Barry Kirwan Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 01 Nov 2020 11:16:00 +0000

The new scifi novel, When the Children Come is finally available for pre-order on Amazon. Release date is 8th January. Here's the blurb:

Nathan, emotionally scarred after three tours in Afghanistan, lives alone in Manhattan until New Year’s Eve, when he meets Lara. The next morning, he notices something strange is going on – a terrified kid is being pursued by his father, and a girl, Sally, pleads with Nathan to hide her from her parents. There is no internet, no television, no phone coverage.

Nathan, Lara and Sally flee along the East Coast, encountering madmen, terrorists, the armed forces, and other children frightened for their lives. The only thing Nathan knows for sure is that he must not fall asleep...

“A fantastic and original premise…flashes of Stephen King and MR Carey.” Tom Witcomb

“A nicely taut thriller, with a Lee Child feel to its staccato writing and strong action sequences, and a high concept stretching the novel into true science fiction territory.” Amanda Rutter

“Not just a page-turner – all in all a fabulous novel, which I was sad to finish.” Loulou Brown

There will also be a blog tour timed with the release, so I'm hoping for some good reviews. Now, I just need to start writing the sequel...

Going speculative...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 02 Jan 2020 09:38:00 +0000

On the forthcoming new novel, When the Children Come, I decided the overall premise wasn't 'speculative' enough, as in thought-provoking. Essentially the book starts off with a kind of Birdbox feel, then transitions into scifi when an alien ship is detected in deep orbit.

There are many potential reasons why aliens might come to Earth, and most of these have been done to death before, with such tropes as 'they want to eat us, they want our water, our planet, they want to destroy us because aliens are just plain nasty,' etc. I've already used a variant of one of these for the Eden Paradox series, and wanted to do something different, something new.

Something that no one has tried before.

Given the body of scifi work, that's a big ask. So, I did research on all the various scifi tropes in films, TV series and of course books, and then I started looking at astrobiological chat-sites...

And then I drank a lot of coffee, and came up with something. In part it's inspired by something that happens in the final Eden Paradox book (Eden's Endgame), and is also a bit related to what I want to cover in the fifth Eden book I want to start writing in 2020, Eden's Legacy.

I'm now working it into the novel. Happily, it doesn't affect the first two thirds, only the last part.

No spoilers.

Happy 2020 to all my readers!

Eden calling....

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 05:49:00 +0000

The audiobook version of The Eden Paradox was released about a week ago and is already doing well, nudging up next to its digital clone in one of the top ten categories in the UK, and sitting next to John Scalzi in the US. Very nice to see!

I was at a conference the past couple of days and people said 'You should bring it out in Audiobook', and for the first time I could simply say, 'it's done!'

Meanwhile, I've been listening to the book, and it's fascinating to hear all the different accents the narrator (Edward Mitchell) uses, and the way he 'acts' rather than simply reads the words. He really brings it to life like a good story-teller.

I've already decided not to stop with listening to my own books, I'm going to try out for some others as well, probably Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky is first on my list.

The voice of Eden Paradox is coming...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 10 Sep 2019 05:34:00 +0000

At the end of September, all four books in the Eden Paradox series will be launched in audible format. For more information, and for pre-order, click here. Must admit, I can't wait to hear them. I was able to be involved in selecting the narrator, which was fun, fitting the voice to the style of the books. The final choice, Ed Mitchell, seemed a good fit for Micah in particular.

Meanwhile, the books are still selling strong, passed the 10,000 sales mark this year alone at the end of August, with most sales in the UK followed by the US. Micah and the rest of the gang are very happy about it!

Sales up again...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 04 Aug 2019 08:22:00 +0000

Two weeks after Amazon started listing the books again, sales are creeping up again - not quite at their June levels, but respectable (1000 sales in the past couple of weeks). Still really no explanation about why the books were de-listed, but once the Society of Authors intervened on my behalf, within 24 hours, four of the books were back on sale, and then the fifth was reinstated as well a few days later. I guess I'll never know what really happened.

Putting this behind me, it's time to restart work on the next series with the first book When the Children Come, which I hope to release for Xmas. An early professional reviewer pitched it as being somewhere between Birdbox and Bodysnatchers, but with more science fiction behind it, and written in a Lee Child style. Not bad...

New front cover for Eden's Revenge

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 13 Jul 2019 15:59:00 +0000

Well, given the problems with Amazon over the original front cover for Eden's Revenge, the artist (John Harris), agent (Alison Eldred) and I decided to design a new front cover in any case, shown below. This third book opens on the planet Esperia, where the remnants of humanity are overseen by the Assyrians, who live in a 'pyramid-ship'. Well, a picture paints a thousand words, so, here it is (thanks John & Alison):

How Amazon killed a best-seller...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 12 Jul 2019 14:06:00 +0000

As some of you have noticed, my science fiction eBooks suddenly vanished from Amazon a couple of weeks ago. This was during a sale when I was selling 150 books a day and around 4000 a month, with the first book, The Eden Paradox, occupying five #1 Best-Seller slots on amazon.co.uk in scifi genre categories such as Cyberpunk, Colonisation, Alien Invasion, etc., and hovering around the top 500 books for around a month.

Someone - I don't know who, as Amazon won't tell me - contested copyright of the front cover of Eden's Revenge, book 3 in the series. Amazon KDP reacted immediately and shut down my account, accusing me of copyright violation, 'which they take very seriously.' Note that they removed all four books. I received the email at 2:11 am, asking for proof, but by the time I awoke at 7am my account was already shut down. By 8am I'd sent them the proof, but to no avail.

Since then I have written to them with further proof that I have the necessary rights to use the cover, as has the artist's agent and even the artist. I have also offered to change the front cover at my own expense, though I shouldn't have to. So far there has been no shift in Amazon's position. It is under final review now, with a decision due early next week. After two weeks of 'robot replies', I have to say I'm not very hopeful.

What is frustrating is that I cannot speak to the people inside Amazon KDP who have made this decision. I don't know what 'evidence' they have, and get no reply when I ask what more I can do or what else they need. I have pointed out that the artist and agent would very much like to know who exactly this third party is who believes they have copyright...

In the meantime, I have had readers writing to me on a daily basis asking where the books have gone. I explain what has happened, and that they can also find them on Apple, Nook and Kobo. Some have switched, others are waiting. However, if Amazon uphold their decision, I'm not quite sure what I do next. I am currently banned from opening a new KDP account.

In scouring the net, I find I am not alone. It is very easy for someone to accuse someone else of violating copyright, and then suddenly your products are de-listed. Getting them re-listed seems to be near-impossible. Someone else pointed out that Amazon has smart lawyers - the 'safe play' is to treat all allegations of copyright infringement as valid, then they cannot be sued by either party...

On a happier note, the books are coming out in audio format later in the year via a separate publisher. I will almost certainly change the cover for the third book.

There is a broader issue here. Amazon is a near-monopoly for eBooks, and authors make Amazon a lot of money. Amazon should reciprocate and have a charter on how it respects and protects those same authors. This could be part of Amazon's corporate social responsibility. As the biggest company in the world, it has a duty of care to all its communities, authors included.

Re-branding a series - a success story

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 09 Jun 2019 10:26:00 +0000

Since I re-branded and re-launched the Eden Paradox series at the end of January earlier this year, after an initial slow pick-up, all four books are doing well. By doing well I mean I'm selling 80-100 eBooks a day, and the lead book, the Eden Paradox, is in and out of position #1 in the Galactic Empire sub-genre on Amazon UK and in the top 5 in half a dozen other categories, with book two, Eden's Trial, also in the top ten in a number of science fiction categories. In the US the showing hasn't been as marked, though this morning it was in the top 20 in Cyberpunk, the book's strongest initial category.

So, how did it happen? A ton of marketing? Strong use of newsletters and mass email lists? Extensive use of Amazon paid marketing? A twitter frenzy or blog tour to give a pre-launch buzz?

None of the above.

I'll let you in on a secret. I don't like marketing. I know many authors feel the same way, but we all end up doing it anyway, because the market is in such a state of deluge that if you don't do something, then no matter how great your book is, it won't be visible. If it isn't visible, or, to use the vogue term, discoverable, then people won't buy it because they won't know about it.

Even if you get a deal with a publisher - spoiler alert coming - many of them will not do much for your book, especially if you are a first-timer with them. If it takes off immediately because it has thirty or more 5* reviews via NetGalley when it is launched, and there is a big buzz around it, then it can shoot up the charts from the start, and if it is a good book, it will probably stay there and, well, jolly well done and good for you! But if it doesn't do brilliantly, and they haven't given you an advance they want repaid in sales, then their marketing budget will quickly switch to other books that are doing well or about to be launched. It's a business, and money follows success...

So, back to what I did, but first, some necessary background. This was a re-launch. The books were initially published one a year from February 2011, four books in total. In 2012 there was a spike and I sold a thousand books a week for two weeks, for two of the books which went viral, which was bloody fantastic to watch, but then sales petered out quickly. Nobody seems to know what caused the spike, but hey, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, right?

And then after a couple of years they flatlined, and I was selling a few books a month. There is a word that describes how this makes an author feel. The word is crushed. I had two indie publishers who weren't doing any marketing for the books any more. But I did have some excellent reviews on all four books in UK and US. I figured I'd done okay, that they'd had their day, and that I should move on to other books. And then something tragic happened.

My Mum died.

She'd loved my books, never read one of them, just given me and them that unquestioning love and pride a mother gives and an author yearns for. So, I came into a bit of money, and I thought, holiday? New TV? Car upgrade?

No. I wanted to make her proud. In case she was watching.

I bought back the rights, and paid for some serious artwork to re-brand the books. My favourite science fiction artist is John Harris, and he is just awesome, and if you're reading this, chances are you're looking at one of his art pieces on the header. This kind of artwork is not how most science fiction books look these days - they are full of very cool digitally-created pictures. John's are oil paintings. Old science fiction books sometimes looked this way, and I wanted to make a statement, that my books are in a sense a throwback to Asimov and Clarke and Herbert and early Brin, and Jack McDevitt who also uses John Harris artwork. I also wanted my books to stand out on Amazon pages in amongst the 'pack'. They do.

