“Congratulations on encompassing all 23 James Bond stories in one book.” LAT Creative.

I began painting military aircraft whilst employed at British Aerospace. With the end of Tornado production I and 1,500 other people were made redundant. It was then I had a five-page colour spread about me written by Alan Bennet, and printed in the Daily Express.

Here are some of my achievements as an artist:

• Many commissions of military aircraft from the people building them.
• Several articles in the media, including ‘Flypast’.
• Pilots of aircraft signed some of these paintings, including, Neville Duke, Jimmy Dell, 3 Battle of Britain pilots, etc.
• Some of these painting will be included in due course

In 1990 the Swiss Air Force were due to retire their Hunters. I got wind that there was a competition to paint a commerorative picture for the Swiss Air Force. I knew I would be in competition with such greats as Wilf Hardy, Robert Taylor, Frank Wooton, et al. I had to figure a way to get an edge in such competition; it was no good going cheap to get under their prices – it would backfire, who wants a commeration done on the cheap? Eventually I hit on an idea – I was working at BAe at the time, and had founded an aircraft enthusiast’s group, which meant that I had access to lots of aircraft fans. So I offered to do the painting for free, the price being 100 copies of the prints, thinking that they would be running prints off anyway. I got the job.

As the new century got under way, the aircraft painting market became flooded, so I moved on to Imressionist painting.

Examples of my work will be featured here in due course, with prices for the ones I still have.

The writing career.

To explain some of my writing reson d etendard, here is a radio interview I did.

Interview with Lloyd R Martin

What motivated you to become a writer?

Most, if not all, writers do so because they have to – not from any desire to become rich and famous. The creative juices within them dictate that they have no choice.

I feel lost if I don’t have a project to work on as I drop off to sleep.

What is the greatest joy of writing for you?

You know when you get into a good book, and become absorbed by it?
Writing is many, many times better than that!
One of our writing group once said that writing dialogue is the easiest task.
I disagree. I find that writing and describing a fight or action sequence is easiest for me.

How do you chose the subjects to write about?

It is very much on a case by case issue; for example;-

My first book; The Mandalay Conspiracy, began to be about aeroplanes. When I finished it I picked up three books at random. I took one look at them, and it was obvious that my book was about aircraft – theirs were about people. So I re-wrote the book to feature a main character – Coniston Fowler.

Then we come to the Steve Steele books, beginning with the Shortfall trilogy. I worked out that ‘James Bond’ style stories were popular, so read a few ‘Bond’ books. I found to my dismay that they were obviously written in the style and language of the 1930’s. So I took inspiration from the films. The first problem is devising a new and all-encompassing threat to world peace that seems impossible for one man to defeat.

The main title of that first book, ‘Shortfall to Equilibrium’ comes from a line in the book, ‘… when the elements are not conducive, the shortfall to equilibrium is made up with skill, confidence and experience’. The passage relates to landing a seaplane on a rough sea in bad weather.

The next book, ‘Shooting the Dead’ sees Steve Steele in Spain looking for a lost nuclear submarine. The title ‘Shooting the Dead’ comes from a gun battle which takes place in a Spanish cemetery where sarcophagi lay stacked above the ground in crypts mounted one above the other.

The third Steve Steele story, ‘Nothing Happens’ takes complicated story-lines to a new level, because it involves quantum dynamics. The bad guys this time have found the remains of a meteorite, the elements within which can kill electrical equipment. When they start experimenting by shooting down jumbo jets, something has to be done. This title is derived from a working title that was too long; – ‘Nothing Happens, then Nothing Happens: QED.’ When this weapon is triggered off a column of energy one atom wide is released. To the observer nothing happens. All electrical equipment within a large sphere is fused to itself – nothing happens. QED relates to Quantum Electromagnetic Dynamics.

Some three years ago I got wind that NASA were going to launch a mission to Mars. By counting on all of my fingers I worked out that I could write three books of a respectable length by the time of first launch. I made it, but NASA didn’t!
I didn’t realise that I had to learn rocket science in the mean-time!

Then I had to bring them back.

What do you find most satisfying about writing?

Writing myself into a corner with no way out; then finding a way out.
For example, the heroine in ‘Shooting the Dead’ gets caught by the bad guys, and is locked up in the brig of a nuclear sub. I had to build a big model of a nuclear sub – including the interior – to work out how she would escape.

The world of publishing has changed beyond recognition with the digital age, and particularly the growth of e-books. In what way would you say that things have improved?

Once the book is finished we writers used to be forced into a world where a hand-full of people (publishers) decided who got into print and who didn’t. In that world, if you can’t get on national tv you were up against it.
Now, with indie publishing, or print-on-demand, we the writers, decide who gets published.

What is your writing process?

I aim at writing 1,000 words a day. This usually takes just over two hours.
This does not include plot invention. My plots are allowed to develop themselves; I don’t know how this thing is going to end. The story has to be edited, re-written, dragged apart, characters have to be checked that they didn’t get killed off on page 65. Edit again, and then put through editing software to check for things like adverbs, etc.
Even then mistakes get through, so readers are involved to spot things that have escaped.

How do you approach cover design?

I spend many, many hours on this process. I build and photograph models, sketch out scenarios, photoshop many images – and then ignore the whole lot, and turn the job over to a graphic artist.

Describe your desk

A laptop.
My study is very crowded and full of all sorts of distractions. The most difficult thing to deal with in any creative endeavour is work avoidance. This comes in many guises – it’s main disguise is research. Your subject is interesting to you, and you must continually research this to further your knowledge.
Take the orbit of Mars. I needed to know about this for the Mars Quadrilogy. A clever chap called Kepler did a lot of work on this, so I downloaded some stuff. It covered seven pages of mathematics and geometry!  This is far too much complication for the reader. One has to know where to draw the line, and get back to some productive work.

