SEA LION PRESS

By Charles E.P. Murphy. Cover art by Keith Burns. 1993, the middle of the Third World War, the Asian Bloc and the Western Federation battling for the fate of Europe. Among WESTFED’s greatest assets are the multinational Harrier Squadron, piloting their state-of-the-art jump-jets against the ASBLOC menace. But what happens if there’s a shot at peace? Flight Lt. “Hob” Hogget wants to believe in an armistice but can’t quite trust that it can happen after all the bloodshed. And t

By Gary Oswald. Paperback cover, courtesy Amazon. Gavriel D. Rosenfeld is the editor of the What Ifs of Jewish History   AH book and owner of the Counterfactual History Review , a blog that has been running for twelve years and covers the way counter-factual thinking has been used and viewed in the mainstream, in both fiction and analysis of the real world. He is also a prominent academic, who serves as President of the Center for Jewish History in New York City and Professor

By Ryan Fleming. This man doesn't know he'll be hired for Bogart Slept Here. De Niro in the Mean Streets trailer, image public domain and courtesy Wikipedia. The right role can make or break an actor’s career. Often too we hear about the roles an actor may have missed out on that they regret. If a missed role can carry a pang of regret, can the opposite hold true? Can an actor missing out on a role they were all lined up for in fact be a benefit? Not so much in the sense of d

By Matthew Kresal. Cover courtesy Big Finish site. What would Doctor Who be without its monsters? The Daleks secured the series’ hold with the public in its earliest days while the Cybermen have offered a glimpse of what humanity could become should it chose to overly embrace technology. There have been countless others introduced over the decades that have become recurring foes for the Doctor from the Ice Warriors of Mars to the Weeping Angels of Modern Who . Among those foe

By Thomas Anderson. That boy is our last hope...? Force Unleashed featured a few more Jedi and a whole other force-sensitive youth. Cover courtesy Amazon market. In this article, I will examine a phenomenon of writing in which stated absolutes become an unintended restriction on future storytelling. In many ways, this is a counterpart to an earlier article I wrote entitled “The Romulan Straitjacket” which focused on a similar facet but with a sense of time rather than space.

By Gary Oswald. The 2020 hardcover edition; image courtesy Amazon. Literary genres are a funny thing. On the one hand they are essentially advertising, 'did you like this book? Well, it's a fantasy book and here are 200 more fantasy books, you'll like them too, please buy them'. On the other hand, it's kind of a reader's guide, telling you, the consumer, what to expect and how to engage with the text. I will react differently to the introduction of a dark handsome neighbour i

By Alexander Rooksmoor. Quite often I have been inspired to write a short story or even a novel as a result of disliking how a story I have read or seen turns out. The Blood and The Ghost  was stimulated by me watching all 5 seasons of the TV series The Last Kingdom  (broadcast 2015-23). The series, based on the Saxon Stories  novels by Bernard Cornwell, is set in Wessex between 866-878 CE, the eponymous ‘Last Kingdom’ not under Danish rule. My main prompt for an alternative

By Charles Cartwright. On the Sea Lion Press Forums , we run a monthly Vignette Challenge. Contributors are invited to write short stories on a specific theme (changed monthly). The theme for the 91st contest was Cons . Question 14. Read the case study below then answer the subsequent questions in your answer booklet.​ ——— Case Study: Fake Campaign for Restoration of the French Monarchy During the political and economic crisis in France in late 2028 (which eventually led

In May and June 1970, viewers of the BBC’s Doctor Who  were treated to an apocalyptic vision of a fascist Britain as Jon Pertwee’s Doctor crossed over in a parallel world. One where Britain was a fascist state that was risking its own destruction with an ill-conceived project unleashing energies from deep within the Earth with the power to transform men into monsters. Inferno fascinated viewers for more than a half-century and inspired speculation about what led that world t

By Ryan Fleming. The man himself. Public domain image courtesy Wikimedia Commons. Since its 1912 sinking, the Titanic  has loomed large in popular culture, including multiple films. When Alfred Hitchcock, another titanic figure, left the United Kingdom for the United States in the late 1930s, it was common knowledge that his first project would be a drama based on the sinking of the Titanic . For several reasons, that project wound up never happening and Hitchcock’s first Ame