So I re-launched them on Amazon, kindle version and paperback. Aside from the artwork this cost me nothing, as the tools are free. I had to unpublish the original versions, but Amazon kindly transferred the original reviews to the new versions. I did not enrol in Kindle Select, as I wanted to also have the books on Apple, Kobo and Nook. Even though I sell few books there, it's important when doing any advertising to show that you're playing to a wide audience. And some of my friends use these other platforms.

I did a few blogs, sure, and some tweets, but not many to be honest. I tried Amazon's own marketing, where you bid for clicks etc., and that got it off the ground and did make it discoverable, though my ACOS (basically the ratio of what you pay for advertising and what you earn) was never good. I then did some advertising with BooksButterfly, and that accelerated things, selling around 10 a day. Initially it was book one, but then of course some readers (not all - I don't kid myself) went on to read the rest of the series. Book Two, Eden's Trial, is very gritty, and I know I always lose a few readers after that one, but those that continue do go on do read books 3 & 4.

I then used BargainBooksy for a one-day sale, and sold 160 books in a day, and from then onwards it started selling 30+ books daily, mainly in the UK, and slowly but surely it climbed upwards. Then one day it hit the Best Seller spot (#1 in Galactic Empire), and there was a step change in sales up to 80-120 a day, which is where I am now. I do think there was some luck here, in that at this time both of Adrian Tchaikovsky's books were ahead of mine in the Cyberpunk and Colonisation categories, and these are just such amazing books to be rubbing shoulders with, that I think it gave my books an 'uplift'.

I did try Bookbub, the biggest advertiser, but they didn't accept my ad. Maybe later.

I've kept the price of the ebooks low, with Eden Paradox and Eden's Trial (the first two) at 0.99 (US$, GBP, etc.), while the other two (Eden's Revenge and Eden's Endgame) fluctuate between 0.99 and 2.99. I recently released an Omnibus version (all 4 books in one volume) at 7.99, which is not competitive, but still some people buy it. If ever sales do decrease markedly on the other 4 books, I'll do a sale of this one. At the moment I absolutely won't do a sale on it, as it could be a serious strategic error marketing-wise.

The other thing I did was play with the categories, initially every few days, seeing if I could nudge the books into top 10 slots. Cyberpunk was my strongest, until Eden Paradox made it to #1 in Galactic Empire, and then it got the 'Best Seller' label next to it, and then, well, I just watched the sales take off.

In terms of resources and advice, I should mention that I signed up with Jericho Writers for a year and devoured their video tutorials on self-publishing. I didn't do everything they said, but I did take on board their advice on Amazon descriptions and category selection, and played the latter like the stock market, nudging the first book in particular into top 10 categories. Once everything is set up, this is easy to do and takes 5-10 minutes. By the way, Amazon sometimes ignores your category selection, but they are also trying to make money, and sometimes they make a better choice.

Oddly enough, having sold >3000 copies, it has only led to 2 reviews, both 3*, and one of which is double-edged. I don't mind, as I know that many people are reading all the way to the end of the series, so I'm trusting in the silent majority. But it is definitely harder getting reviews these days.

Have I re-couped my costs? Yes! More than that, an audiobook company approached me out of the blue and gave me a nice advance for audiobook versions of all four books.

My Mum is smiling somewhere.

That's about it. It goes without saying that none of this works if your books aren't good in the first place. No promises. Maybe I got lucky. Maybe I had an angel pulling some strings for me. In any case, if you are thinking about re-branding and re-launching, I hope some of the insights here help you. And if you are prepared to do all the marketing razzmatazz I ignored, I'm sure you could do even better.

Best of luck to you!

Barry

Website makeover...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 18 May 2019 13:20:00 +0000

Well, if you're reading this, chance is you've already noticed that I've updated the website with the new artwork from John Harris, which also forms the cover art for the omnibus version comprising all four books (on kindle that's over 2000 pages). I haven't done any marketing of this tome yet, as the other books are enjoying a surge in sales, almost 1000 in the past month alone, particularly in the UK but also the US. I think Kalaran must be behind it, it's the only explanation... This blog page, however, is going to keep the original artwork for the series, as I still like it!

http://www.barrykirwan.com

Omnibus Version of Eden Paradox series published...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 12 May 2019 08:10:00 +0000

Eight years after The Eden Paradox first hit the streets in February 2011, and four years after the finale Eden's Endgame was published, I finally got around to producing an 'Omnibus' version containing all four books. At the moment the individual books are selling well, and it's cheaper to buy them singly than this version, but that may change, and this is intended as something of a collector's item. I was able to gain some fabulous artwork from John Harris, so that now all five volumes use his cover art, and this final cover has a more optimistic feel to it, which you'll understand if you make it all the way through the series.

While editing it all into one tome, I read most of it all through again, and have to say I miss these characters and their fractious universe, and it makes me wonder, and that's all I'm doing at the moment, wondering, but I inadvertently thought of a title, which is a dangerous thing to do, but now it's in my head and I can't unthink it...

Eden's Return.

A nice spike...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 22 Apr 2019 19:13:00 +0000

Since late January I've been re-branding and re-launching the books. Seems to be working. Although the books had sold quite well originally, in the last couple of years sales had pretty much slipped into a coma. I bought back the rights from the two indie publishers, and spent a lot of time on Kindle Create. So far, they've sold 600 in the past three months, and yesterday there was a nice spike (160 ebooks sold in one day) on Amazon US, UK and I got some new readers from Australia. Drove the first and second books up into the top 100 Cyberpunk and Alien Invasion categories on Amazon. They are still there, though maybe not for long...

So, while I'm waiting for the new novel to be reviewed (one of my pre-readers just finished it and loved it) I've started production of an Omnibus Edition of the entire Eden Paradox series - all four books in one volume. Few will buy the paperback version (though there will be one), but I'm hoping quite a few will buy the Ebook version, opening the series up to a new audience.

So, now I need to find a new cover, which is the fun part, and then compile all 4 volumes seamlessly into one, which is going to take me some time...

Is re-branding worth it? A case study...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 15 Mar 2019 05:48:00 +0000

When I wrote the Eden Paradox series - 4 books published between 2011 and 2014 - particularly the first two, but also the entire series, sold well into 4 figures (i.e. in the 1000-6000 range, mainly eBooks). But after 2015 sales waned. By 2018 sales hadn't exactly flatlined, but it was a slow, coma-like pulse of a few books a month.

At the end of 2018, after discussions with the publishers, I re-acquired the books. I then produced new covers for the first two, using better artwork more consistent with the style of the last two books, and re-published them myself on amazon kdp. The re-pubishing part was free though laborious, but by Jan 25 I was ready to re-launch the entire series. I didn't do much personally in the way of marketing as a few 'life events' were getting in the way, but the results - whilst not spectacular in terms of best-seller sales - were heartening, as you can see from the graph (250 sales over 6 weeks) taken direct from KDP's site yesterday.

In particular book 1 has done well, but a healthy number of readers are going on to read the entire series (it's early days so I hope the sales of books 2-4 will strengthen). Most sales are in the US, with UK close behind, with some in France, Canada, and one Aussie.

I'll be launching a new book (the first in a new series) by the summer, so hopefully if that one does well it will keep an interest in this series, too, and vice versa.

So, is it worth all the effort to re-brand and re-launch an old series? Well, as with most authors, it's not about the money, it's about being read, and for me this has been a definite 'win', having gained a new batch of readers for a series I poured heart and soul into five years ago. I'll review sales figures at the end of the year, to see if they were sustainable.

In the meantime, for other authors who may be pondering this same question, the answer is simple - re-branding and re-launching can breathe new sales life into a series.

On alien AI...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 03 Mar 2019 06:24:00 +0000

I'm editing the final chapter of the new novel, When the Children Come, and without giving too much away, the human protagonist encounters an AI (Artificial Intelligence). But this is not a human-created one, it comes from an alien race. So it doesn't carry any human baggage in its algorithms, including the stuff we'd like to rid ourselves of, such as hatred, our capacity for war, etc. However, it wants some...

AI is not new - whether your starting point is Asimov's robots, the robot from The Forbidden Planet, or Star Trek's Data, the typical idea is of a mature and pure intellect. Purity in Scifi seems to have nothing to do with good or bad, so AIs have often been portrayed as evil, ruthless and even malicious, though as a psychologist, I'm not sure how the emotional content would get coded...

The basic idea behind an AI is that it is a learning system, whether via neural nets, machine learning, or some other way, running on basic algorithms that can later become self-adapting. This means AI's can become very smart (though whether knowledge and data alone breed wisdom is another question), and make very fast decisions. Future warfare scenarios will probably involve AI's, who can make judgement calls (based on instilled values such as loss of life, mission criticality, collateral damage, use of resources, etc.) far faster than a battle commander - in theory. In practice warfare is about as messy as humanity gets, so there are rarely any clean decisions, so maybe (I'm hoping) there will always be a human in the loop.

The fear, most eminently expressed in the Terminator film series, is that the AI does indeed get smarter and decides humanity's fate in a nanosecond. But surely there could be an off-switch, or a way of detecting AI turning into 'malware'? Not so much, because of the complexity. There are big debates going on right now about whether AI 'thinking' must remain explainable. Think of self-driving cars for a moment. Imagine one such car runs down a cyclist. Why did it happen? To unravel the thousands of lines of code (make that hundreds of thousands, and probably millions), to work out why it behaved in such a way, is very laborious, and may soon become intractable. That's because when we go ahead and tell an AI to learn, we effectively push it out of the nest and let it learn to fly on its own.

