Life on Mars: The Vikings are Coming by Hugh Duncan

 

Today I'm delighted to welcome Hugh Duncan, the author of Life on Mars: The Viking are Coming to talk about his love of writing. You can also read an excerpt from his book.

Life on Mars: The Vikings are coming

 

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

 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.

Elsewhen: https://bit.ly/LifeOnMars-Vikings

 

The main buy links are as follows:

 

https://Books2Read.com/LifeOnMars

 

eBook:

https://books.apple.com/gb/book/id6443120642

https://bit.ly/LifeOnMars-Google

https://bit.ly/LifeOnMars-Kobo

https://bit.ly/LifeOnMars-NookUS

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B61SSNVC

 

paperback:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Mars-Vikings-are-coming/dp/1915304024/

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/life-on-mars-hugh-duncan/1141765229?ean=9781915304025

https://www.bookdepository.com/x/9781915304025

An excerpt from the book:

The four dimensional characters Turkan and Amelius III are having a chat.

 

‘Amelius?’ said Turkan, having now placed all his chess pieces in what appeared to be a random way along the ‘single file’ board, with some small gaps, large gaps, three pieces in a row and some on the underside (though to Amelius they would have looked to be on the top side in view of the 4 dimensional positioning, a bit like a Mobius strip). ‘Amelius?’

‘Yes?’ he said, now offering him some nuts, by extending his hand down below him and then seeing his hand appear from the opposite direction above and in front of Turkan.

‘Thanks. Why are you called Amelius the Third? Is it because your father was Amelius the Second?’

‘No.’

‘Oh, well, was your grandfather Amelius the Second and your father had a different name?’

‘No.’

‘So why are you called Amelius the Third?’

‘Oh, because two thirds of me is not here…’

Turkan did a little double-take, then thought about it.

‘I’ll go first,’ he said to Amelius and he picked up his first pawn by reaching to the left and his hand came up from below to grab the white piece on the lower side of the strip. He moved it to the top surface and placed it between two black pawns. ‘Your turn…’

‘Ok,’ said Amelius, then he looked thoughtful as he surveyed the placement of the pieces, making out he knew how to play much better than he actually could.

‘So,’ continued Turkan, ‘where are the other two thirds?’

This third of Amelius had picked up one of his black pawns and was fingering it absentmindedly.

‘What?’

‘Well, if only a third of you is here, where are the other two thirds of your body?’

‘Um, well like you, I’m also on Mars.’

‘I know,’ said Turkan, ‘but that’s only a tiny bit. Where’s the rest?’

‘Oh, well, my parents told me I have several holdings rolled up in those off shore hidden dimensions.

‘You must be huge!’ said Turkan, looking at his friend and trying to consider the big picture.

‘Big boned my mum said,’ replied Amelius, still toying with his first pawn.

‘Where are they?’ Turkan asked.

‘What, my bones?’

‘The rest of you?’

‘Oh,’ he thought then pointed using the pawn in his hand, ‘over there somewhere…’

Amelius’ arm stretched off out of the right of the bubble, then came down from the ceiling through the floor and came in and out several times, crisscrossing itself around him and Turkan.

Turkan tutted and shook his head four dimensionally, which looked odd as it grew and shrunk and split into many parts like he was caught in a kaleidoscope.

‘No,’ he corrected his friend, ‘that’s the way to Mars, where your rocky butt sticks out!’

‘Ah,’ realised Amelius, retracting his arm, ‘then it’s in the opposite direction…’

As he was about to indicate the hiding place of his missing mass, Turkan grabbed his wrist and looked with concern.

‘Where’s the pawn?!’

‘What?’

‘You were holding your black pawn when you pointed. Your hand’s empty now!’

‘Oh,’ said Amelius, examining it then looking in all his other hands in case he’d passed it on.

‘You didn’t let go of it did you?!’

‘Um I don’t know, maybe it slipped out…’

‘This could be serious,’ said Turkan.

