Featured titles
For details of all Garry's books, stories and translations see his complete bibliography.
The Ragthorn by Robert Holdstock and Garry Kilworth
There were these two British writers, one lived in the country, the other in the city. The country writer loved to visit the city and partake of brandy and Greek kebabs in the local hostelry...
The Ragthorn: a dark and unsettling World Fantasy Award-winning novella by Robert Holdstock and Garry Kilworth.
The Iron Wire
In 1870 an enterprise began in Australia that was breathtaking in its ambition: to construct a single galvanised iron wire between Adelaide and Darwin, crossing two thousand miles of virtually unexplored wilderness...
The Iron Wire: a novel of human hope and progress in a land where men die, women are widowed, and bushrangers live by the lie and the gun.
Tales from the Fragrant Harbour
Short stories written and set mainly in Hong Kong. The stories in the first half of the collection are once-told tales (stories set in the real world without magic), while the second half a twice-told tales (set in an otherworld where strange things happen and magic is in the wind).
The Songbirds of Pain
Garry Kilworth's first collection shows him to be one of the most original and enjoyable writers in the field. The thirteen stories in The Songbirds of Pain mix science fiction and fantasy, with a dash of unclassifiable strangeness.
The Best Short Stories of Garry Kilworth
These short stories span a period of 40 years. They are as eclectic as the insect world, ranging from the bizzare to the quixotic and back again. Plucked from an oeuvre of 145 stories, they are beautifully crafted tales, several of which have snatched awards from the jaws of oblivion or shouldered their way into short lists.
Moby Jack and Other Tall Tales
Moby Jack and Other Tall Tales is a collection of stories that span some 20 years. They cover a variety of themes and are more different, in style as well as content, than they are similar.
Witchwater Country
A rite-of-passage novel set in rural Essex, in which Dinger, Milky, Oaky and Titch go searching for the body of the aviator Amy Johnson, whose aircraft was reported to have crashed in the Thames River.
Abandonati
Guppy wakes up one morning on a cold street to find that almost every person in the world has left for some unknown destination, leaving only the homeless street people behind. He and a handful of his vagrant friends believe the population has abandoned Earth. They try to build a ship to follow.
Scarlet Sash
An historical war novel set around the Anglo-Zulu war. Lieutenant Early is called to General Lord Chelmsford's presence to be told he is to be the 'policeman' for Chelmsford's army and must wear a red sash to indicate that fact. The subaltern finds himself trying to solve crimes while the regiment is being slaughtered Isandlwana and attacked at Rorke's Drift.
Winter's Knight
The making of a Knight Templar and his adventures on the way to and in the Holy Land.
The Roof of Voyaging
The first of the Navigator Kings trilogy set in an alternative world where New Zealand has been geographically exchanged for the British Isles. The Pacific Ocean is alive with migrating Polynesians in a world influenced by strange deities, giants and creatures of folk lore. A Scottish woman and a Pict are abducted and absorbed into a Polynesian tribe. The Princely Flower and Land of Mists complete the series.
The Fabulous Beast
A collection of science fiction and fantasy short stories. The title story is initially set in the Middle East and then moves to Salisbury Plain. The narrator comes across some writings similar to the Deep-sea Scrolls, written on vellum. However, he soon discovers the skins still have life in them.
Hunter's Moon
The first of four animal fantasy novels. Hunter's Moon, about foxes, is followed by Midnight's Sun (wolves), Frost Dancers (hares) and finally House of Tribes (mice). Hunter's Moon is an Allen and Unwin bestselling novel.
Elemetal Tales
Science fiction and fantasy short story collection. These tales all have a metal element at their hearts. The first three are Gold, Silver and Iron, but others from the periodic table follow in a glittering stream of fiction.
Knight's Dawn
The first novel in the Red Pavilions trilogy, set in an alternative medieval world. A man wakes on a hillside and is aware he has been in a battle somewhere in space and time. However, he cannot remember his name or anything about himself. Henceforth he simply calls himself 'Soldier' believing he is a warrior with the skills of a fighting man. Wizard's Funeral and Scabbard's Song complete the trilogy.
Spiggot's Quest
A trilogy of YA novels set in the world of faerie. Spiggot is a boggart who is sent on a quest in a land of pixies, fairies, dwarves, leprechauns, and many other magical creatures. He comes across the odd human who has inadvertently slipped through a crack in the two worlds. Boggart and Fen, is Book II and Mallmoc's Castle completes the trilogy.