So, coming back to science fiction, what about Asimov's three laws, that he implanted in his robots' psyches so they could never harm humans? Could we have such a 'backstop' in AI's? In the upcoming novel, the AI in question comes from a benign race. But it wants some of the bad stuff, and sees humanity as a way of overcoming the backstops in its core programming. Which gives the humans in question something of a dilemma, as they are going to need this AI in order to survive...

New cover branding for books one and two

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 24 Jan 2019 05:34:00 +0000

I'm getting some new artwork for the covers of The Eden Paradox and Eden's Trial, using two paintings from John Harris, who was the artist for the last two books (Eden's Revenge and Eden's Endgame). While this happens the versions may go off-line for a short while on Amazon etc., but it should be worth the short wait... I simply love his artwork!

I discovered him after reading several books by Jack McDevitt, one of my favourite American SF writers, as he sometimes uses JH images for his covers. So, stay tuned, new covers out soon...

New cover art for the Eden Paradox & Eden's Trial

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 20 Jan 2019 09:10:00 +0000

I'm getting two of the covers re-done for the Eden Paradox series of 4 books. Below are the ones I'm thinking about. Any comments / preferences welcome! They are all John Harris artworks, so will fit with the third and fourth book covers (the final image below is the JH cover for Eden's Revenge).

A tale of two writers...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Dec 2017 15:10:00 +0000

As some of you know or by now have guessed, I have written two series, one the Eden Paradox, a science fiction series, and the other a spy thriller series, under the name J F Kirwan. Having finished both series, the question I find both my 'halves' being asked, is what next?

Well, as with everything about writers, rather than a simple answer, there's a story. When I finished the Eden series with Eden's Endgame, I was pretty exhausted. That series started as a short story back in 2003 (called Trouble in Eden), which by 2008 was a manuscript, and it got published (The Eden Paradox) in 2011. But let's backtrack just a moment, because in 2008 I almost got a deal for the book with HarperCollins in the US, but although their SF editor in chief loved it, it didn't make it through the committee that makes the financial decisions (at 164,000 words it was deemed too long to be financially viable for a first book). Then came the financial crash, when everything in publishing went south, so it took a few more years for it to come out via an indie publisher. But after that I produced a book each year until Endgame, when I was done, although I confess I have considered one day writing a sequel or a prequel...

I wanted a short sabbatical from SF, to work on characterisation, and I'd had two serious back operations that had stopped me from scuba-diving, my other passion, so as an exercise I started writing a thriller with scenes borrowed from some of my scarier diving moments. It was just for fun, but I sent it out and took it to a writers conference, where it got roundly hammered. Nevertheless, I put in all the reviewers' suggestions, even one I thought was wrong and completely off-beam, and sent it out again, and got it accepted by... HarperCollins. Not only that, they wanted a three-book deal. Guess what I said?

But by now I'd started another science fiction story (I don't sleep, you know that if you read my blogs), titled 'When the Children Come', which was meant to be a prequel to a short story I wrote (actually intended as a tribute to Iain Banks) called Executive Decision. I was already a third of the way through the book when the deal with HC came through, and so I had to shelve the fledgling novel.

So, to cut a long story short, I'm going to finish the 'Children' book before I do anything else. The premise is pretty dark, and it's single protagonist, so we get to see everything through the eyes of Nathan, a damaged American war veteran who did one too many tours in Afghanistan. It's intended to be a trilogy: When the children come, When the children return, and After the children. As with Eden, it is as much about us as it is about aliens, and about a possible dark future pathway for humanity. Set today, it will include some of the darkness already on our planet, from child soldiers to racial tensions and hatred, that could be our undoing. But there will always be a spark of hope, because that is why I write.

Does this mean the thrillers are now on hold? Probably not for long, but as the saying goes, and as Nathan does in the end, I'm going to put the children first.

To see more on the thrillers, see my other website here.

Close encounters of the scary kind...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 12 Aug 2017 17:09:00 +0000

One of my favourite scenes from the Eden Paradox is the following, where Blake and Pierre have finally made it to the new planet, Eden, and realize they are not alone. They are tracking an alien they've not seen up close yet, looking for its nest so they can steal an egg for study, but are about to get a lot more than they bargained for...

Blake skidded to a stop in front of Pierre and held out his arm. Pierre managed to stop just in time, on the edge of a precipice, as they entered a cathedral-like chamber. Sharp cracks stabbed the silence, as small rocks they had just pushed over the edge tumbled to the bottom, landing within a couple of seconds. Tardy, deeper echoes told him the vastness of this subterranean cavity, the torch beams dissipating hopelessly in the dark void. Blake put down his rifle and extracted a stubby pistol from his backpack. He lifted his arm and fired a magnesium spike flare upwards into the middle of the cavern. It found purchase in the massive domed ceiling, illuminating the cavern in a ghoulish twilight.

Pierre looked down below, across the plain stretching out before them. "Eggs," he said, a hollow feeling in his stomach; eggs, as far as he could see. But they had been cruelly misled by the Hohash image. It was almost a joke. Steal an egg, they’d decided. As if they could put one in their rucksacks. Pierre recalled that when Blake had seen the Hohash image, there had been no frame of reference. He gazed at the nearest row. Each egg was twice the height and width of a man.

He switched into scientist mode, to allay the welling-up of fear. He cleared his throat. "They must hatch fully grown. Makes ecological sense for a predator."

Blake crouched on the solid-rock floor, and tossed a pebble over the side of the small cliff. He pulled out a navcon from his backpack and swept the surrounding area, before the light from the flare dimmed. When it sputtered and died, it felt worse to Pierre – not seeing the silent arrays of eggs, yet knowing they were there.

"The navcon has ninety-five per cent of the image," Blake said.

They both retrieved and donned their goggles, and switched off their torches, plunging themselves into abyssal darkness. Pierre flicked a switch on his goggles and instantly could see pretty much what he’d been able to see in the fullness of the flare a minute before, whichever way he moved or turned his head. Pierre recalled this gadget had come close to getting the Nobel Tech prize. He reckoned it should have won.

He activated his transponder, so the navcon could map their relative positions and overlay them onto the recorded scene, stopping them from bumping into each other. Peering over the edge again, he saw the eggs – large and rugged-looking, sitting upright. Of course he was seeing where they were, and was assuming – hoping – that nothing was moving down there.

Pierre heard Blake remove his goggles briefly, so he did too, flicking his torch on.

"Motion sensor," Blake said, lobbing a small device back into the tunnel behind them. He then took out a self-burying eye-bolt, placed it on the rocky floor, touched the two-second primer, and stood back. With a sound like an underwater gunshot, it fired itself into the stone with a reassuring thud. He attached the auto-feed wire system to the eyebolt via a karabiner and replaced his goggles.

"Wait twenty seconds, then follow."

He swung himself smoothly over the edge and abseiled down.

Pierre counted to twenty, attached his own auto-descent system to the wire, and replaced his goggles. He backed toward the edge. He thought he heard something, a distant rumbling, coming from the entrance. Uselessly, he looked toward it, but of course the goggles could show no movement. He leant back, bent his knees, and kicked off, propelling himself away and down the cliff-face.

A shrill electronic whine, rising in tone, made him misjudge his descent, and his knees smashed into the cliff face, stinging with pain – the motion detector had sensed something approaching, fast. The whine was drowned out by the creature’s roar, and it felt to Pierre as if the whole chamber vibrated. He pressed the freefall button on his harness and dropped faster, but was suddenly yanked upwards. Pebble-sized rocks pummelled his head and shoulders.

"Cut the line!" Blake shouted from below.

In disbelief Pierre looked upward and saw nothing, then raked his goggles down and managed to switch on his torch – the creature was hauling him up. He could see its trapezoidal head, the blood red breathing slits writhing on its black-blue face. The creature’s roar made Pierre’s hands freeze, clinging to the cord.

"Pierre! CUT – THE – LINE!"

He rose rapidly in jerks, a metre at a time, the creature’s forelegs feverishly pulling up the line, like a spider reeling in a fly. Pierre could hardly breathe, as his right hand flailed behind him groping for the knife. His head bashed against the cliff face knocking his torch from his left hand as he tried to protect himself. He knew he had only a few more seconds. His outstretched right hand fingers brushed across the hilt and he gripped it with all his might. Another yank pulled him up almost to the ledge. With a yell not far short of a scream, he whipped the knife above his head and severed the line, feeling a gust of air as a claw lashed past his face. He freefell, hurling the knife sideways so he could lock his elbows around his neck and head, the creature’s howl of fury chasing him as he tumbled into the darkness below.

You can purchase the Eden Paradox here, along with the other three books in the series.

My evil twin again...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 07 May 2017 11:02:00 +0000

This one is kind of about all three writers trapped in my mind: the SF writer, the thriller writer, and the non-fiction writer... The post is here.http://jfkirwan.blogspot.fr/2017/05/why-i-wrote-37-hours.html?m=1 and is about Chernobyl and other nuclear accidents, and how they informed my writing.

What my evil twin is up to...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 19 Mar 2017 14:55:00 +0000

As some of you may know I also have an alter ego under the slight pseudonym J F Kirwan. So, for the past year I've been working on a three-part thriller series, and the second book just came out a few days ago. I have one more to write and publish before I return to science fiction.

If you like my SF writing, whether the Eden Paradox series of four books or my free short stories (here), you might like to try the thrillers in the meantime. But later this year I promise to get back to the next SF novel, 'When the Children Come.'

66 Metres and 37 Hours are ebooks and can be found here and here (they are also available on iBooks etc.).

To colonise Mars, or not...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 02 Oct 2016 18:42:00 +0000

I just read an article in the Economist about this very subject, triggered by pioneer Elon Musk's just-released plans (dreams?) for huge rockets that could take 100 people at a time to Mars. While I usually like this news mag, I took issue with the article because they use the name Stephen Hawking and the word 'claptrap' in dangerous proximity...

In my very first (and only) school debate, some years (okay, decades) ago, I tackled this subject, pointing out that humanity needed a Plan B in case we were unlucky or stupid enough to wipe ourselves out.

