Let us Talk of Many Things; of Books and Queens and Pirates, of Mystery and Kings...: My Out of This World Spotlight Guest

Friday, 6 November 2026

My Out of This World Spotlight Guest - Richard Dee

Thanks, Helen, for the opportunity to talk about my books. It’s hard to believe that I’ve written over thirty novels in the last fifteen or so years. Where they all came from, I have no idea, but now I see their worlds in my head all the time.

I was always a reader, a devourer of other people's words. The idea that I might write some of my own was a strange concept for much of my life. My teachers had always told me that I couldn’t write to save my life. For years, I believed them. My writing was confined to reports, official documents, statements of fact.

I travelled for my job. I spent forty years at sea, on merchant ships. I saw and did things that many people aren’t fortunate enough to experience. That’s a whole other story in itself. What I never realised was that my mind was storing it all up and waiting for the time when it could be repackaged as fiction.

Then I had the dream. It wasn’t any old dream, oh, no. This one kept repeating. I saw the same thing every night. In the end, I wrote it all down, which seemed to unlock more of the same. Before I really knew it, I had a story.

My first character was like me, a cargo-ship man, except he was travelling in space. I guess all those years of reading Sci-fi had inspired me to write in that genre.

I finished that book and didn’t really know what to do with it. It was only several years later when I realised that it wasn’t a simple story, but the second part of a trilogy.

While all this was going on, I was still working as a ship’s pilot on the River Thames. However, I had to stop work due to a shoulder problem, which prevented me from climbing ladders safely. I used the sick leave to write another book, based on something that had almost happened to me. Again, it was set in the future, on another planet.

I never returned to work. After an operation, I took early retirement and concentrated on writing. Fame and fortune were never the point. I just wanted to write, to prove my teachers wrong. I found an editor, someone to make sense of it all and help me to produce a polished product that other people could read without getting annoyed at all the errors.

Then, I started self-publishing the novels. I never bothered trying to go the traditional route and get an agent. I could still hear my teachers telling me it was a waste of time. Because of them, I guess I suffer from imposter syndrome. Hence, I never really put much effort into selling the books. The art of marketing was and is a mystery to me.

Through it all, the stories kept coming. There was Steampunk (High-tech Victoriana), an amateur detective whose adventures started as a bet but had now become a multi-title series, and so many more. At the latest count, I’ve somehow produced over thirty novels, a textbook and more than two hundred short stories. Somehow, my brain refuses to stop giving me ideas. I only have to overhear a conversation in a coffee shop, or see something and wonder what might happen next and off we go again.

While what I write may be classed as speculative fiction, it has two things at its heart. First, I believe that when we move away from this planet and explore, we will take all our good and bad with us. Our lives, emotions, everything we say and do will remain the same, just in a different setting. Ordinary people will still do extraordinary things. My books explore human emotions in unfamiliar settings.

Second, everything has to sound true. It might not be true, but it must be based on real science, extrapolated into a possible new world. I spend a long time in research to ensure that what I produce is as accurate as I can make it.

So, what are the stories about?
(Without giving too much of the plots away.)

There are several series; my favourite is Andorra Pett. She’s a character created from a mixture of my wife and my three daughters, all their good and bad points in one place. A woman wronged, one who took herself off to a space station orbiting Saturn, there to have adventures, solving crime and staying alive in a world that’s not so far from today. She’s been described as “Miss Marple meets Agatha Raisin, in space.”

Then there’s the Steampunk. These are Boys Own style adventures, set in Victorian times that have grown up. Steam and clockwork power a world without Oil and Electricity. That hasn’t proved a barrier to progress; there are fiendish gadgets, mad professors, strong women and a sense of derring-do. Featuring The Orphan Detectives, a secret society keeping the land safe, amongst others.

The Sci-fi series feature Dave Travise, my alter-ego, a trader with a past and the Balcom family, a mega-corporation who run planets. Naturally, there are plenty of opportunities for adventure there.

These series have inspired spin-off adventures and short stories, where minor characters are given a chance to shine. Characters like Kalyn Deere, a bounty hunter, Captain Starlight, a housewife superhero in 1950s America; or Raf, a Galactic explorer with only an AI computer for company.

As for my stand-alone stories, there’s an assassin who has one last job, a man who lives a second life in his dreams, a tale of survival against the odds, medical miracles, missing children, and reincarnation. And, just for variety, a swords and sorcery tale of beings from another world.

And all that came from a dream. I know, it’s pretty mind-boggling. If only I could tell my teachers what happened when I finally got over their negativity.

All my books are available on Amazon, in both eBook, and paperback format. They’re also included in Kindle Unlimited (now Kindle+). Several have been made into audiobooks.

Where you can find me.

I have a website, at
https://richarddeescifi.co.uk/
I post there twice a week, there are also lots of free short stories and details of all my books.

I’m on Substack at
https://richarddee2.substack.com/
Here, I post articles about writing and some serial fiction.

My Amazon UK page is at
https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Richard-Dee/author/B00CN4TTCG
where you will find all the reviews my books have been given.

The books