Today’s the day. Two years after the launch of The Girl in the City, the third and final book in the Leah King Trilogy, The Girl in the Machine, is available on Amazon. In a lot of ways, The Girl in the City was an accidental book. I hadn’t planned on writing it, but an idea centred around an event in Michael Bunker’s Pennsylvania series stuck in my mind. At that point, it wasn’t much more than the image of a young girl fleeing the city. I didn’t really know why she was running or what she was running from, and I can’t go into what appealed to me about the idea so much without entering spoiler territory. Suffice to say, Ethel the Muse was quite taken with this little scenario and wouldn’t shut up about it. Eventually, I gave in and wrote a novella in the hope it would scratch that particular itch and I could get back to working on Glitch Mitchell and the Unseen Planet. I wasn’t even going to publish it, but Michael encouraged me and in the end I went ahead, got a cover, had it edited and proofread and published it. Back then it had a different cover. I thought that would be it, … Read More
One Week to Go
There’s just one week to go before The Girl in the Machine launches. This is the point in an author’s life when the tension starts to mount. Will people like it? What if they aren’t happy with the way I ended the series? What if there’s a really bad typo on the first page? Did I get the name of Leah’s mother right? Only one week to go until I find out the answers to all those questions. For teenager Leah King, the war against the authoritarian Transport Agency is personal. With her home destroyed and her family dead, only TRACE gives her life any meaning. Under the mentorship of Sergeant Alice Williams, she’s learning how to travel through the virtual reality networks and is finally discovering her place in this dangerous new world. But a key TRACE operative has been captured. With TRACE leadership reluctant to act, Alice, Leah and the rest of their squad are forced to take matters into their own hands and attempt a rescue. The mission brings Leah face to face with a new and deadly enemy, who just may hold the secrets to her past. But time is running out, and Leah will be forced … Read More
The Girl in the Wilderness Draft Zero
Last night I wrapped up Draft Zero of my next release, a sequel to my science fiction novella set in Michael Bunker’s world of Pennsylvania, The Girl in the City. It’s called The Girl in the Wilderness. What does Draft Zero mean? Well, it’s what I call the very first version of the novel that tells the story from start to finish. There’s usually chapters and paragraphs I know I need to rewrite, foreshadowing I need to add, and almost certainly plot holes you could drive a truck through. But the key points are there and (probably for the first time) I’ve got a good idea of the whole story. There’s still a lot of work to do before the book gets out to you, but it’s a great feeling nevertheless. I hadn’t originally planned on writing a sequel to The Girl in the City and it stands alone very well, but a lot of people have been asking if there will be more stories featuring Leah and I had some strong ideas so I decided to turn the book into a trilogy. The third part – The Girl in the Machine – will follow later this year. I was originally planning on making books two and three novellas that would be roughly 50% … Read More
Get The Girl in the City for FREE
For the next few days, my science fiction novella, The Girl in the City, is available free of charge on Amazon Kindle (US UK Canada). This is the first time I’ve made the book available free and the offer ends May 2nd. Next month, I’m going to be “going wide” with The Girl in the City and making it available on Kobo, iTunes and any other ebook platforms I can find. That means I won’t be able to offer the book for free very easily. I’m also considering increasing the price at the same time. That means it’s likely to be at least a year before the book is available as a freebie. So, if you fancy reading an action packed science fiction tale, now is the chance to pick one up for less than the price of most things. Here’s the description… With the oppressive Transport Authority controlling every aspect of their existence, Leah and her father do what they can to carve a good life for themselves. Leah spends her nights scavenging in the rural zone around the City, risking capture by the Wild Ones as she hunts for salvage her father can trade for food and other essentials. But when Leah takes a bag of salvage … Read More
Apocalypse Weird Q&A: Chris Pourteau
For the third in my series of Apocalypse Weird Q&As, I’m talking to Chris Pourteau, author of The Serenity Strain. I’ve read several of Chris’ books, including his Pennsylvania fan fiction, Gettysburg and Susquehanna and he’s an excellent writer. I’m really looking forward to reading The Serenity Strain. Hi Chris, welcome to the site. Tell us a little bit about your Apocalypse Weird book, The Serenity Strain. Well, it’s a contemporary dystopian horror novel set in Houston, Texas. Basically, three huge hurricanes hit the city, causing massive damage. Remember Hurricane Katrina and the chaotic breakdown of society in the weeks after? Ramp that up on steroids! Before the hurricanes hit, a university researcher who’s trying out a new gene therapy to help control impulsivity—the root of problems like ADHD, addictions, and some violent crime—is weeks into his Phase 1 trial with his test subjects. Nicknamed the Serenity Six (named after the virus that’s introducing the therapy to rewrite their genetic makeup), the test subjects are murderers, the worst of the worst. (The thinking is, if it can modify their behavior, Serenity can help millions of people.) The therapy starts to go wrong (of course! It’s the Apocalypse!) just as the storms wreak havoc across Houston, … Read More
Out Now – The Girl in the City