The Economist shoots down a couple of the basic arguments with sniper precision. Most pandemics and plagues, even of the most virulent kind, will not kill everyone. About 80% is the maximum conceivable, so there are still a lot of people left. And they point out that if aliens arrived, they could make quick work of Mars (probably before breakfast) before tackling more irksome Earth.

All true.

But they are missing something.

A massive, global pandemic would ravage the population. Let's take a worst case scenario, 80%. That's one in five who are left. Let's assume (and it's one hell of an assumption) that in the aftermath, those 20% decide to work together. Would they have the right skills? How long before infrastructure would fail at every level? We live in a world with very inter-connected and finely-tuned systems. How long would the internet keep running? Our phones? Power plants? The Grid? Aviation? Communications? Oil and gas? Many companies store their data and knowledge in the Cloud. Would it still be there? Would we even know what skill sets we required to get things back up and running?

We'd have to be fast, too. Because education would slip back quickly. Most people would end up having to run farms in order to survive (the film Interstellar is great on this) rather than learn engineering. And what of medicine, and MRI scanners and chemotherapy and and and...

Global nuclear war would be worse as infrastructure would be decimated. The social situation following such a catastrophe is simply unknowable, with science fiction writers the few who dare to tread there, and they are not painting a bright picture. Humanity would not be extinct, true, but we'd be set back at least decades, maybe centuries. But not so if people on Mars could come back and help fix things, help us re-boot our societies.

There is another reason to look to Mars, and the stars. It is to do so while we can. There is a belief that we can just keep going on getting better and smarter and tekkier. But we don't know what is around the corner. In my own SF book on this subject (the Eden Paradox), over the next few decades religious wars erupt and funding for space exploration is simply not available. Once again a valuable skill-set is lost, this time one to build a life-raft before climate change gets the better of us. So. Do it while you can. Because interplanetary travel is not something you can engineer in a year. It will take decades to get it right.

In July I visited Cape Canaveral and got to watch an Atlas V rocket launch. It was over fast, but it meant a lot to me. And that was just a spy satellite. I remember the hope and awe of the first landing on the moon, the inspiration it served for more than one generation. Imagine watching the launch of a rocket taking people to Mars. Imagine being able to point to a dim dot in the sky, and say, hey, there's people there, just like us.

Just imagine...

From Interstellar to Underwater

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 17 Sep 2016 16:41:00 +0000

An interview of Barry Kirwan by Dimitri Keramitas
Dr Barry Kirwan grew up watching the Apollo missions, goggling at Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon at a friend’s house, because his parents had color TV. He decided to become an astronaut. But he had childhood asthma, so when he tried later to get into the air force, he was rejected. Instead he became a psychologist working in aviation safety, and a writer. He also discovered the next best thing to space travel - scuba diving.

"When scuba diving, you are essentially weightless. You can drift with the current and soar over coral outcrops that look like alien cities festooned with myriad fish of all shapes, colors and sizes, more varied than any Star Wars bar. You can freefall through sheets of darkening blue in search of deep wrecks, just as ominous as finding the Prometheus on a faraway planet. And you can meet big sharks that are every inch the killing machine, scarier than Alien, because underwater, you can’t run."

He became an open water instructor with the British Sub Aqua Club (more or less equivalent to a PADI DiveMaster) and was an Advanced Training Officer at a BSAC club in the UK. Kirwan has dived all over the UK, Norway, Holland, Brest in France, Corsica, Malta, Bulgaria, the Red Sea, Kenya (Watamu - whaleshark territory), Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, Mauritius, Seychelles, Monterey, Palau (in the Pacific, Jacques Cousteau's favorite place), and Truk Lagoon (also in the Pacific, a wreck-diver's haven). But his favorite site is Sipidan, Borneo.

"As you walk in," says Kirwan, "the reef plunges 2000 feet. It is full of large turtles and reef sharks, and if you want to see bigger sharks, you just swim away from the reef. The South China seas have the most varied fish in the world."

Several years ago, Kirwan wrote a short story called Trouble in Eden, which grew into a novel, which grew into a series called The Eden Paradox. Many of the ideas, whether for aliens or cities or spaceships, came from his scuba diving. Even the modern diver's gear, with its plethora of electronic and computerized equipment, resembles that of an astronaut.

"While obviously an astronaut's equipment is far more complex, you do kind of feel like an astronaut, especially with the Darth Vader sound effects when you breathe. And you need to know your equipment well, as you can't always see what you're doing, and your life literally depends on it. Water is almost as unforgiving as a vacuum." In creating a multitudinous cast of alien creatures he relied on his encounters with undersea species, including some veritable "monsters".

"Octopus always seem fun until they start entwining themselves around your arm, sucking your mask off your face and drenching you in a cloud of ink. I don't mind sharks, but have dived with large ones, e. g. 5-metre sharks out in Borneo. Those I swim away from fast, back to the safety of the reef. Stonefish are scary because they are so well camouflaged, and to touch one can be fatal. I loosely based the Q'Roth, humanity's nemesis in the Eden novels, on the mantis shrimp, which is 4-6 inches long, and sits in crevices and waits until a fish goes by. Then it lashes out with its claws, incredibly fast, and shreds the passing fish, then eats it. If it was 10 feet long and walked on land, you'd probably run away, screaming your head off, which in this instance would be entirely forgivable.

Kirwan travels a lot for his work, and if it’s anywhere near water, he takes some extra days to go diving. In 2012 he had a back operation, and was unable to dive for 18 months. To say he missed it is an understatement. He began writing a story with a strong scuba diving context, which was a kind of therapy, as he could immerse himself in the writing of the underwater scenes.

When Kirwan showed his latest science fiction manuscript to an agent she wasn't interested, but asked him what else he was writing. He told her about the diving story, thinking she’d dismiss it. "Send it to me when it’s done," she said. What started out as a bit of fun grew more serious. He honed the adventure story into a cold-blooded thriller called 66 Metres, about the hunt for a top-secret device called the Rose, able to divert nuclear submarine codes, which has found its way into a sunken wreck.

Its heroine is Nadia, a young Russian woman forced into a heist that goes wrong, leaving five dead. She ends up with the Rose, but has to ditch it in deep water. If she doesn’t retrieve it her sister will be killed. Three other unsavory characters are after the device, more than happy to kill anyone who gets in their way. This work also made use of Kirwan's rich diving experience: "I've explored many wrecks over the years. Some of the top ten: the Thistlegorm in the Red Sea, the Talumben wreck off Bali, the SS Yongala off Townsville in Austra- lia. Also many of the wrecks in Scapa Flow in Scotland, and the San Francisco Maru in Truk Lagoon. All of them stunning!"

He's also been in dangerous situations as a diver and had to be rescued on one occasion (he also carried out five rescues of other divers). He blacked out once during a very deep dive in Norway (this is the basis of one of the chapters in 66 Metres), and got pinned down in Sipidan by a school of 4-metre hammerheads, at 76 metres. One time he even got lost inside a large wreck, and was running out of air. Concerning the Rose, Kirwan said that it was invented - but not a mere figment of his imagination. "The Rose is maybe not so fantastic, as cyber-terrorism is continually gaining new ground, and the algorithms used in Big Data are very powerful. The basic idea was developed by the best cryptologist since Alan Turing."

Even after many years Kirwan can still feel like he's in an extraterrestrial world: "The undersea world can always surprise you. Fish are never pets or friends, despite cartoon films suggesting
otherwise. When you're surrounded by sharks in strong current, you're acutely aware that if they decided to attack, you'd stand no chance. A potentially tasty tourist. But it is such a wondrous place, and you are cut off from the surface world, no phones, no email, no talk. Just you, the fish, and the sharks. So, I'll keep diving as long as I can."

66 Metres was launched by Harper Collins in August 2016, as the first in a 3-book deal, under a slight pseudonym (JF Kirwan). For details see here.

Glimpsing the devil

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 15 Aug 2016 09:15:00 +0000

If you glimpse the devil, look away before he sees you.

What follows is an extract from the next Scifi book, When the children come. I've already shown the first two chapters in this blog, this section occurs a bit later, when Nathan and others have detected the spaceship responsible for the catastrophe afflicting Earth (children are being eradicated, though no one yet knows why). Nathan, a vet from Afghanistan, actually detests kids, but he's the only one who can save them. In this scene he travels with his recent girlfriend and Dave, an astrophysics professor, to try to see what they are up against. Almost all infrastructure is shut down worldwide. Trescoe is Nathan's ex-sergeant, who never made it back from Afghanistan, and Raphaela is Dave's wife, who is interested in Nathan.

Fatigue dogged Nathan’s footsteps as he climbed the hill to the observatory, its dome outlined by the stars. He paused a moment to survey the surrounding terrain, seeking the warm electric glow of cities. But it was as dark as the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan.

Dave cursed, tripping on the steps.

“Maybe you should hold the handrail,” Lara offered, directly behind Dave. Edris and another of Akhbal’s men had stayed in the Hummer, to keep watch.

“Holding handrails makes us less safe,” Dave retorted. “Turns us into idiots, like most safety measures.” He dug out a hip flask, popped it open, and inhaled deeply. Nathan caught a whiff of strong coffee on the air.

“Then again,” Lara tried, but Dave cut her off.

“Animals do fine,” he said. “We superior beings, on the other hand, mollycoddle ourselves to the point we’re clueless on how to survive when things… things like this happen.” He took three gulps.

Lara gave up. Nathan had some sympathy with Dave’s point of view, having had to survive in the mountains for two weeks after his platoon had been ambushed. He hoped never to have to eat bugs again. A taste never acquired.

Dave stooped down to a wooden box and fiddled with something. Floodlights ignited from the surrounding lawn and bathed the building in stark white light. The dome was turquoise, sections marked by meridians curving down from its apex, two sections raised above the rest. Nathan guessed they could open to allow the telescope inside to peer upwards. He’d always looked to the stars as a source of comfort. Now they sent a chill down his spine.

