When The Going Gets Tough The
My Favourite Character? I’ll Let You Into a Secret
Readers often write to ask who my favourite character is, and where the creative part of the process starts.
Well, I’ll let you into a secret.
If you’ve read Return of the Star Lords, you’ve met her. Her name is Kya.
She was originally a side character in my third book, Seek the Galaxy, but she was so fierce, funny, and full of courage that she demanded her own story. That story became Return of the Star Lords, the first piece of fiction I ever published, less than four months ago.
At the suggestion of my editor, I entered it into six writing competitions.
It went nowhere in one.
Runner-up in another.
And, to my amazement, it won the other four. Gold awards, no less.
I owe Kya a lot.
So much, in fact, that I wrote a follow-up about what happened when she and her younger sister Syla returned to Earth with Ewan and the crew of the Dagger. It follows Kya trying to blend in at a Florida high school, posing as an English public schoolgirl, with amusing and exciting consequences.
But here’s the catch: it’s 11,000 words long. (About 35 pages.)
Too long to include in a fast-paced space opera. It’s still a bit raw and unpolished. So, I’ve never published it. I might never.
But if you’d like to read it, just hit reply to this email and ask. I’ll send it to you with a smile.
And where do I write? Well, at my computer, of course.
But the creative part, the fun part, that starts somewhere else.
The ideas, the characters, the spit-balling madness? That often begins here:
The King’s Arms in Prestbury, my local country pub just outside Cheltenham. (Yes, that picture below is the real place.)
I sit with a blank page and mind-map story arcs, character dilemmas, alien cultures. Sometimes I write out scenes freehand.
The pub’s great for ideas. Less great for actual writing.
I’ve learned I need to stop after two pints. After that, the page starts to look like a drunken spider dipped all eight legs in the inkwell and staggered across the paper writing in Swahili.
Still, more than a few scenes in Return to the Galaxy were born at that very table.
Right. It’s late on Saturday afternoon here. Time to get creative.
I wonder if they’ve opened the door at The King’s Arms yet?
I might go see if Ewan, Velal, or Jera are in, and if they fancy a pint.
...Oh, and before I go, I'm starting to get some good reviews in, too. I've added one of them from the British review service Wishing Shelf lower down. See what you think of it.
Still missing one of the short stories?
Some stories unfold centuries apart. Some on distant worlds.
Some right under our noses, here on Earth.
But they’re all part of a shared timeline, a single galaxy where choices ripple, tech evolves, and empires rise and fall.
Return of the Star Lords – Kya will do anything to save her sister, even help kill a god
When the Going Gets Tough – A mission gone wrong. A soldier pushed too far
The Honeytrap Protocol– Seduction, betrayal, and a target who won’t play along
School Trip to the End of the World – He stole a starship to save his family
Chasm City– This city breaks people. Not all of them stay broken
You can download any you missed by clicking on the books on my website right here:
This email is already long so I’ve shortened my normal science article to a 3-minute read, placed down below. I had quite a dark article planned for today, but I received a lot of emails thanking me for the positive tone of the last one, so I changed tack. This one is uplifting, too.
The Wishing Shelf Book Awards
EDITORIAL REVIEW 15th May 2025
TITLE: Return to the Galaxy
AUTHOR: BA Gillies
Star Rating: 5
I must say, this is a very enjoyable sci-fi novel. In fact, I started reading it on Monday morning and kept going till I finished it on Monday night! And I loved every word of it.
Now, it’s not ‘literary’ in any way – thankfully – the author smartly offering sci-fi readers what they want: fast pacing, short chapters, accessible vocab, a complex, slightly broken protagonist (Ewan), and a thrill-a-page plot.
So, what did I enjoy the most? Well, Ewan is fab! Written from his POV, we first meet him during the Falkland’s conflict back in 1982, when the British sent a taskforce to retake the islands from the invading Argentinians.
Later, when he’s dying of cancer, he gets the opportunity (with the help of a little nanite tech) to stop a powerful enemy which is hunting for Earth. For me, he was very much the strongest character in the story – strong, brave; basically, fit for the fight! The perfect protagonist.
I also enjoyed the pacing of the novel. The cover for the book – a spacecraft being destroyed in battle – suggests one thing: this is going to be a non-stop, lots of things happening all the time, sort of novel. And that’s very much what you get.
