This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Colin Sephton will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

My inspiration for storytelling goes beyond characters, though. I’ve always been fascinated by certain subjects: fantasy, the mysteries of the cosmos, the latest scientific theories, questions of consciousness, and the allure of ancient knowledge and lost civilizations. These passions shape everything I write. In many ways, my novels are the result of blending all these threads into a single creative tapestry. This fascination began in childhood. With my very first library card in hand, I would spend long summer days immersed in books, researching whatever captured my curiosity and creating little projects of my own. That early hunger for knowledge never left me, it simply evolved into stories.

Ignatius and Indigo find themselves struggling mentally to come to terms with the complex nature of the cosmos and their newfound supernatural powers obtained through their prior encounters with gods and demons. In their quest for another relic from the Creation, they are aided by the secretive thirteenth Chapter of the Union Jacks. In search of the secret of the Flaming Celestial Pearl, they must travel to Tibet in the great airship, HM Spirit of the Empire.

Pursued by fanatical knights sworn to protect the relic, they must reluctantly call upon the Charon, the seven merciless demons from the underworld to assist them. Piecing together the map that will lead them to a fabled city hidden deep within the Himalayas, they must defend themselves from air pirates, a previous foe from Oxford, mountain beasts and elementals.

Discovering the correct path through the mountains, Indigo realises her soul may never be the same again. Regardless, they enter the Great Void where using the Sword of Wisdom, they discover the truth about the cosmos.

Enjoy an Excerpt

The desk was large, and made from burr walnut, inlaid with green leather, decorated around the edge in gold. Its golden glow illuminated the office. The room was floored with black and white tiles and all four walls were lined with rich oak panelling, with the same crest carved into one of the panels. Behind the desk hung a large oil painting, a dark portrait of a brooding figure. The desk was otherwise uncluttered, just a brass inkstand and a green banker’s lamp. The only ornamentation was a bronze of a lion like those seen in Trafalgar Square.

“Good morning, Mr Lawrence,” said an aide as he entered the office with a silver tray of tea. Earl Grey, his preferred choice. Hot, no milk.

“The latest reports, sir,” the aide gestured with his head at the stack of Manilla folders. “Some unusual goings on in Oxford,” he said as he raised an eyebrow. The thin weaselly man had been with the Union some twenty years and throughout all that time had spent most of it behind a desk.

Lawrence didn’t rise to his prompting and replied simply, “Very well, Jenkins, I will let you know!”

Sifting through the reports, Lawrence took on a serious brow, mulling over the potential impact on the Empire of each report. The first report told of dangerous shamanic practices in China, disrupting the activities of the East India Company. He picked up the next report and after reading it, then reading it again, his face turned red, his brow furrowing. Significant disturbances in Oxford. His large fist slammed down in a rage onto the green leather, knocking his ink pot over. A book fell off the shelf behind him as he filled his lungs and bellowed, “Jenkins, get me Isambard Ignatius. NOW!”

About the Author Colin was born in Coventry and worked in the automotive industry for over twenty years before becoming an Engineering teacher. Obtaining his first library card at the age of thirteen, he became an avid reader of Fantasy and the mysteries of the Universe. He has an inbuilt curiosity for lost knowledge and ancient texts that may help to unlock the secrets of consciousness and the universe. Living in Oxford for many years, he has now moved back to his home county of Warwickshire where he enjoys creating and working with his wife on their garden in which he writes and entertains their two grandsons. He has always been an artist and writer and is inspired by the worlds created by Robert E Howard and Michael Moorcock, with the artwork of Frank Frazetta.

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Colin Sephton will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

My ideal writing place is my study at home. It is my little sanctuary away from everything. It’s my own little world if you like. I can I like to work in my study surrounded by my inspiration. I am surrounded by bookshelves of fantasy books; my favourite authors being Michael Moorcock and Robert E Howard. These shelves also contain lots of Marvel graphic novels, science / astronomy books, art books, philosophy books, lots of notebooks and sketchbooks, and lots of curios gathered over a long time. I have prayer wheels, singing bowls, comic figurines, meteorites, Buddhist and Hindu statues. I draw all my ideas from these. I find it really relaxing to thumb through my books, especially the art books. These are for traditional artists like Monet, Turner, Constable or Da Vinci, but I also have fantasy art books by Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo, Roger Dean, and others. I use these for my own art and sometimes find it easier to paint a character before I use him / her in my writing. My artwork helps me to visualise characters so I can describe them in detail in my novels. I am a very visual person, and I think that probably comes across in my writing.

