Dunstable author's delight as dystopian novel is published

A Dunstable man is celebrating the publication of his first book, at the age of 62.

Ian Pulham's dystopian novel, ‘Ticket To Eden’, was published last Thursday, almost three years after he first had the idea.

He had started the story while still working in the transport industry, but after retiring, and then being in lockdown, he finished and honed the novel, before sending it to a publisher.

"I had had this idea in my head for about two to three months and started writing it in August 2019," he said. "I then finished it in lockdown."

Before the pandemic he had considered dropping one strand of the novel, where a Government tries to keep people indoors, thinking it was too far fetched!

With encouragement from friends and family Ian got his novel to the copy editor stage, before finding a publisher, Diana Diggins, who worked at Dunstable College before setting up her own publishing company.

The book encompasses the impact of humans on the environment and the eco system.

In its blurb it states: "The thought of an imminent apocalypse didn’t occur to anyone, anywhere. There was no alarm when our great world leaders jumped at the chance to exploit creatures of the deep, strange beings that appeared to express a desire to clean up our mess from the world’s oceans. These creatures seemed to want to work with us, but we wanted more, and we wanted it quickly. There was anger in certain quarters, but no alarm. To those in charge of us it was an opportunity.

"Jack Lee had seen these creatures in action before, and he had been trying to put his horrific memories of them to the back of his mind for over twenty years. Sarah listened to his warnings, but no one else would after all those years. That activity was buried in the basements of high office.

"And when events quickly escalated, solutions were always possible weren’t they. We could fix anything if we put our minds to it. We’d done it before.

"This runaway train wasn’t for stopping though. In time the race to save what could be saved of humanity was on, and woe betide anyone who didn’t have a pass to leave behind the disaster that had once been our beautiful home."

Ian, who now plans to spend the rest of the year promoting his novel, describes becoming a published author as "brilliant".

"It's been life changing, fantastic," he said. "It's one of the best things I've ever done but I don't think it's sunk in yet."

And his advice to would be authors is to stick with it.

"Get your ideas, run it by a few people and go with it," he said.

'Ticket to Eden' is now available via Amazon.