James Lovegrove – author

 The sequel to Redlaw is finally here.  This one sees our vampire-policing hero, now working freelance after events in the first novel, travel to the east coast of America.  There, he finds himself in the thick of the worst winter in living memory and also at the mercy of Father Tchaikovsky, a vampire shtriga in priest’s clothing.  But this isn’t the only enemy he has to face.  A team of specially enhanced black-ops soldiers are gunning for him, and all that Redlaw has to combat them with are his Cindermaker, his waning faith, and his wits.

Oh, and a wannabe journalist called Tina “Tick” Checkley, whose ambitions may well get in the way of her morals.

It was fun transplanting the very British John Redlaw into a (to him) alien environment and seeing how he fared there.  In the book, I’ve depicted the United States from an outsider’s perspective; it’s all very new and unusual to our hero.  I also drew on my memories of all the times I’ve been to America, not least a few days I once spent in New York during the coldest, most bone-chillingly inhospitable weather I have ever experienced.

For a free sample section, click this bit.

Number 4 in the Pantheon series is the bloodthirstiest of the lot.  The Aztec Empire has spread out from Mesoamerica, unchecked (in this alternate timeline) by the Spanish Conquistadors and their missionaries and smallpox-laced blankets.  One man stands in defiance of a world-spanning theocracy that rules through terror and constant human sacrifice: a masked vigilante who kills members of the priesthood.  A police detective is tasked with hunting him down, and the price of failure is too terrible to contemplate.

This one was a ball to write.  Basically, my thinking was, What if you’re the only hero in town, and the rest of the world regards you as a villain?  Or, to put it another way, what if Batman was a radical freedom fighter?  The Aztecs were crazy-violent in every aspect of life, and the idea of writing a story based around their barbaric practices — killing countless hundreds of victims in the name of their gods — was too tempting to resist.  I used as many Aztec-related themes as I could in the book, including Aztec-style weaponry, and of course their gods feature prominently… though I daren’t say how, so as not to spoil the surprise.

Here’s the first chapter.

So here’s Redlaw, what I fully expect to be the first in a series of novels about a former policeman turned vampire wrangler.  I really set out with this one to create a streamlined, plot-driven tale that doesn’t hang around and gets what needs to be done done in super-quick time.  No messing about, no half measures, uncompromising — a bit like John Redlaw himself.

The setting is present-day Britain, where an influx of vampire immigrants from the east is causing civil unrest and political headaches.  The vampires, known euphemistically as “Sunless”, have been corralled and caged in inner-city areas, and the job of keeping them under control has fallen to an agency called SHADE, a band of men and women dedicated to preserving peace — or at least non-aggression — between humankind and vampirekind.

This isn’t just a tale of the fanged undead, however.  I’ve written it as a satire of contemporary politics and business culture.  Not all bloodsuckers shun the sun and drain your veins…

Click here for a preview of the first chapter.

So here we go, third and (probably) final in the Age Of… series, which I’ve taken to calling the Pantheon Triptych.  It’s out, available, on sale from all good bookshops and online retail sites.  Buy, buy, buy!

Like its predecessors, this is a headlong, full-blooded military-SF adventure.  With gods.  In this case it’s the Norse pantheon, depicted in a way that I doubt anyone has seen before.  They’re humane, brutal, funny, dysfunctional, even mad.  There are also frost giants, huge exotic war machines, and a female President of the United States who may bear a resemblance to a certain Republican firebrand who’s currently striking fear into the hearts of sane people everywhere.  There’s even power armour, though it’s anything but high-tech.

Click here for an extract, the first chapter of the novel.  Warning: contains swearing (frequent, strong) and mild drug references.  Plus a car crash.  And lots of snow.  And mention of Jeremy Clarkson.

When Solaris asked what I wanted to do next for them after The Age Of Ra, I straight away said two more Age Of (Fill In Name Of Heathen God Here) books.  Zeus is a flat-out action-adventure effort.  There’s power armour, monsters galore, violence, intrigue, deception, betrayal, violence, Australian swearing, punning porn movie titles … did I mention violence? 

Click here to read an extract, the prologue of the novel. 

