By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Copyright Mirama Blumhouse Productions
The older you get the more time flies when you don’t want it to but I can’t wait until October when Michael Myers comes back to terrorise us once again. I loved the first movie but of course there has to be a sequel even though Michael was trapped burning alive in Laurie’s specially built cage in her basement. Like the original two movies Halloween Kills picks up seconds after the first movie ends. The fire brigade are on their way to put out the fire but as we know sometimes you should just let things burn….
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Written and directed by Paddy Slattery, Broken Law sees a dedicated cop tested when his convict brother turns up in desperate need of his help. The movie is now playing on Netflix. Check out the trailer below then give it watch. Tristan Heanue plays the Garda, Dave Connolly whose convict brother played by Graham Earley turns his life upside down. The main villain is the vicious Wallace played by Love/Hate’s and Cardboard Gangsters’s John Connors.
I watched it last night and really enjoyed it. A story with great twists that makes you think it’s going to go one way then goes off on a tangent while at the same time doubling as a family drama performed with great zeal and passion. Another cracking gem in Ireland’s movie crown.
Posted by Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Wit the kind permission of Irish author Damien Larkin we bring you Tripp’s Smokepit podcast episode eight. Tripp and Damien talk Mars and all things writing!
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Copyright Owen Quinn
Summoned by an old friend to the town of Red Water when reports that Bigfoot has murdered a local man emerge, Varran meets an old friend from the past. As they hunt the real killer, Varran’s past is revealed and they face a demon from another dimension; the spearhead of an invasion with Red Water as ground zero!
It took a step back, smashing the horse’s corpse towards them. The group scattered as blood and gore splattered them.
Ben yelled his incantation louder as Ike and Varran kept their weapons on it. Ike was shaking as he realized this was what had murdered his brother. He stared into its malevolent eyes as it looked at him, actually looked at him, almost at his very soul and he could have sworn it smirked gloatingly.
He was sweating as temper flared up within him, his heart screaming at him to pull the trigger and blow this thing’s brains out right now but he felt rather than saw, Ben willing him to keep his calm, not to interfere. All he could see was his brother lying dead on that mountainside, his neck twisted grotesquely. What had he thought in those last seconds as those claws reached for him? Horrified at the answer in his imagining, he dismissed the thought, focusing on the spot right between the creature’s eyes. It was retreating, slashing at the ever nearing Native Americans as whatever they were saying seemed to be actually taking effect. From their position it looked as if it was swatting at a wasp that was dangerously close to its ears as it swiped the air around it with a series of growls. Ralph kept beating the sticks together, releasing the powder as Ben’s chanting reached a crescendo. It stumbled, mucus dipping from its mouth to the ground below. Its entire body arched as it seemed to suffer an electric shock before it launched itself into the air above them.
They fell in all directions with frightened cries but its leap carried it into the boundary of brush. They froze, whirling and spinning round in every direction, waiting for the thing to strike again.
“Where is it? Where is it?” cried Tyran. Ike spun over her, rifle aimed ready to fire, hunter’s instincts rising in him.
“That killed my brother,” he said to Ben.
Ben’s silence told him everything he needed to know, the lime eyes shining sorrowfully.
“STOP!” yelled Michael, hands held out either side of him, face beetroot with fear. “Tell me exactly what that was because I’m telling you this for nothing; if that was Bigfoot, he’s got a serious dose of the Mister Hyde. And has anyone got a bazooka?” He was terrified. “Calm down,” Jacke whispered. He looked at her wide eyed.
“Did you see that thing? It could have ripped us apart in seconds and we were defenceless. Check out Champion the not so wonder horse or what’s left!”
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
A new collection of short stories featuring the Time Warriors. Think you know everything that happened in series one? Not quite. Join Varran, Jacke, Tyran and Michael as they find face new dangers which will test them to their limits. Six stories including Fire and Ice which was released as an surprise extra in Tempest. In Irish Eyes, we learn more of Varran’s past, in the Gift a distraught Robert meets a woman that can talk to the dead, Jacke is trapped alone in ancient Ireland during an invasion in Trinity while Rachel faces an occupied Earth which has never heard of the Time Warriors. In Twisted Michael and Jacke find the world has changed dramatically and it’s all their fault.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
n Spooklight, they team up with a pair of paranormal investigators in 1931. What is the secret of the Spooklights? Who is the mysterious Mr Beaumont and why is he so loved by the public? Splitting up, Michael and Varran face the wrath of the Spooklights when the spirits of the dead come back to haunt them. Spirits that will reveal both men’s inner most secrets.
Summoned to 1975, they find Brussels in the grip of a serial killer with a difference. All the bodies have been sucked dry leaving hideous corpses in its wake. As they race to save the latest victim, things go wrong. Jacke disappears while tribal warriors stalk the streets. With no clues, Varran and the others find themselves running out of time. But it may be too late as Jacke comes face to face with the killer. A killer she thought long dead…
Not even a virus can stop writers as this group discuss aspects of the art in particular writing fight scenes that will leap from the page at you. Featuring Damien Larkin, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Anna Spark Smith, Lee Conley, M.L Wang, and Patrick LeClerc.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
McCabe, Private Jenkins, and the Mars Expeditionary Force must overcome bullet, bomb, and bayonet to destroy the Third Reich. While Jenkins fights to stay alive, McCabe forms an uneasy alliance with MAJESTIC-12 operatives known as the Black Visors. Will this be the final battle of World War Two or the first confrontation in an interstellar war?
