When a mysterious tower appears in the skies over England, thirteen strangers are pulled from their lives to stand before it as a countdown begins. Above the doorway is one word: ASCEND.

As they try to understand why they’ve been chosen and what the tower is, it soon becomes clear the only way out of this for everyone is… up. 

And so begins a race to the top with the group fighting to hold on to its humanity, through sinking ships, haunted houses and other waking nightmares. Can they each overcome their differences and learn to work together or does the winner take it all? What does the tower want of them and what is the price to escape?

Red shirts are people too (and inevitable in a huge cast of characters)

Having a huge cast of characters and a tower intent on killing them meant that, inevitably, a few of them were going to become the ‘red shirts’ of my latest book. In other words, they were characters clearly destined to meet a sticky end. I didn’t plan it that way. Initially, I wanted to try and pay homage to LOST, creating a very character-centric adventure where everyone is the hero of their own story and you don’t know who’ll make it. But it soon became clear that it’s ridiculously hard to do that in book form. Across multiple seasons of TV you can generously give lots of characters their own episodes, building them up in the viewer’s estimation, before cruelly cutting them down when it’s least expected. In a book? Unless you’re going to be rotating between 13 POVs and your publisher is okay with a brick of a novel, it’s a little more challenging to give everyone their time in the sun. So eventually I had to admit defeat and learn to embrace the red shirts. And while I worked hard to try to tone down the bloody crimsonness of their attire, in the end I kind of like that they’re there. There is a tone to this story that is very 1970’s disaster movie – like The Poseidon Adventure – and leaning into the trope of having characters who are obviously destined to pop off screen early is part of the fun of the piece, I think?

Writing is a very good and very cheap form of therapy

The prologue of The Way Up Is Death was written at a time when the UK was shitting the bed in terms of common sense and decency and professionalism and lots of other things. Consequently, in a couple of scathing pages, it references the kind of political chaos that we were experiencing and would probably be an accurate representation of how we’d have handled an alien tower appearing in the skies above us. It was me venting. My way of shaking my fist at them, by immortalising their ineptitude in a fictional setting. And it felt soooo good.

I can’t imagine I’m alone in being overwhelmed by the sheer idiocy still messing with us? If you feel the same, I highly recommend spilling your bottled angst onto the page. Getting it out where you can see it, mock it, and manipulate it – however you see fit – is incredibly cathartic. You’re the one in control. And that’s not nothing in a world where we might feel perpetually helpless. The Way Up Is Death features a lot of grievances about life for that reason. Not only in the prologue, but in the characters themselves. I also hoped it might shine a spotlight on these things and go “SEE? THIS IS NUTS!” and thus offer a consoling nod to those who think they’re alone in witnessing all this and being baffled. You’re not alone. We’re all in this together and if the tower in this book teaches us anything, it’s that we need to work with each other to get through the despicable challenges ahead.

It’s fun to ponder the meaning of life

When you’re plucked from your Saturday afternoon and encouraged to climb an alien tower in the sky, it’s going to raise a few questions. Chief among them probably isn’t going to be ‘what’s life all about then?’. At least not at first. Yet as you’re thrown headlong into perilous situations, and constantly threatened with death, it may well soon cling to the forefront of your mind. The writing of this book marks one of the few times I’ve actually done research, because I did begin to wonder what life was all about for these characters, and I’m pleased to tell you that far smarter minds than mine have got an answer to that age-old question. Or, at least, they have a theory. Namely that the meaning of life is split into three stages: coherence, purpose, and significance, and that authenticity is key throughout. If you perceive increasing authenticity in your life, it’s supposed to be a sign you’re on the right track. Which felt right to me. It was a lot of fun working this philosophy into the structure of the story, and it gave me the chance to play with the characters and the authenticity they displayed to each other as things got progressively worse for them while climbing the tower. How would any of us react when faced with such unknowable horrors? Would you hold tightly to your carefully curated façade? Or would you accept who you are and embrace the flaws and differences of those around you? Ultimately, I think placing importance on authenticity is no bad way to live your life.

We would very quickly get bored of a mysterious tower hovering in the sky

It’s no spoiler to say that in this book, when an alien tower appears in the sky, hanging over the rolling green hills of middle England, society’s interest is not held for long. Only a few years ago the very idea that we’d get bored of such a thing would be ridiculous. But life in 2025 is a different beast. We are beset by so much information in text, images, videos and sound – increasingly interspersed with AI-generated bollocks – that our attention spans simply can’t cope. If a mysterious tower appeared in the sky right now, I truly believe we’d be bored of it within a week or two. We would have saturated the internet with images, made all the relevant memes, and TikTokked it into a state of normalcy. It’d just be that thing that appeared and we have to live with it and OH FFS HERE’S A BRAND NEW HORROR TO TALK ABOUT and yep we’re onto the next thing. I don’t know about you, but I kind of miss being awed by cool things in the same way that little green men captured Agent Mulder’s attention for so long.

Standalone books can be satisfying too

I love an ending to a book that leaves room for a possible ‘To be continued…’ (ideally in a rad Back to the Future font). There’s something about the knowledge we’re not done here – your favourite characters WILL return to finish the story – that leaves its hooks in you. It keeps you thinking long after the moment has passed and you can’t wait to slip back into that familiar world to explore it a little more. My first two books were deliberately set up to achieve that. The story was done, but also WAS IT? Yet with The Way Up Is Death I was thrilled to write the story knowing this was it, the tale would not continue, and we were going to say goodbye and be done with the tower at some point. I found a joy in the finality of that – to find the end of the long spool of thread I’d been pulling from my mind. I think there is a lot to be said for writing a one-and-done book and in this era of sequels and prequels and spin-offs, it’s kind of nice to have a neat little package that is what it is.

Of course, if you were to ask me for a sequel to The Way Up Is Death, then, yes, I have an idea. But it’s batshit ridiculous, so you probably shouldn’t.

Dan Hanks is the author of Captain Moxley and the Embers of the Empire, Swashbucklers, and The Way Up Is Death, and has published articles in outlets such as Publishers Weekly. He works as a freelance editor most of the time, but being an over-qualified archaeologist he can’t help but continue to do a little part-time work in the heritage industry too (usually indoors where it’s warm and not as muddy).

Having moved around a lot in his life, Dan is currently content in the rolling green hills of the Peak District, England, where he lives with his two kids and some fluffy canine sidekicks.

The Way Up Is Death: Bookshop.org | B&N | Waterstones (UK) | Amazon

Dan Hanks: Website | Instagram | Blue Sky