Works in progress

The way my mind works can be very unsettling. Ideas pop in and stay for a while, then they leave me, only to be replaced by another. Sometimes it can be months until I get another part of something that I’ve started.

As a result, I have so many half-finished projects, I really have no idea whether they will ever be completed, or even if they will merely be a flash fiction piece, a short story or anything up to a series of novels.

When most of them start, I usually try to create a piece of artwork that sums up some of what I want to say, this becomes a reference for the whole project. Of course, some never even get to that stage.

In no particular order, here are my current works in limbo. I can’t really call them works in progress, because I never know when inspiration will strike again and I’ll be able to add to them.

Wake me Up.

The sequel to Life and Other Dreams.

Dan and Rick, the heroes of Life and Other Dreams are both unconscious, one on Earth and one on Ecias.

On both worlds, they still have things to do.

Crime of the Century.

A time travel caper.

We all have crazy ideas when we’ve had a bit to drink. Steff’s was for the perfect crime.

All you needed was an old newspaper.

And a time machine.

You could go back and steal something that nobody would ever admit to owning.

You couldn’t get caught, they wouldn’t be looking for you.

Besides, there was already someone else to take the blame.

My Sister Alex.

A Science Fiction adventure.

You learn that your sister’s dead, half a Galaxy away. Little do you know, your problems are only just beginning.

Max Walters is an ordinary guy. A surveyor, working on the edge of exploration. When he gets the call that nobody wants, he doesn’t hesitate, he’s on the next flight home.

How could he expect what happens next? He’s come to the attention of some very bad people. They try to kill him, in the one place he should have been safe.

Then he finds himself being chased across the Galaxy.

What was Max’s sister mixed up in?

More importantly, what’s his connection to it all?

Survive 2, Alysom’s Revenge

With Fedor Rolfe on their tail, Bryn and Kanti must return to Qister-Alu, the find the truth. There is only one person alive who can tell them what really happened.

They need to get to them first.

Welcome to Pollen

Pollen is the repository, a planet where everything that was in danger of extinction on Earth was sent to survive. Initially, Pollen was a barren world, with no life to speak of. After the planetary engineers had finished with it, Pollen became the last safe home of the whales, the bees and everything else that mankind had taken to the brink.

Scientists on Pollen managed these creatures as penance for mankind’s appetite for extinction, paid for by the very people that had done so much to kill them.

Pollen was a closed world, unless you worked for TPP you would never walk on its surface.

But Pollen wasn’t just the success story that everyone was so proud of.

There was a lot more going on behind the scenes.

As we were about to find out.

The Circle Has no End

The sequel to Ribbonworld and Jungle Green.

Layla Balcom and Miles Goram have had more than enough adventures, with a common thread.

It’s clear that someone wants Balcom Industrial to fail. Until now they’ve operated in the shadows.

It’s time to flush them out into the open.

In the Wilderness

Another Dave Travise adventure

After Myra but before Freefall and Promise Me, Dave Travise disappeared.

There was a fifteen-year gap in his life.

Nobody knows where he was, or what he did.

Until now.

Kalyn Deere, Bounty Hunter

In a lot of ways, the galaxy is a lot like the Old West.

There are good guys and bad guys, lawmen and outlaws.

And there are the bounty hunters, operating on either side of the law.

Are they good or bad?

Who can say for certain? They’re just doing what they can to survive

Passing Thru

“I never thought I’d leave Passing Thru. Until the day when everything changed.”

When apprentice engineer Max discovers a derelict and unwanted ship, tucked away in a corner of the space market called Passing Thru, he thought that he could repair it; make it a place of his own.

As he explores, aided by his girlfriend Hela, he finds a mystery.

Officially, the ship doesn’t exist. Not only that, it’s very different to any ship that he’s ever worked on.

When a freak accident takes them to a place they could never have imagined, they will need to adapt quickly, if they stand any chance of surviving.

Can Max and his friends ever find their way home?

The Last Fish in the River

An old box, dredged up from the seabed amongst a haul of scallops and crabs, contains a secret from over four hundred years ago.

When Spain moved to invade England and restore the Papacy, they didn’t just send an Armada. Two years earlier than the fleet, the Pope sent the men of the brotherhood of San Faustina, to prepare the way for the conquering army. Their mission was to spread panic, disrupt defences and cement an alliance with the remaining English Catholics.

To do this, they possessed a fortune in Aztec gold, as well as plans for a new monarchy and social order. When the invasion failed, the brotherhood disbanded and the plot was forgotten.

The story of the last of them, Sebastian Alvarez De La Rapita, is still waiting to be told.

When news of the box’s discovery leaks, it becomes a race to uncover the whereabouts of the brotherhood’s last resting place.

And the Gold

I heard it on the Q-Com

The Q-Com is an instantaneous communication system. It’s the thing that holds the Galaxy together.

All the Q-com staff were bound by an oath of secrecy, “no details shall be divulged of any communication, unless it concerns imminent danger, or is addressed to all stations.”

When technician Wes Anders heard one particular message, he really should have kept his mouth shut.

He didn’t and now someone wants him dead.

Where’s Lizzie