GREAT ROBOTS OF HISTORY is published today! Here I am, celebrating the only way I know how: with an awkward half-smile.
The collection contains 16 tales of robots and robot-like figures from history and myth, and many of the stories are quite weird and in unusual formats. Eleven were previously published in venues such as Interzone, Nightscript and Shoreline of Infinity, and ‘The Brazen Head of Westinghouse’ won the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction in 2024. Six stories are new to this collection – so today’s also a milestone in terms of publication of the most new short fiction I’ve ever released at one time.
‘The Scarecrow Festival’ in Elemental Forces (Flame Tree), Oct 2024
‘There Goes the Neighbourhood’ in Abyss & Apex, Issue 92, Oct 2024
‘Ends Abruptly’ in Uncertainties 7 (Swan River Press), Nov 2024
My essay ‘The Problem of the Faithful Pastiche’, about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and adaptations featuring well-known characters, was published in Writing the Murder:Essays on Crafting Crime Fiction, published by Dead Ink, Sep 2024.
I also won the Best Short Fiction Award at the British Fantasy Awards in October! The winning story, ‘The Brazen Head of Westinghouse’, was first published in IZ Digital (Interzone), then reprinted in Best of British Science Fiction 2023 (NewCon Press).
2024 projects
This is what I wrote this year:
The final 20,000 words of a murder mystery novel begun last year
The first 20,000 words of a cosy crime novel
A full 100k draft, then structural edits of a commissioned novel yet to be announced
Three short stories
In total, I wrote 181,450 words and spent 331 hours writing or editing.
Looking ahead to 2025
Early next year I’ll be able to announce two new books, both of which I’m very excited about.
As for what I’ll actually be writing, for the first time in several years I’ll begin the year with a relatively blank slate, which is also very exciting. Who knows what I’ll be reporting having written, this time next year!
The time has finally arrived – I have a new book out… today!
When Muriel Carew attends a lavish society party, the last person she expects to bump into is her ex-fiancée Henry Jekyll, a man she’s not seen for many years. When Jekyll turns out to be investigating a series of missing persons in London, Muriel is intrigued. But Jekyll is not working alone, and if Muriel wants to aid in the investigation, she must work with both Henry and his partner, the monstrous and uncouth Mr Hyde.
…and it’s also a very lovely hardback book that would look very pretty on any bookshelf. It’s got beautiful endpapers, an embossed gold birdcage and even a sort of flickbook effect going on in the page corners.
Here’s what other authors have said about the novel:
“Jekyll & Hyde: Consulting Detectives is a fast-paced gothic thriller that is relentlessly engaging, entertaining, and (most important of all) terrific fun.” Tom Mead (Death and the Conjuror / Cabaret Macabre)
“A wonderful concept, beautifully executed. Delightful and enthralling in equal measure. Replete with a delicious Victorian atmosphere, as thick as a pea-souper.” Jeremy Dyson (The League of Gentlemen / Ghost Stories)
“Tim Major has come up with one of those ‘damn it, I wish I’d thought of that’ concepts: Henry Jekyll as a dissipated Sherlock Holmes to Edward Hyde’s demented Dr Watson. But this splendid novel is more than just a cool idea; it’s a rip-roaring, dark-hearted tale that yokes a cunning murder-mystery plot to the Gothic horror of Stevenson’s famed novella. The sequel can’t come too soon.” James Lovegrove (Sherlock Holmes and the Highgate Horrors)
“Riveting, ingenious, original. I kinda wish I’d thought of this myself!” Adam Christopher (Stranger Things: Darkness on the Edge of Town)
“Highly enjoyable, terrifically good fun, very well paced, and full of relish for Stevenson’s original story.” JS Barnes (Dracula’s Child)
My novel Jekyll & Hyde: Consulting Detectives is almost here! It’ll be published in a beautiful hardback edition on 3 September 2024. But perhaps you needn’t wait so long as that….
If you’re a reviewer or book blogger or similar, and if you’re signed up with a NetGalley account, you may be able to access the novel early here.
The first review of the novel is in, too. It’s from Kirkus Reviews, and it’s lovely! Here’s an excerpt:
“As in Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella, the solution to the mystery is even more horrifying than the mystery itself. Major does such an admirable job with the heaviest lift here—coming up with a case that fully engages Jekyll/Hyde’s double nature without being overwhelmed by it—that it’s hard to imagine how he’ll manage it again. But expectations are high.”
I’m very pleased I can now announce this… The excellent Salò Press will publish my story ‘Echec!’ as a chapbook next month. It’s one of my Great Robots of History stories, about the chess-playing automaton known as the Mechanical Turk. It’s a bit of a departure for me, being a comedy (sort of) and presented as a play script.