“Dave,” he said. “I know it’s pretty, all lit up, but maybe not such a good idea.”

“Wanted to take one last look at my baby.” Dave shut off the lights.

Nathan waited until his eyes re-adjusted, to find Dave unlocking a door. Nathan caught up with Lara, and followed them both inside, rifle at the ready.

Once Dave found the interior lights, it was clear the place hadn’t been touched. Whoever had been here had simply left. Nathan was relieved he wouldn’t have to deal with any corpses or ‘infected’, as the Colonel had called them. He leant the AK-47 up against a table covered in sheets of print-out, and pulled out two chairs on wheels. He and Lara sat down facing the centrepiece, the shaft of a large diameter slate-grey telescope that stretched diagonally from head height to just shy of the domed roof. It was mounted on massive brass-coloured gears. The smell of hydraulic oil was sharp in his nostrils.

Dave wandered about purposefully for a couple of minutes, flicked switches on a tall dark cabinet panel with pulsing small red diodes, then plumped himself into a well-worn black leather office chair. He folded his hands on top of his belly. Grinding noises filled the air. Dave was in his element, a motionless conductor commanding the choreographed movements around him.

Nathan gazed upwards as a slit opened in the domed roof, revealing stars. The gash widened as it tracked anti-clockwise, even as the telescopic shaft drifted clockwise and extended, giving Nathan the illusion he was moving. Dave’s seat reclined and a boom slid towards him with a split keyboard. The lights dimmed, and Nathan half-expected a planetarium show. But things slowed down and stopped. A thin brass tube extended towards Dave’s head. He peered into the eyepiece.

Nathan held his breath, but as time ticked on, he returned to breathing normally, and then began getting bored. Maybe there was no alien spaceship after all. “Dave, what can you –”

Dave jabbed a finger twice to the left of him, towards two broad computer monitors. Lara got there first. It was hard to make out anything. It looked to Nathan like a series of blocks fixed around one long cylinder which branched into two stubby cylinders at one end – the engines he assumed, though he really had no clue, just banal ideas based on comics he’d read as a kid. No lights. What had he expected? A window with a little green man staring back at him?

“How big –” he began, then stopped as three white axes superimposed themselves around the shape.

“Holy shit! Is that scale in miles?” Lara asked.

Dave’s non-reply affirmed it. Nathan measured the object. Ten miles long, by two to three wide, with shorter and fatter sections here and there. The size of an island. Even if the long cylinder was all engines, that still left an awful lot of living space. Words echoed back to him. When the children come. Would a single nuke missile be enough?

“What’s my next question, Dave?” Nathan asked. Something Trescoe used to say.

Lara gave him a quizzical look.

Dave took his eye from the lens. “First intelligent thing you’ve asked.” He clambered out of the chair, and gesticulated towards the vacated seat. Nathan didn’t move, so Lara climbed into it, pulling the eyepiece closer, though she still had to arch her back to reach her eye to the lens. Nathan’s gaze lingered on her.

“Electromagnetic waves, emissions, things we can’t see with the naked eye, but…” Dave operated another keyboard at a different desk, and an image formed on its wide monitor, first the object in black, and then a slow motion explosion of garish colours radiating outwards. Dave hit some more keys and the image zoomed out, showing the radiation – or whatever it was – flowing towards Earth, but always the dark side. Another monitor showed the ship’s position relative to the Earth and the sun. It remained behind the Earth, always in the darkness. What would ‘they’ see? A permanent eclipse. A sleeping vulnerable world. He wanted to reach out and crush the ship with his bare hands.

Nathan peered over Dave’s shoulder. “How far away is it? Could the orbital rail gun shoot it down?”

Dave’s brow creased as he peered at a smaller monitor to his left with rows of figures slowly climbing from bottom to top, like ultra-dense film credits.

“Yes,” Dave murmured, apparently deciding the questions were linked. “Though a ship that size…”

“Several nukes?”

“Mechanical engineering’s not my strong point. Nor materials science.”

Nathan stood up straight. “What?” Dave didn’t answer for a while. The big telescope moved, the gears grinding and whining. Lara’s left eye clamped to the brass eyepiece. She was operating a small joystick with her right hand. She seems to know what she was doing, and Nathan reminded himself he knew almost nothing about her.

“You see,” Dave said, still staring at the figures, “the ship seems to be made of one incredibly long piece of material. Its tensile strength is unlike any element or alloy on this planet. I can’t say how it would react to a nuke.”

“Does the ship have any weapons?” As soon as he’d asked, he knew it was a dumb question.

Dave turned to face him, and said, deadpan, “None that I can see.” Then, “Why did you send my wife back?”

Lara disengaged and turned to face him, and Nathan felt his cheeks redden slightly. “Division of tasks,” he said, a little loud. “She needs to get started with her equipment, we need to be here.”

“Is that all?” Dave seemed to have lost interest in the spaceship.

“That’s all.” He said no more. Lara returned to her scope, and Dave turned back to his screens.

Talking of the mission – and Raphaela – reminded Nathan they were on the clock. “What else can we do here, Professor?”

“What I’m doing. Won’t take long. I’m as anxious to see my wife as you are, Nathan.”

Nathan’s eyes flicked to Lara, but there was no reaction. “Seriously, what are –”

“I’m tagging the spaceship. It has a unique spectroscopic signature that the rail gun’s missiles – assuming they’re functional and have sufficient range – can home onto. But I’m giving them an extra hand. I’m using a micro-laser pulse to determine its precise position relative to Earth, since it stays in exactly the same place. Probably optimum for firing its neural attack on us.”

The gears ground into action again, the telescope tracking back towards its original location, as far as Nathan could tell. There was a short but loud click.

“There,” Dave said. “Gotcha!”

“Did you see that?” Lara said.

They both turned to her. “What did you see?” Dave asked.

“A flash, from the ship. It’s gone now.”

Nathan gripped Dave’s shoulder. “Can it detect us?”

Dave didn’t answer, but his brow creased and he began chopping his two forefingers onto the keyboard. The printer burst into action again, hammering ink onto hole-punched paper.

Nathan swallowed. The laser. The ship now knew where they were. “How long have we got? Did it fire at us? Some kind of ray?” It sounded stupid, but he didn’t care. Lara was out of the chair, suddenly next to him.

“No, we’d be dead already, Dave said. “A missile, most likely. A minute maybe. I don’t know.”

“Then let’s go. Lara, run back to the car. We’ll be right behind you.”

She didn’t move. They all stared at the printer. No need to ask. The signature. Dave pulled out a data key from the computer. The printer stopped. He dashed to it, read it once, tore it off, and ran for the door. Outside, Nathan and Lara were faster. Dave thrust the paper towards Nathan, the key towards Lara.

“Run! I’ll catch up!”

They ran, ignoring the curving walkway, instead running straight down towards the Hummer. Nathan yelled to Edris to start the engine. Lara slipped and fell headlong and slid down the grassy slope. Nathan braked and went back for her, and they set off again. Dave was making slow progress, shuffling along, zig-zagging down the walkway, having to use the handrail. Lara shrieked “Come on Dave!” as they reached the Hummer and jumped inside.

“Get ready to get the hell out of here!” Nathan said to Edris. They watched Dave’s bulky form, lit by the car’s headlights, loping down the slope towards them. He had an almost boyish grin, as if he was somehow enjoying this. Thirty yards. He was going to make it.

A bolt of blue lightning shattered the dome three hundred yards away. A sound like an axe cleaving a block of wood rang loud in Nathan’s ears. The observatory imploded, like a macabre conjurer’s trick, a whole building sucked in on itself. Dave kept running, his grin replaced by fear. Blue light blossomed around the hole where the observatory had been, and then rushed outwards in all directions.

“Reverse!” Nathan shouted. “Now!”

“No!” Lara screamed.

But Edris slammed the transmission into reverse. The wheels skidded at first, then found traction. The Hummer barrelled away from Dave, who slowed, and stopped. He turned to face the blue wave. He opened his arms. It swept over him.

Edris kept going, the engine shrill in Nathan’s ears. Luckily the road was dead straight. Edris only stopped when the blue light had faded. Nathan and Lara got out of the car and ran back. A crater, half a mile wide. Smooth and empty, steam rising from its vitrified surface. Lara handed him the data key without saying a word, and they both headed back to the car. On the way back, he tried to think of the right words to say to Raphaela. He came up with nothing.

Why I wrote 66 Metres

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 24 Jul 2016 09:52:00 +0000

This is on my JFK blog, you can read it here. Oh, and I'm not a robot (chance would be a fine thing!)

What's in a name?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 18:05:00 +0000

Ok, so some of you know I've been writing a thriller called Sixty-Six Metres. So, here's the front cover. Sweet, right? But hang on a minute. Those aren't my initials...

Correct. When I got a contract for three books from Carina UK (Harper Collins), they asked me to find a pseudonym. I asked why, and it's because when authors write in more than one genre, they usually take on a pseudonym, because readers of different genres don't always mix.

So I wracked my brains for days coming up with all sorts of strange names, but none of them felt right. Then H-C said, how about you keep the surname but change the initials. Bingo. JF, you might be asking? A family member who is no longer around. A friend pointed out I could have gone the whole way and used JF Sebastian, as in Blade Runner, but then that would be scifi again...

Ok, big deal, does it make any difference?

Strangely, yes.

Because it's not my own name there, I find I can look at it more objectively, with less ego, because... it's not my name there. This gives me some psychological distance. I can even occasionally look at it not only as a labor of love, but as a product meant to entertain, and this comes in handy when editing or getting editorial feedback.

Marketing it feels different, too. I have a new tweet account @kirwanjf and a new Facebook page @sixtysixmetres and a new blog! It's more about marketing the book than about marketing me, as I'm keeping my 'brand' low profile in terms of who I am etc. This also seems somehow more appropriate as it is a thriller.

