my longer stories
All stories are easy to start, but these are by far the hardest to finish. You really have to stay the distance. Most demanding of my limited skill and mental fortitude; most satisfying to have completed. Echoes of a Lost Earth is my first work of fiction and as a consequence, it shows in places. It is also the work that I am most proud of because of that. Even American Gods Die is probably the most accomplished; great characters, fast paced.
Echoes of a Lost Earth
Drafted between 2007-09, re-edited and updated between 2021-23. Echoes of a Lost Earth, at 180,000 words (810 pages, approx), is a speculative look at a future where a sudden climate shift sees humankind struggling to adapt, creating the conditions for self-annihilation and renewal. (This is not a war story or hard military sci-fi, although there are some soldiers and a big war).
Book I: Dance Said the Devil
Book II: The Better Part of Valour
Book III: They Used to Call it M.A.D.
Book IV: Rocks in the Road
Book V: By the Light of an Ancient Sun
This story idea came to me while I was studying at war college; the premise being, 'how to solve a problem like the climate when there are no acceptable solutions'. This story is my attempt to answer that simple/complex question.
After The Rise
Written in 2020 and at just under 99,000 words (390 pages, approx), After the Rise is a homage to two great speculative fictions: A Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) and Logan's Run (William F. Nolan & George Clayton Johnson). Two fantastic works of dystopian futurism. I do not place this work in that company, only that I have tried to offer my own humble take on these giants of dystopian themed fiction. The whole thing started off as a story about original thought, but the world I created for that idea took over and so I held Original Thought back and told it as a separate short story.
Part One – A Modern Mediocrity
Part Two – Into the Wylders
Part Three – Terminus
For me, it's the world creation: the faux-religious reverence to the Modergreat and Goodly Iterator and the Great Remembering; the three tribes based arbitrarily upon the Martin Scale (Sienna, Tourmaline and Livid); Quarterly Adjustment; and the mediocracy itself as a midoptian ideal. I also wanted the five main characters to evolve as the story developed. And I like the layering-in of the foundational, Old England backstory.
Even American Gods Die
Written in 2022, edited in 2025, and at just under 161,000 words (730 pages, approx), this story is about future tech, machine gods, and a financial system that we've stopped understanding. Told in five parts, Even American Gods Die is based upon two ideas: One, that a future collapse of the global financial system is deliberate, to fund something massive; Two, that machine consciousnesses, born of the Singularity, have desires and ambitions beyond humanity. The title refers to both AI and the global, dollarised financial system. It opens with a murder mystery and is a fast-paced action story, where I try to weave in some of these big ideas.
Part One – Death of a King
Part Two – The Depths of a Soul
Part Three – There is a Space between Places
Part Four – In the Shadow of the Sun
Part Five – Not all Gods Die.
The Difference Engine
Written in 2024 and at 55,000 words (204 pages, approx), this is an alternate history story with a twist, covering four divergent realities for the main character who lives in the same place and at the same time in each.
I have wanted to write a 'what if' type alt history story for some time and this one has taken a while to come together as I have had other projects to work on. So while it focuses on the building of each world, there is also a thread running through them all that strings them together. I also take a look at the idea of the multiverse (quite popular right now) but not in the obvious way. And, there is a bit of a love story and consideration of what it is to be human.
AIR
To follow.
What's the plan to publish these longer stories?
I am going the indie author route and will publish them through a bespoke publishing company. This will make them widely available as ebooks and in paperback. Once the preparatory work is done, then I will go through the technical process of publication for all these titles.