However, I can work virtually anywhere because I do a lot of my writing either on an iPad or by hand in a notebook. The notebook is also where I keep a lot of my ideas and research. I will scribble chapters down at speed, which leaves my handwriting looking dreadful. I defy anyone else to be able to read some of it. Then when I type it up, I will refine it, add additional detail, and move some text around. I am able to work like this anywhere, in coffee shops, hotels, even the beach or around a pool. I then edit all of this on a laptop in my study. I find it easier to move whole chunks of text around and look at several pages at once on my laptop. I drink lots of tea when I’m working and sometimes listen to music, but I can find that a distraction depending on the track. My music taste is very eclectic. After writing a piece or a chapter, I will think about it overnight and usually come up with additional ideas that I can add. So will edit to a certain extent as I go along. Anything I remove, I keep. I never delete anything, you never know when it will come in handy.

When doppelgangers start appearing in Oxford, Union Jack agents Ignatius and Indigo find themselves on another cosmic quest, one they didn’t set out to investigate.

Drawn into the search for the elusive and dangerous Book of Shadows, they find themselves traveling across the cosmos once again, racing against other versions of themselves, and visiting the Oracle to be given prophecies of terrible destruction that will engulf the cosmos in darkness. Only these two heroes—or their doubles—can open the book, which would lead to dreadful consequences for themselves, the world and the whole of creation.

The agents must outwit their own mirror souls and invade the impregnable Administorium, which holds the answers they need but also fearsome enemies of both the Union Jacks and the entire cosmos. In this quest, Ignatius and Indigo must protect not only England and the Empire, but the world and the cosmos.

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As the shadowy figure moved from shelf to shelf, ornate gilt decoration caught what dim light there was on his grey-turquoise armour. Carvings of ancient scribes and tomes written to record the passing of aeons on many worlds across many planes. The books he tended were part of the vast repository of information that he had collected through his long lifetime. Books here took the form of sacred texts carved in clay, or written on scrolls of vellum, or even human skin. Enormous tooled leather-bound volumes with gilt pages or with golden clasps, some were chained and bound, their knowledge too dangerous to be shared or accessed by mere mortals. The shelves had been arranged by subject and ordered in a timeline for each category. There wasn’t any index system. The Librarian worked using only his memory, knowing each and every volume, regardless of when it was written or when it was obtained. Nothing was forgotten, his memory was a storehouse of wisdom and knowledge from across the cosmos.

With his brother and sister, they had probably gathered the entire history of the cosmos. From time to time, they would travel the astral planes in search of new knowledge and rendezvous every millennium to discuss and compare notes to set quests for each of them to fulfil in the search of even more ancient texts. Legend had it the three siblings were born of the Goddess of Wisdom and their father was a High Priest of the Ti-Botta.

About the Author Colin was born in Coventry and worked in the automotive industry for over twenty years before becoming an Engineering teacher. Obtaining his first library card at the age of thirteen, he became an avid reader of Fantasy and the mysteries of the Universe. He has an inbuilt curiosity for lost knowledge and ancient texts that may help to unlock the secrets of consciousness and the universe. Living in Oxford for many years, he has now moved back to his home county of Warwickshire where he enjoys creating and working with his wife on their garden in which he writes and entertains their two grandsons. He has always been an artist and writer and is inspired by the worlds created by Robert E Howard and Michael Moorcock, with the artwork of Frank Frazetta.

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This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. The author will award a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

I think ideas are generated without us always knowing it. I think anyone who is creative, whether they are an artist, a writer, a poet, an architect, is always inspired throughout everyday life, without even knowing it or thinking about it. We all draw from a vast range of what we see, hear, read or experience. A creative person doesn’t necessarily know how or why they create, they just ‘do’. They can’t help it, it’s built into their nature. Picasso is always quoted as saying that good artists copy, great artists steal. What he meant by that is a good artist will try and emulate a style whereas a great artist will select elements to include into their own unique style and I think that is true for good ideas when writing a novel.

I have always been a very creative person, and I have a wide variety of interests ranging from mythology and ancient civilisations, to studying the universe, to trying to understand consciousness. These interests came to life when I was about thirteen years old, and I obtained my first library card. I must have spent several hours in that library, every day of the week during the summer holidays. It was there I first discovered the mysteries of the universe, both natural and fantastical. I remember reading books about the creation of the universe and the solar system. I compiled an entire folder explaining the universe, from its creation to the various types of galaxies and stars, to maps of the moon and Mars.

