Although uncredited, Swallow is the only British writer to have worked on a Star Trek television series, having created the original stories for "One" and "Memorial", two episodes of the series Star Trek: Voyager.[8]
His novel Day of the Vipers won the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers Scribe Award for Best Original Speculative Fiction in 2009;[9] Day Zero won the Best General & Adapted Novel category in 2022;[10] and Dragonfire won the Best General Novel category in 2023.[11] He was also nominated for Faith & Fire in 2007,[12] Deadline in 2015[13] and Fear Itself in 2019.
Nominated in 2017 for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize for his novel Nomad,[14] and in 2021 for his novel Rogue.[15]
Nominated for the 2018 Dragon Award for Best Media Tie-In Novel for Fear Itself.[16]
Nominated with Mary DeMarle and Jean-François Dugas in 2012 for the BAFTA Video Games Awards Story category, for their work on Deus Ex: Human Revolution.[17]
Co-winner of the 2012 Canadian Videogames Award for Best Writing for Deus Ex: Human Revolution.[18]
Co-winner of the 2016 Canadian Videogames Award for Best Narrative for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.[19]
His novels The Poisoned Chalice,[20] Fear To Tread [21] and Nemesis [22] were New York Times Bestsellers in 2013, 2012 and 2010. His novel Nomad was a Sunday Times and Irish Times bestseller in 2016;[23] the follow-up novel Exile was a Sunday Times bestseller in 2017.
At the Pegasus 2 convention held in the UK in 2007, James Swallow auctioned off the chance to have a "walk on role" in the Stargate SG-1 novel Relativity. The money was given to charity. He has previously done this with the books Underworld and Whiteout, and the Doctor Who audio drama Destiny of the Doctor: Shockwave.
