The Guardians was pure work-for-hire. The basic concept was dreamed up by one of the higher-ups at Orion Books – a one-line idea about two races of aliens waging war on Earth – which I then developed and fleshed out, adding characters, history and basically everything else. I was really into conspiracy stuff at the time, secret alien interference in history, all that sort of thing, and so were lots of other people, but the books didn’t do too well because, I think, we hit the wave just a little too late. It had crested already and the world was tiring of all things “X”. Also, the Sci-Fi Channel were supposed to be doing some cross-promotion for the books and, for reasons of their own, didn’t. I’m not blaming anyone. In the end, it comes down to the fact that the timing just wasn’t right. (Unless, of course, I had inadvertently got too close to the truth and the Secret Rulers of the World did all they could to prevent the books from reaching a wider audience.)
Of the two Guardians titles in existence, I prefer the second, Berserker, because with the first, The Krilov Continuum, I was finding my feet and trying to adjust my style to a more pulp-fictional feel. With Berserker I got into my stride and there are bits of that book that really kick butt. It’s a shame I couldn’t finish the series, but there you go.
Amazon UK:
- Guardians: the Krilov Continuum [Gollancz, June 1998] – ISBN 978-1857985368
- Guardians: Berserker [Gollancz, June 1999] – ISBN 978-1857985566
5 Responses to “Guardians : Krilov Continuum & Guardians : Berserker”
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• Filed under Books • 01/06/1998 •
I loved these two novels (I like your other stuff as well). Yup, pity there weren’t more.
Best
P
Market forces, eh? The one foe you simply can’t defeat.
Why couldn’t you finish the series? What is stopping you right now adding a third book, you are pretty much your own boss after all.
It’s a fair point, Leslie, but there’d be no point doing it unless I was guaranteed that it would be published. I know this is the era of ebooks and self-publishing, but it’s not a proven working model yet, and I couldn’t put in the time and effort without knowing there’d be a decent-sized audience for it at the end. Also, I’ve got work commitments up my eyeballs, at least two books contracted for and not yet written. I don’t know where I’d find the spare time!
I rather liked the books and the background, and have done some work to adapt it to a RPG, based on GURPS. I’d *love* to see some more books in the series, ebooks preferably.