By Gary Oswald. One of the New Villages created by the British in Malaysia, where civilians were forcibly relocated to disrupt the communist insurgency. This was publicly known in 1950s Britain - how many civilians were treated by soldiers and police was known & recorded by the government. Photograph in public domain, courtesy wikimedia commons. If you spend any time at all online looking for people talking about the British Empire (and honestly if you're reading this, you pr

By Charles E.P. Murphy In 2002, the "rage virus" swept through Britain; everyone infected went rabid and turned on the people around them. The world quarantined the nation and abandoned all who hadn't managed to flee. Twenty eight years later, the ageing Dr Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), builder of a vast memorial hewn from human bones, makes a tentative contact with the Alpha infected he's dubbed 'Samson' (Chi Lewis-Parry). The young Spike (Alfie Williams), however, has met som

By Paul Hynes. Lord Gort and General Gamelin pose for a British War Office photographer in October 1939. Both men may have felt France's strategy was all going to plan. Public domain photo courtesy wikimedia commons. On the 2nd of May, the Battle of Berlin finally came to an end. The surviving residents of the German capital emerged from the ruins of their homes and attempted to piece their lives back together in the shadow of the victors. The whereabouts of their own leaders

By Thomas Anderson. Well, not that sort of worldbuilding. (Logo from Alien franchise, copyright Disney; picture taken from Xenopedia.) The fantasy author Brandon Sanderson has become well-known for his advocacy of what he calls “Sanderson’s First Law (of Magic)”; that is, that an author's ability to solve conflict with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic. In one sense, this is a manifesto against deus ex machina  and inventing new rule

By Gary Oswald. So AH you can see an alternate version of it! Picture courtesy Amazon. Being enthusiasts of alternate history, everyone reading this is probably able to name an iconic piece of AH fiction in most formats. A book, a comic, a tv show, a video game etc. But it's maybe a little harder when it comes to motion pictures. There have obviously been a bunch of AH feature films but none have really been advertised as the big new AH media in the way TV shows like The Man

By Matthew Kresal. “Where do your ideas come from?” That’s almost an inevitable question one receives after a stranger finds out you’re a published author. One that is almost always in the wake of, “What do you write?” It’s an understandable question and one that I’m sure in my younger (and unpublished) days I asked myself. Since being published, I’ve come to realize that like a magician revealing a trick, there’s a risk that answering takes some of the magic out of proceedin

This year's seen the release of two novels from Sea Lion Press: a Cold War spy thriller in a world with a Nazi detente, and a political history in a world where Obama's time in office is delayed by twenty years. Both are still available now and in Funny Money 's case, in paperback too! Funny Money David Brook, ex-RAF, now British intelligence, faces a conspiracy that could ruin Britain. A British intelligence officer looking for counterfeit money. A mysterious French-Algeria

By Charles EP Murphy. On the Sea Lion Press Forums , we run a monthly Vignette Challenge. Contributors are invited to write short stories on a specific theme (changed monthly). The theme for the 86th contest was Workers . Right. This was going to be the tricky bit. Gene Narvy was going to have to: A) Land his jumping dropkick on Paul Plunder perfectly B) Not  look to make sure his partner Tommy Frank had landed his one perfectly, by which he meant Tommy had "botched" the kick

The ebook retailer Smashwords is running a sale until New Year's Day, and Sea Lion Press is part of it! We have dozens of books on a 25% discount , from our newest releases to some of our venerable classics, so now's the time to purchase one you've always had your eye on - but only for a few more days...

By Gary Oswald. Secretly a AH film? The Woman King's bluray, courtesy Amazon. Inglourious Basterds  is a 2009 Quentin Tarantino war film about allied agents operating in occupied France during 1944. Those agents are planning an assassination of Adolf Hitler and, to spoil a 16-year-old film, they shockingly actually succeed. Hitler is killed by the French resistance in 1944 rather killing himself in 1945.   That obviously has huge political and military implications. But the f