Stuart Aken – A prolific writer who won’t be pigeonholed

Prolific writer Stuart Aken says that being raised in a household without a TV was probably a factor in his becoming an avid reader, to the extent that he had read all the books in his local children’s library by the time he was 11. At this point, a formidable but far-sighted librarian named Hilda allowed him to pick an adult book on the understanding that she must approve it before allowing him to take it away.

He picked All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. Maybe it was a book Hilda had never read, or maybe she saw even at that early stage that Stuart was destined to become a writer for whom no topics were out of bounds. Whatever the reason, the 11-year-old Stuart was allowed to take the book away. It taught him that there was nothing he couldn’t read.

It wasn’t just reading that was an integral part of Stuart’s early life. He was in demand as a storyteller for friends and family, concocting tales that would later be acted out in games.

At 14 years old, for a school assignment, Stuart took a real event, fictionalised it and turned it into a tense mystery. It won a cup for the year’s best story. He looks back on this as his first real step on the road to becoming an author. Though blessed with a magical childhood, family tragedy dogged Stuart’s adolescence leading to a roller-coaster of upheavals for several years, the highs and lows of which have helped shape him as a writer.

As well as being a successful novelist, Stuart is also a talented photographer. His first publications were illustrated articles in the British photographic press. His first fiction publication was a radio play, Hitch Hiker, broadcast on Radio 4 in 1978. He had entered Hitch Hiker in the Radio Times Drama contest, and came third, the year the contest was won by Willie Russell of Blood Brothers and Educating Rita fame. Stuart was interviewed about the play by Tom Stoppard, and as a result was contracted by a prestigious literary agency. Sadly, Stuart’s work was considered too radical for the TV channels of the time (perhaps Hilda should have withheld consent for All Quiet on the Western Front until he was older). Stuart has since gone on to further competition success with his short fiction.

Building on his early achievements, Stuart has written numerous novels, novellas and short stories, notable amongst which are his fantasy and science-fiction trilogies and his novella, The Methuselah Strain.

 

 

In addition, he wrote a memoir about his tenyears with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, his recovery from which he celebrated by running in the GreatNorth Run.

 

Amongst Stuart’s works are two major trilogies; A Seared Sky and Generation Mars.

A Seared Sky is a fantasy adventure to rival The Lord of theRings.

Like Tolkien’s epic, A Seared Sky was several decades in the making, but has yet to be made into a series of blockbusting films; his fans live in hope.

When the Skyfire arrives early, Dagla Kaz sets out for the ancient homeland to harvest a new Godwood and exchange Virgin Gifts. He must lead his pilgrims hundreds of leagues over pirate-infested seas, across hostile lands, and return triumphant before the seared sky dies back to normality.

 

 

 

GenerationMars is a science fiction trilogy.

The story of Generation Mars begins in the near future, when climate change has made the Earth all but uninhabitable. The story unfolds to reveal the long-term fate of humankind.

 

 

 

You can check Stuart’s publications HERE: 

Stuart's latest novel, An Excess of... is an eco-romance / political / environmental thriller due to be released in October 2021.

Read more about Stuart, his life and his writing, on his website.

An Unexpected Tribute!

Delight can be infrequent in these troubled times, so Stuart Aken was both surprised and, yes, delighted, when he received a notice from his publisher, Fantastic Books Publishing, the other day. Attached was a link to a video produced by a professional in the TV industry. Ramon Marett from Adiq had wanted to try his hand at a book promotion video and decided to use Aken’s ‘Generation Mars’ series for the project.

The author posted it on his website, and you can see the result via this link.

Videos are a popular source of information for many potential readers, so he’s spread this one everywhere he can to get maximum benefit. He says it’s also had the effect of galvanising him into trying something similar for his other books! Watch this space.

The Joys of Re-reading

I’ve always been an avid re-reader, but it occurred to me how much more re-reading is possible now than it was when I first went back to revisit a William story and discovered the joys of adventuring through the same territory – discovering things I’d never noticed before, things I’d forgotten.

These days with so much available online at the click of a button, it’s not just books that are easy re-read candidates, but stories, articles, letters, random accounts of odd experiences; things that would rarely have been contenders for re-reading. And of course ‘Joys’ is not always the word. When a lot of time has passed, things can appear in very different lights. Attitudes change, cultures change, the written word dates along with everything else. Re-reading can be a salutary experience full of more surprises than seem possible.