Dark Hills, Hollow Clocks
A collection of stories for YA readers and older. They are full of magic, fabulous creatures and strange artifacts, including dragons and oracle bones.
Rogue Officer
Winner of the Charles Whiting Award for historical war fiction. This novel is one of a series of 8 historical war novels and follows Sergeant Jack Crossman through his army career which takes him to the Crimean War, India and the Maori Wars in New Zealand.
In Solitary
The author's first short novel set in a future where Earth has been conquered by an alien species who keep what is left of the human population in slavery.
Angel
In the fourth dimension there are skirmishes between demons and angels. Minor demons are escaping the wrath of their powerful enemy and fleeing to Earth, only to be followed by one zealous angel who seeks them out and destroys them with Holy Fire. The only problem is, the destroying angel is uncaring of the collateral damage and many innocent humans are being burned alive. (There is a follow-up novel entitled Archangel).
Shadow-hawk
An historical adventure novel based on the life of Rajah Brook, an Englishman who was sailing near Sarawak in the 19th Century and was invited by the dying Sultan to take over as the ruler of his kingdom. The Sultan did not want one of the three different races of his country – Malays, Dyaks and Chinese – because he knew it would cause civil war. Rajah Brook ruled wisely, with humility and frugality, and was loved by the people. This novel takes the reader into the hinterland jungles of Borneo on an adventure in the vein of King Solomon's Mines, complete with Dyak Indian gods and demons.
A Midsummer's Nightmare
A novel in which Shakespeare's fairies are trapped in a shrinking Sherwood Forest. They enthral a bus driver called Sid who takes Oberon, Puck, Titania and others on a long bus journey to the larger New Forest. On the way Titania steals a human baby and mayhem follows.
The Bronte Girls
A professor and his wife, living in the remote Essex marshes, bring up their three girls in the belief that they are living in the 19th Century. A youth finds his way to the house during a winter when the marshes are frozen and runs away with one of the three sisters. Her naivety causes havoc. (Shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal).
In the Country of Tattooed Men
A collection of short science fiction and fantasy stories. In the title story a veteran of the Vietnam War has discovered that the all-over body tattoos he had in Vietnam camouflages him to the point where he is invisible in poor light. He decides to kill the President who perpetuated the war.
Attica
A YA novel in which four children from a second marriage discover that their attic is actually a vast unmapped continent of junk and forgotten objects. There are strange humans and other creatures up there in this world of wood, living amongst the paraphernalia: some friendly, others dangerous.
The Lantern Fox
Children's novel of a fox that drinks from a puddle in which there is a reflexion of the moon. For some time afterwards he has a stomach that glows in the dark and needs the help of a young girl to avoid the fox hunts.
The Gargoyle
Children's novel in which a gargoyle comes to life and carries a young boy to the bedside of his sick mother.
The Drowners
A YA ghost novel about the water meadows of Winchester, involving the sluice operators who drown the meadows to an exact depth of water in order to bring on early grass for the cattle. A young novice needs the assistance of a drowned youth in order to find the correct levels and so save the farming community. (Shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal - Commended).
The Electric Kid
Hotwire and Blindboy, two street urchins, live by scouring the city rubbish dumps and finding junk they can sell. Blindboy has super-sensitive hearing and can pinpoint a buried electronic device that still emits sounds. When the pair dig up a discarded gadget Hotwire, a girl, repairs them. Crooks abduct the couple and force them to dismantle security alarms.
(Winner of the Children's Book of the Year Award).
The Silver Claw
Udolphus Beck is a German otter and a detective. He is called to the canal city of Vequince, inhabited by water voles, to solve a series of crimes. The story is set in the 15th Century and is an animal fantasy copy of Venice and its famous inhabitants of the time. (This is one of Garry's best YA novels, but has been ignored by reviewers and has had minimal publicity).
Thunder Oak
The first of the Welkin Weasel books, animal fantasies in which the world is populated by medieval stoats and weasels. The stoats are the Normans and the weasels are the Saxons. The first trilogy is completed by Castle Storm and Windjammer Run.
Gaslight Geezers
The second Welkin Weasel trilogy, is set in the Victorian city of Muggidrear, where Montagu Sylver is a private detective, occasionally assisted by his female surgeon, Bryony Bludd. Montigu lives in a flat in Breadoven Street and is forever having to solve crimes committed by his own brother, Spindrick. Vampire Voles and Heastward Ho! complete the trilogy.
(The Welkin Weasels are a bestselling series for Corgi Books).
Full bibliography
For details of all Garry's books, stories and translations see his complete bibliography.