I’ll show the people a true spectacle.
For years, Schlumberger has operated the chess-playing automaton known as the Mechanical Turk… and it’s killing him. Tonight, trapped together in the backstage area of a Cuban theatre, it’s time for their final game.
Some excellent writers have said some very kind things about it:
As box-cutter-sharp as Ellison and as wickedly deadpan as Douglas Adams at his finest, Tim Major’s Echec! is a true science-fiction masterclass. – Chris Kelso, author of Voidheads
Tim Major’s bold tour de force reanimates Johann Nepomuk Mälzel’s Mechanical Turk for the AI age, with a lightness of touch that we’ve come to expect from the grand master. Checkmate! – Dan Coxon, editor of Writing the Uncanny
The chapbook is pre-orderable now from the Salò Press website and will be shipped in early March.
I’m so delighted with this beautiful cover for my upcoming novel JEKYLL & HYDE: CONSULTING DETECTIVES!
Dr Jekyll and his monstrous alter-ego join forces with his ex-fiancée to solve a series of disappearances across Victorian London in this thrilling mystery.
“Relentlessly engaging, entertaining, and terrific fun” – Tom Mead
Published 3 Sept 2024 by Titan Books Cover design by Natasha MacKenzie Edited by Daniel Carpenter
My story, ‘The Brazen Head of Westinghouse’, has been published on IZ Digital, the online arm of Interzone magazine. It’s about Elektro, the robot that was exhibited at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, who could walk, talk and (oddly enough) smoke cigarettes. It’s quite a sweet and sad little story, I think.
You can read ‘The Brazen Head of Westinghouse’ for free if you’re a subscriber to the Interzone print edition, or if you’re a member of IZ Digital (only 1 euro per month!). Click here to go to the story.
In other news, I’m so pleased to say that I’ll have a story featured in Best of British Science Fiction, alongside stories by writers whose work I love. My story, ‘The Marshalls of Mars’, is about a married couple on a return trip to Mars (though plans go awry, resulting in a fairly profound detour). Neatly enough, it was first published in IZ Digital, like ‘The Brazen Head of Westinghouse’. My thanks go to Gareth Jelley for first publishing it, and to Donna Bond for selecting it for this anthology.
Exciting news is the very best way to begin a new year! I’m thrilled to announce that Titan Books will publish my novel JEKYLL & HYDE: CONSULTING DETECTIVES, and I’m very excited about it.
Here’s the Publishers Marketplace announcement:
More details soon! If you’re impatient to know more, please consider signing up to my email newsletter, as I’ll be including additional plot tidbits in the first newsletter, to be sent out imminently…
My new Sherlock Holmes novel, The Twelve Thefts of Christmas, is published today! Here’s a picture of me in an unironed but halfway-festive shirt to celebrate.
There are plenty of knotty mysteries within the shiny golden covers of this beautifully designed hardback, but I’ve also tried to make the tone like a sort of ‘holiday special’. It features loads of Holmes favourites in prominent roles: Irene Adler, Mrs Hudson, Mary Watson, Inspector Lestrade, even good old Toby the dog.
Here’s the description:
Sherlock Holmes’s discovery of a mysterious musical score initiates a devious Christmas challenge set by Irene Adler, with clues that are all variations on the theme of ‘theft without theft’, such as a missing statue found hidden in the museum gallery from which it was taken.
In the snowy London lead-up to Christmas, Holmes’s preoccupation with the Adler Variations risks him neglecting the case of his new client, Norwegian arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen, who has received a series of threats in the form of animal carcasses left on his doorstep. Could they really be gifts from a strange spirit that has pursued Nansen since the completion of his expedition to cross Greenland? And might this case somehow be related to Irene Adler’s great game?
I was so delighted when this popped up in my Twitter notifications last night, as I’d spent the day being grumpy with a bad cold…
My sentient-house story ‘O Cul-de-Sac!’ features on the current edition of fantasy podcast PodCastle, read by Nicola Seaton-Clark. While I haven’t had a chance to listen to the full reading yet, I can tell you that Nicola’s delivery is spot on. Hearing her read my story makes me very proud!
Click here to hear the reading, or you can find PodCastle via your usual podcast app. In addition, you can read the full text onscreen, for free.
If you’ve enjoyed this story, you may like to check out the book in which it first appeared: And the House Lights Dim, my first story collection, published by Luna Press.
I was away on holiday when it was published in the UK, so failed to post about it here, but as today is the publication date for my Sherlock Holmes novel THE DEFACED MEN, I thought I’d take the opportunity to celebrate its release!
