COVER REVEAL: The Magic Is Always With Us by David M Allan

We are delighted to reveal the cover of David M Allan’s new fantasy novel The Magic Is Always With Us. Set in Tirog, the land of the Sidhe that is co-incident to the human world and accessed through portals or lacunae in the barrier that separates the two. There are Realms and Domains in the land of the Sidhe, with population centres that are often in the ‘same’ place as they are in the human world. So, Eideann in Alba is co-located with Edinburgh in Scotland.

The cover, designed by Alison Buck, was inspired by a passage in the book where the main protagonist, Lady Trinafar, is standing in front of the throne of the ruler of Obharden (co-located with Aberdeen):

 

The floor in front of the throne was covered by a yellow and green carpet with a maze pattern. It grabbed Trinafar’s attention. It’s a trap, isn’t it. Start tracing the curves and the magic will ensnare the watcher. She knew she should ignore it, but it was difficult. It must give him an advantage over any visitors. It took a lot of concentration, but she did manage to drag her eyes away from the maze and look somewhere else. Even with the effort she had put into breaking the mesmeric effect it wasn’t until he spoke that she was completely free of the influence of the carpet.

 

The Magic Is Always With Us by David M Allan; Cover artwork: Alison Buck
Cover artwork: Alison Buck

Look at the cover for more than a few seconds, and you too will find yourself being mesmerised!

The action takes place in various places in both Alba and Scotland. Handily, one of the characters has a map:

Map of Alba in Tirog from The Magic Is Always With Us by David M Allan; Map: Alison Buck
Map of Alba in Tirog
© 2024 Alison Buck

The Magic Is Always With Us will be published in eBook on 29th March and is available for pre-order now. It will be out in paperback on 29th April.

Games industry veteran develops powerful new fiction writing system

From ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ in the 90s, through ‘Harry Potter, Goblet of Fire’ and ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ to the award-winning ‘Eufloria’, Rudolf Kremers’ game design experience enhances his story-telling.

DARTFORD, KENT – 29 August 2023 – Elsewhen Press is a publishing house specialising in high quality, entertaining and thoughtful speculative fiction from talented authors. One of those authors is Rudolf Kremers, a BAFTA nominated game developer. Having spent over 20 years working as a designer and consultant to many of the largest entertainment companies in the world, as well as writing a well-respected text book on Level Design, Rudolf has written screenplays and video game narratives across various genres. His skill and experience naturally come to the fore when he writes fiction, and the publication of his debut science fiction novel, Birds of Paradise, has made him think about how his video games career has affected his writing and vice versa, leading to some inspiring conclusions.

Rudolf started making games over 40 years ago as an enthusiast, although it wasn’t a realistic career path in the Netherlands in the 1980s. But when he realised that things were different in the UK, which had a thriving video games industry, he moved to London to work with Douglas Adams at The Digital Village. Rudolf was recently called a “veteran” game developer, and although that description made him grumble a bit about “not being that old”, he realised that it’s not an unfair description. He’s now been working as a professional game developer in the UK for almost a quarter of a century, in all kinds of roles for several companies (before starting his own), and worked on a great variety of titles. He says that he has “the scars and stories to prove it”.

But he had always wanted to be a writer, having developed an insatiable love of reading from an early age, especially science fiction, fantasy and horror, but also books on mythology, space exploration, euro comics, superhero comics, and various other pulpy endeavours. He says, “I’m one of those poor sods afflicted with that famous ‘restless creative’ gene, which ensured that a desire to read also came with a desire to write. Luckily, as a game designer I often had the opportunity to work on game stories and lore and other such things. But writing for games comes with its own pitfalls and peculiarities and while that has its own charm, I eventually felt the need to do the kind of writing I fell in love with from a very young age. Initially, I took a detour where I wrote a bunch of screenplays but I finally arrived at a point where I just wanted to create something by myself, written for fans of my favourite genres. Something I would love reading myself. That wish turned into a big fat sci-fi novel called Birds of Paradise. I have had some of my short horror stories published, and I have finished a second novel, historical this time, set in 1630s Japan.”

