Kenneth Bulmer (1921-2005) was born on this day. Bibliography: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?309

L, William Maughan, 1975; R, Cha' Bril, 1963
#scifi #sciencefiction #books

Joseph Green (1931-) was born on this day. Bibliography: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?604

L, uncredited, 1975; R, Boris Vallejo, 1978
#scifi #sciencefiction #books

David Redd (1946-2024) was born on this day. Bibliography: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?11279

L, Russell FitzGerald, 1968; R, Rick DeMarco, 1982
#scifi #sciencefiction

Arthur Byron Cover (1950-) was born on this day. Bibliography: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?480

L, uncredited, 1988; R, uncredited, 1976
#scifi #sciencefiction #books

"Our platinum-coated med-pods are equal parts discretion, elegance, and high-tech empowerment. The perfect way to cure what ails you as you hold hands and remember all the special moments you’ve experienced as one. We also offer full blood and marrow replacements to help even the oldest bodies stand up and dance for one more night."

Sean MacKendrick's #funny #scifi piece "Anniversary Gift Guide" is in issue 18

#lego #humor #humour #anniversary

https://onceuponacrocodile.wordpress.com/current-issue/anniversary-gift-guide/

Sesons of Fear is worth to remember fro several things. Among them, and withiout spoilers...

...the very first mention of something that would be key and foundation of the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who at Big Finish.

#SeasonsOfFearTheChimesOfMidnight #DoctorWho #8thDoctor #PaulMcGann #IndiaFisher #BritishSciFi #SciFi #BigFinish #AudioDrama

Author Spotlight: Sci-Fi & Horror Author Thomas Wrightson

Born in 1994, Thomas Wrightson (he/him) has spent much of his life creating narratives and characters. Home schooled, he currently lives on the island Ynys Mon in Wales, surrounded by beautiful scenery and unpredictable weather.

His current projects are The Cluster Cycle, an ongoing space opera series retelling old stories with a modern twist; and The Angry House, a horror audio drama produced by Alternative Stories.

Author Links:

Website/Book Links: thomaswrightson.co.uk
Horror Audio Drama: The Angry House

YouTube: YouTube Channel

BlueSky: @thomaswrightson.bsky.social
Mastadon: mastodon.social/@ThomasWrightson
Instagram/Threads: @twrightson1994
Facebook: thomas.wrightson.54

Today is a bit different as we’re spotlighting not only your book series, The Cluster Cycle, but also a Horror audio drama in development, The Angry House. What’s it like being a multi-genre author, and how do you pivot from one project to another, e.g. from Sci-Fi to Horror, from prose to scriptwriting for audio?

Science fiction and fantasy have some overlap, but I found working in multiple genres helpful. Unless something else happens to mess things up, switching between two different genres prevents the stories from homogenising. I tried writing two sci-fi stories at the same time once, and they just began bleeding into each other and overwriting their unique aspects. Because of that, if I do more than one project at a time, the two have different genres. And I have a gift for holding multiple stories in my head at once, so long as they’re not the same genre.

As to prose versus script writing, especially audio scripts, it’s a very different skill.

While I’ve felt my skill is with dialogue, you need to do some things with audio writing you wouldn’t with normal prose. For instance, you need to have characters say each other’s names more than people would in real-life. You also need to put in sound effects, and keep it all in mind when you’re crafting a scene. What could be five or six pages in a prose book, needs to be three pages of tightly-written dialogue and scene setting in audio format.

Believe it or not, while I dabble in horror elements in The Cluster Cycle, my audio play The Angry House is the first pure horror story I’ve ever produced. And I may have spooked myself while writing it.

Can you tell us about your series, The Cluster Cycle, and where the idea came from to blend retellings of classics like Macbeth and Golden Age Detective Fiction with Sci-Fi settings and plots?

The series began as a random idea when I was watching Gankutsuou, an anime sci-fi retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo from Studio Gonzo. I decided “What the heck, I’ll try that.” I was still submitting stories at the time, and the book–which eventually released as Starborn Vendetta–got picked up. Because of how I submitted it, I needed to produce five or six books in this universe including Starborn Vendetta. So I decided to carry on with the overall theme: old stories retold with sci-fi twists and a modern lens.

I wrote the next four books over two years, right through COVID. For instance, while Starborn Vendetta (2023) uses The Count of Monte Cristo as its core with flourishes of Macbeth and Faust, the second book Lost Station Circé (2024) blended story elements from Treasure Island and Homer’s Odyssey into an adventure/horror.

The Murderer’s Lament (TBA) is my very first attempt at a detective mystery, and drew heavy inspiration from Dorothy L. Sayers among others.

The final two in the series, provisionally titled ‘Sphear‘ (no, that’s not a typo) and ‘Ancient Earth Explorers‘, are respectively a first contact story and a gay romance.

I made two resolutions when creating the series. First while I used these old stories as a base, I would skew modern with themes and representation. The lead characters are either women, non-human, LGBTQIA+, or all three (fun fact, I’m actually truly terrible at writing straight male characters). And almost all the human characters are BIPOC (there’s a Watsonian reason shown in the final book).

Many characters explore topics including cycles of violence, abuse, complex relationships, philosophy, politics and trauma.

Second, I would write the series so readers can literally jump in anywhere, as it’s a non-linear chronicle spanning a millennium. There are nods to other stories and a couple of recurring figures, but you don’t need to read the books in order. I’m very much against the MCU school of needing all the preceding content to understand the latest entry.

