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Airedale
A near-future science fiction thriller.
Police Analyst Haz Edmundson arrives at a crime scene in the abandoned warehouses of megacity now covering West Yorkshire. Riots are rolling across the city and the police engage in street warfare against protestors. Haz discovers the dead body of an activist who has crashed through the factory roof and cocooned in a wingsuit used in a daredevil sport, her head shattered by a mysterious mid-air impact.
The case is immediately swept aside and labelled an 'accidental death.' However, Haz knows there's more to the case than the higher-ups are letting on, someone is working hard to bury a murder, and the more Haz investigates the more dangerous the trail becomes.
Set in a near-future Britain where technology has disguised the landscape with utopian megacities. A population under heavy surveillance, memories sold back to them for entertainment, and robotic drones pervading both life and liberty.
Welcome to Airedale.
Police Analyst Haz Edmundson arrives at a crime scene in the abandoned warehouses of megacity now covering West Yorkshire. Riots are rolling across the city and the police engage in street warfare against protestors. Haz discovers the dead body of an activist who has crashed through the factory roof and cocooned in a wingsuit used in a daredevil sport, her head shattered by a mysterious mid-air impact.
The case is immediately swept aside and labelled an 'accidental death.' However, Haz knows there's more to the case than the higher-ups are letting on, someone is working hard to bury a murder, and the more Haz investigates the more dangerous the trail becomes.
Set in a near-future Britain where technology has disguised the landscape with utopian megacities. A population under heavy surveillance, memories sold back to them for entertainment, and robotic drones pervading both life and liberty.
Welcome to Airedale.
338 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 10, 2021
1 person is currently reading
17 people want to read
About the author
Dylan Byford
6 books8 followersDylan Byford is writer of science fiction and cyberpunk from the north of England. He is the author of Airedale, a northern-set near-future thriller, as well as the epic SF series The Lost Archive, set in a crumbling and colonised solar system, where all of humanity’s accumulated knowledge has been destroyed.
As well as producing books, Dylan blogs about the writing process, politics, systems and emergentism on his blog site www.dylanbyford.com.
Sign up for his emails (http://eepurl.com/cFKNVX) and get a free and exclusive map of the Lost Archive universe and irregular nuggets of mythic history, ‘deleted scenes’ and vignettes of exotic settings.
Communicate with Dylan at his Facebook page here: www.facebook.com/dylanbyfordwriter/
And follow him on Twitter here: twitter.com/dylan_byford
As well as producing books, Dylan blogs about the writing process, politics, systems and emergentism on his blog site www.dylanbyford.com.
Sign up for his emails (http://eepurl.com/cFKNVX) and get a free and exclusive map of the Lost Archive universe and irregular nuggets of mythic history, ‘deleted scenes’ and vignettes of exotic settings.
Communicate with Dylan at his Facebook page here: www.facebook.com/dylanbyfordwriter/
And follow him on Twitter here: twitter.com/dylan_byford
Ratings & Reviews
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 19, 2024
This gets off to a slow start and takes some getting used to all the technical terms but is worth sticking with as at its heart it’s an interesting story with lots of twists and turns. 4* from me
January 16, 2022
Police analyst Haz Edmundson arrives at a crime scene in an abandoned warehouse in a megacity that sprawls across West Yorkshire. The body he finds is that of an activist in a wingsuit, who has fallen through the warehouse roof. Her death is treated as an accident, but Haz isn't so sure and aims to find out exactly what happened. His struggles to find the truth are beset with obstacles, not least his own difficult family life.
The action is set in a future England that is covered in megacities that are prone to flooding and riots, and where everyone is under heavy surveillance by the authorities. Much of this surveillance is enabled by most people being constantly plugged into their own portable computers, which at first sight might seem too extreme but which on consideration is a very believable extrapolation of how things currently are.
The world building in this novel is excellent, I was grimly fascinated by this detailed and all too believable vision of a dystopian future for the north of England.
Airedale by Dylan Byford published (2021) by Northodox Press.
Northodox Press is a small press based in the north of England and dedicated to publishing crime and thrillers written by northern writers, seeking "diverse narratives with strong regional accents, a firm identity of place, and bold northern characters".
Disclaimer: I won this book in a Twitter competition.
The action is set in a future England that is covered in megacities that are prone to flooding and riots, and where everyone is under heavy surveillance by the authorities. Much of this surveillance is enabled by most people being constantly plugged into their own portable computers, which at first sight might seem too extreme but which on consideration is a very believable extrapolation of how things currently are.
The world building in this novel is excellent, I was grimly fascinated by this detailed and all too believable vision of a dystopian future for the north of England.
Airedale by Dylan Byford published (2021) by Northodox Press.
Northodox Press is a small press based in the north of England and dedicated to publishing crime and thrillers written by northern writers, seeking "diverse narratives with strong regional accents, a firm identity of place, and bold northern characters".
Disclaimer: I won this book in a Twitter competition.
May 29, 2021
Near-future sci-fi with a dash of horror and murder-mystery vibes, "Airedale" is a compelling read. I was surprised by how believable the plot is - and a little worried! I enjoyed Dylan Byford's way of telling a story, and the blunt edge he gives to his characters makes them more intriguing. Airedale itself is a place I'd like to visit... but only on paper!
My thanks to the publisher. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.
My thanks to the publisher. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.
December 15, 2025
Well, I stuck with it to the end, and wish I hadn’t. So poorly written, grammatical errors all over the place making it very jarring. The story is extremely disjointed. I’m not sure where the twists and turns are that other reviewers have noted, but I didn’t find them. To be honest, I’m not even sure of the point of the story. It’s much ado about nothing. Disappointing read.
July 4, 2021
Really enjoyed this. Near future sci-fi/ crime.
Characters and scenery are well drawn and it’s one of those books that just flows nicely.
Characters and scenery are well drawn and it’s one of those books that just flows nicely.
May 8, 2023
If you're looking for a gripping page-turner, this is the book for you. The author has a real talent for building suspense.
July 11, 2021
Loved this book. It's unlike anything else I've read before. The best way I can describe it is if William Gibson wore a flat cap, wrote in a Yorkshire accent and had his tongue placed firmly in his cheek while writing a fast paced, cyberpunk epic.
Haz is a bit of a beta male loser trying to find his mojo and bring up his kids in the aftermath of his wife's suicide.
Looking for a purpose and something to occupy his mind, he becomes obsessed with a dead body found on a case in his day job of analysing crime scene data. The higher ups decide a young woman was killed by accident but Haz is sure it was a murder being covered up.
Set to the back drop of a fantastical near future dystopian Yorkshire, this book zips between Haz breaking the case against the wishes of those in the know, and him trying desperately to keep his family together as work threatens to pull it apart as his priorities become skewed.
A real oddity but something unique, engaging and a really great balancing act between fun and darkness.
5*
Haz is a bit of a beta male loser trying to find his mojo and bring up his kids in the aftermath of his wife's suicide.
Looking for a purpose and something to occupy his mind, he becomes obsessed with a dead body found on a case in his day job of analysing crime scene data. The higher ups decide a young woman was killed by accident but Haz is sure it was a murder being covered up.
Set to the back drop of a fantastical near future dystopian Yorkshire, this book zips between Haz breaking the case against the wishes of those in the know, and him trying desperately to keep his family together as work threatens to pull it apart as his priorities become skewed.
A real oddity but something unique, engaging and a really great balancing act between fun and darkness.
5*
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews