A Special Offer for You

Hello there! I hope you're having a great week.

Goodness me, it's been a while hasn't it? I'll spare you the explanation, and just confirm that I'm still here, and still working on book number 3, the final instalment in the 'Martians Return' trilogy.

It's about 2/3 complete, as I write this, and frankly I'm loving what I've been writing. That hiatus was very refreshing... Read on to see an exclusive extract.

In the meantime, I do have a bit of great news for you. My book is one of those selected for an 'Undercover Aliens' Story Bundle!

There's another War Of The Worlds-inspired one too: Shadows of the Past by Eric Goebelbecker, along with a fantastic selection of different takes on a similar theme:

When anyone could be an alien, who can you trust?

That's the question at the heart of one of science fiction's most enduring tropes. From Invasion of the Body Snatchers to The X-Files to Men in Black, we've long been fascinated by the idea that extraterrestrials walk among us, hidden in plain sight.

The genius of this concept lies in how it transforms the familiar into something profoundly strange. Your coworker, your neighbor, your best friend-any one of them could be something other than human. And if you can't trust the people closest to you, can you even trust yourself?

It's enough to make a person question everything they took for granted.

What makes the trope so versatile is that "undercover alien" takes on wildly different meanings depending on who they are and what they want.

What's a Story Bundle?

13 Books, Pay What You Like

Put simply, it's a curated selection of great books on a theme, in this case aliens among us. All DRM-free, so you can copy them to any device you own, and a portion of the proceeds goes to charity too.

For StoryBundle, you decide what price you want to pay. For $5 (or more, if you're feeling generous), you'll get the basic bundle of three books in .epub format:

• Welcome to the Occupied States of America by Peter Cawdron
• The Gunn Files Book 1: Culture Shock by M.G. Herron
• Shadows of Divinity by Luke Mitchell

If you pay at least the bonus price of just $25, you get all three of the regular books, plus TEN more books, for a total of 13!

• Kelvoo's Testimonial by Phil Bailey
• Eclipsing the Aurora by Peter J. Foote
• The World in My Hands by Nick Snape
• Return of the Martians by Mark Hood
• Invasion by Joshua James
• Alien People by John Coon
• Shadows of the Past by Eric Goebelbecker
• Sleepers by Darcy Pattison
• Contact Us by Al Macy
• Dissonance Volume 1: Reality by Aaron Ryan

This bundle is available only for a limited time via https://storybundle.com/aliens. It allows easy reading on computers, smartphones, and tablets as well as Kindle and other ereaders via file transfer, email, and other methods. You get a DRM-free .epub for all books!

Grab it Now

Book Recommendations

And finally...

As promised here's an extract of my most recent writing on book 3. This is a first draft, so it'll get more polish before it's released, but I wanted to thank you for your patience while I finish it off... Our intrepid narrator is traversing the occupied countryside on horseback, when he encounters something terrifying.

We paused for lunch at a small village called Seend. I dismounted, glad there was no-one there to witness my ungainly stumbling. I had forgotten how tall the horse stood, and when I swung my right leg over his back I planted it firmly six inches above the ground, falling the rest of the way. Luckily Blackie didn't bolt at the jostling, as it took a moment for me to release my left foot from the stirrup. He merely looked back as if to see what this fool was doing now, and then stepped forward to drink from the stream at which we had stopped.

I drank from my water canteen, then refilled it from the icy brook before buckling it back inside the saddle bag. Blackie pressed against me with his heavy head, gently nudging me towards the second bag, where I found a nosebag full of oats, minus the small portion his keeper had enjoyed. I latched this on to his bridle, and he set to work noisily.

I dipped a few ship's biscuits into a small pot of jam, the last of the preserves Amy had made before we left Wiltshire. As I chewed the tough crackers, made palatable by a few smeared blackberries, I wondered if there might be fruit again next year.

I stretched out the knots in my spine, squatted briefly to relieve the tension in those muscles which had been exerting themselves keeping me astride Blackie, and looked around.

The village was less destroyed than most, many of the houses still more-or-less intact. I surmised that the Martians hadn't resorted to the heat ray here, either due to a lack of resistance from the locals, or because the place was already evacuated. Casting my mind back, there hadn't been a landing site too close to here, so perhaps everyone had fled before the invaders arrived.

Certainly the air was fresh, untainted by the smell of death and decay that still festered in the larger towns and cities. I hadn't visited myself, but regular scouting parties ventured in search of supplies and equipment, and reported back that bodies lay rotting in the streets. The red weed covered most, drawing its own sustenance from them, but without the scavenging animals, the poor unfortunates were left to slowly decompose. With no means to perform mass burials, the scouts were forced to leave them there, one more task for the reconstruction of the world, I supposed. Perhaps we would clear the cities in time, perhaps leave them abandoned. Maybe they would be the Stonehenges of our age.

There were a few brambles contesting every inch of ground with the red weed, but both plants now appeared to be heading into dormancy for the winter. Certainly it was too late for berries, but the mere survival of the bushes gave me hope. Perhaps the red weed wouldn't survive a British winter, but given the frigid temperatures theorised on Mars it was an unlikely hope.

Blackie whinnied behind me, no doubt exasperated at his short rations.

"Sorry, lad, but there'll be more when we get there," I called out. "About ten more miles, I reckon."

The sound I heard in answer chilled my blood. A rasping, struggled neighing, full of terror and pain raised the hairs on my neck, and I feared I knew what I would see when I turned around.