The Human Legion

October 1, 2021

On Deadly Ground

It’s book launch day… and more! The latest anthology from Bayonet Books is out and my name is on the cover! (And what a great cover it is too, courtesy of Jamie Glover). On Deadly Ground: A Heroic Last Stand is out today and features Ten Tales of glorious (?) last stands. My story features Steve “Stiletto” Cauldwell, the anti-hero of the Time Dogz. Not entirely through choice, he is embroiled in humanity’s desperate last stand in the shadow of the beautiful rings of Saturn. This was a try out for a potential new books series. I’m about a third of the way through the first Time Dogz novel, so Stiletto must have done something right for me. It’s out […]

August 11, 2021

Monster at the Gate — all the saucy secrets

I had a chat over on the Blasters & Blades Podcast about the Monster at the Gate story that came out a few weeks ago in In the Wings. Secrets were divulged.

August 10, 2021

Time Travel Shenanigans in The Reality War

After beavering away for the last two months, I can now proudly announce that The Reality War is rewritten, polished, repainted, and now sports the words ‘2nd Edition’ on the copyright pages. For those who don’t know (and I wouldn’t blame you) the two novels in The Reality War were the first novels of mine to be published, back in 2011. Although they are set in the Human Legion Universe, they are a different style to later books, such as Marine Cadet. Consequently, I didn’t speak of them much, worrying that readers who enjoyed the Human Legion might not take to the earlier books. That, I decided, was unfair on The Reality War. It’s been bothering me for years, because […]

July 12, 2021

In the Wings

My latest book has just come out in Kindle and paperback editions from Seventh Seal Press. This is In the Wings, the latest Four Horsemen Universe anthology. The first anthology (A Fistful of Credits, 2017) was my introduction to the 4HU, and it excited me enough that I was soon writing 4HU stories myself. I hope this new 4HU anthology (the tenth!) will be a happy starting point for some more readers. In this book, fifteen of us have taken leading support characters from earlier stories and made them the stars they always were. My story was about how rogue trader, Captain Jenkins, fell foul of the Earth authorities and wound up plying the trade lanes of the Spine Nebula. […]

July 2, 2021

Are you willing to Hold the Line?

I have another book launch today! Hold the Line is the fifth and best Chimera Company novel and it’s published today by Theogony Books, featuring Vincent Sammy on the crayons. Audio will follow later with Steve Campbell on the voices. This is my 21st published novel, which means I have officially come of age and am now a writing adult. Or something. What I like most about this is that my writing has changed for the better since my first serious attempt at a novel, which was shipped around various publishers in the late naughties. A small press outfit called Solaris requested a full manuscript and sat on it for a year before declining. At the time that almost felt […]

June 23, 2021

Legion Bulletin #124

Octo Racing! Greetings from the sunny depths of England, where the Covid restrictions will soon be relaxed and I’m starting to plan some Octo Racing for August. Please don’t confuse this with the traditional races featuring elite sports octopi. I’m referring, of course, to racing octogenarians. As far as I can make out, my family’s enjoyed the beach at Walton-on-the-Naze every year since the 1930s, interrupted only by Adolf Hitler and Covid. My parents’ legs aren’t too clever these days, so their loving grandson has decided we’ll mark a racetrack out on the beach and push them in their wheelchairs. If I receive a concerned phone call tomorrow, I’ll know they’ve read this edition of the bulletin. Don’t worry, Dad! You’ll be strapped […]

June 14, 2021

I Go Full Tolkien

I’ve just typed ‘The End’ and sent off a couple of novelettes for anthologies. One’s a space opera adventure with plenty of exotic aliens. The other is unusual for me in that the story of hired assassins has no fantastical elements. Well, it’s set in an alternate version of contemporary America, so it’s technically a fantasy, I guess, but there are no ray guns or interstellar squids, so I’m keeping it real for this one. Fingers crossed they get accepted. I have some tidying up and admin things crying out for attention before I start on my next novel. One of those things is the website at humanlegion.com, which I think needs trimming back and then tuning up. If there’s […]

May 19, 2021

Meet the Smuggler Queen

Theogony Books has just launched the latest Chimera Company novel. If evil terraforming operations, the exotic court of a sector crime boss, and an alien goat with attitude are your thing, the fourth Chimera Company novel is for you. Prior to this, the Theogony novels have been a mix of new material and old. Smuggler Queen is all new. I sent the the fifth novel, Hold the Line, off to the publisher yesterday today. Hopefully they’ll like it, because it’s due to be published next month! I also was fortunate enough to have my second Covid vaccine yesterday, and my brain is currently mush being massaged by a pneumatic drill. Hopefully these words make some kind of sense! If they […]

April 16, 2021

Be careful what you say… or don’t say.

The latest Chimera Company novel is published today. As a writer, getting books out and into the hands readers (or their ears) is what it’s all about. Department 9 is my nineteenth novel. I have decided that novelists come of age after 21 novels, because that’s a milestone I expect to meet in the summer. Since I’ve not yet come of age, Department 9 is filled with writerly teenage vigor, and I use it to go dystopian in a world where failure to report an illegal act wins you the same punishment as if you were the perpetrator. And anything is illegal if those in authority choose it to be. Also goats. And ancient temples buried beneath desert sands. Thank […]

March 13, 2021

The spy who came in from the void…

Operation Redeal is out now for Kindle and paperback. If cool space ships, ancient space stations, even more Dyson rings, and interstellar shenanigans are your thing, then I think you’ll enjoy it. While not strictly necessary, it’s even more fun if you’ve read The Fall of Rho-Torkis first. For anyone who read the 2019 serials, Operation Redeal is made up partially of material from the old season 2 and partially brand new adventure. Here are some links for the new book. amazon.com | amazon.co.uk | amazon.com.au | amazon.ca | amazon.de I’m happy to report that I’m a further ahead in my writing than this new release. I expect to finish the first draft of book 5 next week, a novel […]

February 13, 2021

On Second Chances

[This article first appeared in the Legion Bulletin, the essential Legionary journal.] I hit 51 years of age earlier this week. I’ve learned a few things over those years. Not many, admittedly, but a few. One of them is that life rarely gives you second chances. And on those rare occasions when it does, your best response is to seize this precious opportunity with all six limbs (as the Jotuns are wont to say). The scarcity of second chances is particularly true in the world of creative arts and entertainment. We’ve all seen TV shows cancelled just as they’re getting interesting, the book trilogies that never made it past Book 1 because the publisher pulled the plug, the game that […]

February 6, 2021

February 6, 2021

New release: The Fall of Rho-Torkis

And we’re off! The first book in the re-launch of Chimera Company is now available. I’m very proud of it. The pithy summary: I used the following as my touchstones when dreaming up Chimera Company. The sense of adventure and the lived-in aesthetics of the first three Star Wars movies. The sense of a galaxy split into factions of Warhammer 40,000. Plus some of the sense of the weird. And the excitement I felt as a kid when 2000AD comic dropped through my letterbox. (I know most of you don’t know much about 2000AD, so just take it from me that it was a mind-blowing thrill ride) I blended those together and was off to the races. I still am. […]