The Tomorrow People - The Devil's Teeth
Chinbeard Books/Oak Tree Publishing 2026
Something ancient is stirring in the village of Almsbury. Phantom mobs haunt the green. The old stone circle is bleeding time itself.
When John, Mike and Hsui Tai investigate, they're pulled into a centuries-old witch-hunt, where a girl named Charity is bound for the flames. To save her, Hsui Tai must gamble everything on the wrong side of history.
But against the all-consuming fire, their powers may not be enough... Notes: There's a thing I've done with both of my Tomorrow People novellas that may make you think I'm potty. To make sure they have the right structure and length, and to ensure that you could feasibly have seen these stories on TV on a kids' TV budget, I write the dialogue first... basically writing them as scripts and then novelising those "scripts". Now, obviously what the reader sees in their head is up to them. If they want to see it as a Hollywood blockbuster take on The Tomorrow People, that's cool and I'm happy wih that, but I know that everything there could have been done on a Thames TV budget in the 70s. What about the Himalayas in Children of the Evolution, you cry? Well, Basil Brush did that fairly effectively with polystyrene an old Doctor Who Yeti. This one? Well, Children of the Stones proved you could make folk horror on a kids telly budget and with a stone circle no less. A mix of location and studio and minimal special effects... minimal effects in both, really. So, yes, I tried to be as authentic as I could so that these feel like stories you might just about vaguely remember seeing as a kid back in the 70s. I chose to focus on Hsui Tai for the second book I did because I always thought there was more that could have been done with her character. So, I decided to put her front and centre and do a bit of character work with her. I pitched two stories, both centring on Hsui Tai. The Devil's Teeth was the more adventure-based of the two, whereas the other was character-based. I liked them both but I think the right choice was made.
When John, Mike and Hsui Tai investigate, they're pulled into a centuries-old witch-hunt, where a girl named Charity is bound for the flames. To save her, Hsui Tai must gamble everything on the wrong side of history.
But against the all-consuming fire, their powers may not be enough... Notes: There's a thing I've done with both of my Tomorrow People novellas that may make you think I'm potty. To make sure they have the right structure and length, and to ensure that you could feasibly have seen these stories on TV on a kids' TV budget, I write the dialogue first... basically writing them as scripts and then novelising those "scripts". Now, obviously what the reader sees in their head is up to them. If they want to see it as a Hollywood blockbuster take on The Tomorrow People, that's cool and I'm happy wih that, but I know that everything there could have been done on a Thames TV budget in the 70s. What about the Himalayas in Children of the Evolution, you cry? Well, Basil Brush did that fairly effectively with polystyrene an old Doctor Who Yeti. This one? Well, Children of the Stones proved you could make folk horror on a kids telly budget and with a stone circle no less. A mix of location and studio and minimal special effects... minimal effects in both, really. So, yes, I tried to be as authentic as I could so that these feel like stories you might just about vaguely remember seeing as a kid back in the 70s. I chose to focus on Hsui Tai for the second book I did because I always thought there was more that could have been done with her character. So, I decided to put her front and centre and do a bit of character work with her. I pitched two stories, both centring on Hsui Tai. The Devil's Teeth was the more adventure-based of the two, whereas the other was character-based. I liked them both but I think the right choice was made.
THE TOMORROW PEOPLE AND ME...
The Tomorrow People was one of my favourite shows as a kid. Watching them really made my imagination fly. Loved the show. So, I jumped at the chance when I was asked to write for Big Finish's audio series based on the series but BF had the licence pulled before we got into seriously scripting the story. I thought my chance of writing the Tomorrow People had gone... and then the opportunity to write my first Tomorrow People book, Children of the Evolution, came up, I jumped at it. I almost had Hsui Tai in that one, but there was no real point to her being there. So when I got the chance to do a second book, I made sure she was central to the two suggestions I put in. I like folk horror and the 1970s is full of that, so it felt right for stone circles, witches, covens and ghosts to be in The Tomorrow People.