With the publication of Birds of Paradise this summer by Elsewhen Press, Rudolf started to think about the relationship between game design and writing. He realised there had been a positive feedback loop between his video games career and his writing projects, indeed he concluded that “Every single one of those writing projects has made me a better game developer; and, conversely, every game I have developed has made me a better writer.” As a result he has begun to write a series of blog posts examining this conclusion. He has started with a topic that is the subject of frequent debate by writers: the pros and cons of meticulous planning and outlining versus more freeform writing and development – Rudolf looks into how both styles can be accommodated in a project, drawing on both writing and game development experience, to set out some unique writing techniques.

Peter Buck, Editorial Director at Elsewhen Press, says “It’s clear that there is a huge cross-over between literature and video games, especially in science fiction and fantasy. Indeed, games often beget books and books beget games, and they can all spin-off into films and TV! So it’s no real surprise that what Rudolf calls ‘restless creatives’ in any one of those media will likely excel in the others. Birds of Paradise is an epic science fiction story, a page-turner that would also be ideally suited as a thrilling blockbuster movie or as the underlying story-arc of an engaging video game. We were honoured that Rudolf approached us to publish it.”

Birds of Paradise is available as an eBook and in paperback from good retailers. Rudolf’s series of articles about the relationship between game design and writing is available on his blog.

Notes for Editors

About Rudolf Kremers

Rudolf KremersRudolf is a BAFTA nominated veteran game developer, author, photographer, producer, father, husband, cat person, filmmaker, dog person, and consultant. (Not necessarily in that order). Originally of Dutch/Spanish descent, he currently lives and works as an interactive entertainment consultant in Canterbury.

He has worked with clients across the entertainment landscape for more than 23 years, including companies like Lionsgate Studios, Framestore and Electronic Arts, providing design and consultancy work for some of the biggest intellectual properties in the world.

Including his debut science fiction epic Birds of Paradise, which has just been published by Elsewhen Press, Rudolf has written two novels, a gaggle of short stories – some of which are collected in The Singing Sands and Other Stories (published by Demain Publishing) – a textbook on game design (published by CRC Press), several screenplays, and an abundance of video game narratives.

This gives him all the license he needs to continue writing sci-fi, horror, weird fiction, historical fiction, and whatever other muse he succumbs to.

http://www.rudolfkremers.com/

About Birds of Paradise

Humanity received a technological upgrade from long-dead aliens.
But there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Birds of Paradise by Rudolf Kremers; cover art by Max Taquet
Cover art: Max Taquet

Humanity had somehow muddled through the horrors of the 20th century and – surprisingly – managed to survive the first half of the 21st, despite numerous nuclear accidents, flings with neo-fascism and the sudden arrival of catastrophic climate change. It was agreed that spreading our chances across two planets offered better odds than staying rooted to little old Earth. Terraforming Mars was the future!

A subsequent research expedition led to humanity’s biggest discovery: an alien spaceship, camouflaged to appear like an ordinary asteroid. Although the aliens had long since gone, probably millions of years ago, their technology was still very much alive, offering access to unlimited power.

Over the next hundred years humanity blossomed, reaching out to the solar system. By 2238, Mars had been successfully terraformed, countless smaller colonies had sprung up in its wake, built on our solar system’s many moons, on major asteroids and in newly built habitats and installations.

Jemm Delaney is a Xeno-Archaeologist and her 16-year old son Clint a talented hacker. Together they make a great team. When she accepts a job to retrieve an alien artifact from a derelict space station, it looks like they will become rich. But with Corps, aliens, AIs and junkies involved, nothing is ever going to proceed smoothly.

If you’re a fan of Julian May, Frank Herbert or James S.A. Corey, you will love Birds of Paradise.

Cover art: Max Taquet

Find out more at https://bit.ly/BirdsOfParadise-Kremers

Fellow of the Royal Society writes SF novel exploring weird physics

Professor Ian Stewart, renowned mathematician and author, writes an ‘inventive’ ‘high concept’ science fiction adventure to speculate on ideas at the edge of known physics.

