Jake Houstoun

Jake Houstoun is a graduate of History and International Relations at Exeter University, an ex-iron miner in Australia, and is currently teaching English alongside writing his "Apocalypse," series in Japan.  

WRITER - Jake has been writing novels part-time for the last seven years, combining a gritty fantasy writing style with a grounded sci-fi universe, but has held off releasing the first book in his planned “Apocalypse” series until now. Jake is currently working on his next title in the series, a detective thriller novel set as a sidestory to the main Apocaylpse titles. You can find out the latest information about it on The Books page.  

HISTORY LOVER - Jake studied History and International Relations in Exeter University from 2016 to 2019. He specialised in Imperial military history in the former subject, and political economics in the latter. Nowadays most of Jake’s knowledge is invested in lectures in pub and, more importantly, on writing stories for his next books. While creating and enjoying fiction provides joy to many, Jake firmly believes that you will be hard pressed to find a “new” story that hasn’t already played itself it out in history a dozen times before.     

TRAVELLER - Jake has been an avid traveller for the past few years, indulging in perhaps too many adventures in that time including; touring historical sites and climbing a mountain in skis Europe, exploring temples and getting lost in plantain plantations in India, poorly attempting to help build a school in Africa, dodging rolling covid lockdowns and bush doofs in Australia, and contending with nation-wide strikes and muggings in the Americas. It’s all enough to fill a book…or maybe a inspire a few novels instead.   

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WORK AFICIONADO - Of course, Jake has needed money to fund all the frolicking of these last few years and Australia is arguably the best place to make a quick -although not necessarily easy- buck. Jake decided to try out a career in manual labour, like his grandfather working in the old shipyards in Belfast, and quickly realised he was not a fan of the scorching Australian heat. After working on cattle farms, naval yards and iron mines, Jake has now jumped over to Japan to teach English before returning for good to the UK where he promises to never complain about working in an air-conditioned office again.   

Yet another blog

I think it's almost compulsory for online upstarts  to have a blog, even if it's an obscure thing tucked away in the corners of an already dusty and barley viewed website. I'll put a few random stories, updates and posts here as they come to me. I might even make a question section (once I figure out how to do such a thing) if people really do want to know more about what I've been up to these past years. 

Welcome to india

That line of lights stretching into the sky had to be the Burj Khalifa. What other building could be so tall? It towered over that cluster of orange speckles, far in the distance, bleaching the night sky with its luminous yellow cloud. A face popped in front of the lights, blocking the view, deep concern etched into his features as he looked down the plane. A running man jostled my arm and I looked back down the aisle towards the scuffle I’d been unsuccessfully trying to ignore...