James Follett (27 July 1939 – 10 January 2021) was an English author and screenwriter. Follett became a full-time fiction writer in 1976, after resigning from contract work as a technical writer for the Ministry of Defence. He wrote over 20 novels, several television plays and many radio dramas.

He died in January 2021 at the age of 81.^[1]

Works

Novels

• The Doomsday Ultimatum (1976)
• Crown Court (1977)
• Ice (1978)
• U-700 (1979), based on his radio play The U-boat that lost its Nerve, in turn based on a true story during World War II.
• Churchill's Gold (1980)
• The Tiptoe Boys (1981) (filmed as Who Dares Wins)
• Earthsearch (1981, a novelization of Follett's radio drama Earthsearch)
• Deathship (1982, a novelization of Follett's radio drama Earthsearch II)
• Dominator (1984)
• Swift (1985). Set in 1996, it foresaw the proliferation of Mobile phones
• A Cage of Eagles (1989)
• Mirage (1988). A fictionalised account of the transfer of practically all documents and drawings of the Mirage III to the state of Israel during a temporary French arms embargo in the 1960s, through Sulzer Aircraft in Switzerland. These events led to the creation of the later IAI Kfir jet fighter in the 1970s.
• Torus (1990)
• Trojan (1991). Set mainly in 1999, Trojan, predicted high-definition television, hard-drive video recording and keyboard-free touchpad computers.
• Savant (1993)^[2][3]
• Mindwarp (1993, a prequel to Folllet's radio drama Earthsearch)
• Those in Peril (1995)
• Sabre (1997)
• Second Atlantis (1998, a revised version of Ice)
• Temple of the Winds (2000)
• Wicca (2000)
• The Silent Vulcan (2002 hardback) ISBN 0-7278-5712-6
• A Forest of Eagles (2004 hardback, a sequel to A Cage of Eagles)
• Return of the Eagles (2004 hardback, concluding the Eagles trilogy)
• Hellborn (2009) (eBook)

Radio

(AT indicates the play was heard on BBC Radio 4's Afternoon Theatre, a 60-minute slot; JBM that it was in Radio 4's Just Before Midnight 15-minute slot, and SNT: Radio 4's Saturday Night Theatre of 90 minutes.)

• Rules of Asylum (1973*, 90 minutes), Wiped by the BBC, but kept in the form of a domestic FM recording by Follett himself and subsequently rebroadcast on BBC 7 and since 2011 on BBC Radio 4 Extra in three half-hour instalments.
• The Light of A Thousand Suns (1974*, SNT), a cold war techno-thriller set in 1995
• The Doppelganger Machine (1974, AT)
• Speculator Sport (1974, AT)
• The U-Boat That Lost Its Nerve (1975, SNT), a WWII historical drama regarding an informal trial of a German U-boat officer in a POW camp.
• The War in Secret (1975, 3 episodes of 45 mins)
• The Last Riot (1975, AT)
• Jumbo (1976, SNT)
• No Time on Our Side (1976, 60 mins)
• The Rabid Summer (1976, SNT)
• The Twisted Image (1977*, AT)
• The Spanish Package (1977, SNT)
• The War Behind the Wire (1977, 4 episodes of 45 mins)
• A Touch of Slander (1977, AT)
• The Destruction Factor (1978*, SNT; a serial in 6 30-minute parts, ecological science fiction)
• Vendetta for a Judge (1979, SNT)
• The Bionic Blob (1979*, JBM)
• The Devil to Play (1979*, JBM)
• The Bionic Blob and The Case of the Stolen Wavelengths (1979, JBM)
• Softly Steal the Hours to Dawn (1979, JBM)
• The Man Who Invented Yesterday (1980, JBM)
• The Long Lonely Voyage of U-395 (1980, SNT)
• Oboe at the Embassy (1980, AT)
• Earthsearch (1981*, 10 episodes of 30 mins)
• Earthsearch II (1982*, 10 episodes of 30 mins)
• A Darkening of the Moon (1986, SNT)
• Ice (1986*, SNT), based on Follett's novel.
• Men, Martians and Machines (2003). A three-hour career retrospective for BBC 7 named after the science fiction collection by Eric Frank Russell which had fired Follett's imagination.
• Temple of the Winds (2009, 8 episodes of 20 mins)
• Wicca (2004, 8 episodes of 20 mins)
• Earthsearch Mindwarp (2006, 3 episodes of 45 mins)

An asterisk * after the year means the play has been repeated on BBC7 and/or BBC Radio 4 Extra.

Television

• Blake's 7 – "Dawn of the Gods" and "Stardrive"
• Knowhow (eighteen "Hyperspace Hotel" segments of BBC series)
• Crown Court (six episodes of Granada TV series)
• The Squad (two episodes for Thames TV series)

Other works

• Starglider – a science fiction novella accompanying the 1986 computer game of the same name.
• Starglider 2 – a science fiction novella accompanying the 1988 computer game of the same name, a sequel to Starglider.
• Tracker – a science fiction novella accompanying the 1988 computer game of the same name.
• Lost Eden – a science fiction novella accompanying the 1995 computer game of the same name.