Sorry I'm late!

Jul 04, 2026

Dear shipmate

The ship’s bulletin is four days late, so apologies from your starship captain!

A nasty chest infection laid me low all week, and it’s only thanks to the work of Sir Alexander Fleming, Howard Florey, Ernst Chain and Norman Heatley that I’m well enough to finally get back on duty.

I’m sure you’ve heard of Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, but I also wanted to give credit to the team that isolated the active compound and helped develop the system to mass manufacture it.

Without anitbiotics I would have spent many more weeks sick as a dog and possibly shuffled off this mortal coil long before I was willing to go.

Has modern medicine come to your rescue, too? Tell your story in the comments so we can celebrate the work of all the scientists, doctors and other health care workers who help us stay healthy and alive.

Now, back to work.

This month’s focus is Space Colony One, my nine-book, multi-generational, interstellar space colonisation series.

It’s probably my most popular series, but many readers haven’t read the prequel, Night of Flames.

As a shipmate, you can download your exclusive copy free of charge (the only other way to read the story is as a paperback - the ebook is only available directly from me).

So if you haven’t read the details of the First Night Attack, now’s your chance.

Night of Flames

SHIP’S LOG

Before I got sick, I was busy baking my usual supply of sweet snacks.

I started this weekly habit when I was trying to buy biscuits free from palm oil (palm oil cultivation is very environmentally destructive), and I discovered they were nigh on impossible to find. Nearly every biscuit and cake brand sold in the UK contains palm oil.

So I make my own.

These were a slight variation on a recipe for tahini chocolate chunk biscuits on the Tesco Good Foods website.

If you’re a home baker, you’ll know that after a while many additions and substractions are made to recipes as you use what you happen to have in your kitchen cupboards.

In this case, I didn’t have any chocolate - chocolate doesn’t last long around here - and I wanted to use the last of my chestnut flour, so I made tahini raisin and chestnut biscuits.

They were very nice, but now they’re all gone, as is the way with nice biscuits.

PROMOTIONS

I have two promotions for you this week, one apparently set at night and one during the day - just kidding! But both have a selection of great books so check them out.