Novels
Around a year and a half ago I was browsing in an independent bookshop when I came across one of my novels. As I'm only four novels into my career this still gives me a thrill and makes me feel like a proper author. What I usually do is move the book to a prominent position. In this instance though I was struck by another impulse.
I looked around to make certain no-one could see and I pulled out a pen. My idea was to secretly sign the book and put it back on the shelf. 'Imagine the kick the reader will get,' I thought to myself. 'When they get the book home and find they've bought a signed copy without even knowing it.'
"Excuse me," said a voice behind me. "What do you think you're doing?" I turned to see the guy behind the counter had looked up from his book and caught me in the act. I smiled sheepishly. "I'm sorry," I said. "I was just signing this book."
"You're going to have to buy it," he said with a frown. "You can't just deface my stock."
"You're right," I said, trying to be gracious. "But you see I wrote this book. I was going to sign it and then put it back on the shelf, so it would be like a secret signing. You know, like a surprise for the buyer when they get home."
"Just when you think you've seen every kind of kook in this business," he said rolling his eyes. "Another one comes along to prove you wrong."
"No really, look I can prove who I am," I said taking a couple of credit cards out of my wallet. "See, I have ID." They guy took one of the cards, put it in his machine and asked me to punch in my number without looking at it. "But," I said making one last feeble attempt to convince him. "It'll be worth more now." "Oh really," he said with a sneer. "And who do you think you are - Jeffrey Archer?"
It was only when I'd left the store with the book I'd signed to myself under my arm that I realised I hadn't written a personal comment. 'How rude,' I thought, but under the circumstances I was sure I would understand.
As to the bookseller's question of who I think I am, some of the authors I admire most are Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges, Yukio Mishima and Iris Murdoch, but those with whom I feel most kinship are writers like Ursula K Le Guin, Jim Thompson and Philip K Dick. Authors who choose to work within the confines of genre fiction but manage nonetheless to create great fiction that defies any literary classification.
Hopefully that shows in the following samples:
Way Of The Barefoot Zombie
On a private island in the Caribbean business guru Doc Papa has reinvented the zombie as a role model for the super-rich. The world's business elite come to St Ignatius to study the Way of the Barefoot Zombie and interact with a captive colony of zombies. They live with them, dress like them and act like them in order to free their own inner zombies. Once they've learned to harness the zombie's single minded lust for blood nothing will stop them from making a killing on the global markets.
However, Doc Papa's plans for dominating the world's business arena go awry when the island is infiltrated by undercover operatives from the Zombie Liberation Front and a rogue priestess from Doc Papa's past. Real Voodoo and social satire collide in this gore drenched tale of greed and global profit.
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Dawn Over Doomsday
As America lies bleeding, Native American Chief Hiamovi seeks to unite his people into a single nation capable of reclaiming the US from the white man. His growing army is on a collision course with cult leader Samuel Colt, who intends to put the country back in the iron grip of the once mighty Neo Clergy. The two men are set for a showdown at Little Bighorn, once site of Custer's legendary last stand, now a twisted nuclear landscape.
The fate of the battle may just be decided by Anna Bontraeger, rescued from a brothel by rogue scientist Matthew Greaves and taken on a perilous road trip across a devastated continent. Greaves and his small band have to get Anna to Little Bighorn before Colt or Hiamovi, so she can unlock the secrets that will save what remains of humanity and bring about a new dawn over Doomsday!
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Sniper Elite: Spear Of Destiny
Berlin, 1945. Karl Fairburne is a member of an elite sniper corps, working for the American secret service deep behind enemy lines. Stalin's troops have overrun the city looking to seize control of the Nazi's nuclear secrets before their British and American allies.
SS General Helmstadt, head of the Nazi's nuclear programme, is defecting to Russia, but first he plans the ultimate act of vengeance for the defeat of the Third Reich. If he succeeds Russia will win the Cold War before it has even begun. Karl has one chance to stop him. A single sniper's bullet will change the course of history.
A hi-octane shoot 'em up set against an alternate historical background.
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A Fistful Of Strontium
In the worst end of the galaxy, mutant bounty hunter Johnny Alpha and his companion chase an escaped felon across Miltonia: the only planet where mutants are the majority and normal human are the mistrusted minority. But when their quarry has the power to steal other mutant's identities, nothing is as it appears. Hard action and dark satire collide at the end of the galaxy.
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