Tim Lees Books In Order

Publication Order of Field Ops Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

Tim Lees is an American based British author of best known for his supernatural thriller novel The God Hunter the first book in Field Ops series and his 2013 novel Frankenstein’s Prescription. He is a frequent contributor to Black Static, Interzone and other titles.

Frankenstein’s Prescription

Since Victor Frankenstein’s creation by the English author Mary Shelley, different authors have since then created spin-offs, and Tim Lees is undoubtedly one of them and not the last. This Frankenstein’s spin-off is a stormy gothic set in the turn of the 20th century, and the narrator is an ill-bred and self-indulgent medical student who’s suddenly cut off without a single penny after accidentally killing another man in a fight. As a punishment for his crime, he is forced to work as an assistant at a rural asylum headed by the strange Dr. Lavenza. The doctor turns out to be the great-grandson of the well-known scientist, Frankenstein and you’d have to think twice before offering him a helping hand.

As soon as he arrives, Hans is made to hold down a squirming patient while the doctor trepans her skull. He also encounters some unsavory inmates, and one of them is Carl, a golem-like, a man who serves as Dr. Lavenza’s odd-job man. The doctor himself is not much company; he is always preoccupied and divides his time between conducting experiments in secrecy and drinking himself to death. What a nightmarish situation! It gets even worse when the butchered pieces of a countrywoman are found littered outside the asylum.

No question who did it, it’s clear that the monster whom since his creation by Frankenstein has been killing Frankenstein’s descendants and anyone who knows them with malicious exhilaration. And now the monster has tracked down Lavenza and wants something from the scientist: a woman he can mate with. But the problem is, Dr. Lavenza is not up to the job, and his only success relies on reconstructing the mate using the resources of earlier Frankensteins.

At this point, Lavenza, his golem-like assistant Carl and Hans embark on a shambolic journey that takes them to France, Italy, and Belgium before climaxing upon return to the laboratory where everything all began. The Frankenstein’s Prescription is a story with plenty of Germanic doom and gloom, and fortunately, light relief is provided by Hans, the coward glamour boy who lives hoping that all this weird science might one day bring him fortune and fame. He is always good for a satirical joke, and his narration moves along at top speed between the rhythmic chapters overflowing with dark atmospherics.

The Frankenstein monster is, in most cases, book offstage, and this works pretty well and allows him to look more over the other characters in the novel. When the monster does make an appearance, he brings a “shockwave” that sends everything spiraling. Tim Lees story sticks closely to Mary Shelley, making it a chilling thriller. Doctor Lavenza emerges less detailed, but that’s expected of a character who’s been overly overshadowed by his forebears.

The God Hunter

Every author always has a source of inspiration that leads them to come up with unique titles and ideas for their work of writing, and so does Tim Lees. Years back, the first time he visited Chicago, he spotted a Ghost Hunters book in his wife’s bookcase, and this sparked the idea of writing a novel titled God Hunter. He blended the title with an idea from an earlier short story he’d read.

The first book in Field Ops series, The God Hunter is a psychological thriller with a strong fascinating element. There is a simple conceit at its core that you could easily mine the psychic energy from religious sites and churches and convert it to usable electricity. But of course, it turns out to be more complex than that, and plenty of things go wrong, and that’s where all the fun begins. On a different level, this is a story that shows how the past can invade the present and torment us and how unfinished business can resurface when least expected.

The God Hunter is a fascinating story and its believable, likable and down to earth cast showcases pleasantly imperfect humans who must face situations of this and beyond this world. It’s a story about a company that takes captive gods and uses their energy as a commodity. However, when something goes wrong as expected, the consequences are pretty bad. The main character, Chris Copeland, is tasked with cleaning up the mess, but unfortunately, there may be no way to clean the mess of what happens next. The main character, Chris job description, is neatly highlighted in the novel title; he’s a god hunter. He crosses paths with the chain swearing, chain-smoking Hungarian investigator who does find her way into the readers’ memories. Working together, they provide a wonderful interplay and form an unusual human team fighting against inhuman entities, and their brevity makes us gulp down large concentrated chunks of spookiness.

The first in Field Ops series can be compared to the all-time movie the Ghostbusters but with only a few exceptions. While the film mainly deals with capturing and containing ghosts, this book deals with capturing and transmuting gods. But you can see the similarities. It’s a wonderful idea since everyone wants to develop a new and clean renewable energy for the world. What if it was possible to mine from people emotions or mine from other planes of existence? Would such an idea be possible? What would be the price to pay if the idea was viable? These are a few of the many questions Tim Lees answers in his Field Ops debut novel, The god Hunter. Chris is a fascinating main character. Like any other business venture that can create enormous profits or be controlled by the government, the gods’ energy business has attracted cutthroat and unsavory characters. However, the stakes, in this case, are higher than simple power or wealth, and a silly miscalculation could mean the end of the world.