58 books like The Penultimate Peril

I’ve been heavily immersed in the fantasy and sci-fi world since the age of nine, across fiction novels, role-playing games, tabletop miniature gaming, and movies. My first love was fantasy, and that’s one of the reasons why the post-apocalyptic genre particularly appeals to me when it comes to sci-fi. It plays in that dark, gritty place between futuristic, sci-fi, technology, and dark-age style fantasy. In addition, I’ve always felt socially conscious and value writing that highlights themes that are relevant today. This is another place that the post-apocalyptic genre slides comfortably into. And, of course, there’s the zombies. Another fantasy element that works beautifully in post-apocalyptic, sci-fi settings.

I’m a nerd who fights. Started my professional life as a programmer, then switched to telling stories in advertising and entertainment. But my passion for technology and martial arts have always played a role in my life. Influenced by my father’s stories about judo, I studied a lot of styles of fighting, including kung fu, karate, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and also dabbled with boxing, Muay Thai, capoeira, taichi, bagua, Silat, and judo. Along that journey, one of my favorite ways to learn was by watching my female training partners, and how they had to develop a much more nuanced and sophisticated technique. An experience that would later inspire the birth of The Girl from Wudang.

I grew up in the sixties and loved all things science fiction when it was at its peak. Being a voracious reader, I spent many days in the local library. I wanted to learn how to be good enough to get my books there. I was encouraged by friends and began studying writing at workshops and conventions. There, I met many of my favorite authors, including Anne McCaffery, Orson Scott Card, Lois McMaster Bujold, and A. C. Crispin. I also met scientists and actors. Critique groups honed my craft and expanded my appreciation of books. I learned to read and write outside my comfort zone.

As a fantasy author, I have always been drawn to magic and alternative universes as a way of exploring the issues that seem unsolvable here on earth. We are so entrenched in our own ways of seeing the world that it can be hard to imagine looking at things from a different perspective, but twisting these ideas sideways and adding a dash of magic can remind us that everything exists in shades of grey. Teenagers are learning to think abstractly and explore their own relationships with ethics, and I have vivid memories of being drawn to moral ambiguity at that age. 

I’m a fiction and nonfiction writer originally from Rotherham, South Yorkshire but I now live and work in Glasgow. I have always loved dark books, even when I was a kid; I was firmly on the Goosebumps-Point Horror-Stephen King pipeline, and ended up in dark literary fiction. I love work that challenges the reader, makes them complicit, forces them to keep going despite everything because the writing is just so good. Here are five books I come back to time and time again. 

At about age fifteen, I fell in love with nineteenth-century Gothic horror. I read all the classics in just a few months: Frankenstein, Dracula, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Edgar Allen Poe… And then I ran out. Most twentieth-century horror lacked the understanding that evil’s true target is not the body but the soul. Horror fiction, more than any other genre, is the laboratory of the soul, the place where we can experiment with good and evil to follow the consequences of each to their fullest and therefore truest conclusions. And since I ran out of such books to read—I wrote one.

When I started researching the 1930s in Britain, I realised that I had only ever considered the period from the Irish perspective, as the tail-end of the long battle for independence. I had always seen Britain in the role of oppressor: Rich, where Ireland was poor; powerful where Ireland was weak. As I read more, a new picture of Britain began to emerge. The Great Depression, the numbers of people unemployed, the children with rickets and scurvy due to malnutrition. And with those things, the rise of socialism and fascism, both expressing the same dissatisfaction with life. I wanted to know more. And so I went looking for books to teach me.

I have been fascinated by the role of power dynamics and psychological games in relationships for as long as I can remember, frequently seeking out entertainment and exploring these topics to make sense of what was happening in the world around me. Now as a writer of 42 novels, many of my stories center around these themes and their consequences and complications, always from a point of view that empowers women. Dirty Filthy Rich Men, and its follow-up Dirty Filthy Rich Love, specifically focus on the difference between the devastating act of rape and consensual rape play, with the intention of validating women who are drawn to edgier fantasies in fiction. 

I am interested in identifying and narrowing the fringes between Religion and Psychology and Psychiatry and bringing them together. I am especially interested in pastoral counseling through meditation and prayer. As a Psychiatrist, counselor, teacher of Psychology, Psychiatry, and Religion, and Pastor of a church. My passion is refining and simplifying the processes involved in tackling day-to-day obstacles posed by depression, PTSD, suicide, drug addiction, and other life-threatening mental health issues. I love storytelling. Most of my books will start with a story that will help everyone draw an independent personal conclusion on how to deal with a universal problem.

As a great reader from birth, I love books. I am a retired teacher of English literature and love history, particularly the medieval period, inspired by my love of Chaucer. I found my chosen authors entertaining, informative, and able to lead me into my happy place, unaware of my surroundings whilst reading. I read very fast, however, and none of them write fast enough for me so I started to write my own books. Words have the power to move, to excite, to console, to entertain. I hope anyone reading my chosen list will enjoy and may feel like exploring my own books.