DARTFORD, KENT – 21 July 2023 – Elsewhen Press is a publishing house specialising in high quality, entertaining and thoughtful speculative fiction from talented authors. One of those authors is Professor Ian Stewart, a Fellow of the Royal Society, globally recognised award-winning mathematician, and celebrated author of text books and popular science books including The Science of Discworld. But while science books, even pop-science, can make mainstream science entertaining as well as informative, even renowned scientists relish the possibility to explore intriguing but less well-established aspects that push the scientific boundaries. The relative freedom of science fiction provides an ideal medium for such speculation and Ian Stewart’s latest novel, Loophole, seizes that opportunity to explore concepts on the edge of known physics while keeping within the bounds of probability: faster-than-light travel, wormhole-linked black-holes, alternative universes. At the same time, he tells a gripping adventure story of universe-shattering proportions.

Multiple award-winning hard-science-fiction author Stephen Baxter says of Loophole, “When universes collide … A multicosmos at war in a scenario of staggering, but scientifically authentic, invention … As if the Marvel multiverse collided with 2001: A Space Odyssey … I am awed, and I don’t awe easily. The highest of high-concept SF.”

Henry Gee, Senior Editor at Nature, and author of A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth and The Sigil trilogy, says, “There’s Hard SF. There’s Wide-Screen Baroque. Now with Ian Stewart’s Loophole we have Wrap-Around Rococo. Daringly inventive, Loophole is a mind-fryingly, Möbius-twistingly intense SF adventure of the first order.”

Peter Buck, Editorial Director at Elsewhen Press, says “We were chatting to Ian at a science fiction convention and he told us about the novel he had recently finished writing. We were intrigued by the concept and told him how much we were looking forward to reading it. So you can imagine how delighted we were when Ian submitted it to us for consideration. Once we had read it, there was absolutely no doubt that we wanted to publish such an awesome book. We are thrilled that Loophole is now available for readers. Initial comments from Stephen Baxter and Henry Gee were very gratifying and will undoubtedly reflect the response of readers everywhere for this ‘daringly inventive’ ‘high concept science fiction’ adventure.”

Writing the story was an adventure in itself, says Ian Stewart: “I wanted to write the kind of book I like to read: high-concept space opera. The central gimmick had been rattling around in my head for years. There was a plan, of sorts, on the computer, but I had to write the novel to find out what really happened. Once I started on the details, my characters took over and it ended up quite different from what I’d expected. … Which was what I’d expected.”

Elsewhen Press commissioned space artist David A. Hardy to produce a cover for the book, which thrilled the author. Ian said, “I’ve been a David Hardy fan for fifty years. His elegant cover captures a key moment in the story, and subtly conveys a hint of mystery and menace. You don’t watch a moon disappearing every day.”

Loophole is available as an eBook from today and in paperback from 21st August 2023.

Notes for Editors

About Ian Stewart

Ian Stewart is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He has five honorary doctorates and is an honorary wizard of Unseen University. His more than 130 books include Professor Stewart’s Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities and the four-volume series The Science of Discworld with Terry Pratchett and Jack Cohen. His SF novels include the trilogy Wheelers, Heaven, and Oracle (with Jack Cohen), The Living Labyrinth and Rock Star (with Tim Poston), and Jack of All Trades. Short story collections are Message from Earth and Pasts, Presents, Futures. His Flatland sequel Flatterland has extensive fantasy elements. He has published 33 short stories in Analog, Omni, Interzone, and Nature, with 10 stories in Nature’s ‘Futures’ series. He was Guest of Honour at Novacon 29 in 1999 and Science Guest of Honour and Hugo Award Presenter at Worldcon 75 in Helsinki in 2017. He delivered the 1997 Christmas Lectures for BBC television. His awards include the Royal Society’s Faraday Medal, the Gold Medal of the IMA, the Zeeman Medal, the Lewis Thomas Prize, the Euler Book Prize, the Premio Internazionale Cosmos, the Chancellor’s Medal of the University of Warwick, and the Bloody Stupid Johnson Award for Innovative Uses of Mathematics.

About Loophole

Don’t poke your nose down a wormhole – you never know what you might find.

Loophole by Ian Stewart; Artwork by David A. Hardy
Artwork: David A. Hardy

Two universes joined by a wormhole pair that forms a ‘loophole’, with an icemoon orbiting through the loophole, shared between two different planetary systems in the two universes.

