A former ship's photographer from Wells has had his debut science fiction novella published.

Peter Carroll describes his debut novella Lizer Biggs as both an enigmatic encounter with our ancestors on another planet and a love story set in space.

Lizer Biggs, the inventor of the Gravity Engine, is on a top-secret interstellar mission to save Earth from a deadly alien invader.

Tunnelling through spacetime in his ship Quick Fire, he reaches The Garden, the original seat of humanity.

Here he befriends Holly Graham, The Garden's chief fire-officer and her AI sidekick Meatballs - a sentient fire engine. Together they return to Earth to battle The Tiger.

Peter, who is already working on the next instalment, said: "It's a quest to save the Earth from annihilation at the hands of The Tiger, a sadistic and venomous race of telepathic methanite reptiles."

Lizer Biggs is available as a paperback or as a digital Kindle edition.