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
One Year from Today is a positivity book with a twist. Laid out in the form of a calendar, it provides daily affirmations, mantras and challenges, all of which aim to help the reader sharpen their intuition, reignite their creativity and spontaneity, and strengthen their presence and resolve.Unlike other positivity manuals, however, One Year from Today can be read in a variety of ways. You can read it from cover to cover. You can read only the page allotted to a particular date. Or, you can dip into the book at random and apply the short and very simple life-lessons to your day.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
We once again look through the back catalogue of characters who helped make The Doctor the Timelord she is today…
copyright BBC
Never before has a companion come aboard the Tardis with the express purpose of murdering the Doctor in order to secure passage home.
Revealed as a prisoner at a boarding school on Earth, Turlough is kept in check by a mysterious solicitor in London but is bored and hates Earth so does nothing but cause trouble. But this boy is devious and cunning and would blame his mother if it gets him out of mischief.
But as the fates would have it, he is at a school where the Brigadier, now retired from defending the planet with UNIT, is teaching maths and it is the ex UNIT man’s vintage car that Turlough steals and crashes. In a limbo – unconscious due to the crash – he is contacted by the Black Guardian, whom the Doctor defeated in his fourth incarnation in the Key to Time season. He has finally tracked the Doctor down but, unable to act himself, uses Turlough as his agent.
But time and again the boy has a crisis of conscience but is locked into the deal and must play it out. It’s certain the Doctor knows something is wrong so the old adage “Keep your enemies closer” comes into force and over the next two stories, Terminus and Enlightenment, sees the mission come to a conclusion. Trapped on a fleet of space ships that look like old Earth sailing ships with every type of crew including pirates, the Tardis crew find this is a race run by Eternals who need human minds to fuel themselves. The prize is Enlightenment and when Turlough betrays the pirate captain, who is also an agent of the Black Guardian, he finds himself the winner and the Doctor’s life is in his hands. Torn between the Black and White Guardians he chooses to save the Doctor. Enlightenment was his choice all along and the real prize which frees him from the Guardian’s agreement. Despite his constant arguing with Tegan who has never trusted him, even she must give him a second chance when he asks the Doctor to take him home.
Unfortunately for the character, there was no thought beyond the trilogy and Turlough spent most of his time locked up or just running around for no purpose. He is part of the twentieth anniversary and in the Five Doctors, he is paired with the Doctor’s granddaughter, Susan, and trapped in the Tardis, it is Turlough who manages to save it from being destroyed by a Cyber bomb.
In Warriors of the Deep, the third Doctor’s old enemies the Sea Devils and the Silurians, reptilian cousins and the original inhabitants of Earth, are out to start another world war. Turlough’s cowardice is seen again but he comes up trumps in the end, but I feel this was sloppy writing. It regresses the character instead of progressing him and, at this stage of his travels with the Doctor, he should have grown in confidence and not been so cowardly. He tried to rally the troops against the Master in the King’s Demons yet here all that is forgotten.
The Awakening is another ‘Turlough gets locked up’ story but Frontios tries to give him some dignity when an Earth colony at the end of time is threatened by the deadly Tractators, underground insects that can control gravity. As the story unfolds, Turlough had flashbacks to a racial memory when his home was invaded by the aliens and gives the Doctor the answer to stop them in the end.
He is side-lined in Resurrection of the Daleks because this is Tegan’s farewell story but his final story, Planet of Fire, sees him find a tribe from his homeworld and his past is revealed. Turlough is a political prisoner, his solicitoris actually his prison officer and his brother and father were sent into exile but their ship crashed, killing his father and leaving his brother a God in the eyes of the religion that had built up on the planet. Turlough always had a selfish streak and he almost doesn’t rescue Peri because he recognises the signal from his home world. But his conscience, no doubt influenced by his time with the Doctor, overcomes all and he takes charge to defeat the Master and save his people. In the end their political status is revoked and they are pardoned. Turlough almost doesn’t go home but he has a brother to care for now so he leaves the Tardis, telling Peri to look after the Doctor.
Of course, we meet again in novels and the fabulous Big Finish range where Turlough has so far had solo adventures, travelled alone with the fifth Doctor and rejoined his old team of Nyssa and Tegan for a new series of adventures. He has had a love interest and the character has deepened with every adventure. Mark Strickson is on record as saying how proud and delighted he is to have been part of the show and how he is great friends with his co-stars. He can talk for ages about the show and made a point of clearing his schedule so he could rejoin his old friends to record the new series of Big Finish all the way from Australia.
And not only that, he is only one of two companions to have his own novel along with Harry Sullivan in a story called Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma.
He was involved in some big stories and the ginger-haired boy will never be forgotten.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 
