My intention for this series is for my guests to tell us what surprises we might find in their work - some surprises being from newly launched novels and from other authors something in their back list.
My return guest today is Nik Morton, a very prolific author of many novels across different genres. I've known Nik for a few years now through Crooked Cat Books but you'll find that he has an impressive list of novels available that are published by others.
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| Nik Morton |
It was a brilliant short read with a lot of twists and plot surprises - though I don't deal in spoilers so I'm not mentioning any of those. You'll just have to pick up a copy and read them yourself!
For me the surprise continues today because Nik has added my review comments to the blurb of the book. That's a first for me - I feel very honoured indeed!
Welcome again, Nik. Please tell us more about Continuity Girl.
Continuity
Girl – Surprises
Thanks
for inviting me, Nancy – and I appreciate your review which appears on the book
blurb!
Nancy: It was my pleasure, Nik and a very enjoyable read!.
There
are good surprises and bad ones. We all like the good variety, and I was
pleasantly surprised when a publisher sent an email asking me to consider
writing for him again. The publisher is David Cranmer and his imprint is Beat
to a Pulp. Previously, I’d written two westerns in his ongoing noir series
about U.S. Marshals Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles; the first, Bullets for a Ballot, concerned female
emancipation in the Old West; the second, Coffin
for Cash offered a literary nod or two to Edgar Allan Poe. (A third is just
completed, Death for a Dove). David
sent me two books, science fiction time-travel tales: Carnosaur Weekend (#1) and Apocalypse
Soon (#2) by Garnett Elliott, a writer living in Tucson, Arizona. Each book
in effect contains two novellas. David asked me to write #3 in the series,
which became Continuity Girl.
In
our future, Kyler Knightly and his uncle Damon Cole are field agents for
Continuity Inc, a private organisation that obtained the contract when the
government Time Corps was deregulated. CI is dedicated to protecting human
history.
They
use the Zygma projector to travel through time and must carry a focus object
from the period they’re targeting.
Kyler
is also a dreamer with passive psychic talents, a precognitive.
The
head of the group is an Artificial Intelligence character, Sennacherib. Their
offices are in the West End of London, a disused theatre.
I’ve
always been fascinated by time-travel stories, and indeed I have an unpublished
novel that deals with that very subject; it might see the light of day some
time…
With
all of history to raid, the question was where to take the heroes. I grew up in
the north-east, not far from Hadrian’s Wall and I’d visited that site and the
auxiliary fort of Vindolanda more than once.
Kyler
is helped by the Continuity girl Tertia Beynon. I created Tropes Unlimited, a
film and publishing company that specialised in historical fact and fiction. It
was set up by four academics who also worked for the Government Time Corps.
Secretly, they duplicated the Zygma projector: Film director/writer Sebastian
Bulmer. He directed successful Flix – Fall
and Rise of Rome, Caligula’s Concubines, The Year of the Five Emperors.
He’d researched his material first-hand. His next project was to be Death on Hadrian’s Wall, prompted by his
last film project. But he didn’t return. The others are fiction author Mary
Ellison, film producer Lucian Matheson and historian Tom Rusch. The Roman
governor at the time (190AD) Clodius Albinus was forty. The scene was set to
explain how by some twist of time Kyler’s present, our future, would be
radically altered so that the Roman Empire never fell.
This
story might be the first to reference ‘Brexit’, viz: ‘Shielded from the sun’s
harmful rays by the soot-stained Plexiglas dome, this broad section of the
London skyline shimmered before his eyes, and transformed slowly, uncannily.
The Gherkin, the Shard, the O2 dome, the Third Eye, Saint Paul’s Cathedral,
Tower Bridge, the Scalpel, the Cheesegrater, One Blackfriars (known as the Pregnancy
Bulge), the Independence Tower (commonly known as the Brexit Finger), the New
Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, they all dissolved to be replaced by classic
Roman architecture, an enormous amphitheatre, tall blocks of dwellings fronted
with Doric columns, aqueducts and viaducts that spanned the river and white
marble temples faced with ornate friezes extolling battle triumphs and
appeasing gods.’
[Any
sci-fi fans might have noticed the names of famous authors: Beynon, Bulmer,
Ellison, Matheson and Rusch!]
That
established the first novella. The second sprang out of a few quotations from a
book of poetry by David Cranmer’s relative who died tragically: Celebrations in the Ossuary by Kyle J.
Knapp.
Still
playing with time, and utilising another of those academics/writers, I would
mix in fact and fiction again – but this time the horror fiction of Bram
Stoker. The unintended consequences of time travel on this occasion could be
truly horrendous, as the blurb hints.
I
enjoy blending real events with fiction and have also done it for the Tana
Standish psychic spy series Mission:
Prague, Mission: Tehran and Mission:
Khyber. Even though I follow a rough plot plan, there is always scope for
surprises engendered by the characters as they interact.
Nancy: Read on to see the fabulous covers below for the Tana Standish series,which I also loved reading.
Blurb
Continuity Girl
Kyler
is accompanied by the delectable yet mysterious Tertia Beynon. Their mission is
to trace an academic who has travelled to Roman Britain in 192 AD! Precog
suggests that an interfering event in this past will radically alter the future.
Arriving at Hadrian’s Wall in the freezing winter, the pair encounter
blood-thirsty argumentative locals and then obtain the aid of Governor Clodius
Albinus in their trek on the northern side of the wall. Here they are
confronted by Ambrosius, a druid who possesses arcane power.
Nothing
seems simple. Action abounds, with brutal sacrifices, deadly swordplay, a
fraught chariot chase and an attack by a pack of wolves.
With
all this going on, will they be able to save their future in time?
‘What an exciting zip
back to the past with some really neat time travel twists! The story may be
short but it’s packed with plenty of entertaining ‘what ifs’ and action near Hadrian’s Wall. And for good
measure, the conclusion just might be something you don’t expect!’
-
Nancy Jardine, author of The Celtic
Fervour series
We fell below the Earth
Our
duo are helped by Tertia and Chief Inspector Irving. Corpses drained of blood
point to a clue, a letter from Bistritz in 1897. Kyler and Cole are sent to
Transylvania.
The
conclusions are inescapable: it seems that the discovery of time travel – even
though it’s regulated and Continuity Inc strives to protect history – heralded
in a sequence of parallel time-streams. Where before these time-streams were
‘what if’ scenarios, now they’ve split into different realities. In some,
fiction is fact.
The
deaths, the blood and gore point to vampires being real, and they’re certainly
not your idealised romantic sort. The evil blood-suckers are intent on feasting
in Kyler’s present and spreading their contagion…
Links
Continuity Girl
e-book
- http://authl.it/7r5
Paperback
release shortly
Website
- www.freewebs.com/nikmorton
Twitter
- @nik_morton
Facebook
- nik.morton.10@facebook.com
Goodreads
- http://www.goodreads.com/Nikmorton
Amazon
author - amazon.com/author/nikmorton
Pinterest
- www.pinterest.com/nikmorton10
My best wishes to you, Nik, for the latest launch of Continuity Girl. Thanks for visiting and please keep in touch!
Slainthe!
Ooh! We're messing with time here? I love time stories.
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