The overall feeling is that I'm approaching this book, and the trilogy (only three, I promise this time), more professionally than before.

So, what's in a name? Quite a lot, it seems.

Alright, what's it about? Well, here's how it opens:

The only thing worth killing for is family.

Her father’s words to her, the day they’d come for him.

She’d been fourteen when two men in combat fatigues and balaclavas burst into the kitchen where she and her father were enjoying breakfast. The armed commandos hadn’t seen his pistol lying beneath a folded newspaper. While her father struggled with the men, his eyes flicked between her and the weapon. She could have darted for it, threatened them, helped him. But she hesitated. The moment slipped past. They threw a black hood over his head, cuffed him, and dragged him away . . . to be interrogated, tortured, executed and buried in the woods. A single thought haunted her ever since.

Had he known they would come?

Nadia picked up his Beretta, its metal cool in her hands. She checked and re-loaded the magazine. She walked to the window, took one last look at the wild garden where her father had taught her to shoot, and the gravel path leading through the pine forest to the banks of the Volga. There, she’d learned first to swim, then to dive. Turning away, she stashed the pistol in her backpack and crept downstairs, hoping to escape unseen.

But her mother was waiting for her on the doorstep, arms folded. “You’ll end up a killer just like him, Nadia. Or a whore, like your sister.”

Nadia pushed by without replying. She passed through the creaking gate that had so often announced her father’s return, and breathed easier after the turn of the road. She waited an hour for the bus, part hoping, mainly dreading that her mother would come running around the corner begging her to return.

Fifty miles from Moscow, where her sister Katya lived, everyone had to get off the bus at a security checkpoint to show papiren. Nadia left her backpack under the seat. When she reached the front of the line, a young soldier flicked noisily through her passport, then glanced up, surprise lighting his smile.

“Happy birthday,” he said. “Eighteen. A special day.”

Nadia moved into a grotty studio flat in Old Arbat, where each night she fell asleep exhausted from working in the local bakery from 4 A.M. until 3 P.M., then at a supermarket until 9. She liked boys well enough, but hated the unsubtle flirting, the vodka-fuelled race to unconsciousness, the lies. She’d loved her father, but he’d been one of the worst with women, and she’d seen the damage it had done to her mother. So she kept her hair cropped, dressed for comfort, and was often mistaken at first sight for a young man, which was fine with her.

But then the ever-gorgeous Katya invited her dark-haired kid sister to a party at a wealthy businessman’s country dacha. Nadia had been amazed at the women with perfect skin in glittering, low-cut dresses, the handsome and not-so-handsome men, their jewellery and fancy cars and easy talk of big deals. Viktor, a man twice her age, who turned out to be someone in government, seduced her. He wasn’t bad-looking, took his time in bed, and left cash for her breakfast in the mornings.

She let things coast for six months, no demands or promises on either side. She presumed he was married. She never asked, and he never said. She gave up the early morning bakery job, and thought about getting a cat.

Then one day Viktor was on the news, handcuffed, being forced into a police van. She leapt off the sofa and began packing a bag, but within minutes a loud rapping sounded on the door. The Beretta was on the table, fully loaded. She hid it under a loose floorboard, then opened the door.

Receiving misappropriated funds. That’s what they told her at the station, though she was never formally charged, never saw a lawyer. Once inside Lubyanka prison, Nadia was informed she’d be their guest for twelve years, ten if she behaved. On the anniversary of her father’s death, she gazed through the prison bars, studied the sad faces staring back at her from the ugly block opposite. She turned away, took in the inside of her cell. The double bunk with rancid sheets under which she shivered each night, curled up in the foetal position. The iron toilet that stank of her own piss and shit – they wouldn’t give her the bucket of water to flush it until lunchtime. The cold grey bars, faded whitewashed brick walls, not even graffiti to lighten her mood. And the lone hook in the ceiling that her former cell-mate had used to end everything while Nadia had been out in the exercise yard. The fourth suicide since her arrival.

Ten years? She wouldn’t make it.

Shouting erupted down the corridor. Wolf-whistles, tin mugs clanging against doors the bars, lascivious remarks from several lesbian inmates, one of whom already had her eye on Nadia. And then a gruff man’s voice, more like a growl. It silenced everyone. Nadia stared at the bars. It couldn’t be anyone for her. No one had visited her since her incarceration. But she listened. A man’s shoes, heavy, impatient, and high heels clacking behind, almost running to keep up. Nadia smelled her sister’s perfume, and took a step forward as the footsteps approached. But Katya wasn’t alone. Nadia took a step back.

Kadinsky.

He had a gleaming bald head, like he actually polished it every morning, and was fat without being flabby, as if his weight was there to throw around, to crush you if necessary. He wore an expensive beige suit, and gold jewellery dripped from his wrists and neck. Katya stood behind him in a skimpy red dress and high heels, tousled hair falling behind her shoulders, her large eyes hopeful and scared at the same time. There was no guard with them, and Kadinsky held a ring of keys in his hand. He selected one that looked indistinguishable from the twenty others dangling from the ring, shoved it into the slot, turned it with a resounding clank, and stepped inside.

Nadia wanted to hug her sister, but Kadinsky barred the way. He turned his head to the side, not enough to see Katya, but just enough so she’d know he was talking to her.

“One word, and I walk. Turn around. Give the other inmates a treat.”

Katya gave one last look at her sister, then dutifully turned around, and faced the bars. There was silence outside. Everyone was listening. Especially Nadia.

Kadinsky glanced at his gold Rolex, as if bored, somewhere else he’d rather be. Anywhere. He glanced at Nadia, then folded his chubby arms, stretching the fabric of his suit.

“I’ll ask you a single question, girl. You have three chances to give the right answer. If you do, you come with us. If not, you stay, and see your sister in twelve years.” He glanced at the toilet bowl, grimaced, pulled out a silk handkerchief, blew his nose noisily, then stuffed it back into his pocket. “And be quick.”

Nadia tensed, stood almost to attention, and waited for the question.

“What did you do wrong?”

Nadia’s reply was too fast, a prison reflex, what everyone here said when they first met someone new in the canteen or the yard.

“Nothing.”

Stupid. Kadinsky was a gangster. She’d met him once. The party where she’d hooked up with Viktor had been at Kadinsky’s dacha.

“Wrong answer,” he said. “Second try.”

She stared at the keys in his hands. The door was open. Soon, one way or another, it would be locked shut. Think! Maybe just the facts.

“I met Viktor Romanovich at your dacha. We had an affair. It lasted eight weeks. One day I saw him on TV, being taken away, arrested on corruption charges. While I was packing, they came for me, threw me in here.” But what had she done wrong? She’d just enjoyed the ride, a little life, a little luxury, someone who’d looked after her. She pictured Viktor. A man twice her age. Old enough to be… She shuddered. “I should have found out what he was up to, where the money came from.”

Kadinsky made half-fists, turned them palm upwards, and studied the fingernails of one hand, then the other. He stared at her like she was a waste of skin. “One last try. What did you do wrong?”

Nadia looked at her sister’s outline, saw that she was trembling. What had she done wrong? She didn’t know. Been born, maybe? So, she’d stay here, die here. Could she do that to Katya? If her father hadn’t got messed up in God-knew-what, if he’d still been around, things would have been different. What had he done wrong? She never knew. But then she realised what it was she’d done wrong, both times. She’d not picked up the gun for her father, that fateful day. And when they’d came for her, his Beretta – the only keepsake she had from him – had been right there.

She looked Kadinsky in the eye. She didn’t know if it was the answer he was looking for. Whichever side of those bars she ended up on, she had a feeling it would be her epitaph.

“I let them take me.”

Kadinsky grunted. Looked at his watch again. “We’re leaving,” he said.

Katya spun around and Nadia found herself wrapped in her sister’s arms, felt her sister’s hot tears on her cheeks. Nadia’s head tilted upwards, and while she succumbed to the embrace, she stared at the lone hook in the ceiling. Fuck you.

Kadinsky got Nadia out with bribes and promised favours. Of course, she’d have to work it off.

Once back at Kadinsky’s country dacha, she stood in the large lounge with its single bay window overlooking the dry fountain, a chipped statue of Pan in its centre. Inside, oil paintings of battles, including one above the fireplace featuring a victorious Napoleon, hung around the white walls. Kadinsky ordered Katya not to speak, then walked around Nadia. He looked her up and down, then shook his head. He dropped into a wide leather armchair. Katya was perched on an antique wooden dining chair opposite. Nadia stood between them, and Kadinsky’s two henchmen – one grossly fat, the other slim as a snake and with pockmarked cheeks – leaned against the far wall.

“You have grey eyes,” he said, wagging a finger at her. “Like a fucking tombstone. Who’d want to make love staring into such eyes?” He glanced at Katya. “Are you sure she’s your sister?”

Katya stared at the carpet and nodded, her own eyes a deep blue, like her mother’s. Nadia had her father’s eyes. “Killer’s eyes,” he’d once joked, when she’d been too young to realize it was a confession.

Kadinsky swirled the ice in his whiskey tumbler with a pudgy index finger. “What else can you do, girl?”

Nadia never knew where her answer came from, possibly revulsion against a life of prostitution, but she thought of her father, and the words slid out of her mouth. “I can shoot. I never miss.”

Kadinsky’s thugs laughed. He didn’t. “I detest exaggeration,” he said. “So American.” His mouth moved as if he was going to spit.

“Let’s see if you can really shoot. Give her your pistol,” he said to one of the henchmen, the one with a pockmarked face – Pox, she named him – who immediately lost his sense of humour.

She took the weapon from his outstretched hand, weighed it in her palm. An old-style Smith and Wesson. God knows why the guy had it. Most blatnyepreferred semi-autos, Makarovs or the older but higher-velocity Tokarevs. She checked that it was loaded, all six bullets nestling in their chambers. She glanced at Kadinsky, thought about killing him. But the other henchman, the fat one with slicked black hair – hence, Slick– had his Glock trained on her, his lopsided leer daring her.

