british science fiction – The Human Legion

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 […]

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 […]

January 23, 2022

Listen to Conan the Space Monster?

Just a quick update to let you know that my latest release isn’t You Pay; We Slay as I had thought. Instead, it’s the audiobook edition of In The Wings. That’s how it often works: the audiobook editions pop up at a random date a while after the eBook and paperback. For my story in this anthology, I bought a collection of Robert E. Howard Conan the Barbarian stories and read the lot. I wanted my alien space monster to play the role of Conan, you see. To be honest, I don’t think anyone will listen to the result and see any connection, but I don’t mind because I’m proud of my story and had a wonderful time doing my […]

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 […]

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 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. […]

February 3, 2021

Chimera Company relaunches. Taylor speaks out!

Take the sense of adventure from Star Wars, add the I’m-not-sure-I’d-actually-want-to-live-there dystopia of Warhammer 40k, and stir in a lot of fun. That’s how I see Chimera Company. It launched as a serial in 2019, which seemed to put a lot of people off. Theogony Books from Chris Kennedy Publishing is relaunching the series as novels starting Feb 5th. That’s this Friday. That’s super grand news for me because I’m so in love with this series that I don’t want it to die young. There will be five novels being released by the summer. If you’ve read Season 1 of Chimera Company already, then you need to be aware that The Fall of Rho-Torkis is the same as the old […]

June 19, 2020

The Dark Before the Light – out today.

The latest novel in my ‘Midnight’ sequence of Four Horsemen Universe stories is out today, June 19th. This carries on the action from Endless Night and takes us throughout the Spine Nebula in the fight against Endless Night and their (sometimes) allies. I’ve been co-writing the follow-on novel, One Minute to Midnight, with Chris Kennedy, and we’re just a few days away from completing that. I think I’ll need to go lie down in a darkened room once it’s all over, because it’s climactic stuff! (But only for a few minutes because I’m already working on the next installment for Chimera Company). Here are some more dates: August 18th: is the audio launch for ‘Endless Night’ August 21st: will be […]