By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
First Footstep:
Originally this was a much longer introduction to the character of Varran and the day his planet Xereba was destroyed in a temporal maelstrom, aging it to death killing billions.
I had introduced an entire cast of characters and detailed what happened in the years following the accident. It included a love interest for Varran, the Major, crew members loyal to Solos now all helpless with no other choice but to place their faith in Varran’s vision and the Xereba mantra that everything happens for a reason.
By cutting that all out it laid the focus squarely on Varran which it should do. It gave a short, sharp intro to how it all began leaving it open to future possibilities to fill in the back story.
Return to Eden:
I went straight in with an alien conflict story but with a difference. The Numarans were in fact one of the races that lived on Earth and not as part of recorded history. As real history plays out all around us, it has become clearer that there are huge gaps in what we think we know. What is now the Amazon was once a thriving civilisation. Aliens did not build the pyramids but there may have been a more human culture that had technology more advanced than we give them credit for. After all, aren’t we now at the pinnacle of human invention with our internets, genetics and so forth?
The world has changed over millennia so who are we to say how it all was? We know Columbus was not the first to discover America. What are there similar perfect pyramids on different continents that had no contact with each other? Why are there dinosaurs living side by side with humans in certain hieroglyphics?
There is so much we don’t know so the Numarans were an attempt to bring that to life. They are not happy humanity has run amok and ruined the paradise they left and want it back.
There are some interesting themes here as Varran and the others are refugees that have adopted Earth as their own. Technically they have no place to stop the Numarans but this is their home now too and must be protected. Lost history is another and Varran’s pacifist ethics are tested to the limit as to how far he can actually interfere with humanity’s troubles.
The Juggernaught gets a chance to show its muscles.
By the end of the story (or is it?) the Weavers are introduced which will feed all the way through to book four.
Tombs of Ether:
There isn’t a writer alive that doesn’t hope that their stories are picked up and become live action/animated shows. So there is a part of me that wanted a range of alien characters to become action figures hence the Tombs of Ether.
Even by this story, there are enough characters to release an action figure set and I do love action figures.
But there is more to it than that. I wanted the main characters Jacke, Varran, Michael and Tyran to see there is more out there than they can imagine. This story also reinforces Varran’s experience during his temporal vision that every being in the universe is somehow connected.
I wanted an organic ship with a romantic back story and I always loved the idea of a living library but how to sustain that on a physical level?
So I came up with the Etherians who had to physically change their bodies every few centuries trapped on a planet that never stayed in the same place twice.
I wanted the aliens in my stories not to be just run of the mill monsters. They had to be different with motivations. The Vorg as disgraced warriors now forced to make deals with aliens they would have conquered previously gave a neat spin on their motives and also played nicely into Tyran’s solution to defeating the Collector.
The Collector was designed to be a recurring pain in the ass for the Warriors and he does reappear later in the books. He is ruthless, seems to have technology he shouldn’t have and loves to collect on an abnormal scale.
His almost ballet dance with Tyran was designed to trip his interest into why the Etherians chose such a seemingly insignificant person to go against him. What could she do to possibly defeat him?
So it’s Tyran against an alien army and a mad megalomaniac trapped alone on an alien world that could vanish any second.
But what is it in Tyran’s past that makes the Etherians believe that she is the perfect assassin to take down the Collector and free them from slavery?
Experiment Four:
It’s hard to pick a favourite from the first book’s stories but this one is close to it.
I always loved the under siege type of stories like Doctor Who and The Nightmare Man did so well. An island terrorised by some unknown force throwing the inhabitants into terror. On an island they have nowhere to run. Their only choice is stand and fight. The location to give Ireland a bit of promo was the fictional island of Farran off the West coast of the country. I always felt we need more Irish in science fiction so any chance I get I put my native country in there.
Called in by fellow Xerebans and island landlords Rosie and Joe, Varran and the others are called in to investigate the strange death of one of her customers, Ernie and the police aren’t helping much.
What I try to do is give even the minor characters a life even if they are only in one scene. This I did with Ernie who is the creature’s first victim. One person who read it told me she was crying by the end of Ernie’s role. Doctor Who writer for the Pertwee era taught me that through his Target adaptations of his stories especially Colony in Space.
I also wanted to look at the effect of being thrust into Varran’s world and did so through Jacke. It’s in Rosie she finds perspective and it’s also a story of not judging by appearances through Rosie and local farmer Mister McPeake.
The confined nature of the island setting makes it claustrophobic but this story also introduces the threat of the Family who are watching Varran and the others. Led by the mysterious red headed woman, it is clear that the legacy of Xereba may well be part of the darkness Varran was warned about.
This one I would really like to see live action; it has everything, monsters, explosions, soldiers, innocent people thrown into deadly situations, comedy and horror.
The Infinity Web:
This was yet another milestone story for the series as it introduced the arachnoid Mentara, the main big bads of the Time Warriors universe. When you create a monster for anything you have to tap into people’s fears and phobias while making a three dimensional foe.
The Mentara were originally called the Messareene but I had to change it for other reasons.
People are terrified of spiders and especially tarantulas so what would you do if you were charged by one in real life? Only this spider could talk, was the size of a horse, built like the world’s strongest man and had every intention of eating you.
When time begins to crack, the Warriors discover an alien ship is jumping to ancient battlefields and harvesting humans seemingly for food using faulty temporal technology. But when they fight both parties find themselves tossed across time and space with no way back home.
Jacke is trapped alone on a deserted world with only her imaginary friend for company while Tyran finds an older Michael leading a rebellion on an alien world keeping dodgy company. However, the Mentara have been trapped with them with nowhere to run.
This story is a chance to get inside the main characters’ heads and allow the reader to identify with them. If you cannot make that connection the reader will not be invested into continuing with the journey.
Jacke has a secret that will come later down the line while what happens to Michael will have repercussions for him in book 2 The Voalox Horror The Survivor. Tyran sees this new life can be as terrifying as it is amazing.
There is so much more ripple effect from this story than I realised but looking back, there are big repercussions. The Mentara return in Twisted (in the anthology The Moon Once More), The Belbridge Mystery and in book 3 Red Water (Summer’s End). Even aliens have secrets and theirs is a huge one.
I promise you will hate spiders even more after this story.
Legacy:
When every Xereban descendant turns eighteen, they trigger an ancestral gene that tells them the story of the day Xereba was destroyed, their mission and who Varran is. They keep the secret, always watchful of anything unusual.
However some, like Jacke, possess mental abilities that can manifest on many levels. When a young girl’s frightened parents call Varran and the others in they discover someone is using Xereban technology to implant these teenagers and turn them into powerful weapons.
But how do you stop someone who can kill you with a single thought?
Legacy is also a ripple story that will carry on to book 4 Tempest. It’s also the first time we get to explore what Jacke can do with her mind since Experiment 4. Varran is becoming aware of something bigger going on but can’t quite put the pieces together.
With the cliffhanger, the hunt for the Time Warriors is well and truly on.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 