Are there any Easter eggs for readers in your third book, The Murderer’s Lament, relating to specific Golden Age Detective authors/stories/plots, or is it purely the atmosphere, themes, and aesthetics you used for this book?

Absolutely there are easter eggs. In general it carries over the structure and tropes you would find in the novels of Sayers, Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, Gladys Mitchell (mostly women, they’re generally the best writers in the genre).

The tropes include an isolated location, a closed circle of well-heeled suspects, a fountain of clues and statements, and a late-game twist. I also make specific reference to one author through a location later in the story, a nightclub called Ngaio de Lune. ‘Ngaio’ isn’t only a tree’s name, but a reference to author Ngaio Marsh.

Additionally, each chapter or ‘File’ opens with a quote from a detective writer’s work, which ties into the theme of that chapter. For instance, File 18 uses this quote from ‘Brother Cadfael’s Penance‘ by Ellis Peters: “Truth is a hard master, and costly to serve, but it simplifies all problems.”

I admittedly don’t restrict myself strictly to Golden Age stories. One key moment is strongly inspired by an early episode of the ITV series Rosemary and Thyme, but I think that partly counts as it uses many Golden Age tropes.

I enjoyed adopting bits and pieces from different stories–a plot point reference in one chapter, a scene homage in another. That can and may come off as unoriginal, but the central plot was something I created to fit within set tropes and conventions.

Additionally, while many of the stories I reference have been adapted for radio and television, I preferred to referenced the original books. I obviously don’t want to give too much more away, so I hope people will enjoy the mystery when it releases. And if they want, they can check out the previous stories if they would like an initial grounding in this universe.

How did your horror audio drama come about – what made you think that this story idea really lent itself to audio rather than another medium, and what was the scriptwriting process like for you?

I originally created a short story for my website that used the same basic premise, inspired by older horror fiction in general and specifically Henry James’s “The Jolly Corner“, where the protagonist is haunted not by a literal ghost per say, but by the memory of the person he might have been. I came across a competition by chance, “The Pen to Print Awards” in London, which included an “Audio Drama” category. On a whim, I turned the short story into a radio script, took down the original short story, and submitted the script. It won!

I think horror in general works very well through audio more than it does the visual. If you look back at some of the most effective horror fiction, it leaves a lot up to the imagination and describes sounds and impressions more than solid visuals.

Radio is all voices, music and sound effects, so it’s perfect. So when deciding what to create for the script, this short story fit the medium like a glove.

A lot of it is built on atmosphere and building dread, but it had to be done in a tight timeframe, which screen horror doesn’t seem conducive to.

To be frank, I tend not to enjoy horror with a few exceptions. I can’t touch horror games. But the ones I enjoy lean Japanese (Kairo, AKA Pulse) and British (The Devil Rides Out, Sapphire & Steel). I used an episode of Sapphire & Steel as a reference for the script’s sound effects, and shared it with the drama’s producer and director Chris Gregory for him to use as reference.

What was the process like of getting that script produced, casted, and funded? Do you have any tips for anyone thinking about a similar project?

I was extremely lucky in that the Pen to Print Award’s prize for its audio category was that the winning entry would be produced by Alternative Stories. I knew about them from their work on Emily Inkpen’s Dex Legacy projects, so working with them was exciting in itself, quite apart from this being my first fully produced piece of writing.

To say hearing my words spoken by other voices was surreal is an understatement. In some ways, I was pre-prepared for the production process because of the editing required for The Cluster Cycle. The script used some old-fashioned language, and talking with Chris Gregory, it was agreed to tone down the formality and make it more like it would have been from the 1990s rather than the 1890s.

Chris encouraged me to be involved in as many stages as possible, so I had a hand in choosing the cast, to be in at the recording in October, and now going into the take selection and post-production process.

If readers would like a more thorough behind-the-scenes look at the production of The Angry House, you can check it out through this link: https://thomaswrightson.co.uk/2025/10/26/the-angry-house-its-authors-behind-the-scenes/.

I’m planning a second post going into the later post-production stages. Most of what’s coming up next is Chris Gregory’s responsibility, but I’m still involved and still getting the word out there. And I’ll definitely be updating when a release date is set, and what platforms it’ll be on.

How do you feel your work has evolved from when you started creative writing in its various forms to now, and what do you think will be next for you in terms of projects and creative mediums? 

I have evolved a LOT since I first scribbled Bionicle fan fiction in an exercise book when I was 11 or 12 years old. I have a better grasp on what’s important, what to keep and what to prune, in narratives.

Most of all, I’ve found my calling in writing for characters who aren’t male and straight. Especially in these times with conservative and nationalistic rhetoric being forced on us, we need to write reality, which isn’t just one group and one gender.

I’m bisexual, cosmopolitan, and egalitarian at heart. So I’ve evolved into using the genre forms of sci-fi and fantasy to craft worlds of tolerance and resilience. A fictional norm people can turn into reality.

As to where I’m going next? Who knows? My career is just starting. It may fizzle out, it may continue, it may blow up which I count as an extreme unlikelihood. I would love to work in other mediums again, perhaps a new radio project if the opportunity ever came up, or even something for the screen, or especially a game narrative as some of my favourite stories (13 Sentinels Aegis Rim, Tomb Raider Legend, Nier Automata) come from games.

I’m at the beginning, and if I’ve learned anything from my journey and the turbulent times I’ve lived through these past twenty-five years, it’s that you keep your options open. I have other projects cooking with my publisher, but that’s for the future.

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