I’ve known both Keith Brooke and Eric Brown for a number of years – I may well have met them at the first convention I ever attended back in 1989. It’s been a long time, anyway. And throughout those many, many years I’ve also enjoyed their novels and short stories. My collection of both authors’ books is complete – except for their books for YA and younger readers.

Keith’s first three novels, published by Gollancz between 1990 and 1992. Head Shots (2001) is a collection, published by Cosmos Books, and one of the strongest short story collections I’ve read for a long time.

Lord of Stone is fantasy, published by Cosmos Books in 2001; it is very Orwellian and very good. Genetopia was published by Pyr in 2006. The Accord is Keith’s most recent novel from 2009, though he is currently working on a new one, alt.Human. Parallax View is a shared collection, with Eric Brown, of stories set on the same world. My edition is the Sarob Press one from 2000, although a revised edition was published by Immanion Press in 2007.

The Time-Lapsed Man is Eric’s first collection, and was originally published as a paperback in 1990 by Pan. The hardback edition was from Rog Peyton’s Drunken Dragon Press. (There was also a signed limited edition, but I don’t have it.) Deep Future (2001) and Blue Shifting (1995) are collections. Meridian Days (1992) was Eric’s first published novel. It was followed by Engineman (1994) and Penumbra (1999).

A pair of trilogies: the Virex trilogy of New York Nights (2000), New York Blues (2001) and New York Dreams (2004); and the Bengal Station trilogy of Necropath (2008), Xenopath (2009) and Cosmopath (2010). Annoyingly, the first two books of the Virex trilogy were issued in hardback, but the third wasn’t.

Bengal Station (2004), published by Five Star, is the novel on which the trilogy above was based. It didn’t sell many copies – probably because it was difficult to get hold of. Threshold Shift (2007) is a collection from Golden Gryphon. Kéthani (2008) is a fix-up, and one of Eric’s best books.

Some novellas from PS Publishing: A Writer’s Life (2001) is a supernatural story, rather than sf; The Extraordinary Voyage of Jules Verne (2005) and Gilbert and Edgar on Mars (2009) both feature famous writers as their protagonists.

Some more novellas: Approaching Omega (2005) is a sort of zombie cyborg generation ship story. Starship Summer (2007) and Starship Fall (2009) are set on the same world of Chalcedony and feature the same cast. There are, obviously, two more books to come in the series. Starship Winter is scheduled to appear from PS Publishing later this year.

The Fall of Tartarus (2005) is a another fix-up novel. Helix (2007) was Eric’s first novel for Solaris, and features a unique BDO. Engineman (2010) is a revised edition of the original novel, and also includes eight associated stories. I’ve yet to read Guardians of the Phoenix (2010) or The Kings of Eternity (2011), although Eric assures me the latter is the best thing he’s written.