What’s the story behind your latest book?

The latest book is available as either a complete book, or a four-part quadrilogy. It concerns itself with man’s first landing on Mars.
The main character, Colonel Preston Ashton, takes us through the preparation for such a mission. Unfortunately people die during this time. Secretary Michelle Romero investigates.
When the astronauts reach the ship being built in orbit they find that robots are doing most of the work.
It must be pointed out here that I have only used what we now have, or are developing; there are no alien monsters, or superheroes – reality is paramount.

Do you remember the first story you ever read, and the impact it had on you?

Ironically, at about age eight, my very first book was call ‘Stand by for Mars’. It must have been pretty awful, at that time we still thought that there were canals, vegetation and an atmosphere on Mars. I would like to see it again

What are you working on next?

If I can find another threat to mankind, it may be another Steve Steele novel.
But at the moment I am thinking that people who read ‘Thrones of Mars’ are asking, – ‘What happens next?’

Writing history

1. My first book, which became ‘The TSR2 Conspiracy‘, was originally about military aircraft – then I realised that most people want to read about people. So I re-wrote the whole book.
2. Next I decided that I would write something popular – so I went into the ‘James Bond’ genre. That led to three books. ‘Shortfall to Equilibrium‘, ‘Shooting the Dead‘ and ‘Nothing Happens.’
3. In the following March I found that NASA were planning to launch the first experiments on a mission to Mars in the following October. I did some calculations, and found that I would be able to write a book about this mission by the time they launched. What I didn’t realize was that I would have to learn the rudimnts of rocket science! I made the deadline, but they were two months late! That became books One and Two, ‘The Friendly Robot Conspiracy‘, and ‘Life on Mars’ of the series. Then Neville said – ‘You have to bring them back.’
4. That became book Three of the set. ‘The Martian Infusion’.  In here we find why we have always been fascinated by Mars – and why the secret cannot be allowed to come back to Earth. Space flight is the most boring, time consuming uninteresting thing you can write about; especialy if the robots are running everything on automatic. But if the are not, and they are actually trying to stop the mission?
5. In book Four, ‘The Way Home’ we not only have the battle to get home, but events on Earth have not gone well, with a Tsunami wiping out vast areas of the Eastern seaboard of the USA.
6. Book Five, ‘Dangerous Knowledge’, has our intrepid crew finding out what has happened to Earth in their absence, also how their secret may have been overtaken by events – is it still dangerous? And we find out who is behind the Thrones of Mars.
7. Book Six, ‘Quantum Illuminati’ almost stands alone. Among all the devastation we find that intelligence far greater than ours have developed a machine that is capable of going back in time. Because of the ‘Grandfather Paradox’ there is only one person who can use it. However, he finds things are not as simple as killing Hitler to avoid the Second World War.
8. link here for a free download of Book One, ‘The Friendly Robot Conspiracy’
9. Unpublishe work includes a script for a TV play of one hour duration.

I am currently working on writing and editing the story of Hangar 42 at Blackpool Airport.

This is the oldest hangar at Blackpool. It is now crammed full of replica Spitfires and wartime memorabilia. The place is said to be haunted, so I am now expanding on the ghost story. This is a love story, and will be in the short story genre.

I will post it on this site when it is finished.

Meanwhile, here is the opening of the story.

The Ghost (working title)

Hangar 42 is reputed to be haunted.

The TV company, ‘Most Haunted’ have filmed in the hangar several times, and installed a semi-permanent camera in order to film our ghost.

A pilot, probably of Polish origin has been seen by various people in the hangar.

He wears 1940s flying gear, we do not know his name, but here we shall refer to him as Stan.

Like his name, some of the following is supposition.

When Poland was invaded by the Germans in 1939 they set about murdering vast amounts of the Polish people. Today we would call it ‘Ethnic Cleansing’.

The brave Polish people put up a valiant struggle, but they were hopelessly outclassed by the modern German forces – and then they were stabbed in the back by the Russians.

Many Polish airmen fled to France to continue their struggle. When France fell, they made their way across the channel to England – the last country left fighting the Nazi tyranny.

Most of these gallant airmen spoke no English, so the authorities of the day shipped them off to places like Blackpool.

The seaside resort was a popular posting for the fighters, who were ravaged by war. The landladies and population taught the flyers how to speak English, or rather a Lancashire version of English.

The flyers found that navigation around the Fylde area was much simpler than they were used to; it you get lost, fly west until you hit the coast. Follow this until you see the Tower, you can see the airfield from here.

It was during this intensive training period that Stan met Grace, a café waitress on Coronation Street, behind the Tower.

All of these books are available as e-books from; –

Amazon, Kindle, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Goodreads, Applebooks, Scribd, Tolino, Overdrive, Cloudlibrary, Gardners, Odilo, Askews & Holts, Califa, Enka, Fnac, Brown Books for Students, Baker & Taylor, Livraria Cultura, Hive, Axis 360, et al …

Hamburger pork frankfurter, kevin pastrami capicola filet mignon shank tri-tip porchetta andouille turkey strip steak landjaeger pork belly. Pork loin jerky pork chop alcatra porchetta tongue. Cow bacon pancetta, pastrami salami capicola jowl beef ribs. Frankfurter ham cow, ham hock ribeye jowl flank drumstick chicken.

Turkey frankfurter ball tip capicola pig. Fatback drumstick bresaola ham pork loin burgdoggen.

Pancetta kielbasa boudin burgdoggen pork belly biltong. Pork loin jerky pork chop alcatra porchetta tongue. Cow bacon pancetta, pastrami salami capicola jowl beef ribs. Frankfurter ham cow, ham hock ribeye jowl flank drumstick chicken.