‘But I saw you had some spare pieces in the hypercuboid box where you got them from…’

 ‘No Amelius,’ said Turkan in a worried and annoyed voice, ‘you rub anything from our world against the three dimensional universe and there could be consequences. I told you this before!’

‘Sorry,’ said Amelius awkwardly, ‘but you did say the chance was very small.’

‘Yea, a hundred million to one I know!’ said Turkan. ‘Let’s hope nothing comes from this…’

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Now that you have had a little taster of the book, you might want to discover more about its author.

People will be interested in your writing

I have been a lifelong diary writer, but that, along with most creative writings before about age 30 I wouldn’t show to the public for fear of being ridiculed. If I don’t count my Dr Who book when I was aged six, my first completed science fantasy novel ‘Kessia 499’, was in 1978 when I was twenty, about two very different civilisations, cave man like and greek like and how a guy from the cultured crowd ends up stuck with the savages and I think I subconsciously stole part of the plot from One Million Years BC. Next I wrote ‘I want to be a machine’ about a young man who falls in love with his computer, obviously with a humorous slant. Then I wrote ‘Robots should be seen not heard’, about a time of too many robots and their unemployment problems. Douglas Adams must take some blame for that one.

The first full novel I sent off was called ‘Reproduce or Die’ about a genetic engineering team that designed a virus to stop the spread of killer bees, but the project was tampered with and there then follows a body swap type plot with the dark humour of Ben Elton rolled up with Michael Critchon’s intrigue.  Suffice to say no one, not even Elsewhen Press, wanted it so I went and hid up Short Story Street.

I wrote a humorous weekly review for teachers that started out more like Private Eye but the regular parody story about the teachers being doctors and nurses and the student being the patients in a M*A*S*H like setting became the most popular item so I felt I had finally found my niche.

Enter now into the third millennium and with Discworld, Lord of the Rings films appearing and Harry Potter on the rise, I felt inspired to write a parody for the students. I created the Deskworld Stories with teachers and students being witches and wizards in a magical school. This ran for over a decade with several dozen short stories, until I got back to the Life on Mars Project, which had been on the back burner since 1976. 

I love writing, whether it’s the diary, songs, poems, physics revision books, maths articles or fictions novels. I had never really stopped to ask myself why I like writing until it was posed to me for the blog tour. To be able to conjure up a tale, to be able to create a whole new world, a universe even, brings great personal joy. For other people to enjoy it too is the cherry on the cake. If that sounds too cheesy then I guess it must a cheese cake.

 

Gardens of Earth by Mark Iles

 

"They're an enigma. When it comes down to it, we know almost nothing about them, or their technology".

"They read people's dreams, and can control matter and light with their minds. Quite incredible really. What humans thought of as magic actually exists, in a way..."

Gardens of Earth by Mark Iles (Elsewhen Press) is a heady mix of sci fi and fantasy, with elements of time travel and myths. It's a formidable saga of a post-apocalyptic future, when the aliens take over the Earth. 

This is the first book of The Sundering Chronicles.

"The story tackles war against the Spooks, aliens that invaded Earth in their "ghostly plant" ships seeking revenge for the destruction of their own planet by humans; a future that may be considered either dystopian or utopian, depending on who you ask; and a protagonist coping with his personal demons in an unfamiliar and stressful environment - not to mention immediate threats from a pathological killer, the remnants of Earth's inhabitants now living in a sparse pre-industrial society under the watchful eye of the Spooks, and returning human colonists intent on reclaiming Earth. Underlying all this are issues of social justice, human and android rights, and love that transcends difference".

You might compare it to Lord of the Rings with spaceships and andrioids. 

The very first chapter grabs you by the collar and throws you into a terrifying action scene between the humans and the aliens. 

As the population of Earth is growing, the colonisation of the distant planets seems like a logical solution. Except that due to the corporate greed and blundering surveyors, the planet dubbed "Halloween" is not an uninhabited free world available for the humans to seize and establish a colony within. The military units, deployed to protect the human colony on Halloween, have named the aliens "Spooks" for their ability to read people's innermost thoughts, twist their minds and thrive on their fears. The fear is turned into an individual weapon of destruction, in the most horrific way. 

