Hywela Lyn: Jabin and The Space Pirates

at 8:00 am

I'm so pleased to welcome Beverly Allen to the Flight Deck today. Fasten your seatbelts, order your favourite tipple from the replicator and relax as the computer asks Bev to tell us more about this exciting book.

What is your favorite thing about the writing experience and why?

Allowing the people in my head out to tell their story/stories. I do ordinary life so much better when they are not occupying most of my brain. It means when I go out for bread and milk, I come home with bread and milk and not smoked oyster in oil and a tin of peaches. That was not a good day.

What was the first moment you know you wanted to write?

I don’t think I can remember I time when I didn’t want to tell stories. Writing came later.

How do you handle bad reviews?

I try very hard to be grown up about it, but I have been known to sulk and mutter.

What book do you recommend everyone should read and why?

I don’t think I can recommend one book, but I do think everyone should have read a little Shakespeare, a little of the Bible, some Homer and Chaucer. So much of our everyday speech and verbal culture (if English is our language) has its bones in these I think it is important to have a nodding acquaintance with them.

Where is your favorite place to write?

In my sewing room. I make patchwork quilts when I’m not writing and I like being able to move from sewing machine to key board without having to do more than spin my chair around.

When you write, do you write for a long period of time or do you write in short burst?

I tend to work very quickly, writing enormous bursts of work, sitting up half the night to do it. I am then exhausted and have to spend the next two weeks editing and trying to make sense of it all. I very much admire authors who are disciplined and write to a plan. I never have a plan, I know how things start, I have an idea how they will end, but the journey from one to the other is often a complete surprise.

What words of advice would you give to aspiring authors?

Read, read and then read some more.

What is your favorite character in your book and why?

I like my soldiers very much. The Colonel and the RSM are my favourites. Both are fine soldiers, but they are also good honourable men, who see their role as protecting those who can’t protect themselves.

If your book was turned into a movie who would you want to direct it?

Ridley Scott

What projects do you have planned for the future?

I’ve recently submitted and had accepted an new action/ adventure story “Lucien and the Tattooed Tribes”. It is set on a forested world and it has an eco-warrior theme. There are tribesmen and pearls, wicked politicians and gold, tribal maidens and strange rituals. It’s a lot of fun, even if I say so myself.

What do you hope to say to people with your writing?

If have kids, or are planning to have kids, bring them up to be the sort of people you want raising your grandchildren.

Thank you so much Bev - now here's a bit more about Jabin and The Space Pirates

Jabin and the Space Pirates Bev Allen Taylor Street Books

Amazon Kindle

In the space colony of New Wales, the pirate attacks are both relentless and merciless
Having lost both his parents, Jabin has been adopted by his austere and spiteful uncle and aunt who live in the space colony of New Wales which is riven with religious and political rivalry, and prey to the vicious maraudings of pirates whose cruelty and greed are beyond all imagination.

When Jabin volunteers to surrender himself to a pirate raiding party to save a friend, he does so believing that nothing can be worse than his current suffering.

However, he is soon to discover that things can always get worse when the stakes are high, the rewards are vast and slave labour is there for the taking.

When the King of New Wales is assassinated, the colony threatens to collapse into total anarchy, leaving the pirates free reign to mutilate, kill and profit as they will, but the forces of law and order sent out from Earth are getting ready to fight back, and Jabin could have a vital part to play in the ensuing war if he can only stay alive.