Novels
Cosmopath, Solaris, 2009
Cosmopath brings the Bengal Station trilogy to a close. What I wanted to do in these books, apart from tell a series of action adventures set on an exotic location – fusing Thai and Indian culture – was to show a man gripped by despair and how, over time, he comes to leave that despair behind him and learns to love life. Cosmopath follows Jeff Vaughan as he leaves Earth for the unexplored world of Delta Cephei VII, where he is hired to read the mind of a spacer. The only problem is that the spacer is dead.
What follows is a fast-paced story of intrigue as Vaughan ventures beneath the surface of the planet and learns that not only has it been colonised by humans, but that the colonists have discovered a mysterious alien race.
Xenopath, Solaris, 2009
Book two of the Bengal Station Trilogy, Xenopath, is set two years after the first volume, Necropath. Vaughan is a happy man, married to Sukara and with a child on the way. Working for a telepathic detective agency, Vaughan investigates a series of murders linked to the colony world of Mallory, and the slaughter of innocent aliens there by the Scheering-Lassiter colonial organisation. But not only does the investigation put his own life in danger, but back on Bengal Station Sukara’s life is threatened too.
Necropath, Solaris, 2008
Necropath, book one of the Bengal Station trilogy: Jeff Vaughan, jaded telepath, employed by the spaceport authorities on Bengal Station, discovers a sinister cult that worships a mysterious alien god. The Church of the Adoration of the Chosen One uses drugs to commune with the Ultimate – and murder to silence those who oppose their beliefs. The story follows Vaughan as his mistrust of his fellow humans is overturned by his love for the Thai street-girl Sukara, as he attempts to solve the murders and save himself from the psychopath out to kill him.
In Necropath and the following Bengal books I wanted to write about a man in despair, and how he gradually finds redemption. The books follow the cases he deals with, on Earth and on a series of colony worlds, and how these effect his relationship with Sukara and his fellow men.
Kéthani, Solaris, 2008
Kéthani is a mosaic novel featuring a group of friends living in a near future West Yorkshire. When an alien race called the Kéthani come to Earth, offering immortality to those who want it, the dilemma that faces humanity is whether or not to take up the enigmatic gift. The episodes follow the group of friends over a period of twenty years, as their lives, and those of everyone on Earth, are changed forever.
The novel explores the consequences, moral, cultural and religious, of accepting immortality – or not.
Helix, Solaris, 2007Planet Earth is dying, and the only hope for the survival of humankind is the colony starship Lovelock.
Five hundred years into its mission to discover a habitable, Earth-like planet, the ship crashlands on an inimical, frozen planet. When dawn comes, the crew discover that they’re on the bottom tier of a vast, artificial spiral… On their expedition up-spiral in search of a habitable world to colonise, they encounter extraordinary landscapes and alien races, and attempt to solve the mystery that surrounds the origin of the Helix.
A fast-paced action adventure combing old-fashioned sense of wonder and a cast of believable characters in an epic battle of survival.
‘This is the rediscovery of Wonder’ – Stephen Baxter.
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New York Dreams, Gollancz, 2004
In the third and final installment of the Virex Trilogy, we follow Hal as he attempts to find his missing ex-girlfriend Kim, who has vanished along with child-prodigy Suzie Charlesworth. Hal is addicted to VR, as an antidote to a hopeless life in a polluted future Manhattan. Barney, his business partner, is dead and real life seems hardly worth living. Hal stumbles across a mysterious organisation called the Methuselah Project, and someone wants him dead…
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Bengal Station, Five Star Books, 2004
Jeff Vaughan is a telepath, employed by the spaceport on Bengal Station, a vast twenty-level city-port situated in the Bay of Bengal mid-point between India and Burma. As part of a security team working against terrorists and other undesirables, he reads the minds of visitors to Earth. He wears an augmentation-pin which enhances human thoughts during working hours. The rest of the time, without the pin, he is aware of only low-level emanations, vague emotions.
