updated – 11th May 2012

Flash Fiction Day – book reading

Richard will be reading from Kosmonaut Zero at the Leeds National Flash Fiction Day event on May 16th from 7-9pm, appearing along with a number of other writers.

The event takes place at The Stables Pub, Weetwood Hall, Otley Road, Headingley, Leeds. More details here.

Kosmonaut Zero – new formats

In the coming months, Kosmonaut Zero will be released as an enhanced version for iBookstore and in paperback format, all through Dead Ink. The iBooks edition will feature an exclusive essay, research materials, a photo gallery from the Star City visit and a soundtrack of new compositions by Richard that are inspired by the novel. More news on these releases will be announced here in due course.

Kosmonaut Zero – review

‘Excellent science fiction. I couldn’t put my laptop down for a second’ – Kosmonaut Zero receives a detailed review from writer & blogger Laura Rosten here.

The novel is available now for the Kindle (and on Kindle apps for mobile, tablet and computer). Buy here.

For details of how to get the Kindle app on your device, see here.

Kosmonaut Zero – synopsis

“Conditions growing worse.. why don’t you answer?

…. The world will never know about me.”

Actual radio transmission from a ‘lost’ female cosmonaut (c.1965)

Marina Mernova: older sister to little Leon, Moscow resident – and KGB officer. She is given a simple mission: to find a missing scientist of high value to the Soviet space programme.

She navigates a retro-future – 1960s Russia is a land of rockets and shortages, a Cold War utopia with a paranoid underbelly – and her search uncovers visionary technologies that shatter the limits of humanity and longevity.

Marina is sacrificed and reborn as Kosmonaut Zero – a body sculpted from flesh and metal, controlled by drugs and a primitive computer interface.

What remains of Marina once she is turned into something designed to exist not on Earth, but in deep space?

Kosmonaut Zero – extracts online

You can now read exclusive extracts of the new novel at the Dead Ink site.