In honour of the release of Winterbirth as a US mass market paperback, I have been interviewed over at mania.com. There's also a review up over there, which is generous enough in its praise to make me blush (you can't see me, but I'm blushing. Really).

Seems a bit self-indulgent to take up blog space just for that (I know, someone with a blog suddenly starts worrying about being self-indulgent. Imagine that. Next up: a politician admitting they have no clue whatsoever how to solve a problem). Anyway, since I'm here, a handful of other webby things:

The Abominable Charles Christopher. A web comic by Karl Kerschl. I enjoy it. Nicely drawn.

The Orbit Page on Facebook. You can now become a fan of an entire publishing imprint. It has cover galleries of upcoming books, news on author events etc. etc.

Golden Age Comic Book Stories. Is a torrential cornucopia of great art, not remotely limited to comic books. I was going to try and pick some favourites to link to, but it's pretty much all good.

British Fantasy Society Short Story Competition. For the aspiring authors out there, a chance to flex your genre muscles.

Labels: Interviews, Reviews, Winterbirth

If you're looking for a detailed report of the goings on at the Alt.Fiction event in Derby this last weekend, this is probably not going to be quite what you're after. But I did go to Alt.Fiction, and this is what it was like to go there, be there and come back. For me, at least.

Arriving at Edinburgh train station just as the largest hen party I've seen in years was decanting itself from a train and trying to find its way to the street. A crowd of glammed-up ladies milling about in a raucous miasma of obscenities, spangly toy cowboy hats and snatched camera phone photos.

Crossing the Tyne, in the heart of Newcastle (always my favourite bit of the ride south), beneath low cloud, in drizzle, and watching a sparrowhawk flying lazily close alongside the train, amidst all the metalwork and noise, above the grey water.

Walking into the Alt.Fiction venue, and instantly feeling both entirely at home, and vaguely like a fraud about to be exposed ...

Feeling bad, with authors flitting to and fro on all sides, about not having read nearly enough of their books. I should have read all of them. I should read every book that comes out, in every distant by-way of every speculative genre, as soon as it comes out. But I can't.

Buying copies of Interzone and The Third Alternative from the TTA Press stall, and thinking, for neither the first nor the last time: Damn, I'll be sad if this kind of magazine really does go the way of the dinsoaurs, squelched by the incoming meteor of the online revolution. They're just such pleasing objects to me, both physically, and in what they signify. (And hearing Charles Stross, at the last panel of the day, talking about the 'death spiral' of the paying magazine markets for offline sf/f short fiction, and knowing he's probably right, in the long run.)

Finding Philip Palmer to be a thoroughly companionable, knowledgeable and grounded chap. And feeling guilty all over again, because I still haven't read Debatable Space, damn it, even though it's on my list ...

On an obscure exterior wall of the venue, high up on the brickwork, where no one would see it unless they were looking for it, a tiny, plain plastic sign that said 'The Darwin Room Sign'. I stared at it, bemused, for longer than I should have.

Forty or more fancy dress rockers, at a Derby bus stop. The guys in sharp suits, plastic quiffs and stuck on sideburns. The dolls in pink puffy dresses.

A fine rant on the perfidy and lunacy of the Hollywood scriptwriting machinery, courtesy of Graham Joyce.

The limitations of Quentin Tarantino's conversational ability being revealed by Chaz Brenchley.

The role of 'maverick cocks' in genre fiction being inadvertently revealed by Michael Marshall Smith. (You had to be there).

The Lady Boys of Bangkok, or the sound of them and their audience at least, rising exuberantly from the theatre next door to contend with the wisdom of the later panelists: a vaguely fantastical backdrop to musings on fantasy. Their audience seemed fractionally more excitable than that of the authors. Can't imagine why.

Getting a lift back to the hotel (or, more to the point, to the hotel bar) from a Hobbit. Seemed appropriate.

Riding back to Edinburgh on hot wheels. Half the train had to be sacrificed at Newcastle, and its passengers relocated, for it is possible for wheels to get just too hot. Had the train been busy, perhaps tempers would have warmed up too, but it wasn't, so all was calm and good-humoured. Customer reaction to failure is context-sensitive.

Northumberland: Rabbit Heaven. Little crowds of them in what seemed like every trackside field for mile after mile, all clustered close to the railway line as if the titanic earthly vibrations of these roaring iron horses call out to and soothe some primal level of their little bunny brains.

Standing in the midst of a vast, empty field, within sight of Edinburgh: a single roe deer, watching us pass. Frozen in a patch of bright sunlight, as if locked between fascination and alarm at the sight of us.

So that was Alt.Fiction 2008 for me. It was good.

Labels: Events

My trusty test reader enjoys a quiet moment with the finished Bloodheir. He's smiling, so presumably happy, even though the only reference to bears occurs on page 161 and involves poking a sleeping one with a stick. Not much to engage the ursine reader, you'd think. Still, it's probably an improvement on Winterbirth, in which the main bear involvement was getting wheeled around in a cage and shot full of crossbow bolts. Contrary to appearances, I have nothing against bears.

