Meet Captain Isambard Smith From A Game of Battleships by Toby Frost
A Game of Battleships
320 pages
Publisher: Myrmidon Books Ltd (12 Aug 2013)
ISBN-10: 1905802773
ISBN-13: 978-1905802777
Attention! Isambard Smith and his loyal and noble friend, the psychopathic alien headhunter Suruk, are back in a fourth laugh-out-loud installment.
In the 25th Century the future of the galaxy rests on a knife-edge. The actions of one man could save the British Space Empire, or leave Earth at the mercy of deadly legions of ant-people. That one man is Captain Isambard Smith, and Earth is in a lot of trouble. After blowing up a top-secret enemy base, Space Captain Smith and his crew deserve a rest. But their holiday ends when forces unknown destroy the robot convoy they were meant to be guarding. Smith finds himself in hot pursuit of a mysterious vessel that can pass through dimensions, incurring the wrath of the dreaded Grand Witchfinder of New Eden--which would be much easier to deal with if his pilot wasn't cowering under the dashboard and his spaceship wasn't infested with man-eating toads. Meanwhile, the Empire is gathering its allies to form a united front against alien tyranny. Unfortunately, the delicate negotiations have been entrusted to Major Wainscott, a man who knows no fear and very little about diplomacy or trousers. Once again, Captain Smith must summon all his courage to unite humanity behind the Empire. His quest will take him on a journey to face his greatest fears: from the depths of space, through Hell itself--and even to France.
MEET CAPTAIN ISAMBARD SMITH:
Isambard Douglas Winston Smith is the bold captain of HMS John Pym, and a brave champion of the British Space Empire. A man to whom daring and adventure are first nature and tact is probably somewhere about fifth, Smith fervently believes that every living being in the galaxy should be free to enjoy the benefits of British rule, whether they like it or not. He is a man able to handle almost anything, except talking to girls and being pleasant to the French. Everybody has their limits, after all.
Smith was educated at Midwich Grammar School, where he demonstrated an early enthusiasm for intergalactic travel by staring into space a lot. By some twist of fate he ended up in the Captain’s Academy, New Greenwich, where he was entered into a special two-year training programme, from which he graduated with a moustache. On a field trip, he managed not to get killed by enraged aliens and befriended the M’Lak warlord Suruk the Slayer, who felt that Smith was more entertaining with his head still on his shoulders. Following that, Smith joined the Valdane Shipping and Interplanetary Haulage Company, where his eagerness to get into space was kindled by having to sit at a computer and count asteroids all day.
Had not the threat of alien invasion arisen from the ant-men of the Ghast Empire, Smith would probably still be entering data about moon-rock. Out of desperation and a lack of anyone better, his superiors gave him command of the John Pym and its semi-loyal crew of one. Since then, Smith has gone from one close scrape to another, some of which were even the fault of other people. He even persuaded a girl to go out with him.
Smith divides his time between having adventures, drinking tea and “giving Johnny space-ant a damned good thrashing”. He keeps up to date with the cutting edge in spacecraft construction by building a lot of Airfix kits. Smith is a keen follower of music, particularly enjoying the shorter songs of Pink Zeppelin, although he considers Iron Sabbath “a bit much”. Other hobbies involve sleeping, polishing his six-shot Civiliser pistol and surreptitiously looking at the ladies in the Laura Ashley catalogue.
About the Author
By day a mild-mannered representative of the UK legal system, by night a hard living, hard drinkin', whoring and gambling stereotype of a driven artist, Toby Frost is everything a writer should be: thoughtful, articulate and incapable of retaining technical information for more than 5 seconds.
What's more he is that rare thing, a writer who actually got round to writing something. Sadly, nobody wanted to publish it, so he wrote something else.
The "something else" then sat in a kitchen cupboard in Newcastle upon Tyne for three months before being plucked from obscurity by Myrmidon Books, a fine and upstanding publisher if ever there was one. Thus was Space Captain Smith born.
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