A civilisation with uploaded minds in virtual reality served by artificial humans.

A ravening Horde of replicating machines that kill stars.

Real humans from a decrepit system of colony worlds.

A race of hyperintelligent but somewhat vague aliens.

Who will close the loophole… who will exploit it?

Find out more at https://bit.ly/Loophole-Ian-Stewart

Cover design: David A. Hardy

Cover Reveal: The Last Star by Terry Grimwood

We’re delighted to be able to reveal the gorgeous cover of The Last Star, the next book by Terry Grimwood. Set in the same universe as Terry’s Interference, The Last Star continues to explore the alliance between humans and the god-like aliens, the Iaen.

As for Interference, the cover was designed by Alex Storer who has created this stunning artwork.

The Last Star by Terry Grimwood; Cover design and artwork: Alex Storer
Cover design and artwork: Alex Storer

The Last Star will be published in eBook formats on the 5th May and in paperback on the 5th June 2023.

C.R. Berry has created a fantastic series, subverting some of the oldest and most popular conspiracy theories around, as well as providing a hugely entertaining thriller

One theory to rule them all and in the darkness bind them.

DARTFORD, KENT – 28 March 2023 – Elsewhen Press is a publishing house specialising in high quality, entertaining and thoughtful speculative fiction, often from authors who use satire to draw attention to an important issue. C.R. Berry is one of those talented authors. He created the Million Eyes trilogy, centred on a fictional, ubiquitous multinational tech giant with a longer history than most. An organisation that is surreptitiously using time travel to manipulate society to achieve their own goals. Those goals are slowly revealed throughout the trilogy, as are the lengths to which the organisation is prepared to go in order to circumvent anyone standing in their way. Of course, the central premise, that they can manipulate time, whilst being a popular trope in science fiction, is clearly preposterous in reality and indicates the true target of Berry’s satire, namely the countless proponents of innumerable and equally preposterous conspiracy theories. The Million Eyes organisation’s ability to tamper with the past is a perfect mechanism to explain almost any popular conspiracy theory that is promoted on the internet.

Before the publication of Million Eyes, the first book in the trilogy, Berry and Elsewhen Press set up a spoof website purporting to be the corporate online presence for the Million Eyes company, complete with apparent products and services, a news feed, and a shop that appeared to have been hacked. Some early readers helped contribute comments on social media as if the company was real and the book’s revelations genuine. The fictional management of Million Eyes even responded, often menacingly. This did result in some conspiracy theorists being taken in, although not as many as had been hoped. The inevitable conclusion is that conspiracy theorists are not as stupid as they seem.

Peter Buck, editorial director of Elsewhen Press says, “Creating a conspiracy theory provides an author with the opportunity to have mysterious antagonists. With such an all-encompassing mechanism as the time-travelling Million Eyes operatives, many different existing conspiracy theories can be easily pulled together to support one another and give credence to the central premise. C.R. Berry has created a fantastic vehicle to subvert some of the oldest and most popular conspiracy theories around, as well as providing a hugely entertaining thriller.”

As well as causing consternation among some hardened supporters of well-known conspiracy theories, Berry has also sparked controversy over some of the events he includes in the scope of his trilogy; in particular, the identity of Jack the Ripper, the death of Princess Diana and the ministry of Jesus.

C.R. Berry says “I wrote the Million Eyes books to remind people that if you don’t take them seriously, conspiracy theories can just be a bit of fun. I’m attracted to them because they make great stories. I don’t actually think dark forces are lurking everywhere, secretly engineering a New World Order, murdering princesses in car crashes, or hoaxing moon landings. But I love to imagine that they could be.”

This month has seen the publication of the third and final book in the trilogy, Million Eyes III: Ouroboros. The true nature of the organisation is revealed, horrific future events are unveiled, and in time-honoured tradition there are unexpected twists in the tale. All three books are available in both eBook and paperback from leading retailers. In addition, two collections of short stories set in the world of Million Eyes are available as free downloads from the Elsewhen Press website.

Notes for Editors

About Million Eyes

The rumours are true. Time travel is real. It was invented years ago.
But it’s a (mostly) well-kept secret.

