Invaders From Beyond was released from Abaddon last month. Here we find three unlikely invasion stories from authors Colin Sinclair, Tim Major and Julian Benson. In this guest post Colin Sinclair answers some questions, or maybe not all is as it seems…
Can you describe your book in simple terms?
It’s a novella, entitled Midnight in the Garden Centre of Good & Evil; previously available in individual e-book format, but now bundled together into a single paperback (or electronic) volume with two other strange and striking tales of Invaders from Beyond.
My particular story deals with what happens when a bunch of people who should never be involved in stopping an alien invasion, have to stop an alien invasion. In a garden centre.
And you chose this subject matter because?
As a kid in the 1970s, there tended to be a lot less in the way of entertainment opportunities. It was a few years at least before gaming consoles and cheap home computers, distinct television programming for kids was mostly relegated to summer mornings once the English schools were out, right? There’s only so much cops-and-robbers you can play before the novelty pales. A limit to the amount of kerby or wall-tennis a child can stand.
A lot of attractions and businesses were closed on Sundays, too, which didn’t help. The swings at the local park were chained up for religious reasons as well, so I remember a fair amount of time visiting garden centres for something to do.
They were interesting places—they still are, if I’m honest—with unusual sights and scents, bright blazing colours and tangled forest greens, not to mention long low rows and outcroppings of objects that might be art, might be garden furniture. You never could tell.
I meant more specifically the notion of an invasion.
Well, like I said, child of the 70s and the 80s, right? I couldn’t escape from science fiction, could I? My television was Doctor Who and Blake’s 7, my cinema was Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, my books were Tiger! Tiger! and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
I grew up in a world that promised space exploration, new technologies and a general hope for the next decades, played out against a much bleaker background of strikes and agitations, global threats and local Troubles.
Not surprising I sought refuge in shows, movies and books that suggested better, brighter days.
You were looking for a way out, a more positive future. An end to conflict.
Well, most of the time. Some of my early favourites suggested our situation could always be worse, yeah? Or at least more weird.
Thinking back on where it all began, I can see the cover of Trillions by Nicholas Fisk. Only very vaguely though. Indeed, I don’t remember anything about it other than I got it from the local library and it was about mysterious crystal objects that littered the planet and become a fascination for everyone. It was the first piece of science fiction I remember choosing to read. So of course it was about some sort of extra-terrestrial incursion.
I saw Invasion of the Body Snatchers on a scratchy black & white TV set, part of one of those Summer Sci-Fi seasons from the BBC, or at least that’s how I remember it. People you thought you knew—friends, family, parents—turning out to be something other than themselves. It was a compelling image, and one that’s never really gone away.
War of the Worlds had a big impact too; with apologies to HG Wells because the first version I encountered was Jeff Wayne’s, with less of the measured Victorian text and more of the cool art and loud music. That was more of an out-and-out attack on all fronts, of course, but around the same time I saw Quatermass 2, and that was another subtle story of authority and community undermined.
The government is subverted, and the local population is sold on the benefits of giants vats of a miraculous new foodstuff. All of that is the cover for an alien attempt to render the atmosphere of Earth more to their liking, and only science and human courage can stop them. Well, that and the aliens seeming inability to control people without leaving obvious indicators or flaws. There’s always an imperfection in the masquerade, isn’t there; a V on the skin, a cross-like blister on the neck, that sort of thing.
It’s a work in progress.
I’m sorry, I thought you said-
Something must have drawn you to that genre, and to the notion of enemies from without?
There was no-doubt a lot of ‘Red Scare’ propagandising involved in those early forays into they-walk-among-us tales of societies infiltrated by the Other, but I think it also ties into older fears of changelings and stolen children. What if things aren’t as they seem? What if we don’t quite understand the world that we inhabit, or if there’s something below the surface of what we experience? There’s always something out there, isn’t there, beyond the reach of our light.
Also, for me, fiction is about challenges and overcoming them, and what could be more challenging than bodysnatchers or puppet masters? Sure, other stories can be about the struggle to hold a family together, or working hard to solve a murder, maybe even bringing your team to the final of something or other. But science fiction can have all of that, and also space battles, time-cops, crystalline worlds, and—more important from my perspective—alien invaders that look like us. So clearly that’s better, right?
And that’s what your book is about then? A challenge?
Ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, doing more than they expect of themselves.
And it’s fictional?
I don’t understand what you-
It’s not based on any specific event or events of which you are aware?
Is this a joke? I thought I was invited here to talk about my book. Where is here anyway. I don’t remember how…
Code Three rescinded. Target is unaware. Repeat. Unaware.
Who are you talking to?
Recommend mind wipe and release. Activate on one. Three.
Wait, did you say…
Two.
…mind wipe?
One…
