The second of several writer anniversaries happening for me in 2025, this month marks two decades since the release of my pseudo-Victoriana steampunk adventure story The Steppes of Thoth, based on a science-fiction roleplaying game created by Frank Chadwick.
Back in 1988, veteran games designer Chadwick created Space: 1889, a pencil-and-paper roleplaying game inspired by the works of H.G. Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jules Verne. Chadwick’s game invented an alternate history where Queen Victoria’s Britannic Empire stretched through the Ether to the Moon, the planet Mars and beyond, carrying the spirit of the Raj and an English Imperial rule to alien worlds; think of it as The Far Pavilions meets John Carter. Later reprinted in 2000 by Heliograph Industries, the rich world of Space 1889 entered the realm of audio drama with the launch of Noise Monster Productions and a series of hour-long stories.
I was invited by NMP’s producer/director and all-around good egg John Ainsworth to write Space 1889‘s second episode, The Steppes of Thoth, the middle movement of a ‘Mars Trilogy’ with a rotating cast of characters set against the power politics of colonial rule on an alien world.
The British Empire lives again on the surface of the Red Planet…
In Syrtis Major’s corridors of power, a threat to the British Empire’s dominion over Mars is close to discovery, and Governor-General Sir Henry Routledge faces ruin if it ever comes to light.
In the wilderness of the Thoth Steppes, enemy powers, savage tribesmen and even nature herself bar the way to the wreckage of a lost Ether Flyer, and the secrets it hides.
For Captain Roger St. John Ffolkes, it is a mission he cannot refuse; for the adventuress Georgina Golightly, a journey that will risk all – and for Mars, it is the chance to save a world – Or ignite a war!
It seems far distant now, but at the time I was writing this script, I was in the middle of moving house, and I feel like some of the wild energy of that was channelled directly into my work! Working titles for this script were Red Frontier: A Martian Chronicle (nodding to the works of Ray Bradbury) and A Passage To Cydonia (riffing on E.M. Forster’s A Passage To India).
We has some amazing actors on this project, including Simon Williams (Doctor Who, Holby City, Upstairs Downstairs) playing alongside his son Tam Williams (Spectre, Hurricane, Starhunter), the late Ivor Danvers (Tenko, Howard’s Way), Sam Peter Jackson (Dambusters, Get Lucky) and the brilliantly versatile Ian Brooker (Vikings, Invasion Planet Earth).
I also reunited with the incredible Toby Longworth, who had previously played 2000AD‘s future lawman Judge Dredd in several audio stories I’d written; his role as salt-of-the-earth Sergeant Horace Carstairs is unapologetically based on my Dad – and I got to work with the lovely Jo Castleton, who I’d later write for again as a main character in my Doctor Who spin-off Cyberman 2.
At one point, we were courting none other movie actor Christian Slater to play gambling gunslinger Lucas Tyler (he was in London at the time doing theatre) but his agent wanted the script rewritten to make him the star, and as Steppes was an ensemble piece, we regretfully had to decline. As cool as it would have been to have Slater, Jon Weinberg absolutely nails the role as Tyler (who I wrote as a kind of parallel universe “cousin” of Gabriel Tyler, one of the heroes of my Sundowners steampunk western novels).
We had a cracking good cast and they all worked brilliantly on this, elevating my script with their performances. Sadly, The Steppes of Thoth and all the rest of the Space: 1889 audio dramas are out of print, but second-hand copies of the discs still pop up from time to time on eBay and the original roleplaying game continues to live on…
Enjoy the cover art and authentic period illustrations from Alex Mallinson, and I’ll leave you with this excerpt from the story – tally ho!
