Fan Art - Aloysius

The breakout character from my book Redeeming Blood appears to the artificial lifeform known as Aloysius. This is an unlikely development as Aloysius is a non-sentient being crafted from the DNA of various marine creatures and formed into the approximate stature of a chimpanzee. He serves as the personal servant of Redeeming Blood's protagonist Professor Julius Stutt and his mute, impassive presence always seems to provide comfort.

Here is a very fine rendition of Aloysius in the medium of marker on whiteboard by one of my test readers.

An excellent work. Thank you, BT.

As part of the same exercise I also had an attempt at drawing Aloysius and this was the nightmarish result.

My effort, while incontestably inferior in an artistic sense, does include some utilitarian feeding instructions and a handy scale.

The Timeline

The total period of time spanned by the collective narrative arcs of Without a City Wall and Redeeming Blood span 280 years from 2087 to 2367. To add to the complication events are presented in a non linear form with multiple over-lapping story lines and instances of space flight and suspended animation. In short, the sequence and date of events in Redeeming Blood was getting more than slightly confused.

To bring calm to this raging storm I created The Timeline.

This document is about two meters long and details the exact date of every chapter and significant occurrence in both books.  Completing Redeeming Blood without it would be impossible.

Hunger

"There are no miracles or mysteries in cycling. It's just a question of how much you can suffer."

So wrote Irish cyclist Sean Kelly in his highly recommended autobiography Hunger. I am starting to come to a similar view on the subject of writing SciFi novels. You can sit around, looking at a blank screen and a flashing cursor, waiting to be touched by the ethereal finger of Arthur Charles Clarke to gain inspiration or you can get on with it and write something. Every day.

I finished my second novel, Redeeming Blood, this week and from the first word to the last it took me just over eight months. As my first book took me over five years this is a very welcome improvement in productivity. What was the difference in the two experiences? Well, by the time I started the second book I had detected a modicum of appetite for my first book in the industry. So I started to believe that this is something I could really do and I wanted to do more of it. In short, I got hungry and worked relentlessly hard at the second book.

In my not entirely unbiased opinion I believe the second book is a stronger piece of work in some ways than the first. It has more coherence and better structure from not having such a protracted gestation.

In other news, my third book will be called Weft and will not be related to WaCW or RB but will take place in the same imagined future. I have a storyboard and some notes for it but I am going to take a break after the death march of simultaneously rewriting WaCW and finishing RB. So the first word of Weft will not be written until 1st July 2016 and will not be complete until spring 2017.

Redeeming Blood

I have had some correspondence about the Without a City Wall sequel. Specifically, I've had enquiries about what characters are coming back and when it will be finished.

The book is called Redeeming Blood and the first draft will be going to proof-reading  and to my normal test pilots in January 2016.

Here's what I am prepared to reveal in a completely spoiler-free zone:

• It's another dual narrative novel like WaCW and is about the same length.
• There is no departure in style. Like WaCW, RB is dark, complex and funny.
• The Orthus story arc takes place just after the events at the end of WaCW.
• The other story arc is situated in Africa, the Middle East and on Mars.
• Two of your favourite characters are coming back.
• Two of your other favourites aren't.
• The protagonist is a middle aged alcoholic from Newcastle.
• We see a lot more of Manhattan and the rest of the planet of Orthus.
• In the same way that WaCW is a book about women, RB is a book about men.