Author

Mark's key skill next to systems and rules design, and the one that got him his first job in the games industry, is creative writing. As a pre-teen, in the days before home computers and keyboards, inspired by horror writers of the day like James Herbert, he would practice typing and writing very short horror fiction on an old typewriter.

A couple of decades later he penned short stories for the Black Library during his time at Games Workshop. He also wrote a couple of sophomore novels that were pretty terrible, and thankfully never saw the light of day.

In more recent years, and with more technical writing skills and experience under his belt, Mark self-published a novel and a series of Novellas on Amazon.

Black Library

In 1997 Games Workshop's renowned Black Library imprint launched with Inferno!, a monthly magazine featuring short fiction, art, and comic strips. Mark wrote two short stories for those early issues of Inferno! that have since featured in anthologies. Those were Tenebrae, a doom laden, grimdark 40k tale of a planetary governor witnessing the fall of his world, and The Chaos Beneath, a Warhammer story in which a student of the College of Magic must uncover and defeat a Chaos plot.

Tenebrae in particular seems have left an impression on readers as a very different style of 40k story. It was more horror story than the usual action focused fare, and Mark has it on good authority from the guys who ran Black Library at the time that many readers had given them feedback that it was one of their favourites. Tenebrae features in the Let The Galaxy Burn anthology.

There are no files to share in relation to Mark's Black Library work unfortunately.

Novellas

Mark has written three novellas that are available for Kindle in the Amazon store, and they are also collected in a novel length volume which is available in paperback or Kindle versions. All three are historical horrors themed around immortality and the undead.

The first is Exuma, the story of a 17th century merchant condemned to slavery by the Inquisition. He ends up shipwrecked and fighting for survival and redemption on a magical island, inhabited by vampiric Mesoamerican priests who guard the Fountain of Youth.

The second is The Worm at the Feast, with a protagonist who is also the villain. He becomes an outlaw and a necromancer after a series of murders and grave robberies.

The third novella is Temple of the Hyena, in which a crew of deserters from Napoleon's army in Egypt acquire an old treasure map, which leads them to a tomb complex inhabited by undead mummies.

The collection is titled simply Undead.

Temple of the Hyena Sample Chapter

The Worm at the Feast Sample Chapter

Son of Mars

Son of Mars is a YA science fiction novel that Mark wrote in 2014. It is the story of a teenage boy living in a near future Martian colony, who discovers he has been genetically engineered to control machines with his mind. A talent that proves invaluable when he is caught up in a revolutionary war that ravages the planet. It was initially supposed to have been published through Penguin, but the deal fell through. The editor handling the project left, and their replacement wouldn't answer emails about it, so Mark ended up self publishing it on Amazon. It is currently out of print with no plans to renew at the moment.

Son of Mars Chapters 1-3

Son of Mars Synopsis