Gareth S. Young - - 1000 Trillion Suns

...Chris Claremont. Claremont plots the demise of your fave X-Men In the pantheon of comic book writers, Chris Claremont's name is often buried behind the likes of Neil Gaiman (Sandman), Alan Moore (Watchmen, The Killing Joke), Frank Miller (The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One), Grant Morrison (All Star Superman), Warren Ellis (The Authority. Planetary) and Stan Lee (Everything Marvel created in the mid to late 60s), and yet Mr. Claremont has probably left as big an impact on the world of comics as any of them. Chris Claremont's first X-Men Chris Claremont wrote the comic book series "The Uncanny X-Men" for Marvel for an unprecedented sixteen year stretch. During that time, he worked with legendary artist John Byrne on two seminal comic book storylines: The Dark Phoenix saga and Days of Future Past, both of which have been borrowed heavily from in the X-Men movies. Claremont got a cameo in the worst X-men movie - X3 Established characters, w...

...Black Bolt. The Inhuman Royal Family If you're a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you might have heard last year's movie release announcements and wondered about the movie called "Inhumans." If you've been watching the TV show Agents of Shield, you will have a better idea who this strange group of superhumans are. Black Bolt Black Bolt, or Blackagar Boltagon to give him his full name, is the King of the Inhumans. Originally appearing in early issues of Fantastic Four, Black Bolt is a man of few words, or, to be more precise, no words. Black Bolt's power is in his voice and so powerful that even a whisper can cause destruction. So the stoic leader of the Inhumans must communicate through hand signals or via a spokesperson. Black Bolt and Medusa Black Bolt's wife, Medusa, often acts as spokesperson for the King which actually gives both characters a very deep and more interesting connection. Medusa is a powerful leader in h...

Comic books! Okay, technically C is for comic books, but I'm going to spend the next month blogging my way through the alphabet and talking about comic series, characters, or creators along the way. So, where was I? A is for... ...Alpha Flight The Alpha Flight team was created in the late 70s by legendary X-Men artist John Byrne. Initially, the Canadian super-team were introduced to battle the X-Men and take their Canadian berserker - Wolverine - back home to Canada, however, a few years later, Marvel approached Byrne to write and draw the team in their own ongoing series. Thirty years ago, whilst on vacation, in Florida, in a mall, in a bookstore, I found a selection of Marvel comics on a rotating wire rack near the back of the store. It was here I picked up the first comics of what would become a thirty year collection. One of those comics was Alpha Flight (volume 1) #45. What I enjoyed from the get-go was the hugely diverse and exciting group of characters in the ...

I was tagged by Holly Evans on Twitter and challenged to answer some personal, rather than book related, questions. You can hop over to Holly's blog chaosfoxwriting to check out her answers...and in the meantime, here are mine: One. What’s your biggest fear? That I'm not ACTUALLY immortal. I mean, so far this immortality thing has been a breeze, but I hear it's harder to manage when you get up into your 60s and 70s. Two. What’s your happiest memory? This is a tough one. I don't really have one stand out moment. Self-publishing my own book is up there though. Three. What’s your five year plan? lol. To have a five year plan would mean having a plan. I don't look too far ahead since that's how plans go awry. However, for the next year (or two) I want to write a fistful of books and hopefully go somewhere warm for a vacation. (And head back to Scotland to visit all my pale relatives) Four. What’s your favorite non-sexual intimate contact? Getting my hair washed. I...

I decided to vlog...

Rhapsody’s milky face beamed in the moonlight, her black eyes, lips, and hair like the void of space—unreflective and endless. She was mouthing something to Eileen, her plump, black lips parting to release a biting cold blast which caused Eileen to shiver. She expressed something important to Eileen, but in frustrating silence. Eileen yelled at Rhapsody, unable to make out her own words above the rustle of the treetops. The black-clad girl stepped away through the long grass towards the verdant wall of leaves and vines. Eileen reached out to catch her, but Rhapsody just laughed silently at her and pulled away, like it was a game, her black skirt blowing around her ankles and her long, black hair flowing out behind her like an ebony wave. Ahead, a pair of golden eyes peered from the undergrowth, catching the light of the full moon and shimmering like water: the golden wolf, Tenskwatawa. It did not speak, but it wanted Rhapsody to follow, and infuriatingly she did, moving fu...

And so finally... Wolves is released! Available now from Amazon in  Paperback  and Kindle  formats. My thanks to my fantastic editor, Gina Hylton, and cover artist supreme, Sara Carrero . You can read the first chapter for free over on  Wattpad  if you prefer to try before you buy.