Veteran

A powerhouse SF debut featuring a jawdroppingly vivid hell-on-earth future, a brutal war against unknowable aliens, and Jakea tough-as-nails anti-hero Three hundred years in our future, in a world of alien infiltrators, religious hackers, a vast convoying nation of Nomads, city-sized orbital elevators, and a cyborg pirate king who believes himself to be a mythological demon, Jakob is having a bad day. Nothing gets in the way of a hangover like being reactivated by your old C.O and told to track down an alien killing machine. The same kind of killing machine that wiped out my entire squad. And now it's in my hometown. My name is Jakob Douglas, ex-special forces. I fought Them. Just like we've all been doing for 60 bloody years. But I thought my part in that was done with. My boss has other ideas. If I didn't find the infiltrator then he'd let the Grey Lady loose on me. And believe me; even They've got nothing on her. So I took the job. It went to shit even faster than normal. And now I'm on the run with this teenage hacker who's had enough of prostitution. The only people I can rely on want to turn the internet into God. And now it turns out that They aren't quite what we'd all thought. I've been to the bottom of the sea and the top of the sky and beyond trying to get to the truth. And I still can't get far enough away from the Grey Lady. All things considered I'd rather be back at home deep in a whiskey bottle. Fast paced and intricately plotted, this science fiction adventure is set in a dark future against the backdrop of a seemingly never ending war, against an unknowable and implacable alien enemy.

Gavin Smith is 35. Born in Dundee he now lives in Leicester. With a degree in Media Production (specialising in script writing) and a MA in Medieval history he is the worst person in the world to watch a historical movie with. Fortunately he may just be the best person to write the next book you read if you love violent SF thrillers that crank up the fun with the body-count and keep you thinking. He owns his own marketing company.