Station Zero

    Here at Bonehill Films we’re about to start production of our latest project, the follow-up to Gwenevere and Prairie Rascals . Bad Access to Hennock is a gripping crime drama based on the popular Bovey Tracey road sign (above). This time we’re in the present day for once, although our heroine, Celia Jesson, seems to be stuck somewhere in the 1950s. She’s a character created by top comic actress Joanna Neary , and I’ve always wanted to build a film around her.   In our story, Celia is living in the little village of Binsworthy on the edge of Dartmoor. While husband Fred is off on a golfing trip with his pals she finds herself drawn into one of those webs of mystery and intrigue one hears so much about, involving a devilishly handsome fugitive (Alex Smith) a ruthless international criminal (Amanda Lindseth) and two semi-competent gangsters (Mylo Sermon and, er, me). She has no one to turn to for help except washed-up 1980s pop star turned New Age therapist Tan...

    Here's an interview I did with writer Robin CM Duncan recently for the website Gingernuts of Horror , marking the launch of new Mortal Engines adventure Bridge of Storms .  I'm always a bit surprised to think of myself as a horror writer, or even a horror-adjacent one: it's a genre I've always avoided, mainly because I don't like being scared.* But I guess there's a grey area between sci-fi/fantasy and horror, and into that grey area a lot of my stuff falls – Utterly Dark was very gothic, Shrike and his fellow Stalkers and Revenants in the Mortal Engines books are pretty gruesome, and the climax of the new book gets very grand guignol, as Tamzin comes up against the logical end-point of the idea of Stalkers (a notion I toyed with back in the original quartet, but never found a place for until now). Anyway, Robin does a good interview, so please have a listen. And here's a link to Robin's website, with details about his own books. Thanks for havin...

Prairie Rascals poster by Sarah McIntyre This post contains some minor SPOILERS about Prairie Rascals , so you may want to watch the film first. You can find it here. WAGONS ROLL When Sarah Reeve and I started making our little films here at Bonehill, it wasn't because I was eager to get into screenwriting. I'm much more interested in the other bits of film making, like finding costumes and locations, working with the actors, and editing. But before you can get to those parts of the process you do need a screenplay, and since I'm the cheapest writer available, I write those myself. Writing a screenplay - at least for the sort of micro-budget productions we're making - is not like writing a book. With a novel the problem is that there a thousand different paths the story could take. With a screenplay,  998 of those paths are blocked by large signs that say YOU CAN'T AFFORD THIS, so in a way it becomes much easier: your choices are made for you. * When I set out to wr...

  The time has come to release Prairie Rascals on an unsuspecting world. Bonehill Films' Cream Tea Western has gone down well at a few local screenings, so I've decided to make it free to watch on YouTube, at least for a month or two. If you've had a chance to catch our previous film, Gwenevere , you'll know roughly what to expect - we work at an absurd speed, with a tiny budget which almost all goes on costumes and catering. But I think the story is sound, Sarah Reeve's photography is lovely, and we have some great actors.    You can see for yourself on the Bonehill Films YouTube channel. As with Gwenevere , the story was very much dictated by what we could afford and what locations were available. We've ended up with a tale of a young widow setting out to find some buried treasure before the bandits who did her husband in can get their hands on it. Her adventures eventually intertwine with those of a rich and naive young man from back east who has come to see...

    Bridge of Storms , the sequel to Thunder City , will be published in the UK and US in February 2026, and once again Ian McQue has done us proud with some striking cover art... It should be possible to pre-order Bridge of Storms now from your local bookshop or online, so please do... Shops that have a few advance customer orders for the book are more likely to take a few copies for stock too, so it really helps to get the word out that, among next year's avalanche of new titles, there lurks a brand new Mortal Engines story. 2026 will also be the 25th anniversary of Mortal Engines , so I expect I'll be banging on about it quite a bit over the coming months.

The seventh Adventuremice title is available from British and Irish bookshops now! In Mousehole to the Centre of the Earth the team board an ill-advised tunelling machine and travel into the depths of the earth, where they find a whole lost world inhabited by cavemice, ptiny pterosaurs, and the terrifying* Hamstersaurus rex. (It's inspired by Jules Verne, of course, and by shabby old sci-fi films like At The Earth's Core .)   My excellent co-author Sarah McIntyre's watercolour illustrations are going from strength to strength, and her pictures for this new book are wonderful. You can check them out in her online shop , and even buy some originals if you fancy. ( Adventuremice Christmas cards are also available.) I like to think the books are going from strength to strength too. It can be a little frustrating writing a series, because after the first book you're almost never eligible for awards, and seldom get noticed by reviewers. I'm told that The Bookseller , t...