The Ghost Camera

The end of a dream and the start of a dilemma

In 1973 I read a book called News from Nowhere which was published in 1890. It was written by a posh British socialist called William Morris, and it depicted a socialist utopian future and a post industrial, agrarian environment where everyone was equal and no one used money.

It appealed to my idealistic 17 year old soul, it was also set in the geographical area I grew up in. West Oxfordshire and the flatlands of the Thames valley.

The illustration below is of Kelmscott Manor, part of the story Morris wrote was set there, and he had lived there as he wrote the book.

The house is still there, it is regularly open to the public and it hasn’t changed since William Morris and his family lived there in the 1890’s. Proper old it is.

In 2012, partly inspired by re-reading News from Nowhere and partly driven to try and coun ter the endless deluge of post apocalyptic garbage movies, TV shows and books that had mainly come from the USA, I wanted to imagine a positive vision of the future. Not a perfect Utopia, a flawed but better world than we live in now.

William Morris wrote his book in 1890 and set the story in 1980, which, as we know, was not exactly a year of post industrial egalitarianism. I wrote News from Gardenia in 2011 and set it 200 years into the future, in what was the UK, but is now known as Gardenia, in the year 2211.

The book was published in a slightly unusual way. I had published numerous books before 2011 through traditional publishers, such as Penguin, Hodder and Stoughton and Octopus books.

Alongside moving from working in the old TV industry to producing a video series distributed on YouTube, I wanted to try something different with books. I never pitched the idea to anyone, I just wrote it, and launched it with a new publishing company called Unbound.

The simple description of the idea was a Kickstarter for books, and it worked. News from Gardenia was the 4th book the company published and we printed it, sent it off to everyone who had supported it and it was a delightful, niche success. I’m going to blow my own trumpet quietly by including some reviews of the book from readers.

• “Robert Llewellyn's book is so refreshing to read. Finally a science-fiction story which is not marked by terminators, armageddon or the like.”

• “Great ideas, an interesting view of how the world might be. The world slowly reveals itself as the story progresses.”

• “excellent Sci-Fi! Mr Llewellyn is a box of surprises!”

• “Optimism it seems is difficult to come by when talking about futurism and how the world might be. News from Gardenia accomplishes this while simultaneously keeps me entertained the entire time.”

Okay, that’s enough! Sorry about that, but you know, you toil away in the dark and occasionally you get feedback like that and it makes the ridiculous act of writing books almost worthwhile.

Anyway, I eventually published a trilogy, extending the original story with News from the Squares and finally News from the Clouds. All launched in the same with through Unbound, who had grown from a small start up into a very successful publishing company.

Sales of the follow up books were, let’s say modest, respectable, I occasionally meet people who have read and enjoyed them but nothing quite matched the impact that News from Gardenia had.

Indeed all three books didn’t come anywhere near the sales of my 4th book published by Unbound. The updated version of the 1992 classic The Man in the Rubber Mask. A light hearted memoir of being covered in rubber and plastic to play the amiable mechanoid Kryten in the long running sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf. The original book published by Penguin in 1992 recounted the tale of being cast in Red Dwarf in 1988 up until I worked on the American pilot in 1992. From poverty stricken broken down ex comic performer to Hollywood titan. Sort of.

The last book I published with Unbound was titled ‘Some Old Bloke.’ This was a potted memoir of the absurdities of life as a parent and husband in the early 21st century. I’d describe it as charming and mostly harmless.

Since then I have sworn off writing books. It’s a mugs game, I have better things to do. Until 2020 when, trapped at home like everyone else, a silly idea occurred to me, the sort of daft notion I have from time to time and then generally forget.

Except this one stuck to me like chewing gum on the sole of your trainers. It was relentless, I could not scrap this idea off. So I started to write it, I pitched it on the Unbound site and dammit, the thing reached 110% of it’s target in a couple of weeks.

It’s called The Ghost Camera and I think it’s rather good. It was due to hit the shelves in October this year, I actually finished writing and editing it in 2023, so it’s been a slow process.

But, as some readers may know, Unbound came to a painful and grinding halt a few months ago, owing some authors a great deal of money (I’m owed about £200 so it’s not too painful for me). Equally importantly the collapse of the company resulted in letting down a large number of supporters of various books that Unbound had coming up. Including mine.

So, I am now in the process of trying to dig out the list of supporters for The Ghost Camera, I will get the book printed at my own expense and will happily send anyone who coughed up for the book a pristine, signed copy.

If you are one of the Unbound supporters of this book, please leave a comment below, and if you know anyone who may have supported it, please send them a link to this update.

And I also have another book in the works now. Another idea that would not let me forget. It’s a techno thriller murder mystery called Time&Money.

It’s on Substack, I am releasing a chapter a week, I’m up to chapter 16 which went out 17 minutes ago as I type this.

Time&Money

UPDATE!!!

I have just received the definitive list of everyone who pledged and supported the book on Unbound. I am now busy working on an amicable solution.

More news soon.