Blake's 7: The Liberator Chronicles Vol 4 - Released!

It's that time already - another of my writing projects has been released to the public and it's taken me completely by surprise. This time it's my second piece of fiction for the classic SF TV series Blake's 7.

I've been away from the old interwebby thing for a little while, so this morning I was browsing a few of my favourite sites and stumbled upon the news that Big Finish have released the latest Blake's 7: Liberator Chronicles box set, which features an audio play written by me on it.

The new Volume 4 box set features three brand new audio plays, including my story Epitaph, starring Sally Kynvette as Jenna and Michael Keating as Vila. It was released on Friday 3rd May, and can be bought either on the Big Finish website HERE or over on Amazon HERE.

Amazingly, the first review has appeared online too, written by the official Blake's 7 fan club Horizon, and can be read HERE.

Archangel - A Review From Denmark

I just wanted to share with you another review for my Blake's 7 novel that has popped up online recently, this time from an awesome reader over in Denmark called Dawn Christoffersen, who not only tweeted me a link to her review, but also a picture of her holding a copy of the book. Thanks Dawn.

"Somewhere in space, a grissling project is being brought back to life. What is it, and why is a cybernetics engineer so intent on putting a stop to it? Blake and his crew take up uncovering the terrible truth about Archangel, a project that should never have existed.

When you read books based on tv shows, there's always the danger that it's going to be a generic story with characters that happen to share the names of those you know from the show in question. If you're lucky, though, you'll get an author who knows the universe and the characters very well and who can write within those perimeters. Archangel is a perfect example of the latter. Not only is it an engaging read, a real page turner, but Scott Harrison has the characters's voices down *perfectly*. Imagining Avon, Vila and Blake speaking was no effort at all, and the snark and the humor was spot on as well. Since Vila is my favorite character, I was glad to see him feature quite a lot. The horror elements of the story are very fitting and gives the story a dark edge which I quite enjoyed. If you love Blake's 7, don't miss out on this one!

4 / 5 stars."

A Reader's Review of Blake's 7: Archangel

Here's a rather sweet review of my Blake's 7 novel Archangel which a lovely reader (and B7 fan) in Australia called D. Worsley posted recently, after buying the Kindle release on Amazon.


"The Federation is an evil, despicable organisation and Blake is right to fight it. Goes without saying really, for anyone who's seen even just the first episode of the excellent TV serial, but what it's done in Archangel may actually outdo even what they did to Blake (repeat brainwashing, torture, framing him as a paedophile...).

I won't spoil WHAT the Federation's sanctioned in Archangel, but it's all done - the experiments, the torture, the brainwashing, the slow degradation of a man's soul all to create a pilot for a new type of spaceship - one even faster than Liberator.

It's a characterful novel, showing Blake's slow descent into being a man for whom the ends justify the means someone actively fighting against the events of his past and the people who he's betrayed through inattention and being a pawn of the Federation. Blake was broken by Gan's death in the TV episode Pressure Point, and here he sets out to prevent another man dying because of his zeal. The other crew members of the Liberator are equally in character, Vila depressed by Gan's recent death desperately looking for some safety, Avon playing all angles in order to preserve his skin, Cally and Jenna loyal to Blake but even their loyalty is starting to become tarnished by the shadows of the past. In my review of the previous novel The Forgotten I lamented Vila (who was always entertaining on TV) was given nothing to do, here that isn't a problem, he's as active in the plot as Avon or Blake, even Cally and Jenna (both somewhat redundant on TV, sadly) play a role their specific skills being used in order to keep the crew safe and alive. Slithering into the story is Servelan, and we get to see what she was doing before becoming Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and if anything it makes her even more of a monster than Space Commander "the Butcher of Zercaster" Travis.

There are a few nice sequences we would never have gotten on TV - including a thrilling sequence of Liberator screaming through a planet's atmosphere a la the Battlestar Galactica during the liberation of New Caprica and another space battle, this time told from a wider perspective full of clever ship rolls and sweeping vistas rather than The Forgotten's homage to the TV series showing the battle from the perspective of the Liberator's control room.

All told, I enjoyed it - I can't wait for the next in the series which is set just after Star One, showing Liberator's sole stand defending the galaxy against the invaders from Andromeda.

4 / 5 Stars."

News Catch Up

Have been busy of late, so thought it was about time I did a quick catch up and round up of all the news and releases planned for the year ahead.

Over the past week I've been thrashing out a storyline with the editor for a TV tie-in book I'll be writing over the coming weeks / months, so hopefully I'll be able to announce that very soon!

