Hello and welcome to this Original Fiction Spotlight, where today I’m welcoming the brilliant James Swallow to the site. If you’re a fan of sci-fi worlds from Warhammer 40,000 to Star Trek then chances are you’ll have come across James’ excellent IP fiction – I’ve certainly read and reviewed my fair share of his 40k stories! In the spirit of these spotlight articles though, today we’re looking at James’ original fiction. If you weren’t already aware, outside of IP fiction James has a fantastic catalogue of thrillers to his name, with a six-book series from Bonnier Zaffre and two standalone novels from Welbeck Publishing. As part of my ongoing ‘Spotlight On…’ series, I’ve invited James to give us the lowdown on his original fiction, so warm up your TBR list and get ready to find out more about these great thrillers.
James: When I decided to write original stuff that wasn’t based on any existing IP, I went for the genre that I love as much as sci-fi – and that’s action-adventure thrillers! I grew up on this stuff in the 80’s, reading my way through the golden age of pulpy technothrillers, and I love the modern era incarnations of these types of tales, from TV shows like 24 and Jack Ryan alongside the Bond and Bourne movies, and the Mission Impossible franchise. On the surface, the genre seems light-years distant from my writing in the grim dark future of the 41st Millennium, but what does stay the same is the pace, action and high concept that features in all my fiction.
If readers are looking to try one of my non-Warhammer 40,000 novels, I’d direct them straight toward my action thriller work; if you’re looking for a stand-alone story, my latest one came out in May and is called Dark Horizon, about a lone pilot forced into a deadly terrorist conspiracy, with plenty of aerial action and a ticking-clock plotline. Dark Horizon is also my first thriller with a female lead, and I’ve definitely applied some of the lessons I learned writing the Sisters of Battle with the novel’s main character Kate Hood!
And my other one-shot thriller from last year is Airside, which I deliberately wrote to be a ‘gear-change’ from my previous work; it’s a tense, slow-burn story about a guy stranded in a remote airport on the worst day of his life, who happens upon a bag of money that could solve all of his problems…or make them a thousand times worse.
But if your tastes run to something with a more high-octane, globe-trotting vibe, read Nomad [I can confirm, it’s brilliant – ToW], the first of my thrillers series featuring ex-MI6 agent Marc Dane. In Nomad, Marc starts out as the guy in the van, the one standing on the side-lines when the action happens. But on an ill-fated mission, his team is wiped out and he’s the sole survivor – and when his agency turns on him, he’s pushed into the front lines, going rogue to get to the heart of a global conspiracy to control the war on terror. Marc’s adventures continue through more books in the series (Exile, Ghost, Shadow, Rogue and Outlaw), where he chases down lost nukes, battles mercenary hackers, bioweapon attacks and more.
I’ve had a blast writing these stories and I hope to do more in the near future.
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Thanks so much to James for giving us the lowdown on these great thrillers. I’ve read most of them, and can confirm that they’re excellent, and well worth checking out! If you’re keen to get hold of any of these books, click on the images in the article or check out the links below to order* them!
In the meantime, here are a few useful links if you’d like to read more about James’ work:
James’ website (where you can also join his mailing list)
All the James Swallow reviews and interviews on Track of Words
If you’re looking for more articles like this, check out the rest of my Original Fiction Spotlight series
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*If you buy anything using one of these links, I will receive a small affiliate commission – see here for more details.