The Last Circus on Earth

It’s 2070, Europe swelters in the still warming climate, and the post-Collapse world is staggering toward another, perhaps final, destruction. 

In a world where anyone 'different' is killed or worse, Blanco, a young performer, is a reluctant member of the Magnifico Cirque de Curiosities.  Trapped in this heavily-armed band of circus 'freaks' and criminal thugs, he's forced to survive by conning and killing, robbing and running – and putting on a show. 

Then Blanco discovers that neither he nor his colleagues, land-pirates masquerading as a sideshow, are what they seem.  They're en route to a global competition, not with other circuses but with other scientists, and Blanco is an unwilling entry.

Worse, something is growing inside him, something that is changing and killing him.  From the ruins of London, across Europe and Central Asia, the body-count is high and everyone's out to get him, but Blanco's only chance of survival - and perhaps that of the human race - lies in the remote Tien Shan mountains, deep in the deserts of Central Asia. 

He'd just as soon top himself...but he's in love and he has a puppy to save.

Fantastica Prize winner, Last Circus is a page-turning spec-fic thriller and wild ride through the near future.

Cover artist: Roy Chen

Order now: 

http://briobooks.com.au/booklist/lastcircus

https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-last-circus-on-earth-b-p-marshall/book/9781925589986.html

https://www.amazon.com.au/Last-Circus-Earth-B-P-Marshall/dp/1925589986
Works in progress






The Pacific War Trilogy
The Fox

It’s 1939, and the Pacific War looms.  On a remote island off Hokkaido, disabled Naoki and his family tend a lighthouse under the bitter rule of his war veteran father. 

When Naoki rescues a half-drowned soldier handcuffed to a corpse, he’s obliged to hide the mysterious enemy from his ultra-nationalist father’s lethal anger.  But the man is a liar, and Naoki learns he’s neither a soldier, a spy, or even an enemy.   The truth, however, forces Naoki to choose his own path, one that sets father against son, and, ultimately, risks them all.

Shortlisted 2017 Queensland Literary Award for Best Emerging Queensland Writer - Manuscript Award


The Sparrow

It’s 1942, in Portuguese Timor, and the Sparrow Force, Australia’s first commandos, are operating behind Japanese lines, exhausted and outnumbered. 

Malarial and half-starved, young hayseed Sparrow Eddie stumbles, and his patrol are ambushed and shot.  Barely alive, Eddie’s found by a Timorese criado, Pedro, who vows to get him across the mountains to the last evacuation ship. 

When a captured Japanese soldier promises vital information for the Aussie Command, Eddie sees a way to redeem himself for the failed patrol.  Bound in a hellish race against time, the trio form an unlikely, but unbreakable bond.

Shortlisted 2020 QWC Publishable MS Development Program.  Final 10 mentorship winner.  2020 Booklinks Queensland Mentorship Winner.
The Viper

December 7, 1941, Hawaii.  After Pearl Harbour is bombed, Haruko is stunned when her Japanese-American parents are taken by FBI, leaving her homeless and reviled.   Living on her wits, Haruko hears Japanese-Americans condemned as ‘vipers’. 

She turns on her nation, and is caught.  As part of a prisoner exchange for US POWs, Haruko is sent to a nation she’s never seen, and where she’ll be regarded as an enemy.  

On the long journey to Japan, Haruko survives on her wits.  Torn between cultures, she finds her identity and strength in her courage and sacrifice for others.  Bitterness is replaced with love, as she shakes off the past to make her own future.






The Children's Guide to Death

An alcoholic and suicidal writer takes on a diverse creative writing class, unaware his students are choosing death as their theme for very good reasons. 

During the course of the classes, and the telling of their stories, the writer finds personal redemption, and a reason to go on living. 

It’s only after a publisher agrees to publish the book that he finds out why all of his writers chose the theme.

Craig Munro
Editor & Publisher
“This wickedly original and playful novel is packed full of publishing potential. Its imaginative universe contains a galaxy of ghost stories, fables, fantasies and nightmares - all generated by a random group of genre-blending creative writing students in a town on the deserted edge of civilisation. Their weirdly assorted yet compelling tales tantalise, confuse and ultimately define the hapless, unqualified writing coach who is forced to hear them.”





The Pyrate's Son
Just after renouncing all violence, teenage Red is voted in as Captain of his murdered father’s pirate ship. 

Red is obliged to capture the murderer, assuage his bloodthirsty and money-hungry crew, discover why he’s become the Caribbean’s ‘most-wanted’, evade the English navy en route to London – and ensure no one gets hurt.  Robin Hood of the Caribbean, if you will.

Despite the help of his crew, Red uses the scientific method, and the sort of bravery that comes when there’s no other options, to defeat his nemesis and win the King’s Pardon.

Jackie French
Author
“An excellent and adventurous yarn, historically accurate and enormously appealing.”





Strange Water
A young Chinese-Australian girl’s odd-couple friendship with the school bully, and a misdirected parcel, sweeps them both into a dangerous alliance with Baba Yaga, an ancient Russian witch, an entire planet of confusing aliens, and the accidental creator of the universe and all life on Earth.  

Their goals are simple, however:
1. survive
2. discover the mystery of the Strange Water, and
3. save the galaxy.




Curly Bill's Guide to
Sailing Across Australia
Curly Bill, a rough, tough bushman becomes the world’s least capable foster-father to his three young nephews, who are plucked from safe suburbia and thrust into life in the bush – and into immediate and lethal danger. 

An outback flood obliges them to board Curly Bill’s boat for refuge, and, with his Polynesian offsider and dingo dog Jess, they’re swept into Central Australia by the floodwaters. 

Their trials worsen with reptile encounters, armed and aggrieved animal smugglers, inconvenient toilet breaks, becoming wanted criminals, a run-in with a rogue Parks Ranger, and, worst of all, unexpected romance for Bill.

All is resolved in Darwin, where teamwork ensures miscreants are manhandled, animals are rescued, justice is served, love is declared, and the boys find themselves safe and cared for in Australia’s most dangerous family.