My new novel, Is Your Journey to the Centre of the Earth Really Necessary?, is rolling out from Amazon Self-Publishing. The UK Kindle version is here. Soon it should be available elsewhere in the world and in paperback also.
Oh look, here’s the Kindle edition on US Amazon.
Sorry for the price hike, but this one’s longer — much longer. I was kind of appalled to find it clocking in at 595 pages. I’ll get the next one down shorter than that. I’m writing it now and it’s looking good — hopefully the best of the series, and it ought to see print quite soon, unless I hit a wall.
As you can see, this is another Whitsuntide Science Adveture, a direct sequel to We Used Dark Forces (and the short film THE NORTHLEACH HORROR). WWII/sci-fi/horror/comedy, and in this case, the whodunnit angle of the first book is swapped out with (un)heroic fantasy — Edgar Rice Burroughs and his ilk, plus a bit of Sax Rohmer for good luck.
Cover quotes from Sean French and Martin Millar, who were very generous with their time and praise. The splendid cover art is by Danny Carr, featuring actor Steven McNicoll (as McWheattie) photographed by Sue Osmond.
Here’s a quote, to give you a flavour:
Chapter Sixty-Four: The Throgmustard Party
From the Memoirs of General Cuthbert Shillingway
I was at a party at old Orlando “Rollo” Throgmustard’s townhouse when I got the word. Quite a few of us from the various secret services used to attend Rollo’s soirees. I recall Ernest “Boffer” Sash-Panda of B.O.S.H. (Bureau Of Strange Happenings) being present, along with Dominic “Tiddles” McPocalypse of P.O.O.P.O.O. (Paranormal Office Of Psychical Overseas Operations). Webster “Pogo” Staines-Visby was there, the man from T.U.C.K. (Teratological Unpleasantness and Creative Kabbala), Holofernes “Stiffy” Tentwhistle (Secret Quaint Undercover Agent Bureau), Rudiger “Rudder” Bludjoy (Bureau Of Necromantic Conjurations & Esoterica), and good old Jim “Rumpo” Stove-Naseby (Gigantic Robot Ant Branch), all of us involved in top-top-secret doomsday devices, killer bacilli, apocalyptic scenarios and such. A gathering of what some anonymous wag once called the obliterati.
I was a bit of a black sheep at the time, thanks to the unfortunate affair of Captain Beakhead, by this time some thirty foot high and amuck, positively amuck in central London. Fortunately he’d taken root in Trafalgar Square and so posed less danger to traffic, but he’d wrapped his barky form around Nelson’s Column and showed no inclination to shift. Negotiations via megaphone had broken down, the Captain being essentially all-tree at this point and either unable to comprehend or respond to the Queen’s English. One or other of our boffins attempted to get a specially modified tomato plant to translate, but it was nothing doing.
The usual kind of thing, as you can see. You can buy the book(s) for reading pleasure, or think of it as the Shadowplay tax, your contribution towards the continuing free material here.
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