Lightning signs Stickland’s YA space trilogy updating The War of the Worlds

Lightning Books has landed a “grittily plausible” YA space adventure trilogy by Andrew Stickland which updates H G Wells’ classic The War of the Worlds with a twist.

Publisher Dan Hiscocks acquired world rights to The Arcadian Incident directly from the author, with similar deals for the second two books. The Arcardian Incident will be published in paperback and e-book in March 2023, with the second and third instalments to follow at six-month intervals.

The Mars Alone Trilogy is set 300 years in the future, when humans have colonised the Moon and Mars. Like The War of the Worlds, it features a conflict between Earth and Mars, but in this version there are no extra-terrestrials: the battle between the planets is waged between Earth and human colonists on Mars.

The synopsis for The Arcadian Incident explains: “Leo Fischer is a 15-year-old computer whizz on his first ever journey off Earth. He’s heading to the Moon colony to help his mother Lillian with her scientific work. But before he can reach her, she is kidnapped.

“Dodging space pirates as well as a ruthless assassin in the pay of the soon-to-be president of Mars, he and his new friend Skater Monroe stumble upon a secret that could lead to all-out war in the solar system. The threat builds in the second instalment, Escape to Midas, and comes to a climax in the third volume, War Between Worlds – whose title is a deliberate nod to Wells’ story.”

Senior editor Simon Edge said: “This is so-called ‘hard’ science fiction, where everything that happens accords strictly with all the known laws of physics. There is no teleportation or travel faster than the speed of light, and the story is set strictly within our own galaxy, so we never meet any aliens. It’s a rip-roaring adventure story that happens to be set in space, in an all-too-believable future as we outgrow our own planet. Andrew Stickland is an extraordinarily accomplished story-teller – it’s hard to believe he’s a début novelist – so it’s an absolute treat.”

Stickland is a prize-winning poet and short-story writer whose work has variously been published by the British Fantasy Society, Games Workshop, the Royal Statistical Society and the Economist.

He said: “It’s a privilege to have Lightning Books publish The Arcadian Incident. Dan, Simon and the entire team have been so enthusiastic and supportive, and I’m absolutely delighted to know that the second and third instalments of this trilogy are in such capable hands.”