Reviews:  

• “This mix of mythology and science fiction isn’t a natural one at first glance, but Lovegrove pulls it off with aplomb.  A good, enjoyable romp with plenty of bang for its buck. The prose is solid … and there is a smattering of humour to keep things bubbling along.  A fun read that doesn’t get bogged down with technology or lengthy paragraphs of exposition” Total Sci-Fi
• “A barking mad fusion of Andy McNab and Ray Harryhausen … a rollicking page-turner, crammed with violence, lurid plot twists and mythic monster-battling adventure.  The plot moves like a bullet … energetic and entertaining stuff” SFX
• “What kept me reading was the characters. I cared what happened to them and some surprising people got killed, especially early on. I even felt sorry for the Minotaur. It is this characterisation that is the book’s strength … One of those books that I have no regrets about reading … A fine book, a thumping good read and well worth the money.” The Hub
• “The second book of the Pantheon trilogy sees the Greek gods imposing their hegemony on contemporary Earth, bringing stability and peace but also wreaking terrible revenge on those who oppose their rule. Samantha Akehurst, an ex-cop with a tragic past, and 10 others with their own reasons to hate the regime of the gods, are brought together by billionaire weapons tycoon Regis Landesman to kill the gods and their monsters. Nothing, however, is quite as it seems, and this huge novel, almost 700 pages long, expertly unpicks the motivations of both Landesman and the gods. It’s a compulsive, breakneck read by a master of the craft, with stunning action sequences and acute character observations. This is the kind of complex, action-oriented SF Dan Brown would write if Dan Brown could write.” The Guardian
• “The technology of the armored suits, weapons and related paraphernalia is extremely well done too and counterpoints very well with the Olympians’ powers and their creatures’ abilities which all are described in a scientific way despite the seeming supernatural involved in them.  And the action is just unbelievably good, keeping the reader on his/her edge of the seat so to speak; the monster hunts and later the direct fights with the Gods are the highlights of the book, while the humor and the jibes balance the tension well – though the explicit titles of mythporn movies that are used as cover against the all-seeing Argus who is now the “global moderator” of the world are not for the easily offended.” Fantasy Book Critic
• “The Age of Zeus is fun, entertaining and endlessly explosive. It is a fantasy in the sense that it is a daydream let loose on paper. Very readable and very enjoyable.” Pornokitsch
• “FIVE STARS! A brilliant combination of modern warfare and Greek mythology. Though the synopsis has the sound of Fantasy, believe me when I say this is Science Fiction. One must read the entire story to fully understand my meaning. Author James Lovegrove’s writing style is intense. His plot is creative, impressive, and could almost be called noble – no matter which side of the battle line the reader may mentally stand on. Lovegrove is on his way to greatness.” Huntress Reviews

George Mann of Solaris Books rang me up and asked if I’d like to do an alternate-history novel for them. Naturally I said yes, not least because I’d been hearing nothing but good reports about Solaris since the imprint’s inception (and you won’t hear anything but good reports from me either). Read the rest of this entry »

In 2004 my editor at Gollancz, Simon Spanton, suggested I have a crack at a Young Adult series and, moreover, that I base it on my tale “Wings”. He said the world of “Wings” was crying out to be built upon and expanded, and naturally I disagreed and hummed and hahhed and said I didn’t think it would work, the story was a closed loop, I couldn’t extract any more mileage from it. And then I started thinking about it, and realised it could work, and might work pretty well, and next thing I knew, I was writing a novel called The Fledging Of Az Gabrielson. Read the rest of this entry »

I love a good zombie movie, me, and I’ve long been harbouring thoughts of writing a story in that genre. So when Barrington Stoke told me they were starting a new line, Most Wanted, for Reluctant Readers who aren’t teens (i.e. adults), I thought I’d have a bash at giving them a tale about the shambling undead. Read the rest of this entry »

The idea for Kill Swap came to me, as the author’s note in the book states, when I was lying awake at four o’clock one morning. Read the rest of this entry »

Cold Keep came about largely because I wanted to write a story with a tough, resourceful young female protagonist and because the title, which popped into my head one morning, was just too good not to have a tale attached to it. Read the rest of this entry »