Finn had thought he'd seen it all…but no…he had to admit…
Not quite everything.
There was a big universe out there and it was about to land in his lap.
Just how bad could it be?
The Weapons of Choice Series is my first foray into the world of writing, and as such I wanted to take the structure of the series from my Saturday afternoons watching 1970s/80s American Sci-Fi Series on British television, coupled with a smidge of the old black and white Flash Gordon serials that occupied my mornings. They bring back amazing memories, and to a degree, that ‘tune in for the next episode’ approach where the inner storyline is complete, but the overarching nefarious plans of others are yet to be resolved.
To that end, I needed ordinary people thrust into extraordinary situations. Characters that would act as real people would, and not always take the right course of action, or even for the right reasons. My main initial protagonists have their own complex backgrounds, that emerge throughout the books, as a squad of British Reservists in the year 2022 have Alien Marines land slap bang in their laps during a training exercise. Now this isn’t the ‘A team’ — bullets land, people and aliens die, heroes rise and fall, and rise again. It’s one heck of a ride.
In Hostile Contact, Lance Corporal Finn and Delta Reserve Squad come face to face with an alien incursion that has the world on edge. They bypass our best defences, landing in a Scottish Forest and on the hunt. Unfortunately, the 300 year journey has not been kind, and the first contact is ‘hostile’ to say the least, leaving the majority of the training platoon decimated. Finn and his remaining squad, the ex-Infantry soldier Zuri Zuberi and trainee Stephen Noah, chase the aliens down after they kidnap their Corporal, knowing any help is a long way off. During the pursuit, they come across the weapons of choice, alien technology that gives them a fighting chance in what’s to come. The only other spoiler I’m going to give is that their Corporal, Smith, takes a bullet during the rescue attempt, but having already engaged with the alien tech, survives as an Artificial Intelligence hybrid.
The second book, Return Protocol, starts with Delta Squad leaving Earth and thrust into an alien world as a ‘return protocol’ comes into effect. Here, they take the first steps towards understanding the alien technology they have access to, in conjunction with just how much they will need to learn to survive long enough to find their way home. In this book we are introduced to some of the background reasons the initial alien incursion happened back on Earth, and what awaits Delta as they face their future, as well as the mess other cultures can make of their own worlds. A combination of strong action, coupled with a growing realisation of the opportunity they have been given, sees the squad struggle to survive on a planet where everything is trying to eat you or kill you, not caring which happens first.
Zuri’s War, the third book in the series, sees Zuri rise to prominence. Always a strong character in the other books, she takes the lead as Delta are thrust into an interspecies war. On Bathsen, the seeded human population (no spoilers – but seeded is a clue to the background of the series) are inundated by alien spores, dropped from a cloud of cosmic dust and voracious in its pursuit of protein. With thousands already dead, lost to the hordes feeding frenzy, Delta arrive to find the human world divided by past enmities and fear. With Finn lost to one of the human factions, Zuri leads a rescue mission, finding that it’s not just Finn desperate for her help. Later in the story, we see the squad’s actions are a catalyst for the remaining humans. Their rallying call maybe just giving humanity one last hope.
The fourth book is my wife’s favourite – so you have to like it. No choice. Here, Delta encounter an advanced human-seeded (that word again) world, where Five Companies rule and have embraced genetic manipulation with the help of alien technology. In Finn’s War, Zuri is imprisoned, and chooses combat in the Tau Fighting Pit to trigger an early release. Unfortunately, her presence has roused the attention of the Five Companies, her abilities on a low gravity world marking her as high-grade genetic material. On discovering Zuri’s impending fate, Finn embraces the new space worthy Battle Armour developed by their spaceship’s AI (I may not have mentioned them earlier, very important to the plot!) and Noah. Embracing the technology, Finn and the squad take the fight into space, where no can hear you shout, ‘oh crap’. During this book, the deceased Corporal Smith takes the opportunity to control his own suit of fully fledged Space Marine armour, taking the fight on the Company Moon Base all the way up to 11.
And then we get to Book Five, Alien Rebirth, an opportunity for a little horror indulgence, as an ancient alien awakes when the squad arrive at another advanced solar system. Here the seeded (!) humans have begun to mine the system’s planets and moons, using fusion powered spacecraft, with their own set of Space Marines to defend them. On their arrival, the squad are relegated to transport, refused permission to engage with whatever has risen on the furthest planet. Telling you more would give the game away – but let’s say this is like a combination of Day of the Dead meets Starship Troopers with a little Lovecraft thrown in.
Have we finished there? Well no. Invasive Species is now available! Here, whoever remains from the battle in Book Five, reach the planet from where the original ‘aliens’ came from. It’s clear these are in a real mess. They face trying to recover from a nuclear war ninety years earlier, coupled with the rise of a bacterial infection fanned by a viral outbreak. With the world peppered by deep political mistrust and paranoia, the squad are forced to work with traitors and murderers to weave a way through the planet’s complexities. With mistrust and memories of fallen comrades running deep, they find themselves in the hands of a people willing to commit genocide to save their own skins.
Books 7 and 8 are to follow, with Delta returning to an Earth still reeling from the original incursion and the arrival of a second set of marooned Alien Marines. To discover their journey, for free, The Lost Squad (Parts One to Five) are five novellas available by subscribing at nicksnape.com. These alien Marines join the main books at the beginning of Book 7 and have been an amazing bunch of characters to write about.
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