The fact of being a telepath, and privy to the darker side of the human psyche, has made Vaughan cynical and despairing. He is addicted to chora, a drug which mutes the mind-noise of his fellow humans.Bengal Station follows Vaughan on the trail of a mysterious religious sect, a serial killer, and a soul-sucking alien life-form secreted on the Station. Vaughan’s mistrust of his fellow humans is over-turned by his love for Thai street-girl Sukara, one of the few pure thing he’s ever encountered in a life of reading greedy, jaded minds.
To read the first chapter of this novel, click the image.
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New York Blues, Gollancz, 2002
The second book in the Virex trilogy finds private detective Hal Halliday trying to trace the missing sister of VR-Star Vanessa Artois. The New York of 2040 is a seedy, run-down place where VR is fast becoming an antidote to the pollution and hopelessness of everyday life. The novel follows Hal’s descent, after the death of his sidekick Barney, into depression as he discovers more about the depraved, manipulative megalomania of VR-mogul Sergio Mantoni.
Although New York Blues is the second book in the trilogy, it was the first one I wrote, back in 1999. I finished the first draft and realised that there was a lot of back-story that needed covering to make the novel, and Hal’s character, work. I set to work writing New York Nights a few months later. I realised then, of course, that I had a trilogy on my hands, though by that time the books had gained their own momentum and the third novel, New York Dreams, practically wrote itself – and in my opinion is the best of the three. (A note on the titles: I originally wanted to call them Virtual Nights, Virtual Blues, and Virtual Dreams, with the overall title being the New York Trilogy. Of course, Paul Auster got there before me – and anyway, my editor at Gollancz thought the Virtual titles a tad clichéd, and he was right.)
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New York Nights, Gollancz, 2000
The first novel in the Virex trilogy features Hal Halliday and Barney Kluger, private detectives who specialise in missing persons. They are searching for a cyber-scientist who has vanished with information vital to the company she works for, Cyber-Tech. Their investigations plunge them into conflict with a rogue AI as they become increasingly involved in the nascent VR industry.
I’d like to think that the Virex trilogy is accessible to people who don’t normally read science fiction. It’s character-oriented, rather than ideas-based, a thriller about people rather than science or technology. It’s a fast paced, colourful, entertaining novel about how new inventions impact upon society and individuals.
To read Tony Ballantyne’s introduction to the Spanish edition of this novel, click the image.
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Penumbra, Orion/Millennium, 1999
With Penumbra I wanted to write a fast-paced rip-roaring SF space adventure full of starships and aliens and lost colonies, as well as characters the reader would care about.
It’s about Josh Bennett, washed up space-tug pilot, and his expedition to the mysterious planet of Penumbra; Rana Rao, Indian cop on the trail of a serial killer, and a race of transcendental aliens who have the answer to existence…
It was fun to write, and I did it quickly after the disappointment of having the previous novel rejected. (To tell the truth, I thought the earlier novel, Bengal Station, superior – but then what did I know?) Penumbra has sold better than any of my books to date, excepting the children’s book Untouchable.
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Engineman, Pan Macmillan, 1994
Engineman is the story of Ralph Mirren, ex-Engineman (spacers who pushed starships through the Nada-Continuum by mind-power alone). But the advent of space portals have rendered the enginemen redundant – and they no longer have the fix of communing with the Nirvana-like euphoria of the Nada-Continuum. Until, that is, the mysterious Hunter hires Mirren to push a ship one last time…
In retrospect I can see many plot similarities in the novel to Penumbra: the jaded pilot, the mysterious saviour, the colony world, and the omnipotent aliens… But I think Engineman a far better book than Penumbra, and it was certainly harder to write, taking me an initial six months to get the first draft down, and then another three months of adding, at my editor’s excellent suggestion, another fifty thousand words.
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Meridian Days, Pan Macmillan, 1992
My first novel, heavily influenced by the work of Michael Coney, with a bit of Ballard thrown in for good measure. It features a colony world, embittered artists, yet another – or rather the first in a line of – depressed starship pilots, a tragic love affair and a mystery plot.