Stephen Ford

In the far future, after a nuclear war, the world is separated into two realms, each under the protection of the all-powerful Commission. In Ecologia mammoths, wolves and sabre cats roam the world of Stone Age people, while Economica is populated by modern people enjoying technological convenience, complete with robots that serve every need. In Ecologia the Commission is worshiped as a deity, but in Economica it is resented as an obstructive and unaccountable bureaucracy.

When Peter finds a portal between these realms, he illicitly sets up a life for himself in both worlds, knowing that he is in danger.

But like everyone else he has no idea what the Commission really is, and when Peter’s friend, Simon, figures it out and is silenced by sinister forces, Peter’s questions about his future only become more complicated. His quandary exacerbated by the imminent closure of the portal, Peter has to make a choice about where he belongs; a choice that will be the most important he’s ever made.

Raising questions about what we mean by ‘nature’, ‘humanity’ and life itself, Destiny of a Free Spirit is a compelling debut that will keep you guessing till the end.

A few years from now the United Kingdom has broken up, the monarchy abolished, and English society is dominated by the universities, new centres of power in the land, a power as great as the medieval Church and suppressing heresy against the new woke creed as zealously as Stalin’s secret police, dissenters banished to gulags, to protect the public from dangerous hateful influences.

Suitability for university education is not determined by academic prowess, rather by knowledge of and adherence with the new creed of flexible genders and intersectional categories. Almost every occupation, from waste disposal operatives to cleaners, has been made into a graduate profession, excluding those deemed Educationally Unsuitable from almost all legitimate jobs.

An attempt to ban jingoistic and militarist Remembrance Day commemoration sparks revolt among those excluded from university education and employment for lack of sympathy with the new ethos, leading to a populist right-wing insurrection, restoration of the monarchy and purging bastions of the old regime’s power, the universities.

A deadly Chimapox pandemic has forced the country into lockdown, enforced by zealous vigilante volunteers. Jim exiled back to England to stay with his uncle and aunt after years in Vietnam, after finding employment with the Vestral corporation and finding his own lodgings must now contend with his interfering landlady, Marjorie, who curbs his companionship with housemate Alfie. With the strict lockdown in place, Jim struggles to meet lover Lily, member of a coven of witches.

Seen by Marjorie as a ruse to break lockdown, Jim has a permit as carer for his uncle and aunt and for their allotment, which Jim finds ransacked, the produce robbed, exposing them to food shortages arising from pandemic panic buying.

Jim, evading lockdown and security guards, slips into St Christopher’s Knoll, an exclusive gated community for the super-rich including the sumptuous home of Sir Albyn Denbald, head of the Vestral corporation, observing him in a secret tryst.

Disillusioned by censorship in mainstream social media, Jim allies himself with the Truth Seekers, anti-vax conspiracy theorists characterising Denbald as an arch-villain deploying mass vaccination for world domination.

Believing Lily to be held by Denbald, Jim enlists the Truth Seekers to kidnap Denbald. Exploiting Denbald’s secret tryst, Jim dissuades him from pressing charges.

Journalist Simon, reporting on the Knights of Camelot theme park run by an eccentric Marquess, is drawn into a tangle of intrigue, witchcraft, alternative lifestyles, mythology and secret technology as he investigates mysterious disappearances in Glastonbury, including his new girlfriend, Jenny.

On Jenny’s trail, Simon joins Abballon, a female dominated community inspired by worship of the goddess Gaia, where the role of men is to serve obediently, modern technology is banned and all must obey the tyrannical ruler, Philomena.

Cast out from Abballon, Simon uncovers a fiendish plot by a deranged scientist to transform abducted people into mythical creatures, from centaurs to satyrs, intended to populate the Marquess’s new Mythological Magick theme park. Will Simon be able to rescue Jenny in time to prevent her metamorphosis into a mermaid?

Emerging from the mid-October drizzle, Miles joins keen members of the Far and Fast Walkers Society in the Surrey Hills. An unnerving presence, he soon usurps the authority of the walk leader, enticing the party to Miteby, a mysterious village not on any map, where the walkers encounter long lost loved ones. Entranced, the group are compelled to return to this idyllic, nostalgic place, there re-living their past in better ways.But Miles has a nemesis, Lucifix, who intervenes, luring people to the Underside, where life’s fears, regrets, guilty secrets, obsessions, hatred and betrayal haunt those there. A place of hellish eternal torment.

Walking out of this World is an epic duel between two spirits, Miles and Lucifix, that will determine the fate of the walkers. Another original and engaging novel from Stephen Ford, following Destiny of a Free Spirit, about how we can heal our pasts or live trapped in our own shadows.

In the far future, after a nuclear war, the world is separated into two realms, each under the protection of the all-powerful Commission. In Ecologia mammoths, wolves and sabre cats roam the world of Stone Age people, while Economica is populated by modern people enjoying technological convenience, complete with robots that serve every need. In Ecologia the Commission is worshiped as a deity, but in Economica it is resented as an obstructive and unaccountable bureaucracy.

When Peter finds a portal between these realms, he illicitly sets up a life for himself in both worlds, knowing that he is in danger.

But like everyone else he has no idea what the Commission really is, and when Peter’s friend, Simon, figures it out and is silenced by sinister forces, Peter’s questions about his future only become more complicated. His quandary exacerbated by the imminent closure of the portal, Peter has to make a choice about where he belongs; a choice that will be the most important he’s ever made.

Raising questions about what we mean by ‘nature’, ‘humanity’ and life itself, Destiny of a Free Spirit is a compelling debut that will keep you guessing till the end.