About the editor…..

I’ve always liked the idea of an epic journey through a range of landscapes, ever since Reading David Edding’s Belgariad and Malloreon series as a child, and so travelling through different environments in different galaxies seems a logical extension. I’ve been an avid follower of the storyline of the individual on a quest, who at first is unaware of his power, or reluctant to acknowledge it, then as circumstances dictate, taps into it and takes his place in history – with a little help from friends. I played a lot of ‘Beat ‘em ups as a younger person, and Street Fighter in particular ( though I was never much good at it!. Ryu’s “wandering soul” character and the idea of fighting scene in general have been an inspiration for the central characters in the book.

My brother is an illustrator and so we’ve always been in to the comic book style of telling stories. Manga from Akira to Appleseed have also been an influence, and I look forward to making a feature animation of the same or similar quality from the characters in and storylines in this book.

I’ve always been impressed by the pace of action in Japanese, Chinese and Korean cinema, in films like Hard Boiled, and Infernal Affairs. I particularly like the way the violence doesn’t explain itself, there’s no forewarning, no reflection after the event.

Of course, few people escaped the influence of Star Wars. For me, John Williams’ soundtrack was one of the reasons I became a professional musician, and I have always heard this epic soundscape in the background as I have written. Ditto Alan Silverstri ( Predator ) James Horner ( Aliens) and Richard Gibbs ( BSG 2003)

Being of African – Celtic descent I cannot ignore the politics effects of slave trade and traffic – whether indentured like the many of the irish or enforced chattel slavery, like many of the Africans – on my progeny. Whether my great great grandfather was an asylum seeker or an economic migrant is not known. I hope to find out someday. It is almost certain that the woman who became my great great grandmother was not a “free woman of colour”. So the politics of citizenship, identity, and the escape from opression will always strike a particular chord with me, and the theme is is central to the book. I’ve studied and run businesses for the last 20 years, and so it’s interesting to see how the social / economic polices of the Thatcher – Reagan era have left the world in a particular state. I have extrapolated some of the attitudes of the time in this book and posed the question of what will to happen if those attitudes were but transposed and compounded a hundred, a thousand years into the future.
In the UK, African history is most commonly celebrated in October; but this year, I found myself wondering about our collective African future.

A lot of African history in Europe is focused on the role that West Africans played in developing the “New World” Europe and the Americas – i.e as slaves or servants.

I wanted to put together a show that reflects on what we’ve learned – and what we’ve forgotten – about finding new worlds, meeting new civilisations, developing new societies – and how that will all come in to play when we discover life on planets beyond our own.

2009 marked the 400th anniversary of the launch of the Sea Venture, a privately financed ship which set sail from England headed for the New World, laden with enslaved African humans forced into establishing colonial settlements.

Today, the leader of that New World is of African descent. And, 40 years after the Apollo Space Program began its quest for the moon, that leader says “There is another generation of kids out there that is looking up at the sky and they’ll be the next Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin”.

As we take our first tentative steps in exploring worlds beyond our own, the Horizon Venture asks: Who will pioneer the next generation of space exploration ? How will we colonise new worlds when we find them ? Who will benefit? And who will do the dirty work?

The Background Story

The Horizon Venture tells the story of a time and a place where humans are not the dominant species or superior species, and follows the choices that different individuals make in confronting and dealing with this new status.

The Horizon Venture follows the story of a few men who wish to prove to these new civilisations that mankind does have something positive to offer their galaxy, and that humans do want to advance themselves, and that as a species, Terrans do understand the relationship between power and responsibility.

The Horizon Venture follows this story from a point where our first contact with these new civilisations has gone disastrously wrong; After the Colonial Wars – an attempt by Man to dominate the new planet – a fragile peace now ensues.
Before these new civilisations share with us the technology to restore Earth to her natural beauty, men must first prove to these civilisations that they can handle this technology responsibly. However, this will take some time, and there are those who are not prepared to wait ……

Chapter One

Blood. Fire. Death. Mutilation. Piercing screams of soldiers with limbs blown off. The eyes of the recently dead, bulging, staring in disbelief. Vermin-ravaged corpses, insects crawling in and out of their twisted mouths. Blood erupting from the bodies of women and children as they tried in vain to escape the deluge of gunfire. The dance of the refugees as they smelled their own flesh burn, as the napalm flames consumed their skin, their bones, their souls. Agony stored for later years as villagers watched their wives and mothers raped, beaten, and left as if dead, as if never alive. The sizzle of hot pokers on flesh, or in eyeballs, or thrust deep into open wounds. Tanks, driving over the bodies of children that squelched and cracked and were crushed like eggshells… And in all the conflagration, wading through the carnage with a necklace of ears, eyes and fingers, and the smell of charred bodies as his perfume, his face bore no emotion as he killed and killed and killed-

Teacher awoke from his nightmare, his heart pumping painfully in his chest, his breathing spasmodic, and his body shaking.
He had been strapped into an electric chair. For a moment, he struggled. And then somewhere in the room a circuit was activated, a small generator kicked in with a busy hum, followed by a surge of energy. Teacher braced himself.
The doors to the execution chamber slid open, buzzed closed behind the five men in military uniform who had entered the room. One of them approached Teacher, removing large dark round sunglasses from a wrinkled pale face. He folded them, tucked them into a khaki breast pocket, shaking his head ” Black Knight. What a soldier. What a waste,” the man said before adding “ Control room: This is Cleyff. Throw the switch. And this time make sure he’s dead. You know how hard these guys are to kill”
As tertiary generators crackled into action, Teacher noticed his own reflection in the two-way mirror of the control room. For a moment he wondered just who he was looking at. He didn’t know this person at all. No memories. Nothing. And then the current came. One hundred amperes, and urine dribbled shamefully down his leg. Two hundred amps, and he could smell the hair on his body burning. Three hundred amps, and Teacher screamed from the depth of his being.