Of course, if time travel is happening now, how do we know that the timeline we’re living in is the right one? Well, we don’t. And we’re not. History’s already been changed. The timeline is corrupted, poisoned, wrong. And it’s all to do with the mysterious Million Eyes…

In the Million Eyes series, readers will learn the hidden truth behind many famous events in our history. From Princess Diana’s death to the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower to the Gunpowder Plot to the Loch Ness Monster. Past, present and future collide, with unwitting civilians caught in a complicated, temporal-paradox-laden crossfire.

The big question is, what are Million Eyes really doing? Why are they meddling with history? And what is their endgame?

The Million Eyes series comprises a trilogy of novels and a collection of short stories. The series will appeal to fans of fast-paced conspiracy thrillers with sizeable lashings of sci-fi on the side. (And some historical fiction thrown in for good measure.)

Visit bit.ly/MillionEyesTrilogy

Million Eyes trilogy by C.R. Berry, with free short story collections; Covers by P.R. Pope (I, collections) and Alison Buck (II,III)
Artwork: P.R. Pope (I, collections); Alison Buck (II, III)

The Million Eyes trilogy

Book 1: Million Eyes

Book 2: Million Eyes II: The Unraveller

Book 3: Million Eyes III: Ouroboros

Free short story collections

Million Eyes: Extra Time

Million Eyes: Over Time

About C.R. Berry

C.R. Berry is an ex-lawyer turned full-time writer, whose fiction spans the sci-fi, mystery, conspiracy, historical, fantasy and horror genres – because why have one genre when you can have them all? His favourite characters are usually villains, hence why he likes conspiracy stories, where there are baddies at every turn.

Berry was published in Best of British Science Fiction 2020 from Newcon Press with a short story set in the world of the Million Eyes trilogy. He’s also been published in magazines and anthologies such as Storgy and Dark Tales, and in 2018 was shortlisted in the Grindstone Literary International Novel Competition.

Having completed the Million Eyes trilogy, Berry is working on two further novels. One is a horror called The Puddle Bumps, about a lawyer who links a mysterious kids’ TV show to an old murder case. The other is a collaboration with his fiancée Katy called Breaching The Wall, a sci-fi adventure about a spaceship tasked with solving the Universe’s greatest mystery: why the wall that surrounds it is collapsing.

He lives with Katy in Clanfield, Hampshire, in a house called the Gathered Worlds, named after the intergalactic organisation in Breaching The Wall and, appropriately, because they’ve themed all the rooms. Their bedroom is a spaceship, their kitchen a 50s diner and their living room a forest. Their office is a nerd’s dream, wall to wall with TV and movie memorabilia to fuel the magic that happens there!

 

Out today in paperback – Harpan’s Worlds: Worlds Apart by Terry Jackman

Available from today in paperback, Harpan’s Worlds: Worlds Apart by Terry Jackman.

Space opera with a paranormal twist, Terry Jackman’s novel explores prejudice, corruption, and the value of true friendship.

Cover art courtesy of NASA and Space Fabricator
Cover art courtesy of NASA and Space Fabricator

Out today in paperback – The Enchanting Tricks by Mark Montanaro

Mark Montanaro’s sequel to his hilarious debut fantasy novel, The Magic Fix, is out in paperback today. The Enchanting Tricks, continues the story with inept humans, bumbling goblins, and of course the Magic Pixie.

Cover: S & A Buck
Cover: S & A Buck

Buy your copy at your favourite retailer

 

Physics teacher dedicated to making science fun, even in retirement.

New novel, by retired teacher, explores biological adaptation, quantum physics and relativity, as well as friendship, family and fame, in a fun wild adventure set on both Earth and Mars and in some additional dimensions.

DARTFORD, KENT – 12 August 2022 – Elsewhen Press, an independent UK publisher specialising in Speculative Fiction, is committed to publishing outstanding books by new authors. Science fiction provides authors and readers with an opportunity to explore possibilities for other worlds while staying within the realms of what’s feasible. Recently retired physics teacher, Hugh Duncan, has used humour throughout his career to successfully encourage his pupils’ interest in science. Now he is taking the same approach to reach a wider audience with his novel, Life on Mars: The Vikings are coming.