In this novel, Holmes’s new client is Eadweard Muybridge, the godfather of cinema, whose life is under threat. Holmes and Watson will need to draw on technology associated with cinema in order to solve a mystery that continues to grow and grow.
My story ‘The Marshalls of Mars’ is published today! You can read it on IZ Digital, Interzone’s new digital offshoot. It’s about marriage and raising a child and nostalgia and isolation and Mars. The terrific art is by Martin Hanford.
Book birthday! SHADE OF STILLTHORPE is published today by the excellent Black Shuck Books. It’s a lost-in-the-forest changeling story. A teen boy disappears during a camping trip & the person who reappears is entirely different – but only his father refuses to be taken in.
“A seemingly impossible premise becomes increasingly real in this inventive and heartbreaking tale of loss.” Lucie McKnight Hardy
“Parenthood is a forest of emotions, including jealousy, confusion and terror, in Shade of Stillthorpe. It’s a dark mystery that resonated deeply with me.” Aliya Whiteley
The novella’s available from all the usual places – but please do prioritise bookshops or buy direct from the publisher.
New book news! My novella SHADE OF STILLTHORPE will be published by Black Shuck Books on 26th April 2022. It’s a weird changeling story about a teen boy who is lost in the woods and then returns looking entirely unrecognisable – to his father, at least.
It’s had some wonderful endorsements from writers whose work I love. Firstly, from Lucie McKnight Hardy: ‘A seemingly impossible premise becomes increasingly real in this inventive and heartbreaking tale of loss.’
And Aliya Whiteley said: ‘Parenthood is a forest of emotions, including jealousy, confusion and terror, in Shade of Stillthorpe. It’s a dark mystery that resonated deeply with me.’
I’m very pleased to announce that my third Sherlock Holmes novel, and my second to be published by Titan Books in 2022, will be published in October. This one’s a bit of a ‘Christmas special’ (Irene Adler! Mrs Hudson! Mary Watson! Inspector Lestrade! Toby the dog!) called THE TWELVE THEFTS OF CHRISTMAS. Here’s a description:
Sherlock Holmes’s discovery of a mysterious musical score initiates a devious Christmas challenge set by Irene Adler, with clues that are all variations on the theme of ‘theft without theft’, such as a missing statue found hidden in the museum gallery from which it was taken.
In the snowy London lead-up to Christmas, Holmes’s preoccupation with the Adler Variations risks him neglecting the case of his new client, Norwegian arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen, who has received a series of threats in the form of animal carcasses left on his doorstep. Could they really be gifts from a strange spirit that has pursued Nansen since the completion of his expedition to cross Greenland? And might this case somehow be related to Irene Adler’s great game?
It’ll be published in hardback on 18th Oct 2022 by Titan Books. Here’s the cover:
I’m very pleased to say that in 2022 Titan Books will publish my second Sherlock Holmes novel, The Defaced Men, almost exactly one year after my first, The Back to Front Murder. I’ve had so much fun writing Holmes and Watson, and completing this second novel has been just as enjoyable as the first.
Here’s the description:
A white-haired, bearded client arrives at Baker Street and is recognised immediately by Holmes. This client is being threatened by someone unknown to him through curious means: doctored lecture slides, and Watson realises this is Eadweard Muybridge, pioneer of animal and human locomotion photographs, who presents his motion-study animations to interested parties through his zoopraxiscope device. When the two attend one of his lectures they find disturbing alterations to Muybridge’s slides he swears he did not put there and as they investigate further, discover murder and conspiracy with the fledgeling arts of photography and cinema at its heart…
I’m fascinated by early cinema, so writing about Muybridge was a gift, and I’ve had great fun showing Holmes and Watson encountering the new medium of film for the first time.
And here’s the cover!
Sherlock Holmes: The Defaced Men will be published by Titan Books on 23rd August 2022.
My Sherlock Holmes novel, The Back to Front Murder, was published by Titan Books in the UK this week, and will be available in the USA a few days from now. Holmes’s client is a mystery author whose latest murder plot has been enacted in real life… before her novel has been written.
I’ve had a such a good time writing Holmes and Watson – particularly the latter; there’s a lot in this novel about Watson as an author, and I think I’ve projected a lot of my imposter syndrome onto him.
Another thing I’ve discovered this week is that it’s a relief to have written a novel that’s easily categorised. Do you like Sherlock Holmes novels? Then maybe you’d like this Sherlock Holmes novel.