About a year ago, I discovered Michael Bunker’s Amish science fiction series – Pennsylvania. The story really intrigued me, and I blasted through all five books and really enjoyed it. I thought that was the end of it but my muse, Ethel, had other ideas. She started sowing the seeds of a story in the darker recesses of my subconscious. Just a title and an image at first, a scene from the life of a young girl living in the city from Michael’s book. That image, and the story behind it, stuck with me. It grew bigger and more detailed. More scenes materialised and the girl got a name – Leah. With some encouragement from Michael Bunker himself, I eventually gave in and decided to write the story. It quickly took on a life of its own and became a novella, gaining a fantastic Jason Gurley cover and interior art by Ben Adams along the way. Now, finally, The Girl in the City is available from Amazon for the low low price of 99c/99p (US UK Canada). Here’s the description… With the oppressive Transport Authority controlling every aspect of their existence, Leah and her father do what they can to carve a good life for themselves. Leah spends her nights scavenging in the rural zone around … Read More
The Art of The Girl in the City
The Girl in the City really took on a life of its own last year. When I started writing the story, I wasn’t even sure I was going to release it. But as I wrote the first draft, I grew to like Leah and her story more and more. By the time I’d finished I was convinced I had a story that was good enough to publish. I can’t say that about all the stories I write, I’ve got a folder called Abandoned for a reason, but I could see Leah (as it was known then) had a lot of potential. For the first time, I sent an early draft off to some beta readers and got some very positive feedback. That feedback reinforced the feeling that I should release the book. I always use editors for my indie books but I also sent Leah to Joe Nassise for a development edit. I revised the story based on his feedback and then used Red Adept Editing for copy editing and proofreading passes. The end result is a story I’m really proud of. But while all that editing was going on, I had another idea. Michael Bunker commissioned illustrations for Pennsylvania from Ben Adams, a very talented artist that had … Read More
Travel to Pennsylvania for 99c
My novella, The Girl in the City, is set in the world of Michael Bunker’s novel Pennsylvania. You don’t need to have read Pennsylvania to enjoy The Girl in the City but you should. Firstly, it’s Amish Science Fiction which is a genre everyone should experience and secondly, it’s a great book. To make things even easier, Michael has put the Omnibus edition on offer for just 99c/99p so now is the perfect time to pick it up ready for the release of The Girl in the City. You can get Pennsylvania on Amazon (US and UK), Nook (US and UK), Kobo and iBooks but the book will go back to normal price in a few days so now is the time to pick it up. Here’s the description: Young Amishman Jedidiah Troyer is now a traveler. He’s signed up for an emigration program that is colonizing the planet of New Pennsylvania. He just wants to start a farm and homestead on affordable land in a new Amish community. Space pioneering isn’t as easy as it sounds when you’re “plain.” Jedidiah and his new friend Dawn arrive on New Pennsylvania in the middle of a rebel uprising, and TRACE, the resistance group that is rising up against … Read More
The Girl in the City Preorder
My science fiction novella, The Girl in the City, is now available for pre-order from Amazon (Amazon US, Amazon UK). Here’s the description… With the oppressive Transport Authority controlling every aspect of their existence, Leah and her father do what they can to carve a good life for themselves. Leah spends her nights scavenging in the rural zone around the City, risking capture by the Wild Ones as she hunts for salvage her father can trade for food and other essentials. But when Leah takes a bag of salvage from a dying stranger, she and her father are drawn into the world of Transport and its war against the terrorist organization, TRACE. A war that could cost them both their lives. I’m really pleased with how it’s turned out. I got the final formatted ebook this weekend and Polgarus Studio did a great job. The Girl in the City is set in the world of Michael Bunker’s Pennsylvania, and I’ve continued Michael’s tradition of including illustrations by Ben Adams in the Pennsylvania books. Ben created three fantastic images for The Girl in the City (TGITC?) – check back next Monday for a look at them. The Girl in the City will be released on Kindle on February 2nd, 2015 but you … Read More
Coming Soon – The Girl in the City
My novella, Leah, now has a proper title – The Girl in the City – and a superb Jason Gurley cover. The Girl in the City is a science fiction novella, roughly 60 pages long. Here’s the description. With the oppressive Transport Authority controlling every aspect of their existence, Leah and her father do what they can to carve a good life for themselves. Leah spends her nights scavenging in the rural zone around the City, risking capture by the Wild Ones as she hunts for salvage her father can trade for food and other essentials. But when Leah takes a bag of salvage from a dying stranger, she and her father are drawn into the world of Transport and its war against the terrorist organization, TRACE. A war that could cost them both their lives. Those of you who’ve read Michael Bunker’s Pennsylvania may recognise some of the elements of the story. That’s because The Girl in the City is set in that world and runs parallel to some of the events in Michael’s book. Apart from an ill-advised piece of flash fiction set in Clive Barker’s Hellraiser universe, this is the first time I’ve felt compelled to write in another … Read More
- Page 1 of 2
- 1
- 2