Why did the NASA Viking missions discover no evidence of life on Mars? Was it a concerted effort to hide the truth? Who was doing the hiding? – What if it was the life on Mars itself that was determined to remain unnoticed by Earthlings?

Peter Buck, editorial director of Elsewhen Press says, “We’ve known Hugh for a long time and have always been impressed with his ability to enthuse his students. When he brought his novel to us, we were delighted to be able to publish it. Hugh has an innate ability to, literally, make fun of even the hardest concepts in science. If we described his book as an exploration of exobiology, phenotypic plasticity, quantum mechanical wave-functions, and electrostatics, it might only appeal to fans of hard science fiction. However, if we point out that the main protagonist is a teenage tortle (a Martian rock turtle) who has adapted for longevity in the harsh conditions of Mars, and that in this context ‘teenage’ means sixteen-million years of age, the tone of the story becomes a little clearer. A quantum-tunnelling worm participates in the adventure (a handy friend to have, it turns out, when you’re locked in a filing cabinet). Zombie vegetables are another hazard to be overcome (as is so often true in life). And so is a publicity-obsessed Martian artist, determined to expand his audience to Earth. The occasional intervention by the Physics Police (responsible for enforcing the Laws of Physics) just adds to the near-anarchy. The Vikings of the subtitle are the NASA probes sent to Mars in the 1970s. Finally, the truth can be told about why they failed to find evidence of life on Mars – in short, a concerted effort by much of the Martian fauna (and, indeed, some of the flora) to remain unobserved, with the help of two house martins from the South of France. Hugh’s story will appeal to those of us who were disappointed by the Viking missions’ results, along with conspiracy fans who were sure that the ‘face on Mars’ wasn’t just shadows, science fiction fans who like to extrapolate current knowledge, anyone fascinated by the scientific possibilities of life on other worlds, science students suffering with teachers who have no sense of fun, and especially young-at-heart readers (from 10 to 100+ years young) who enjoy a madcap adventure.”

World-renowned scientist John Gribbin, author of In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality, widely regarded as one of the best science writers of our time, said, “Life on Mars is fantasy on steroids. Instead of swords and magic potions, we have the ‘magic’ science of quantum physics and relativity theory, channelled through what feels like a hallucinogenic dream. My favourite character is a quantum-tunnelling worm, but the author’s fevered imagination provides us with a menagerie of almost equally bizarre creatures, on a mission to save the world – their world, that is, not ours. Suspend disbelief, strap in for the ride, and enjoy.”

The cover of the book features an image of the heroine of the story, Jade, a 16-million year old tortle. The image was created by Natascha Booth, one of Hugh’s former students now studying art at university in Dublin. The book also contains illustrations by Natascha of some of the main characters. Many of Hugh’s ex-students have already expressed their excitement at the forthcoming publication of the book, demonstrating the high regard he has engendered over his years as a teacher. Indeed some are very keen for him to come to launch the book at their current university.

Life on Mars: The Vikings are coming, is published by Elsewhen Press in eBook format today and will be available in paperback on the 12th September.

Notes for Editors

About Hugh Duncan

Hugh DuncanHugh Duncan hatched in Leicester in 1957. He studied astronomy at University College London and, though very lazy, got his degree. His final thesis was on Martian craters and, after, he worked at the UCL observatory cataloguing the Viking Mission photos.

Having fallen in love with a French woman and wanting to live happily ever after, he ruined that plan by becoming a science teacher. The temporary job became a lifelong career, first in the UK, then for 32 years at the International School of Nice, from which he has recently retired. A few years ago, UCL launched the maths journal Chalkdust, in which Hugh has had a number of articles published. In 1997, Oxford Study Courses, asked him to write revision guidebooks for IB Physics, which continues to this day.