My latest re-reading venture (other than my well-thumbed stack of favourite books) was this series of interviews I did some years ago with a diverse group of SciFi authors. 

Farscape, FantastiCon and Hornsea Writers

There is usually good representation from Hornsea Writers at the annual sci-fi convention, FantastiCon, and we hope that this year will be no exception. But as yet there is no insider knowledge on whether any Hornsea Writer has a book to launch there. The usual suspect would be Stuart Aken who has launched both his Seared Sky trilogy and the start of his Mars series at the event over the past few years. I guess we’ll have to wait for further announcements.

All being well, the cast of Farscape will be shipped over from Los Angeles not only to take part in the convention but for Gigi Edgley and her brother to perform the final event of their Wanderland World Tour at the live music evening on Saturday night.

FantastiCon this year will be held in Cleethorpes at the futuristic leisure centre on the first weekend in September: 1st and 2nd. Tickets are now on sale via Kickstarter. CLICK HERE for further information on the event and the venue. 

Local publisher takes a shine to Hornsea Writers

Local publisher, Fantastic Books Publishing, published its first short story anthology in 2012. It was called Fusion and one of the Hornsea Writers, Stuart Aken, was invited to contribute.

Since then, Fantastic Books has published six short story collections and four of them feature stories from the Hornsea Writers. Stuart Aken was again invited to contribute in 2015 to Synthesis.

Horror followed a year later with the 666 anthology in which Stuart was joined by Linda Acaster as an invited contributor. The collection also included a story from Penny Grubb.

The most recent collection, a railway anthology, Dreaming of Steam, showcased four Hornsea Writers; Penny Grubb was invited to contribute and stories from Elaine Hemingway, Madeleine McDonald and April Taylor were included.

Fantastic Books’ current competition, Fire and Ice, closes at the end of February. If you feel up to producing a short tale that touches on dark, twisted and dystopian, why not follow this link and have a go. Fireand Ice Entries must be in by the end of February.

How to be a Fantastic Writer

How to be a Fantastic Writer is the expanded second edition of The Writers’ Toolkit that is the book recommended for authors and would-be authors of commercial fiction by the editorial team at Fantastic Books Publishing.  

The book is co-authored by Hornsea Writer, Penny Grubb, and English Language specialist and forensic linguist, Danuta Reah, both of whom – coincidentally – write crime novels.

How to be a Fantastic Writer is available HERE 

Ruffling the publisher’s feathers

Question: what is one thing that publishers hate?

Answer: an author who wants a manuscript back to make changes at a late stage in its production.

But surely Hornsea Writers have enough experience of the process not to pull a trick like that. You might think so, but there are times when circumstances dictate events and there’s only one thing to do. When Hornsea Writer, Penny Grubb, wrote Syrup Trap City (published August 2017) set in Hull in its City of Culture year, she not only demanded the manuscript back out of production at the last minute, she’d planned the action in advance.

Click HERE to read more about the iconic feature that disturbed this book’s production, and a surprisingly shrinking set of options that almost derailed the whole plan. 

Editing After Submission: a Taste of The Work

We all edit our own work, striving for that impossible dream: perfection. For the self-published, it’s a rather unfortunate fact that the author’s edit is the only one performed. This is a shame and causes the publication of many good books that are seriously flawed. Freelance editors can be expensive, but any writer worthy of the name will employ such an experienced examiner to ensure the work is as good as it can be: we owe that much to our readers.

For those who are published, whether by mainstream or independent publishing houses, our own edit is only the start of the finishing process. We submit what we hope is the best piece we can produce, knowing as we send it off there will be faults, suggested improvements, and some culling of our darlings. A writer is usually too close to the creation to view it in a truly objective light.

Last week, I completed the final work on my latest novel. War Over Dust, book 2 of the Generation Mars series, is due to be launched on 2^nd September at Fantasticon, a fantasy/scifi/gaming convention held in the UK City of Culture 2017, Hull.

I’d spent much of the winter actually creating the book. Then began my own edit. This, in itself, is a fairly thorough process, involving a line by line check for errors, a read through aloud from a printed version (the eye misses too much when reading from the screen), comments from a beta reader, and feeding each chapter through an online editing suite. I use https://prowritingaid.com/; others are available. That whole procedure takes a few weeks. Only then do I send the piece off to the publisher.