Kadinsky waved a hand towards Katya, five metres away. He tilted his head left and right, then settled back against the soft leather, took a gulp of whiskey, and smacked his lips. “The red rose in the bowl of flowers behind her left ear. Shoot it. From where you stand.”

Slick’s eyes flicked toward Katya, gauging the angles. His leer faded.

Nadia stared at her sister and the rose. Most of it was behind her head. Only one leaf of the scarlet blossom was exposed. She swallowed, then lifted the revolver, and took up a shooting stance like her father had taught her. Right arm firm, elbow not locked, left hand under the fist, prepared for the recoil. She had to do it before anger could build and disrupt her concentration. She cocked the hammer, lined up the shot, then spoke to Katya’s serene, trusting face: “Love you,” she said. Then she breathed out slowly, as if through a straw, and squeezed the trigger.

Sixty-Six Metres can be pre-ordered on Amazon here.

When the children come - chapter 2

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 19 Jun 2016 18:05:00 +0000

I've not been blogging much recently, mainly because I've been working and traveling like crazy, and working on three novels simultaneously. Don't know what's got into me. But whatever it is, it is trying to get out.

So, here's chapter 2 of 'When the children come'. If you missed chapter 1, it's here.

It's about a man who hates kids. Then he notices they are disappearing. In fact they're being killed. And it turns out he's the only one who can save them.

Of course that's what it's about on the surface. What's it really about? Well, for that you'll have to read it.

Oh, and last time i'll say it, kids are disappearing, because they're being killed. The story isn't gratuitous about this, but it is central to the story, So if that turns you off, just don't read any further.

Chapter Two

Mags

Sally was well hidden in his Corvette, under a blanket, behind the driver’s seat. Lara rolled her eyes when she saw the red sports car. “Glad we can travel incognito,” she said.

“At least it’s fast.”

They got in. She popped open the glove compartment, pulled out its main item. “Loaded?”

“Sure.”

“You’re not a NRA nut, are you?”

He shook his head, turned the ignition key and rolled the car up the ramp into the daylight. He pulled away fast enough to outpace three men who saw them emerge and walked towards them, but not so fast as to look suspicious. Once they were on the move, he spoke to Sally.

“Sally, you can come out now.”

“No. They mustn’t see me.”

At least she was speaking. He’d not had a peep out of her yet. “Why don’t you tell us what’s going on?”

There was a pause. “Timmy’s dead.”

Nathan hit the brakes. The Corvette skidded to a halt.

Sally shrieked. “Don’t stop! They’ll find me!”

“Drive, Nathan,” Lara said.

He stared at her, but Lara wasn’t looking at him. He followed her gaze to a cluster of men on the street corner looking his way. He smiled at the men, and took off again.

“Who’s Timmy?” Lara asked.

“Her younger brother,” Nathan answered. Sally was sobbing.

They passed a rubbish truck. Not difficult, they seemed to be everywhere.

“Holy fuck,” Lara said.

“What?” He turned around to try and see what she’d just seen, but the truck was already behind them.

“Just drive.” She fumbled with the lock on the glove compartment to get it open, pulled out the Glock, let it rest in her lap. “Don’t stop Nathan. Stay down Sally, you can come out when we’re out of here.” Lara gripped Nathan’s hand. He glanced at her. Her face had gone the same marble white as the running kid he’d seen earlier.

His army training kicked in. His voice went into its flat mode. “Tell me,” he said. “What you just saw in the rubbish truck. Describe it to me.”

Lara shrank back into the leather seat. “Kids,” she said. She glanced over her shoulder to where Sally was hidden, then back to Nathan, and said quieter, “Small children.”

Nathan drove on, tried to process again, to stare things in the face. That was how you survived. See the world as it is, not as you think it is, not as you want it to be, but exactly as it is.

Parents in the neighbourhood were killing their kids.

Lara’s hand grew clammy. She didn’t talk any more.

They were effectively behind enemy lines, surrounded by hostiles. This had to be local. Maybe nerve gas, or a virus. Whatever was going on, normal rules no longer applied. Act like the locals, get Sally to a safe haven, Lara too, though he didn’t know if she was in any danger. Mags’ place in the country. Virginia. Their best bet. He thought about calling the Doc. But he was local, might be infected too. He’d call him later, then call some of his buddies in the Mil. But first, get the two civilians out of harm’s way.

It was a twenty minute drive to the highway. There shouldn’t be much traffic on New Year’s Day. He kept to the speed limits, but his accelerator foot remained tense, ready to floor the pedal if required. His window stayed open, and he listened as much as watched. He flinched at hearing a siren, but it was going the other way. Streets were still quiet, even the clusters of men had disappeared. Then he saw people queueing to get into a church. It was clearly packed. No kids. He turned on the radio but only got static, and an uneven beeping noise, like Morse, but faster. Each red light seemed to take forever, even though there was almost no traffic. He only breathed easier when he spied the ramp up to the Freeway. It was open, it was clear.

He talked Lara and Sally through his idea of what had happened, reassuring them. Sally stopped sobbing, Lara’s grip on his hand loosened. Lara and Sally started talking to each other once they hit the highway and evergreens began to appear.

But for Nathan it was like Afghanistan had come to find him. Five years since he’d left, but right now it felt like yesterday. And though Manhattan receded far behind them and the promise of Virginia loomed up ahead, the miles to the exit slowly counting down like last night’s New Year clock, his gut wouldn’t let up. He kept expecting roadblocks, helicopters, mad axe-wielding men to come charging out in front of them like some zombie B-movie. But nothing happened, and an hour later he took the exit to Mags’ neighbourhood. It was going to be okay. It was safe after all. Lara drifted off, and Sally was quiet, no doubt asleep under the blanket.

As he wound the car up the single track to Mags’ place, he gently prised the Glock from Lara’s fingers, and pocketed it inside his jacket. The car crunched up the gravel driveway to Mags’ ranch house, and he drew to a stop. No sound outside except the cool winter breeze in the barren sycamores.

“We’re here,” he announced, waking them both.

Lara stirred. She looked for the Glock, guessed Nathan had it. “Give it to me,” she said.

“We’re not here to shoot my sister,” he countered. He reminded himself he knew almost nothing about Lara.

She wouldn’t let it go. “You’re making my point for me. Either give me the gun, or give me the car keys.”

Sally reared up from the back, her face puffy, that sleepy kid smell Nathan detested.

“Stay out of sight, Sally,” Lara said.

She ducked back down.

Out of the corner of his eye, Nathan saw a net curtain pull back, someone peer out from the house. Mags. She came out the door. She looked well. It was going to be okay. Nathan’s gut told him so.

“Neither,” he said to Lara, opened his door and got out.

“Fuck you!” Lara said.

Nathan ignored her, got out of the car, and started walking towards Mags. “Hello, Sis.” He held out his arms and his sister, shorter than him but wider, beamed, and they both entered into their habitual mock bear hug contest. Nathan closed his eyes and squeezed the only person in the world he truly trusted. He was home. He heard Lara walk up behind them.

“Hello Mags,” Lara said. “Us two thought we’d come and thank you for some great sex.” She smiled at Nathan. “Well, above average.”

Nathan returned the smile, but recognised what she was doing: hiding Sally. Lara walked towards Mags, hooked her arm, and walked her towards the house. “And you know how hungry it makes me.”

He followed her lead. Just before he entered by the front porch, he cast a look back to the car. His door wasn’t closed properly. Sally had moved into the bushes. Smart kid. And in that moment he suddenly wondered where Mags’ hubby Phil and the kids were.

Pancakes with maple syrup. Lara devoured three of them. Nathan knew Sally must be hungry, and would smell them from wherever she was hiding. He put two to one side, and glanced at Lara when Mags wasn’t looking, but Lara shook her head a fraction.

Mags chided him. “You gonna’ eat those or start a new religion, Nathan?”

“Yes, Nathan,” Lara joined in, “you didn’t seem to be into delayed gratification last night.”

He sighed and tucked in. “Why do girls always gang up on us men?”

“To keep you in your place, little brother.”

He finished up, leaned back into the deep sofa, nursing a large mug of coffee. Josh’s mug, Darth Vader and Yoda battling with light-sabres. For the first time he considered Yoda’s size. It looked like a child fighting a parent. To the death. He downed the rest of the coffee, bitter dregs catching on the back of his tongue. Mags took the mug and the plates into the kitchen, and started loading the dishwasher.

“Where’s Josh?” he called out to her.

The dishwasher closed with a soft click. Mags didn’t answer straight away. “Out back somewheres, with Archie and Phil.”

Lara caught his gaze, locked it in place. He felt compelled to play it out.

“Can’t hear them, Mags.”

Another pause. “Probably in the tree-house playing video games, headphones on, you know, disconnected from the real world, like most kids these days.” She came back into the lounge. Nathan’s cocoon of happiness punctured as he saw her face. It was as if she had two faces, one a loose mask over the other. On the surface she looked chummy, happy-go-lucky, but underneath she was drawn, wild. A carving knife hung from Mags’ right hand.

Nathan swallowed. The Glock was in his jacket hanging by the porch door. Lara had been right. He kept his eyes on Mags.

“All those years,” she said. “All those years, turns out you had it right, and the rest of us had it all wrong.” Mags glanced at Lara, then Nathan. “I don’t know how you both stood it.”

Mags’ two faces morphed back into one, a coldness rising to the surface. Nathan had seen that look before, a suicide bomber they’d cornered just in time in a village in Helmand Province, locked into his own tortured logic, no reasoning with him. No way back, just wanted to die and go to the afterlife. The Sarge obliged, via a bullet in the bomber’s re-coded brain. But this was Mags, his sister.

“That’s all changed now,” Mags said. “A fresh start.” Her face brightened, that same faraway look in her eyes as if she were glimpsing a better world. “Yes, a new beginning.” She stood between Nathan and Lara, while both of them sat in soft, deep chairs, hard to get out of in a hurry.

