Barry J. Hutchison Books In Order

Publication Order of Dan Deadman Space Detective Books

Publication Order of Space Team Books

Publication Order of Sidekicks Initiative Books

Publication Order of The Bug Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Anthologies

Barry J. Hutchison
Barry J. Hutchison is an award-winning author, writer of comics, and screenwriter.

Having written more than seventy books for teens and kids, he moved to writing for adults, with his first for adults being “Space Team”, which is the first of a comedy science fiction adventure space opera series. Barry later expanded the series to include the “Dan Deadman Space Detective” series.

For as long as Barry is able to remember, he’s wanted to be a writer. He was around nine years old when he learned that ‘author’ was a real job people could do. Pretty much every day that’s past since then he has dreamed about seeing his work in print.

Back in the year 2010, this dream came true when HarperCollins Children’s Books published his Invisible Friends horror series that was about a boy whose childhood imaginary friend returns when he’s a teen and attempts to kill him. It won prizes, sold to some foreign countries, and marked the beginning of his professional writing career.

He’s now been published by Nosy Crow, Egmont, Penguin Random House, Stripes, and Little, Brown. Barry has written over thirty episodes of children’s comedy for CITV, and he contributes regularly to comics like The Beano.

Barry feels lucky enough to get invited to speak at festivals and schools all around the UK and beyond, sharing his love of writing and reading with adults and kids alike.

When he’s not busy making things up and writing it down, he is annoying his wife, playing with his kids, walking his dog, or staring longingly at his Xbox One in hopes that he’ll one day have enough time to play it.

“Space Team” is the first novel in the “Space Team” series and was released in the year 2016. The galaxy called for help. Unfortunately, the wrong guy answered. When a small time conman, named Cal Carver, gets thrown into jail and forced to share a cell with one semi-naked cannibalistic serial murderer, he is almost certain that his day just cannot get any worse. But boy, is he wrong about that.

It isn’t until two-thirds of mankind gets wiped out and Cal gets mistakenly abducted by aliens that things really begin going downhill. Whisked across the galaxy, he is forced into a group of some of the most notorious scumbags and villains in the entire sector and is tasked with dropping off some package to a warlord-run solar system where even the authorities don’t dare to venture.

The mission should just be simple enough, however while one screwup leads to another this ragtag bunch of unwitting heroes find themselves in a frantic fight to save a whole alien civilization, and its god, from complete and total annihilation.

“Dial D for Deadman” is the first novel in the “Dan Deadman Space Detective” series and was released in the year 2017. Private Detective Dan Deadman specializes in cases bizarre and unusual, in this alien city ravaged by ruthless criminals and corrupt cops. Sure, he doesn’t smell too great, and he’s technically been dead for a minute at this point, however if you have a rampaging Hell-beast that’s ripping your street up, or a portal to some other dimension showing up in your bathroom, he’s your man.

After saving Ollie (a mysterious young woman), from something unpleasant, big, and slimy, he gets caught up in a series of grisly murders, a missing child case, and one severed woman’s arm that just isn’t leaving him alone. And then there is the demonic entity that will stop at nothing to get Ollie wrapped in its tentacles, even if they have to destroy the entire damn planet. Times like these, Dan would give up his right nut to be a real detective. That is, if he still had nuts.

Readers found this to be a superbly executed hybrid: part paranormal mystery, part comedy, and part noir detective novel. There’s all the seedy grimness of the classic noir detective stories, down to the narration, however with a science fiction twist on it and plenty of well placed dark humor.

“Dead Inside” is the second novel in the “Dan Deadman Space Detective” series and was released in the year 2017. Dan is just having one of those days. After saving the gritty and grim alien city of Down Here from something mean, huge, and mind-bendingly horrible, Dan’s looking forward to just unwinding in the closest available bar. The universe, annoyingly, has got other ideas.

Instead, he finds himself investigating two terrible murders, a cheating husband, and the possible enslavement of everybody in the whole galaxy. With his caseload stretching his woefully limited detective skills, his car lying in pieces, and the whole “being dead” thing just not doing him a whole lot of favors, he doesn’t have any choice but to ask his friends for some help. And here’s where his problems really begin.

Featuring things such as: predatory worms, an entire classroom filled with defecating infants, and motivational gangsters.

Fans of the novel found themselves laughing out loud while reading this one. Dan’s dialogue with the feisty dwarf/elf are particularly gut busting hilarious. Dan’s character makes a perfect foil for Artur’s bald language.

“Dead in the Water” is the third novel in the “Dan Deadman Space Detective” series and was released in the year 2018. Dan Deadman’s afterlife has hit an all time low. When a suspect explodes in the middle of an interrogation and his office gets taken over by some intergalactic despot, Dan reckons that he has finally hit rock bottom.

Banished to some dangerous underground hostel network, Dan gets embroiled in an investigation of mass-murder that’s going to take him from the bowels of Down Here and to the ocean’s depths. While the clues begin to run out and the case collapses all around him, he finds a sinister plot which could wipe out two whole civilizations, and plunge the planet of Parloo right into a neverending bloody war.

Featuring killer toilets, sea monsters, and one anatomically correct children’s cartoon mascot that’s going to haunt your nightmares for good.