Dan Grubb, owner of FantasticBooks Publishing, employs a team of dedicated editors (rumour suggests he has them chained to desks in the dank basement of his rural headquarters; so isolated is the place that their moans and groans of distress go unheard by anyone who might feel inclined to rescue them!).

By return email, I received the first suggestions in the form of a couple of dozen minor alterations, which I passed back the next day. There followed an emailed document, 8 pages long, detailing suggested content changes (this sounds a lot, but many of the comprehensive comments required only a sentence or two to fix). Also, in the same email, was the full MS marked with Word Tracking comments, deletions, additions, queries and suggestions; the line edit.

I spent around four days, working between ten and twelve hours each day, addressing these. Again, it sounds as though a lot of errors were discovered, but, in practice, most were stylistic or typos, with a few easily addressed queries, some minor alterations, and a few inconsistencies that required the odd change in a number of chapters (often no more than a word or two). This is work that requires intense concentration coupled to an ability to expunge the previous version of the book from your memory in order to approach the task with an open mind.

So, there you have it. The writing of a book is more than simply allowing that inner artist to express your thoughts. It requires a degree of discipline and the help of eagle-eyed analysts to transform that basic word count into something that can be enjoyed by booklovers whilst giving those readers the respect they deserve.

The cover is now also complete and the book was with the typesetters when I last enquired as to progress.

I’ll do a full reveal of that excellent cover in the not too distant future. For now, the picture at the head of this post is a taster.

You can follow the editing process in more detail by visiting my website here and searching for ‘Progress on the WIP: SciFi in the Making.

Beverley Folk Festival

It’s the Beverley Folk Festival this weekend. Saturday and Sunday. Beverley racecourse. A veritable cornucopia of delights in the creative arts, and I’m including food in the creative arts on this occasion because the food is exquisite.

As well as the concerts and big name bands, they have a children’s marquee, an arts and crafts centre and on Sunday a literature strand: Words on the Westwood where you will find at least one Hornsea Writer and many more local authors and publishers talking about their work.

This year, the organisers have created a Festival taster ticket for just £3 which allows entry to everything except the headline concerts. If you’re in the area, it’s well worth a visit.

Hold the date for a Fantastic September weekend

Hold the date, 2nd and 3rd September 2017, for an amazing weekend in the UK’s City of Culture. FantastiCon 2017, the annual Sci Fi and Fantasy convention takes place at the Guildhall in Hull. Tickets are now on sale through Kickstarter. Follow this link and hit the Pledge button. 

Hornsea Writers will once again be well represented. Last year our own Stuart Aken launched the first of his Generation Mars trilogy, and the Fantastic Bookstore featured his earlier work as well as that of Penny Grubb and Linda Acaster who were only two of many local authors represented in amongst the Star Wars characters, the many full sized Daleks, the live music shows and the mind-blowing virtual reality demos.

FantastiCon is a ‘doing’ convention. All the activities are rolled into the very modest ticket price. You can even get kitted out with goggles and protective clothing and join the Nerf wars. Sign up now and come and say hello. You’ll find at least one Hornsea Writer at the bookstore at all times.

The Mechanical Engineers of the Writing World

It’s obvious to a reader when a book isn't working, just like it’s obvious to a driver when a car breaks down. It’s not a matter of understanding what’s going on under the bonnet, the very fact of being stranded at the roadside is clue enough that all is not well. And it’s the same with a book. 

I’m sure you know the feeling. The story begins to grate, to be irritating rather than intriguing. Or it simply falls flat. What should on the face of it be a dramatic scene – a fight at the top of a cliff perhaps – completely fails to thrill. Just like the driver, the reader doesn't need to know what’s going on under the bonnet, but for the writer (as the mechanic) it’s a different matter.

These kinds of nuts and bolts of writing were discussed in a series of short articles and on line exchanges at the very busy 48-hour launch of the Writers’ Toolkit a few years ago. Three extracts are linked here:

A story that should have the reader at the edge of their seat simply irritates the hell out of them – which part needs replacing? 

The story limps along when it should be racing – how to tune the engine? 

All repairs done but are they perfect – can the car go back on the road? 

The full on line Writers’ Toolkit launch is available on Facebook. 