My mind was also awakened to all the unexplained phenomena. I had notes on the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, the Yeti, UFO’s and had read books on the supposed finding of Noah’s Ark, books on Atlantis, Mu and Lemuria, the Bermuda Triangle, Stonehenge and other neolithic monuments. I read about the Mayans, Egyptians, the Greeks, and Norse mythology. At the same time, I was also reading the usual American monthly output from Marvel Comics – Thor, The Avengers, Silver Surfer and Galactus, and Captain Marvel. A good mix of ancient gods and cosmic heroes and places, something Timeslayers has as a central theme. It’s a steampunk adventure set in the cosmic world of the gods. Later I discovered the sagas of Conan the Barbarian – reading both the comics and paperback books by Robert E Howard. This kind of Fantasy world was completely new to me.

I guess this is probably true for a lot of creative people, ideas and influence are just gathered, without even realising it. Somewhere in our memory these things lay waiting for their potential to be released. Waiting for us to ‘steal’ the ideas and to weave them into whatever media we work in. I know that sometimes an idea will come to me at the most mundane of times. I don’t know why; I’m not thinking about the novel but maybe my subconscious is. I will then have to write it down. That might just be a word or two, a post-it, or I might write an entire scene or chapter, maybe without ever knowing where I am going to use it, all I know is, I have what I think is a good idea.

So, I think it’s difficult to put a finger on it as to where ideas come from. They are all around, the key is knowing when to use them, and how to access them from that deep subconscious and how to turn them into something original.

In a Steampunk Oxford, Ignatius and Indigo are both agents for the Union Jacks, a secret organisation. The role of the Union is to protect the British Empire, which is at the height of its powers, and help in its technological advances. They have discovered the existence of the mystical Book of Consciousness written by the creator of the cosmos, the genderless Omnisoul. The book is the history of everything that is, that has been and that will be. The agents are aided by Skye, who accidentally calls forth seven merciless immortals called the Charon.

Known as the Beautiful and the Damned, the Charon are the Infernal Dukes of Hell, created to carry out the will of the Omisoul. But they are tired of their immortality and want to end their existence. Elsewhere, the sorcerer Ragnar of Roc has conjured a hole in spacetime, allowing the draconic Elder God Calabi Ya to re-enter the cosmos from the Ghost Worlds. He is as old as the Omnisoul and wants the book to learn his destiny. The two Union Jacks leave Oxford and are taken on a journey across the cosmos in the great ship Taraka, which sails through space and time. Ignatius and Indigo are mere pawns in the cosmic ocean of fate, carried to fabled places, witness to bloody massacres, and half-willing conspirators in the Charon’s plot to thwart the Omnisoul’s plan and defeat the protectors of the Well at the Centre of Time.

Enjoy an Excerpt

He ran his hand through a shock of blonde hair that looked permanently wind swept. Isambard Ignatius was a tall young man; he was handsome, dressed in a frock coat of check tweed and an engineer’s waistcoat, complete with a large silver pocket watch and chain.

From previous research, Ignatius had discovered a vague reference to an archaic manuscript that was said to hold the key to reality, the story of the whole cosmos – what had been, what was and that which was to come. This was said to be the biography of the cosmos. Legend had it that the book was unique in being older than the earth, indestructible, and that whoever read it could see the events described within pass before their eyes. Ignatius didn’t believe this but did believe that in the wrong hands the book could be very dangerous.

Ignatius was beginning to realise that the body was, as many eastern aesthetics had taught through the ages, surplus, just a vehicle for the mind. This was a philosophy and science that would make religion obsolete. The view that the real world was nothing more than the physical world was destined to come crumbling down and be lost in the debris of all religious buildings. He knew this was why the Administorium were trying to keep an eye on his activities.

About the Author: Colin was born in Coventry and worked in the automotive industry for over twenty years before becoming an Engineering teacher. Obtaining his first library card at the age of thirteen, he became an avid reader of Fantasy and the mysteries of the Universe. He has an inbuilt curiosity for lost knowledge and ancient texts that may help to unlock the secrets of consciousness and the universe. Living in Oxford for many years, he has now moved back to his home county of Warwickshire where he enjoys creating and working with his wife on their garden in which he writes and entertains their two grandsons. He has always been an artist and writer and is inspired by the worlds created by Robert E Howard and Michael Moorcock, with the artwork of Frank Frazetta.

Buy the book at Amazon.

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