The colony on Halloween is doomed. As a retaliation, the military units nuke the planet. A big mistake, as now the Spooks are taking their revenge on Earth, invading it and executing the humans, one by one.

There is the last minute attempt to save the planet and avert the alien invasion.

A marine combat pilot Seethan Bodell is given a top secret spacecraft which allows you to travel in time. The original plan is for Seethan and his non-combatant co-pilot and secret lover Rose Mills to go back in time, to stop the mankind from ever colonising Halloween. 

However, the mission goes terribly wrong. Instead of the past, Seethan finds himself in the distant future, where technology doesn't work, and where the remaining humans live in a pre-industrial society.

Seethan has been sent home from the front to give him a chance to recover from the PTSD. He has his own demons to conquer. His nightmares are related to the last battle, where he lost his close friends. "As always, he was unable to remember the nightmares. All he knew about them was the rush of adrenalin that made his fists clench, the tension in his shoulders, and the thudding in his chest, as if his heart were trying to dig its ways through his rib cage".

Seethan is in love with Rose, but their relationship is a tricky one. Rose is an android. Many humans openly dislike "the silver freaks" and distrust them. Seethan believes the androids have as much right to a decent life as anyone else. "Back where he came from people were afraid of their [androids'] strength, intelligence, and sense of purpose. Mankind knew that if the machines ever turned against humanity then they'd be in serious trouble..."

The future when Seethan finds himself is the society, surviving after the tragic events of The Sundering, when the world has been decimated, and the reality has changed forever. The Spooks have won the war and now rule the Earth. 

The small tribes of humans are scattered around the planet, living the simple lives, without technology. They are being watched by the Spooks, and punished if they are considered to be disobedient.

Seethan is desperate to find Rose, who he believes has landed in this world as well. He knows that her android body won't be able to survive in the current situation.

The post-apocalyptic society on Earth is portrayed as a place where the old magic is resurrected, with the mythological creatures roaming the wild forests, like werewolves, elves, witches. "The paranormal existed. It always had. The Spooks' arrival had simply rekindled the magic that had once been abundant, but had lain dormant in recent centuries".

Gardens of Earth is power-packed with social and philosophical themes, concepts and ideas of advanced technology, its values and flaws, space exploration, alien life, parallel worlds, time travel, fictional societies being a social commentary on the modern life etc. From sci fi technology and aliens the narrative moves to a more philosophical, almost spiritual fantasy tale.

Edgy, compelling and creepy as hell... 

Different from my usual reads, it is a great discovery. Can't wait to read the second book in the series.

Author Bio:

Born and raised in Slough, Mark Iles began studying the martial arts when he was 14 and joined the Royal Navy at the age of 17. A voracious reader he used to devour up to three paperbacks a day – primarily science fiction, fantasy, and horror – by the likes of John Wyndham, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Brian Lumley, Stephen King, and a plethora of others. After the Falklands War, Mark was drafted to Hong Kong, where he began writing features for various martial arts magazines and short stories for a wide range of markets. While there his first book, Kwak’s Competition Taekwondo was published by Hai Feng.

In 2012 he decided to challenge himself and undertook an MA in Professional Writing, followed by Diplomas in both Copywriting and Proofreading. With over 200 short stories and features under his belt the book he wrote for his MA project, A Pride of Lions, was accepted and published by Solstice Publishing. This was followed by two more books, The Cull of Lions and Roar of Lions – plus 4 novellas and a short story collection, Falling From Grace, and others. His latest novel, Gardens of Earth – first book in The Sundering Chronicles, was published by Elsewhen this October.

Now a full-time writer Mark is working on the second book in The Sundering Chronicles series, as well as another short story collection. Over the years he has risen in the ranks of Taekwondo and now holds a 9th Degree black belt, and loves passing on his knowledge as and where he can.

http://www.markiles.co.uk

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mark-Iles/e/B004YZBP3I

http://www.twitter.com/welcometoearth

Mark Iles – Elsewhen Press