My new novel Skies Of Venus is now available for pre-order. Skies Of Venus is a new instalment in the “Carson Of Venus” series of scifi novels by the grandfather of sci-fi adventure, Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Burroughs’ Venus books followed the harrowing adventures of man of action and pioneering astronaut, Carson Napier – a kind of 1920’s Elon Musk – on the planet Venus, or Amtor, as its inhabitants call it. While Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars books depicted a dying world of wastelands and decaying cities, Venus-Amtor was rich with rain and life – hallucinatory purple forests, oceanic leviathans the size of oil tankers, spiders as big as your kitchen table whose silk was an valuable local commodity. The books laid out an array of civilizations – bird people, plant people, fish people, even amoeba people – all with a pulp political edge, including thinly disguised Soviets in the first Amtor book, Pirates Of Venus (1932), who were replaced by thinly disguised Nazis in the third book Carson Of Venus (1938).

Skies Of Venus follows the story of a petty thief, Virgil Erath, who is sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit, but is granted an unexpected reprieve when he is supernaturally transported to the world of Amtor. We see this bizarre, sunless world of bat-winged warriors, grotesque monsters, and noble heroes – the iconography of classic sci-fi that Burroughs originated – through the eyes of a world-weary cynic – someone a bit like us maybe. When Virgil is face to face with Burroughs’ heroes Carson Napier and Princess Duare – now over a hundred years old, but not looking a day over thirty, thanks to one of Amtor’s herbal elixirs – he asked to step up and be a hero himself. And to bring some much needed perspective to Carson and Duare’s own failing empire.

I’ve tried to be as true to Burroughs storyworld as possible – and to use it as a springboard for broadening its possibilities, creating new things within it which I hope are faithful in spirit and tone. It’s a book about outsiders and empire, and about responsibility and courage. And it has a lot of swordfighting and rayguns in it. I can’t wait for you to read it.

We were fortunate to have Richard Hescox do the cover art for the book. Hescox is the only artist to have painted covers for all five of Burrough’s original Amtor novels. This one makes six. The book also has black and white interior illustrations by top adventure illustrator Douglas Klauba. My deep thanks to them both.

Skies Of Venus is available in special hardcover collector’s editions which will feature a bookplate signed by me and Burroughs Inc publisher James Sullos – along with Edgar Rice Burroughs own signature facsimile. It will also be available in regular hardcover and softcover additions. The book ships in November. A digital and audiobook version will follow in 2022.