The Particle Beast book launch

The Particle Beast by Ian C Douglas is being launched at the Nottingham Writers’ Studio, of which he is a founding member, on Thursday 22nd June at 7:30pm.  Expect a couple of readings, a Q&A, and plenty of chat at this free event with complimentary wine and snacks.

They say the truth can set you free. Yet on Mars the truth can kill. Zeke Hailey is happy at the Chasm School for psychics, but an answer to a secret compels him to choose between his friends and his missing father.

Sneinton’s Ian C Douglas regularly visits local schools and runs creative writing workshops. The Particle Beast is the third book in his YA sci-fi saga. He first became known to me for his excellent book Children's History of Nottinghamshire. When he swapped the caves of Nottingham for the craters of Mars, it seemed a radical, not to say risky, departure. So, what made him move into science fiction?

“History is fascinating, but astronomy was my first love. When I was a little boy, my father took me outside our holiday caravan and traced the constellations in the night sky. As a wartime pilot, he’d needed that knowledge to get across the English Channel safely. From that moment, my imagination was fired up by the idea of distant stars. Today we’re living in a golden age of discovery about Mars and the universe. These advances rekindled my boyhood obsession.”

Ian used these advances in cosmology to create a unique vision of Mars, where colonists battle ancient Martians. “The stories are highly imaginative, but the science is rock solid,” Ian explains. Book Three in the series, entitled The Particle Beast, is launching in June. It is for younger adults, but anyone who loves a fantastical tale with thrills and humour, will enjoy this. One independent reviewer described the series as 'Harry Potter meets Star Wars by way of Grange Hill.'

The hero, Zeke Hailey, is a teenager enrolled at a school for psychics on Mars. In-between telepathy and precognition lessons, he fights a cosmic demon with a taste for the human race. In this new book, Zeke must brave an alien ghost town suspended in a bubble universe. Not only is this home to a terrifying monster, but also a danger that could unravel the fabric of time and space. Can Zeke and his best friends save humanity?

Find out more about Zeke Hailey and his strange, deadly world at www.zekehailey.com