As work continues on my next book, The Horus Engines, (which will be the first book in the new Dieselpunk/Steampunk/Alternate Timeline novel range Tales Of The Iron War), publishers Snowbooks have been sending me mock ups of the front cover artwork, and it is looking awesome! I'm hoping to see the final design very soon now, which I will post up on my blog immediately, of course!

The book will be published later in the year, and as soon as work has finished on both of the above projects, I'll then be starting work on the second novel in the range, titled Cold Earth, which is scheduled for publication at the very end of the year. Books III, IV and V are already under development

(Incidentally, a local bookshop has already expressed an interest in holding an author reading and signing event for The Horus Engines, which I'm obviously very keen to do. So watch this space for more details.)

Work is being completed on the second anthology, a horror book called Twisted Histories (full details very soon), and a third and fourth are already scheduled for late 2013/early 2014. Prepatory work is already under way for two further anthologies to be released later in 2014 (one of which will be a 'sequel' of sorts to the Resurrection Engines anthology).

I'm also writing a handful of short stories and novellas for various anthologies and magazines.

COMING SOON in 2013:

Blake's 7: Epitaph  -  audio play in Vol 4 of The Liberator Chronicles from Big Finish, May
Twisted Histories  -  Horror anthology. Spring
The Horus Engines  -  Alternate Timeline novel. Mid/late 2013
TV Tie-In Book  -  Mid 2013.
Anthology 3  -  SF anthology. Late 2013
Cold Earth  -  Alternate Timeline novel. December


"You can contact me via the email address on the right hand side of the page, just below my Bio!"

Liberator Chronicles Trailer

Delighted to announce that the trailer for the next Liberator Chronicles box set, Volume 4, has just gone up on the Big Finish website.

The release includes my audio play Epitaph which features Sally Knyvette and Michael Keating reprising their roles as Jenna Stannis and Vila Restal, in an adventure which sees the two Liberator crewmates answering a distress call from a spaceship, eventually leading Jenna to the surviving members of her family.

You can listen to the full trailer HERE

The box set, containing three audio plays from myself, Nigel Fairs and Nick Wallace is released in May and can be preordered now.

Resurrection Engines - Two Reviews

While I was away on a wee break last week two wonderful reviews for Resurrection Engines appeared, both online and in the national newspapers.

The first was in the Saturday edition of the Financial Times and, for those that missed it, is also available to read online HERE.

Reviewer James Lovegrove said of the anthology;

"Robots abound. Dr Jekyll’s monstrous alter-ego is a sentient military exoskeleton, Peter Pan creates his own scrap-metal Lost Boys, and Silas Marner, in a moving tale by Alison Littlewood, adopts an artificial Eppie..."

and

"...Juliet E McKenna’s feminist rewrite of She is cunning and funny, and Philip Palmer adds aliens to The Woman in White to great effect. Adam Roberts’s delirious The Crime of the Ancient Mariner replaces Coleridge’s sea voyage with time travel, and works a treat."

He went on to conclude;

"...this anthology is both varied and consistently entertaining."

The second review appeared in Issue 147 of Hub Magazine. This time reviewer Paul Simpson wrote;

"Scott Harrison’s very different account of Jekyll and Hyde, Kim Lakin-Smith’s The Island of Peter Pandora, and Cavan Scott’s Fairest Of Them All examine some of the same themes as their inspirations but add an even darker side to them..."

and

"The final story is my personal favourite: Jim Mortimore’s take on Robin Hood, which derives its cues from many different versions of the myth and then throws in some H.P. Lovecraft to salt the mixture. Mortimore can sometimes try to juggle too many concepts at once, but he’s been effectively reined in on this so there is a logic to what appears to be grand insanity."

The reviewer concludes with;

"A varied and very enjoyable collection."

Issue 147 is free and can be downloaded for pdf HERE.

Interviewed at SF Signal

Just before Christmas I was interviewed by the chaps over at SF Signal about the recent Steampunk anthology Resurrection Engines. The interview has now gone live and you can read it HERE. I also waffle on about the forthcoming Tales Of The Iron War novels and a few of my childhood influences.

Now that the Christmas period has officially ended and 2013 begins in earnest, I'm back at my desk and facing a very busy but satisfying twelve months ahead. Work continues on the first Tales novel - The Horus Engines - for a June publication, editing work has begun on the second anthology - a horror anthology called Twisted Histories - which will be published by Snowbooks in early Spring, and another two anthologies in the range will appear later in the year (one SF, the other featuring stories set within the H.P. Lovecraft Cthulhu Mythos). And my second Tales Of The Iron War novel - a wintery horror-tinged story called Cold Earth - will round the year off nicely.

I'll also be fitting various other bits of writing in between those, of course, so I'll hope to have other announcements as and when during the course of the year!