As well as (positive!) reviews, a couple of articles relating to The Back to Front Murder appeared online this week: CrimeReads hosted my article titled ‘The Joys and Difficulties of Writing a Faithful Sherlock Holmes Novel’ and Trans-Scribe conducted a really good Q&A covering the challenges of channelling Arthur Conan Doyle, Watson as narrator, female characters in the canon and favourite Holmes stories. More articles will be appearing soon.
Other than that, visit this page to find out more details about the book.
This week, my Martian murder-mystery novella, UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE, was published by the excellent NewCon Press. It’s available in paperback, ebook and the very fine signed hardback edition shown in the image above. It’s satisfyingly chunky; the word count actually edges it into short novel rather than novella categorisation.
I wrote several articles to introduce the book, including:
“…a fascinating mystery to solve while we are in the hands of a unique investigator and then get into a wider tale exploring humanity itself… a mixture of The Doctor and Columbo, [detective Abbey Oma] is a six-foot three private investigator who loves banter, often has to resist the urge to hug people and is very perceptive at working through the evidence and witnesses… a very successful novella mystery and also a great piece of science fiction.”
And, if you’ve read the novella or are contemplating doing so, you might be interested in the book soundtrack, available on Spotify:
I’m really proud to be involved in this anthology: OUT OF THE DARKNESS, edited by Dan Coxon and published by the always amazing Unsung Stories. Fifteen horror and dark fantasy authors present stories related to mental health issues, and all royalties will go to charity Together for Mental Wellbeing. As Dan says in his introductory video, this project is ever more meaningful after a year of Covid lockdowns and subdued panic – and I’m certain this’ll be a terrific anthology, featuring as it does some of my favourite writers.
The Kickstarter rewards are pretty immense too, such as MS critiques by Dan, or a £40 bundle featuring FOUR frankly outstanding books by Aliya Whiteley along with the anthology.
Publication news! I’m happy to say that my Sherlock Holmes novel THE BACK-TO-FRONT MURDER will be published by Titan Books in August. In fact, it’s the first of two, with the second due out at the same time next year, both classic tales in the Conan Doyle style. Here’s the blurb for this first one:
May 1898. A new client arrives at Baker Street – Abigail Moone, a wealthy, independent writer of successful mystery stories under a male pseudonym. She presents an unusual problem. Abigail claims that she devised a man’s death that was reported in that morning’s newspaper: that is, she planned his murder as an event to be included in one of her mystery stories. Following real people and imagining how she might murder them and get away with it is how Abigail comes up with her plots, but this victim has actually died, apparently of the poison method she meticulously planned in her notebook. Someone is trying to frame Abigail for his death, but with the evidence stacking up against her, she turns to Holmes to prove her innocence.
I’ve had so much fun writing as Watson and attempting to channel Conan Doyle. Completing this novel has been one of the most straightforwardly happy writing experiences I’ve had (though the plot is anything but straightforward, of course), and I hope it shows.
My YA SF novel MACHINERIES OF MERCY is published by Luna Press today! It’s a bit Westworld, a touch Battle Royale, a smidgen Existenz… but set in a tranquil English village that’s really a virtual-reality prison.
Author copies! This is the smart-looking new Luna Press edition of my YA SF novel, MACHINERIES OF MERCY. Elevator pitch: Westworld meets Battle Royale/Tron/Existenz/the Doctor Who serial ‘The Deadly Assassin’, but in a sleepy English village.
Book birthday! HOPE ISLAND is published today in the UK.
It’s obviously not the ideal time to be launching a book, and it feels really strange that none of us can wander into a bookshop right now. So, here’s a convincing simulation of HOPE ISLAND on the shelf, not least so that you can appreciate Julia Lloyd’s terrific spine design. (I don’t normally alphabetise my books, FYI.)
Here’s the back-cover blurb:
Workaholic TV news producer Nina Scaife is determined to fight for her daughter, Laurie, after her partner Rob walks out on her. She takes Laurie to visit Rob’s parents on the beautiful but remote Hope Island, to prove to her that they are still a family. But Rob’s parents are wary of Nina, and the islanders are acting strangely. And as Nina struggles to reconnect with Laurie, the silent island children begin to lure her daughter away.
Meanwhile, Nina tries to resist the scoop as she is drawn to a local artists’ commune, the recently unearthed archaeological site on their land, and the dead body on the beach…
I’m very proud that my story ‘Concerning the Deprivation of Sleep’ will appear in Best of British Science Fiction 2019, edited by Donna Scott, published by NewCon Press in July 2020.
The story was originally published in Synth #2, and it’s about a father transferring his rationed sleep credits to his young son. I wrote it when I was badly sleep-deprived myself, if that wasn’t already clear enough…
You can see the full line-up and preorder the book from the NewCon Press website.
Tim Major 
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