Hugh started in science fiction aged five, when he wrote ‘Dr Who goes to the balloon planet’ and some have said it’s his best work to date. Nearly sixty years later, Life on Mars is his first published novel. Inspired by the mighty Terry Pratchett, for school charity projects Hugh started writing his own ‘Deskworld’ stories, parodying his school as one for witches and wizards. Three dozen stories sold well using a captive audience scared of getting bad grades if they didn’t buy them, hmm…

Hugh has been married for 40 years and has four children – most don’t seem to want to leave home in spite of being adults and having to listen to his songs and stories all the time. He lives in the South of France, not very far from the village with two famous house martins who appear in Life on Mars. He owns a Hermann’s tortoise called Sophie Rose.

About Life on Mars

Racing against time, Jade and her friends must hide evidence of Life on Mars to stop the probes from Earth finding them

Life on Mars cover art by Natascha Booth
Cover art: Natascha Booth

Jade is on her way to meet up with her dad, Elvis, for her sixteen-millionth birthday (tortles live a long time in spite of the harsh conditions on Mars), when she gets side-tracked by a strange object that appears to have fallen from the sky. Elvis’ travelling companion Starkwood, an electrostatic plant, is hearing voices, claiming that “The Vikings Are Coming”, while their football-pitch-sized flying friend Fionix confirms the rumour: the Earth has sent two craft to look for life on Mars.

It then becomes a race against time to hide any evidence of such life before Earth destroys it for good. Can Jade and her friends succeed, with help from a Lung Whale, a liquid horse, some flying cats, the Hellas Angels, the Pyrites and a couple of House Martins from the South of France? Oh, and a quantum-tunnelling worm – all while avoiding Zombie Vegetables and trouble with a Gravity Artist and the Physics Police?! A gentle and lightly humorous science fantasy adventure.

ISBN: 9781915304124 eBook / 9781915304025 paperback 400pp

Cover art and illustrations by: Natascha Booth

Visit bit.ly/LifeOnMars-Vikings

 

Author cites value of a close community in the face of growing environmental despair.

Glasgow author Douglas Thompson honours his late brother’s UFO obsession with new sci-fi novel considering the abductee as divine outsider.

DARTFORD, KENT – 15 July 2022 – Elsewhen Press, an independent UK publisher specialising in Speculative Fiction, is committed to publishing outstanding books by incredible authors. One of those authors is Douglas Thompson, from Glasgow.

Douglas was always sceptical of the fanatical belief in UFOs of his elder brother (the artist Ally Thompson 1955-2016), but since Ally’s untimely death from alcoholism, international news stories leaked from the American military have made Douglas wonder if his brother might ultimately be proven right. ‘White tic tacs’ and ‘off world vehicles’ have recently been publicly accepted as having ‘buzzed’ US boats and airplanes during military exercises while moving at speeds beyond any known terrestrial technology. Although the meaning and origin of these objects remains unknown, their existence is no longer denied or in doubt. Even NASA are entertaining the possibility that alien life may have located us before we’re able to locate them.

In homage to his late brother’s obsession, and bearing a dedication to him, Douglas Thompson’s new novel from Elsewhen Press, Stray Pilot, takes the notion of extra-terrestrial existence seriously by asking what would happen if a military pilot abducted by a UFO were to return 80 years later to his hometown to find everyone and everything aged while, for him, only a year has gone by (an effect known as time dilation according to Einstein’s theory of special relativity). Thompson has taken the starting point for his novel from classic UFO cases of the 1940s and ’80s that his brother ‘indoctrinated’ him with when he was in his early teens. The most famous of those was the tragic Mantell incident of 1948, when a 25-year old Kentucky Air National Guard pilot Captain Thomas Mantell was killed when he lost control of his P-51 Mustang while pursuing a mysterious silver disk as it rose to high altitude. Mantell’s crashed plane and body were recovered; but, in a similar case in 1978 in Australia, 20-year old pilot Frederick Valentich went missing in pursuit of a UFO and neither airplane nor pilot were ever found.

