Martin Scott Books in Order

If you want fantasy detective stories: Thraxas → Thraxas and the Warrior Monks → Thraxas at the Races
If you want more of Turai and Makri: Thraxas and the Elvish Isles → Thraxas and the Sorcerers → Thraxas and the Dance of Death
If you want urban fantasy with heart: The Good Fairies of New York → Lonely Werewolf Girl → The Anxiety of Kalix the Werewolf
If you want music, Glasgow, and semi-autobiographical comedy: Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation → Suzy, Led Zeppelin and Me

Martin Scott is the fantasy pen name of Scottish novelist Martin Millar. He was born in Glasgow and has lived in London for many years. Under one name he writes comic sword-and-sorcery, and under the other he writes the restless, funny city novels that first made readers notice him.

His first novel, Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation, was published in 1987. Even that early on, the ingredients were there: people on the edge, cramped rooms, music, not much money, and a lot of sympathy for characters who do not look tidy from the outside. He has spoken about writing late at night, and that slightly nocturnal feeling fits his work.

He likes misfits.

A lot of the Martin Millar books draw on Glasgow memories and years in London, especially Brixton. Some are openly semi-autobiographical, and Love and Peace with Melody Paradise and Suzy, Led Zeppelin and Me even bring versions of the author onto the page. Books like Ruby and the Stone Age Diet and Dreams of Sex and Stage Diving move through music scenes, friendships, and the rougher edges of city life without losing their sense of fun. He is very good on the texture of ordinary life, the pubs, the shared flats, the feeling of having just enough money to get through the week.

Music is never far away.

Then there is the fantasy side. The Good Fairies of New York showed how naturally Millar could mix folklore, city chaos, and comedy. Later he wrote the Kalix books, starting with Lonely Werewolf Girl and continuing with Curse of the Wolf Girl and The Anxiety of Kalix the Werewolf. Readers who click with him usually like the same things: quick pacing, odd communities, emotional mess, and magic turning up in ordinary places.

His magical worlds are never polished.

As Martin Scott, he created Thraxas, a comic fantasy series about an overweight private investigator in the city of Turai. Thraxas is a former soldier, failed sorcery student, drinker, gambler, and professional magnet for trouble. The first book won the World Fantasy Award in 2000, and the series kept going for years through cases involving assassins, politicians, sorcerers, chariot racing, and Makri, the formidable young fighter who often steals the scene.

One of the pleasures of Millar's career is how little interest he has shown in staying in one box. Alongside the Thraxas books and the Kalix novels, he has written work as different as The Goddess of Buttercups and Daisies, a comedy set in ancient Athens, and Supercute Futures, which throws cyberpunk, corporate warfare, and cute branding into the same strange future. That range is wider than it first looks. The details change, but the pull stays familiar: outsiders under pressure, odd loyalties, and a world that is harsher than the jokes first make it seem.

He still lives in London and keeps writing. Later books such as Supercute Second Future and the 2024 collection Troubled Cities show the same long-running interests, cities, subcultures, fantasy creatures, anxious people, and stubborn friendships. However you arrive, through Thraxas, Kalix, or the earlier London novels, you end up in a Martin Millar world pretty quickly: funny, battered, busy, and much kinder than it first appears.