The Human Legion

September 22, 2015

A map is discovered of the planet of Tranquility

Many thanks go out to humanlegion.com regular, Sgt Mike, who has painstakingly restored this alien map of Tranquility, and helpfully added some English labels, while preserving the alien text in the border. The timing is most excellent because we’re not yet done with this planet! There will be a special announcement about further background material later this week.

September 17, 2015

Human Empire Force Recon Team: recruiting now!

Update: the sign up period has now closed, and initial Recon Team candidates are being contacted. Stay sharp, though, in case we need to call up the reserves 🙂 Human Empire is the fourth book in the Human Legion series. If real life behaved itself, the book would be available to buy now. But no plan survives contact with reality, as you know. Ours certainly hasn’t, but we’ve never stopped re-knotting our plan in a way that would make the Duke of Wellington proud. And it’s worked! We pulled some time back, and we’re just days away from finishing. We’ve had some wonderful messages of support from fans, but I’m sure for some that it’s been such a long time since […]

August 27, 2015

Human Empire release update

Bad news on the release date of the fourth book: Human Empire 🙁 A month ago Ian and I were confident we’d be finishing the book around about now, and handing it over to the Recon Team prior to a mid-September release. We’ve slipped. A release early October is more realistic. Between Ian and myself we’ve had one bereavement and one very ill family member in recent weeks. I’m not apologizing for any of us putting family first under difficult circumstances, but I am deeply disappointed that we’ve lost all traction for 2-3 weeks. We’re back in the game now, though. Well, nearly… I’m taking my family for a vacation next week. We think the book is well worth the wait. Well, […]

August 12, 2015

Human Empire — read the preview now!

Human Empire, the fourth book in the Human Legion series is a few weeks away. I promised you an early reveal of the first few chapters, and here it is available now 🙂 I’ve made it available as a Kindle or ePUB format eBook. If you ask for one in a comment to this post, I’ll send you one. Simple as that. It’s the first two sections of the novel, which would be about 100 pages in paperback. [Update: I’m going to be offline for a few days while I sit in a muddy camping field. I’ll post any more previews as soon as I get back.] It hasn’t been proofread, and it is possible (though very unlikely) that we might change some of the […]

August 12, 2015

Who is Ian Whates?

My co-writer, Ian Whates, is going to be vital to the conclusion of the Human Legion series. I’m sure fans will be curious to learn more about him, so I’ve interviewed him to reveal his darkest secrets. At the bottom are some links to his most recent novel which is Deal of the Day on Amazon. Now read on… TIM: So, Ian, I’m trying to think how long we’ve known each other. About 2008, I think. Even before we’d met in the flesh, we’d unknowingly encountered each other as aspiring SF writers because we were both getting published in the same SF magazines. In fact, it was a magazine that brought us together. I used to subscribe to Interzone, which […]

August 8, 2015

Human Legion Recruitment Poster — revisions

Added a new name to the poster. There’s a new version of the War Against the White Knights cover artwork too. The images are not painted to match the story (as I’ll explain in another post one day — that’s why I changed the War Against the White Knights image). However, I can go the other way. As you read the next book, Human Empire, hopefully as you’re reading along you’ll give a little start when you realize you are seeing the front cover image through the eyes of one of the characters.

July 29, 2015

Authors United’s letter to the Department of Justice

I don’t discuss politics, religion, or sport on this site. As for Babylon 5 vs. Deep Space 9… I won’t go there. The same goes for culture wars. I try to keep out of those topics because this site is about connecting with fans of the Human Legion series, discussing space opera and military science fiction, and giving bonus goodies and updates. Besides this is an international site. Most of my followers are American, but a substantial proportion of Human Legion fans are from Germany, Canada, Australia and the UK (and at least one from Switzerland… you know who you are!). An English author commenting on American culture wars politics isn’t going to end well, and is going to seem […]

July 14, 2015

LaveCon 2015 report

Downton Abbey. In the past few years, whenever I make new friends in America, and they realize that I’m English, they will often say: ‘Hey, I love Downton Abbey.’. Of course, we all realize the world of Downton Abbey faded away long before I was born, but you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise if you had seen me last Saturday morning as I drove in my open top roadster through rolling green countryside, under perfect blue skies, on my way to… a country mansion: Sedgebrook Hall. The country mansions of the upper classes that used to be dotted throughout England still exist, except they’re now mostly training centers and hotels. Last weekend, Sedgebrook Hall was home to one wedding party, […]

July 4, 2015

Independence Day in Space

From the sun-baked Old Country I wish a happy Fourth of July to all the Human Legion readers in America. If I were a pretzel, slice of cake, or bottle of beer, then I would be in fear for my life on this day of celebration. Getting celebratory food to frontline troops is much harder, although many military organizations have gone to great length to attempt this. But imagine your front line is 20 light years away, and faster than light travel remains the stuff of fiction. How then do you supply your service personnel? With great difficulty. But there are ways around this, as you can see in this new Human Legion Infopedia entry in the Classified Military Data section that I have […]

June 30, 2015

A big announcement about the Human Legion

I love writing the Human Legion books. Even though I have the story mapped out through to book six (and beyond for possible successor series), I often can’t vividly feel what is happening in the minds and hearts of my characters until I’m writing a scene for real. Sometimes my characters surprise me. They aren’t shy about telling me if my story isn’t right, or if they have a more interesting tale to tell than the one I had planned. Consequently I often update my ‘masterplan’. To give a timely Waterloo quote, the Duke of Wellington once said of Napoleon’s marshals: “The French plans are like a splendid leather harness which is perfect when it works, but if it breaks […]