Rather than set his novel in Kentucky or Australia, Thompson wanted to use the story to shed light on his own contemporary Scotland, and its currently tense and complex relationship with the British state, which has a history of suppressing UFO data. He chose to turn Thomas Mantell into one Thomas Tellman and set his departure and return in a fictitious small town on Scotland’s north-east coast. Thompson explains: “Nobody says they won’t read or watch Shakespeare’s Macbeth because they don’t believe in the supernatural. And likewise I wonder if it’s time the contemporary taboo on talking about UFOs was lifted in favour of seeing the potential of this trope as a metaphor for the age-old idea of some divine messenger, be it angel or demon, coming to live among us for a while and thereby throwing light on the irony of human society, the weaknesses and strengths of homo sapiens. There’s always also the ‘changeling’ myth, the ancient anxiety that the missing child returns as something else in disguise…”

Thompson’s novel explores the creative tension between the closed intimacy of a small rural community and an outsider whose mind has been opened not just to an international, but stellar and cosmic perspective. Creating his own fictional setting for his altered version of the Thomas Mantell ‘myth’ has also enabled Thompson to add other ingredients into the plot mix. His fascination with his mother-in-law’s dementia has transmuted into the character of Tellman’s daughter now grown to be a bed-bound octogenarian, her loss of memory of the last 80 years standing in eerie parallel to her father’s disappearance. Tellman’s return also enables a penetrating perspective on the environmental damage humanity has done in that same time period.

So does Thompson now regret dismissing his brother’s ‘crank’ theories? Rather, he sees them as a message to the future whose value he has come to belatedly understand: “I still suspect that a lot of the UFO theories over the last five decades have been elaborate busking around a small core of mysterious facts. It’s the same with religion, in that the human brain won’t accept the unknown and seems always compelled to invent its own explanations. But just as with gothic cathedrals, we should never lose sight of how beautiful these inventions are, the stories we tell ourselves, since they are the very essence of all literature and art and essential to what we are as a species. If anyone or anything is studying us now and capable of being emotionally moved enough to find value in anything about us, I can’t help thinking it will be in precisely that capacity for invention and in our longing to meet something greater than ourselves. But regardless of any of that, maybe the real challenge is for us to try to become that greater thing we can already imagine and thereby save ourselves and our beleaguered natural environment before it’s too late.”

Stray Pilot, was published by Elsewhen Press in eBook format on 1st July and will be out in paperback on the 1st August.

Notes for Editors

About Douglas Thompson

Glasgow writer, Douglas Thompson, won the Herald/Grolsch Question Of Style Award 1989, 2nd prize in the Neil Gunn Writing Competition 2007, and the Faith/Unbelief Poetry Prize 2016. His short stories and poems have appeared in a wide range of magazines and anthologies, including Ambit, Albedo One, Chapman and New Writing Scotland. Variously classed as a Weird, Horror, Sci Fi, Literary, or Historical novelist, he has published more than 17 novels and collections of short stories and poetry since 2009, from various publishers in Britain, Europe and America.

About Stray Pilot

Stray Pilot cover design by Tenebrae
Cover design by Tenebrae

A passionate environmental allegory

Thomas Tellman, an RAF pilot who disappeared pursuing a UFO in 1948, unexpectedly returns entirely un-aged to a small town on Scotland’s north-east coast. He finds that his 7-year-old daughter is now a bed-bound 87-year-old woman suffering from dementia. She greets him as her father but others assume she is deluded and that Thomas is an unhinged impostor or con man. While Thomas endeavours to blend in to an ordinary life, his presence gradually sets off unpredictable consequences, locally, nationally and globally. Members of the British Intelligence Services attempt to discredit Thomas in advance of what they anticipate will be his public disclosure of evidence of extra-terrestrial activity, but the local community protect him. Thomas, appalled by the increase in environmental damage that has occurred in his 80 year absence, appears to have returned with a mission: the true nature of which he guards from everyone around him.

Douglas Thompson’s thought-provoking novel is unashamedly science-fiction yet firmly in the tradition of literary explorations of the experience of the outsider. He weaves together themes of memory loss and dementia, alienation, and spiritual respect for the natural world; while at the same time counterposing the humanity inherent in close communities against the xenophobia and nihilistic materialism of contemporary urban society. Of all the book’s vivid characters, the fictional village of Kinburgh itself is the stand-out star: an archetypal symbol of human community. In an age of growing despair in the face of climate crises, Stray Pilot offers a passionate environmental allegory with a positive message of constructive hope: a love song to all that is best in ordinary people.

Cover design by Tenebrae

Visit bit.ly/StrayPilot