So, all you sci-fi nuts out there, I’d strongly recommend this novel to you.
I see from the website, www.bagillies.com, this is the first book of three. They all look FAB! So much so, I’m going to be checking out book two (Reach for the Galaxy) and book three (Seek the Galaxy) myself.
I love it when an author knows his/her readership and what they want – and that’s exactly what you get here.
All in all, a bit of a gem!
A ‘Wishing Shelf’ Book Review
The Tiny Revolution
(3-minute read)
Right at the beginning of Return to the Galaxy, Ewan is dying. Seventy-seven-years-old, broken, forgotten. Until the nanites bring him back. They don’t just heal him. They rebuild him.
Piece by piece, cell by cell, until he’s stronger, faster, sharper than he ever was. A soldier again. But not quite the same man.
In the book, that’s science fiction.
But just beneath the surface, it’s already becoming science fact.
Because the real revolution in medicine isn’t happening with scalpels or miracle pills. It’s happening with machines so small you couldn’t see one if it flew past your eye.
They’re called nanobots. Or medical nanites, if you’re speaking in fiction. And they aren’t coming. They’re already here.
Researchers around the world are building microscopic devices that can:
Target and destroy cancer cells with extreme precision.
Dissolve arterial plaque without surgery.
Deliver chemotherapy directly to tumours, bypassing the healthy cells entirely.
Detect viruses in the bloodstream days before symptoms appear.
Repair damaged tissue at the molecular level.
Transmit live diagnostic data from inside the body, silently, wirelessly.
Some of these devices are still in clinical trials. Others are already in use.
A team in California recently tested a nanobot that navigates through blood vessels using magnetic fields, like a microscopic submarine, piloted by code.
In China, researchers launched a swarm of bots into infected lung tissue. The result? Five times the effectiveness of standard antibiotics.
And we’re just getting started.
In the next ten to twenty years, we could see programmable nanites that live inside us long-term. Always on. Always scanning.
Like immune system companions, spotting problems before they start, correcting chemical imbalances before symptoms ever appear. Keeping us steady. Quietly nudging us back toward health.
They won’t replace doctors. But they might prevent the emergency.
And what’s striking is how human this technology feels, not cold, not clinical, but intimate. For centuries, we’ve fought sickness with brute force. Sawbones. Syringes. Scalpels, even leeches. Now, we’re beginning to heal from within, not with violence, but with understanding.
That’s what drew me to nanites in Return to the Galaxy. Not as miracle tech. Not as magic. But as a symbol of something deeper.
That maybe we don’t need to become gods. Or machines. Maybe we just need to become a little better at fixing what we used to break. A little better at restoring what was lost.
But we should always remember to believe in good people and the hope they bring. All around the world brilliant doctors and researchers are advancing medicine constantly, turning the science fiction of our parents into science fact for the next generation.
Because sometimes the most powerful changes don’t roar in. They arrive silently. On machines too small to see.
But too amazing to ignore.
P.S. Don’t be shy. If you'd like to read Kya’s secret story, just hit reply and say so. Just say "Kya at school story please." and "I’ll send it your way happily.
ExporeWhen the Going Gets Tough
When an ambush in hostile space thrusts Velal into command, every decision could mean life or death. Surrounded by merciless pirates and their alien allies, can she outsmart her foes and free their captured slaves, or will her bravery be her downfall?
Her First Command, Their Last Chance.
For years, Velal dreamt of reaching the top ranks, but her first mission as Executive Officer becomes a nightmare when her battleship, the Patient Watchman, is ambushed by pirates in a chaotic asteroid field.
As missiles tear through their defenses and the captain falls, Velal suddenly finds herself in command. Every choice she makes pulls her ship deeper into the pirates’ web. Abandoned by a cowardly superior, Velal and her multi-species crew find themselves alone, outnumbered, and trapped, surrounded by ruthless pirate ships and their deadly alien allies.
Facing wave after wave of missiles, with her ship’s shields weakening and the crew teetering on the edge of panic, Velal faces the impossible choice: flee to safety or risk everything to free the hundreds of desperate slaves held hostage by the pirates.
With a relentless enemy targeting them from every side, Velal must rely on her tactical skills and the loyalty of her crew to survive. With survival on a knife edge, it’s a brutal test of courage, where one misstep could doom them all.
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