“It will all be fine when the children come.”

Nathan had no idea what she meant, but the way Mags looked at him he wasn’t sure it was a good idea to ask.

Lara piped up. “And when will they arrive, Mags?”

Mags turned to Lara, beatific smile gone. Her eyes narrowed. The hand with the knife waved casually at Nathan.

“Stay there, little brother, no need to run around after all that eating.” The knife twisted back towards Lara. “Don’t you know, girl?”

Nathan felt helpless, stuck in that damned sofa. If he tried to clamber out Mags could slash him and still cut Lara. But Lara kept her composure.

“Like you said, Mags, we knew better all along. I’m just checking that you know.”

Mags’ lips twisted. “Nice try.”

Nathan had to act. Mags wouldn’t cut him, he was her brother; that would come through. Anyway, he had to risk it. He launched himself forward as best he could, then dived as a flash of silver whipped past his left eye. He ended up on the floor. Mags screamed like a banshee and raised the knife high, eyes blazing.

His instincts and training kicked in as she fell on him. His foot rose like a piston into her chest as his left hand chopped into her forearm to block the knife, then seize her wrist. His right hand should have slammed into her carotid, but he couldn’t do it. She used all of her weight as she squirmed and shoved, and thumped his face with her free hand, scratching across his eyes so he couldn’t see, all the time screaming and grunting. She kneed him in the balls, and he almost lost his grip on her wrist, felt it slip. He was losing this. His little sister was going to kill him.

A loud crack, louder than thunder. Lara had found the Glock. Hot rain spattered his cheeks. He kept his eyes closed. Mags collapsed on him, dead weight. The knife clinked onto the floor. He let go of her wrist, caught her head and lowered it next to his, like they were embracing. He held her, wrapped her in his arms, fingers clasped behind her back, one last bear hug. Nathan began to sob, just like Sally earlier.

“Don’t go up there,” Sally said, her body stiff, her hands in small fists by her side.

Nathan stared up the sturdy oak tree to his hiding place of old, his and Mags’ one refuge from the folks. It looked peaceful. He spotted bird movement in the top-most branches, high above the wooden tree house. Crows. Carrion birds. The rope ladder beckoned. How long since he’d last climbed it? The space between the rungs was smaller than he remembered. Gripping the ladder with both hands, he began the ascent.

Even before he arrived, he could hear the tell-tale buzzing of insects around a fresh corpse. He paused at the top of the ladder, staring through the doorway. Phil had tried to protect the boys, that much was clear from the gashes to his arms, and the hole in his chest... Mags had slit the two boys’ throats, and it suddenly occurred to him he’d not asked Sally how Timmy had been killed. The three of them looked peaceful, Phil in the middle, the boys on each side in his arms. There were blankets, flashlights, books, all in disarray; Phil and the boys had this yearly ritual of staying up till dawn to see the New Year in. Phil would say that otherwise all your New Year’s resolutions departed with your dreams upon waking. Mags would have none of it, saying it was a dumb idea to start the New Year bleary-eyed and sleep-deprived. Phil hadn’t been too successful, unemployed on and off, scraping through the hard years like so many, but he’d been a good father, one Nathan would have traded for his own in a second.

Nathan climbed back down.

“We should bury them,” Sally said.

Lara eyed him. “What do you think, Nathan?”

He’d barely spoken to Lara, didn’t know what to say. He’d known her less than twenty-four hours and in that time they’d become lovers, and she’d saved his life by killing his sister. He needed to call someone, get the military involved. He looked up at the sky. No planes, no choppers, yet this house was underneath the flight path to Baltimore International Airport. His ‘local epidemic’ theory wasn’t looking good.

He couldn’t climb back up there. He looked to Lara, then Sally, both standing apart. Like him, they were barely holding it together. He strode towards the garage.

“Where are you going?” Lara said.

“To get some kerosene.”

Working with Lara, he checked the TV channels while she searched the Internet. Even Sally tried, after she found a tablet. Nothing. The Internet was down. The TV was bare, except one channel that had irregular red flashes that gave him a headache. The cell network was down. The landline was dead. It was as if they’d been invaded, without a single bullet being fired, the whole state shut down. He suddenly wondered if it could be some kind of cyber-security attack. That could explain the shutdown, but not the behaviour.

“Eat something, Sally,” he said.

“Not hungry,” she replied.

“Do as you’re told,” he snapped, then caught himself. Jesus, just like his father. “Sally, we’re leaving soon, I don’t know when we’ll next be able to eat. Please.”

She glared at him, then ran to the kitchen. Cupboard doors slammed, then he heard cereal dumped into a dish, milk sloshed over it.

Lara appeared. “I found this in the garage.” She handed him a VHF radio, along with the charger. He took it, inspected it, then set it down carefully, knowing it might be the one thing that could get them out of this mess. He watched Lara. Her lips were pressed together, her movements unsure, lacking the grace that had so attracted him last night.

“Listen,” he began.

“No. Don’t you dare forgive me for killing Mags. Don’t thank me either, I was aiming for her chest. Nearly took your head off.”

He held out his hand, but she didn’t take it.

“We should get moving,” she said.

While Lara got Sally and some provisions into the car, Nathan went back out to the garden, and lit the fuse he’d made earlier from torn sheets. Eager flames licked up the rope ladder, and spread under the tree house.

He drove into the hills, glancing every now and again in the mirror, the pillar of smoke from the tree house barely visible in the late afternoon sky. The VHF sat on the dashboard, crackling once in a while, that fast morse-like code rattling more often than he liked. He’d tried to raise anyone, but just got static.

He found the spot he’d been looking for and pulled over. It was a viewpoint at the top of a zig-zag road ascending the highest hill around. An overflowing trash can and enough room for several cars, a stone-mounted plaque noting an ancient battle site far below against the British. They all got out and approached the edge. You could see for twenty miles. His parents had brought him and Mags here every Sunday he could remember. After each of his two tours, he had come up here to try and anchor himself back into normal life, never truly sure on which side of the looking glass he’d landed. He shaded his eyes. The waxy yellow sun would set in a couple of hours. Pulling out a flask of coffee, he poured a cup for him and Lara, while Sally dug out a Coke Zero.

Lara stood next to him. He felt the touch of her body. She cleared her throat. “What do you suppose she meant?”

Nathan closed his eyes. Mags was gone, the kids too. His head spun for a second, his body tensing. He opened his eyes. Lara moved away a fraction, no longer in contact.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“When the children come.” She moved in front of him. “I don’t get it. They’re killing all the kids. Do they think they’re coming back? Some kind of resurrection?” She walked away, kicked hard at a stone, booting it off the edge. He’d never been allowed to do that.

NFI, he thought, a joke from the war. No fucking idea. He glanced at Sally. She sat on the edge, her feet dangling over the two hundred foot drop, just like he had all those years ago, secretly hoping his parents would tell him to come back, that it was dangerous. They never even got out of the car.

Sally played with the Coke can, shoulders slumped, body listless. Crushed. He put down his coffee, walked right behind her and picked her up, startling her, Lara too. The can pitched over the edge. Sally began fighting him, kicking, thumping his chest with her tiny fists, re-enacting Mags’ attack. “Let me go!” she yelled, as he returned to the car. He held her tight, let her pummel him, till she stopped and buried her head in his shoulder, her body wracked by sobs. She wrapped her small arms around his neck. Lara came over, stared at him awhile.

“What are we going to do, Nathan?”

NFI.

The radio crackled alive. A voice, foreign. He could have laughed, life was always best at cruel jokes.

“What the hell is that?” Lara asked.

Sally lifted her head, her red-rimmed eyes large, hoping he had all the answers, knowing he probably didn’t.

But this time he did. “It’s Afghan,” he said. He put a hand on Lara’s shoulder, and spoke to both of them. “They’re calling for people like us, people not affected.”

Putting Sally down, he picked up the radio, and began talking in pidgin Dari, coming back to English when it got too complex. He had to keep his eyes open, stare out at Virginia, had to remind himself he wasn’t back there. He had to trust these people. It helped that for the first five minutes they clearly didn’t trust him.

When he finished, he turned to see Lara and Sally waiting, holding hands.

“Let’s go,” he said, then squatted down to Sally’s level. “I’ve found some more kids,” he said.

Sally’s face lit up.

As they drove onward into dusk, he spotted a police barricade far ahead, lights flashing, and pulled onto a side road. Lara got out the map, and Nathan hugged the small empty roads. It grew dark. He kept his headlights off.

Lara glanced back to see Sally asleep, then turned back to Nathan. “Why do you think we aren’t affected? It can’t be just because we don’t like kids?”

“Don’t know. At least we’re not the only ones,” he said, pointing straight ahead to a compound resembling an old fort. As they pulled up, floodlights blinked on, dazzling him, waking Sally with a shriek. He came to a stop, guessed what was coming. He put a hand over Lara’s as heavy footsteps rushed towards them, people yelling in Pashto and Dari and something else, way too fast for him to decipher. Within seconds he felt the familiar cold metal ring that was the pointed end of an AK47 jabbed into his cheek.

Sally had bolted down behind the seat again. Over their shouting, and in the haze of the floodlights and hand-held flashlight-beams, he spoke calmly to Sally.

“Sally, I need you to sit up and show yourself. Trust me, they’re on your side. Do it now please, or we’re all dead.”

The rifle’s nozzle shoved harder, but when Sally stood up in the back, the voices changed tone, and the men withdrew. More shouting, and several women dressed in traditional knee-length skirt and trouser outfits – panjabbi, he recalled – walked quickly from the compound towards the car. When they saw Sally, they broke into a run, arms out-stretched, ululating a familiar welcoming cry. Nathan thought back to his tours in Helmand Province – no prizes for guessing what the guys had nicknamed it – but for the first time since his return, he admitted there were things about it he missed.