Announcing a New Edition

Some of you will have read my science fiction novella, The Methuselah Strain, but many of you have yet to try it. My publisher, Dan Grubb of Fantastic Books Publishing, read the book and was so impressed that he wanted to publish the book himself. We had a brief discussion and I added a new section, which gives a little more backstory to the female protagonist, Luce. Dan organised a lovely new professionally designed cover and added some nice touches to the interior design. And, before you could say 'Azimov!' the book was published.
At present, it's available in digital form only and you can obtain a copy by clicking this link. It's our intention to publish in print form shortly. Watch this space, those of you who prefer paper to screen.

Murder and mayhem in North Yorkshire

Private Investigator Annie Raymond’s fifth outing is now available as an ebook. 

Annie has always been very careful in treading the right side of the line between private and public investigation, but she steps unexpectedly into deep water this time. So deep in fact, there might be no way out.

Buried Deep by Hornsea Writer Penny Grubb is available from Fantastic Books Publishing and from Amazon.

From Quiet Desk to Dynamic FantastiCon

As well as the usual digital articles about their work, individual members of Hornsea Writers are occasionally asked to give talks on anything from The Writing Life to Developing Characters to Researching & Planning a Novel, but it isn't often that two members are asked to participate on a panel at a convention. In fact, neither have ever attended a convention, so it should prove quite an eye-opener.

On Saturday 16th August Linda Acaster and Stuart Aken will be in Hull at FantastiCon talking about aspects of their Fantasy trilogies - Torc of Moonlight and A Seared Sky. With them on the panel will be JS Collyer whose debut SF novel Zero will be launching on the day. 

That's if they can be be found at the appointed time. The place will be awash with gaming, costumes, Dr Who participants, "Elite" series authors Q&A, and everything SF. Personally I think they'll be fighting for a seat on the Star Wars speeder bike in front of the green screen. Who wouldn't want a photograph of that?

Fantasticon is hosted by Fantastic Books Publishing and has a Facebook event page and a YouTube video.

Venue: Mercure Hull Royal Hotel from 1pm-midnight (earlier for Gold Ticket holders)

The Day Has Arrived!

At last, the launch party has arrived. From 12:00 noon BST you can join in the fun and excitement of the launch of my epic fantasy trilogy. Book 1, Joinings (A Seared Sky), is published today, by Fantastic Books Publishing, in print and ebook formats. More than a book, it's a work of craft in preparation for years.

This is a unique novel; a book to delight all adult readers (because of the themes addressed, I advise a reader age of 15 and above). 

The launch party is an online event so everyone can attend and join in the fun. It starts at 12:00 noon (BST) today. Giveaways, signed print editions, interaction with the author, videos, interviews and more. It’s easy to get involved, just click this link and it will whisk you to the place where everything’s happening. For those unable to make it, I’ll place book details and links here on the blog tomorrow. I’ll be at the party for as long as I’m able. Come along, ask me questions, join the gang here, interact.

Should you simply want to buy the book, here are the links:

Both formats UK

Both formats US

Related articles

• Romancing the Fantasy - Stuart Aken
• It's Here! The Promised Cover Reveal.

Tomorrow’s the Day.

The long-awaited first book of Stuart Aken’s epic fantasy trilogy is published by Fantastic Books Publishing on 30 March. A Seared Sky: Joinings will be launched in print and ebook formats.

From 12:00 noon BST, the launch party is live. Come along, no matter where you live. This is an online event, and everyone can join in. Pop in at your leisure, accept a giveaway, collect a signed edition, ask the author a question, and much more. There’ll be videos, and, of course, the book to take away with you, in either format, or both!

Visit the party page by clicking the link here.

Find out more about the book by visiting here.

Fancy a Fantasy Party in a Virtual World?

Hello. A brief alert for visitors to the fact that Stuart Aken's publisher, FantasticBooks Publishing
(Fantastic is the right word to describe this publisher!) is hosting the launch of his epic fantasy novel on 30^th March. There'll be fun, gifts, offers and, of course, links to take you to the places you can buy the book, the first of a trilogy, A Seared Sky: Joinings, in both paperback and ebook form. He’ll be an almost constant presence (well, a guy’s got to eat, you know, so there will be odd absences) throughout UK writers’ working hours. Come along, join the fun, ask questions of the publisher and the author, interconnect, network with like-minded folk. No one will try to force you to buy, but it would be great if we could get the book off to a real start. We're all really looking forward to it. 

Here’s the link that’ll take you to the page. And there you’ll find one of two other items of interest. Enjoy.

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• The Book is on the Launchpad