Richard Harland Books In Order

Publication Order of Heaven and Earth Books

Publication Order of Worldshaker Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

Author Richard Harland was born on January 15, 1947 in Yorkshire. His father worked as an election agent, a public servant, and sold bananas; his mother worked as a teacher. They moved around England, but his mother finally settled in Hadleigh Suffolk after his dad died. He writes science fiction stories both for adults and young adults. Besides writing, he has worked as a performance artist, and an academic.

When he was young, there was a place called the chicken run, located behind his cousin’s house. There was all kinds of junk the two cousins would use to build submarines, castles, and airplanes (each were big enough to live in). After that, they would come up with different adventures that would last for many days and involved whatever they had built.

On a day that it would not stop raining, they wrote some adventures down, and a girl cousin (who had read them) said they weren’t too bad and they could probably sell them at the school. They were able to barter things for copies of the stories. It was here that he realized his passion for people wanting to read his work. At the time, he was only about twelve years old or so. He won a big United Kingdom competition in his childhood with a short story that he wrote. He hit a point to where he could hardly finish anything.

Richard has collected about twenty-five years worth of unfinished work that he still has. Some parts of these works have found their way into different things he has worked on since.

Richard dropped out of Sydney University thesis he was working on and he hit the pits. Then he started bumming around in Sydney and Blue Mountains; he worked part time jobs and a long term relationship broke up. The only thing that was going good for him during this time was writing music (which was sort of like folk rock mixture) and then performing them at venues located around in the city.

He got a book deal for “The Dark Edge” and a sequel. It meant that he would have to quit the lecturing and tutoring that he was doing at the university due to the fact that he would be unable to write a long novel in just a year with the little time he would have with his other job. It was a pretty easy choice for him and quit the gig working a tenured Senior Lecturship.

He started tutoring again, and began working on an article that would become a thesis. It would become the original language theory that he was working on many years before. It was here that he was finally able to finish it and it was finally published in two parts.

The first novel that he published was called “The Vicar of Morbing Vyle” which was released in the year 1993.

“The Black Crusade” won the Golden Aurealis Award for best novel and an Aurealis Award for Best Horror Novel. “Catabolic Magic” won an Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Short Story. All three awards he won in the year 2004. He would win the Aurealis for Best Fantasy Short Story again in the year 2005 for “The Greater Death of Saito Saku”. He won an award for Best Children’s Illustrated Work and Picture Book in the year 2008 from Aurealis for “The Wolf Kingdom” series.

“The Dark Edge” is the first novel in the “Eddon and Vail” series and was released in the year 1997. Inspector Eddon Brac (who works with the Hegemony Central Police) and Vail ev Vessintor (who assists Eddon and is a parapsych) get to P-19 (which is an Independent Planet) to work on a case of some very brutal killings.

They find there is a society that is getting chaotic. There is increasing darkness, awful nightmares, and huge storms of psychic energy. There are more and more murders by the day. The cause seems to be something a lot darker than just one serial killer.

Eddon is skilled enough as a detective to put the clues together, while Vail has the talent as a psychic to comprehend the supernatural. Tension seems to be pushing them apart. They could solve the case on P-19, assuming they could figure out how they feel about one another first.

“Taken by Force” is the second novel in the “Eddon and Vail” series and was released in the year 1998. Eddon, Beano, and Vail are heading back to the Centre from where they were on P-19. Crissom Powl pilots the spacecraft that is supposed to take them back. He is without emotions and has an obsession for logi-games. The craft is hijacked by Curs of Space (which are a band of marauders) and they take the ship to Abson’s Asteroid, where there home base is.

The part of the asteroid that is habitable is called the Kennel; it is sealed artificially and is a pressurized valley. All of the Curs are male and live a brutal life; there life is governed by raw power and aggression. The Max rules as Top Dog; he is vicious and loves adrenalin.

“Hidden from View” is the third novel in the “Eddon and Vail” series and was released in the year 1999. Eddon and Vail have made it back to the Centre. They are not with each other, however. Vail is on the High Sphere and talking about Anti-Human to the elite upper class, and Eddon has gone back to ordinary detective work.

Eddon is working in Urban Disposal Site Number One (or UDS) The UDS is subject to the most dangerous dumping of trash and is the sleaziest area the Metropolitan Zone has. All the people that live there are eccentrics that have dropped out. These people are well known to have odd obsessions and addictions.

He wants nothing more to do with Vail, and is seeing a woman romantically. She is a woman with violet eyes and her skin is apricot colored. Vail is not excluded so easy.

Murders start up and Eddon is leading the investigation. He does not really want to call on Vail for her assistance. The murders start getting more horrifying and harder to explain, and finds that he just wants any lead he can get. He gets more personal pressure, as his past starts haunting him. Vail has her own family troubles she is dealing with.