Spotlight On Guy Haley’s Original Fiction

As journalist, critic, editor and author, Guy Haley has been involved in SFF publishing for well over 20 years, in that time writing over 50 novels and novellas, as well as countless short stories. You might be familiar with Guy’s work in the worlds of Warhammer, but over the years he’s written plenty of original fiction too – seven novels and two novellas for publishers including Angry Robot, Solaris and Tordotcom. After a long hiatus he’s recently returned to writing his own material – his most recent was the short story The Cure, published in Grimdark magazine in April (I thought it was great, and reviewed it here).

With all that in mind, I invited Guy onto Track of Words to tell us a bit about his original work, and give us the lowdown on what’s available and what to expect from it. If you’re on the lookout for a new SFF read, look no further! There’s even a little snippet of news in there, regarding what Guy’s working on right now, so without further ado I’ll hand it over to Guy.

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Guy Haley: Thanks for having me Michael. Seeing as you’ve so generously given me so much space, I’ll take you on a whistlestop tour of all my original novels and novellas…

Richards & Klein

This was originally published as Reality 36 and Omega Point. The story is near-future, hopeful cyberpunk. Richards and Klein are a Holmes and Watson-style partnership, where Richards is a superintelligent AI with a very smart mouth and our Watson, Klein, a veteran cyborg soldier.

Besides being fast-paced, amusing SF detective tales, I intended the stories to be commentaries on what could possibly happen in the next century or so, including geopolitical shifts, genetic engineering, AI, space exploration, global warming… the works. For me, a good fictional world is cut from whole cloth, and I set to weaving in earnest. It’s interesting reading them now, because the trends I incorporated are proceeding in the direction I predicted. A couple of years ago Angry Robot rereleased them in a single volume, entitled simply Richards & Klein. Reality 36 was my first publishing contract for a novel, and I’d learned a lot in the interim, so I took the opportunity to extensively update them. In fact, the second book was almost completely rewritten, improving the whole enormously. As a note, the audiobooks are the old versions. The definitive version is the collected edition.

Check out the Track of Words review of Richards & Klein

The Gates of the World

This epic fantasy series is set on a world undergoing an industrial revolution. It’s been done a few times now, but I was early exploring this sub-genre, which I insist is not steampunk but industrial fantasy. It’s a flavour of fantasy I find fascinating, because with rival industrialists, established dynasties and upstart families trying to force their way into the social elite there’s just as much scope for intrigue and skulduggery as there is in a medieval setting.

The story follows the six Kressind siblings, the scions of an upstart new-money family, whose various adventures are set against the return of The Twin, a sister world to the planet they inhabit, whose infrequent appearances are linked to great historical upheavals. Of course, there’s more to it than that, with banished gods, fallen interplanar civilisations, ancient magic and new technology all in the mix.

I wanted to craft a Game of Thrones-scale story, and in common with GRR Martin’s masterwork there is a lot going on, with multiple viewpoints and several mysteries that are slowly unravelled, though there is plenty of action too. Once again, my goal was to craft a believable world from the ground up to set my story against. I’m really proud of the world building in these books, it’s deep, and nuanced, with a rich history and cosmology. But it’s the characters I’m most pleased with. I tried my best to make them seem like real people operating in a real world with its own social conventions and limitations on their actions. Some subgenres of fantasy depict a sort of idealised adventure theme park. I prefer more realistic stories that allow you to dig deeper into human nature.

The three extant books are The Iron Ship, The City of Ice, and The Brass God. If you go looking for them, you’ll find them published under the name K M McKinley because, at the time, my original books hadn’t sold well enough for book sellers to accept more under my own name. That’s just how publishing works. If you’re worried about embarking on a series with no end as yet, then fear not. I will finish this story one way or another not so far in the future.

Champion of Mars

I have a real soft spot for this book. If we’re going to get super specific about subgenres it’s a planetary romance. It’s my homage to Mars and all the fiction that’s been set there, especially that of Ray Bradbury and Edgar Rice Burroughs. The story takes place over millennia, and is split between the near future (the same as that depicted in Richards & Klein), very far future, and stories that link the two periods together. Some of these interstitial tales can be read as short stories in their own right, and a couple of them I think are among my finest. One of my writer’s obsessions is the battle between free will and fate, and how it could be possible for both to coexist. Champion of Mars explores this more deeply than any of my other stories.

Ultimately though, it’s a love story, a sweeping epic set against tens of thousands of years of Martian future history.

Crash

A standalone book about an imperilled colony effort, Crash is about social hierarchies and how we survive them. I’ve an opinion that on a macroscale human beings are relatively powerless, and that we can only achieve things by combining our efforts, and that all you can do is to live as well as you can, doing the least harm, according to the time you find yourself born in. But I also wrote it because I love a spaceship crash, and colony disaster is one of my favourite subgenres of SF.

The Hegemony of Angels

This is a new title I’m trialling for this particular setting, because I am in the process of writing more stories about the hero, Quinn. You read it here first!

I wrote two novellas for Tordotcom following Quinn – The Emperor’s Railroad, and The Ghoul King. Quinn combines aspects of the lone gunslinger and questing knight. The angels are mysterious beings who rule a post-apocalyptic future, and deliberately keep humanity’s technological base low and population in check to prevent a return to the ways of the sinful ‘Gone Before’.

I love genre fusion fiction, and these blend fantasy, SF, horror and westerns. Sounds like a lot, but I think it works. Go judge for yourself. There’s even an audio version of The Emperor’s Railroad to enjoy.

I’m writing a novel set in this world, which will reveal more about what the angels and knights actually are, and how they came to rule this future.

So there we have it. If I could ask a favour from everyone who enjoys my work, do take the time to rate them on Goodreads, and wherever you acquire them from. It’s a real help, though telling your friends is even better.

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Thanks so much to Guy for talking us through all of these great books and series. If you’re keen to get hold of any of these books, make sure you check out the links above to order* them! And if you fancy checking out Guy’s latest short story, The Cure (here’s my review), here are the links to buy Grimdark Magazine issue 34:

In the meantime, here are a few useful links if you’d like to read more about Guy’s writing:

All of my reviews of Guy’s work

All of the interviews I’ve done with Guy on Track of Words

If you enjoyed this article and would like to support Track of Words, you can leave me a tip on my Ko-Fi page.

*If you buy anything using any of the links on this page, I will receive a small affiliate commission – see here for more details.