the series that I find particularly cool, and then spilling a few secrets for each book in turn. If you just want to race ahead and buy the book, […]

March 28, 2023

The Last Redoubt

=== This post is taken from Legion Bulletin #151 == The End… Greetings from Bedfordshire, where the spring warmth is here. And just as well because the bloomin’ boiler’s packed up. As you know, I’ve had some brain problems over the past year and that’s caused mayhem with my writing schedule. The medics are still puzzling over me. It’s probably an alien brain parasite chewing through my neurons before seizing control of my mind, in the mistaken belief that if it can control me then it can control anything remotely important. (Unless you count my modest selection of vehicles in World of Tanks). However, I’m fighting it off and my writing mojo has returned sufficiently that I typed “The End” […]

November 1, 2022

When Strontium Dog met a racing Jag E-Type

Welcome to a story of deception and daring, inspired by in equal parts by the Goodwood Revival car racing festival and Strontium Dog, the bounty hunter from 1970s 2000 A.D. [more on the inspiration at the end]* This is “Contract Fulfilled” my first 4HU (Four Horsemen Universe) story, which ended up in the excellent anthology For a Few Credits More back in 2017. I only intended to write the one story, but I enjoyed the other stories in For a Few Credits More so much that I thought there might be something to this 4HU thing and I wanted a part of it. After “Contract Fulfilled”, I took the characters I had developed within the 4HU setting and went on […]

October 16, 2022

My New Release: Deadly Enhancements

You might remember Frakkers!, a story I wrote earlier in the year about a mutant bounty hunter (Karnage Zax) and his cyborg sidekick, (Itka Jowiszka) . Came out in a bounty hunter anthology called We Dare: Wanted Dead or Alive. I enjoyed the story so much that I wrote a follow-up that swapped things around, so the cyborg takes the lead and the mutant is her sidekick. You’re Frakked! is in a cyborg-themed anthology called Deadly Enchantments that was published yesterday. This is my first cyberpunk story, and look at the cover it’s in! I think it’s magnificent. Here’s the buy link: https://geni.us/DeadlyEnhancements You’re Frakked! in the new anthology follows on directly from FRAkkers! in the ‘We Dare’ anthology. For […]

October 16, 2022

October 16, 2022

Life Imitating Art. My Art.

This post was originally published in Legion Bulletin #128. Join the Legion to receive the Bulletin. The power of story Stories have power. Don’t underestimate that power. Because compelling stories have motivated people to tear down empires, endure hideous torture and death, and to reshape the world. Whether the stories being told have much truth to them matters not a jot. In recent months, I’ve seen this truism up close in real life. It’s also a theme I’ve used throughout the Chimera Company series. I’ve found the similarities uncanny. I’ve written about the oppression of the so-called mutants, egged on by the likes of Kadeja Independent News on the planet of Kryzabik (Book4: Smuggler Queen). Then there’s the utopian-dystopian world […]

July 15, 2022

Me, Multiple Sclerosis, and the SciFi Readers Chart Show.

I’ve just posted some fun and not quite so fun news over on my personal blog. I don’t wish to be overly dramatic about this, but in light of my increasing neurological problems, I’m no longer confident about how much time I have left to write novels at the level I know I can deliver. It could be many years, I hasten to point out. But it might be a lot less. Consequently, I have reprioritized my writing projects. If I have to stop writing novels, I don’t want to leave any book series unfinished. I’ve just completed a good draft of Time Dogz#2. I had intended to get that to a trilogy before attempting to interest publishers. Instead, I’m […]

May 11, 2022

Two new stories from me

You know how it is. You go for weeks and then two anthologies turn up at once! We Dare: Wanted Dead or Alive came out last week and is themed on bounty hunters and the hunted. My story, FRAkkers, features a mutant bounty hunter and his cyborg sidekick. The name comes from the Felon Recovery Agency, which regards their ‘Baleview’ bounty hunters to be just as bad as the felons they hunt. When I was a kid, I enjoyed the Strontium Dog strip in 2000AD comic. I remember someone at the Search/Destroy Agency who hated his mutant bounty hunters so much that he hoped some of them would be killed bringing in a particular bounty. That might be a false […]

May 3, 2022

New books coming this week and next

Here’s the lowdown on three new releases. This Friday (May 6th) sees “FRAkkers”, my mutant bounty hunter anti-hero story in We Dare: Wanted, Dead or Alive out Friday. His cyborg sidekick will hopefully get her own story released in another anthology later this year. What can I say? Strontium Dog meets Gill “the ARM” Hamilton with aliens like you’ve never seen before. Standing Fast on Foreign shores (May 10th) is post-apoc royal intrigue and action set in The Last Brigade Universe. The action moves across post-Collapse England from Birmingham to Bristol to Colchester. As these things do. And if you ever wondered what happens in Scotland after the Apocalypse, author David Appleby’s got that covered. And talking of new book […]