Big box of hardbacks and the UK trade paperback turned up on my doorstep last week. One of those moments that I suspect never quite loses its appeal, no matter how well-established and megastarish an author becomes. Orbit have done a lovely job with the book, methinks. It's a very fine package. Seeing the cover art up close and in situ it's striking what a fine piece of work it is. Given that my artistic skills are on the wrong side of non-existent, this kind of thing leaves me not a little impressed. And jealous. The illustration is by Gene Mollica, much more of whose diverse work can be admired here.

There's a Bloodheir review up at Pat's Fantasy Hotlist. It contains the succint and pretty accurate line: 'Aeglyss is a complete basket case.' Yep. Can't really disagree with that. The guy's got issues, you know.

And I'll just insert the customary reminder here that anyone who wants to buy a signed copy of Bloodheir can do so via Transreal Fiction. It'll cost you the cover price plus post and packing. Dedications, inscriptions and so on can also be included, but not, sadly, any cute little drawings, as my artistic skills ... well, see above.

Labels: Bloodheir, Photos, Reviews, Signing

Free copies of Bloodheir are being given away over at Pat's Fantasy Hotlist. Just thought you might like to know.

And P.S. : I like the digital revolution, I really do. But sometimes it tries the patience. Like now. My internet connection is playing a game of 'now you see me, now you don't', which becomes tedious after you've had to reset your router for the third day running. Blogger is denying the fact that there are comments on the previous post, despite the fact that there demonstrably are. Look, they're right here, Blogger. Why do you deny it? Shortcuts have magically disappeared from my desktop, leaving unsightly holes in my neatly and carefully arranged array of icons. And Windows has taken it upon itself to ensure that any new documents I create within certain folders absolutely, definitely must be read-only documents. It's for their own good. If I try to tell it otherwise, it disagrees, for I am but a human and it is IT.

Hardly earth-shaking, I know, but I just wanted to get that off my chest. It's annoying. Wearisome. (Especially the read-only document thing, which is, in its own small and trivial way, doing my all too human head in).

EDIT to add: And of course what Blogger was waiting for before acknowledging the presence of comments on the previous post was for me to put up a new post complaining about their absence. Obvious, really. Don't know why I didn't think of it sooner.

Labels: Bloodheir

A first, very brief, visit to Ireland for me over the weekend. Gorgeous place. Was in the Burren, on the west coast, which is a place so fantastically landscaped it looks like it belongs in fiction.



Huge expanses of exposed limestone, all corrugated and cracked. Basically looks like a moonscape, only with less dust and a bit more grass (though in some places not much more - the photo above is really a positive oasis of grassiness compared to the really cool bits, but of course I didn't get a photo of them). And for extra cool points, the whole place is dotted with relics of Stone Age humanity. Like this tomb, which looked precariously balanced to me, but presumably will last a bit longer since it's made it through from BC times this far:


Away from the limestone, it's all rolling countryside, verdant fields and wide open shores.


Very nice. Well done, Ireland. Good effort.

Despite the fact I wasn't paying attention, the world saw fit to continue to happen over the weekend, and indeed happen in ways that manage to be very modern but would also be entirely familiar to our ancestors from a few hundred years ago: the hyper-modern (and rather fine looking) sailing ship Ponant got seized by pirates and last I heard is holed up in a Somali port hiding from the French navy who are in pursuit ... Terrible business, I'm sure, but since nobody seems to have got hurt so far, I feel able to admit that my first reaction was something along the lines of: 'Ha. Cool. Them's some pirates with taste.'

And in other, marginally less noteworthy news, the US mass market paperback of Winterbirth turned up in the post. It's published next month, and is a lovely little thing that I am entirely charmed by. Small, but perfectly formed.

Labels: Photos, Winterbirth

The Book Swede seems to have broken the review ice for Bloodheir. Fortunately, he's broken it with a largely positive axe, or whatever you break ice with. If you see what I mean. A friendly ice pick? Oh, never mind.

Labels: Bloodheir, Reviews

For anyone in the Edinburgh area next week: a great big free book swap on Tuesday 1st April (I know the date's suggestive, but this really is real.)

For everyone else: download a free Jeff VanderMeer novella.

As I might have mentioned here before, I have an intermittent love affair with podcasts - intermittent only because I just don't have enough time to listen to as many of them as I'd like. Until I discovered the blessed technology of the podcast, I never really gave much thought to audio fiction. Now, I find myself making time to squeeze in an audio short story now and again. Forget all that music stuff: this is what mp3 players were made for. So I thought I'd just offer a round of applause for one or two of my favourites:

In The Late December by Greg Eekhout, on Escape Pod. A Christmas story with a difference: Santa Claus at the end of the Universe, in apocalyptic conflict with entropy. Seriously. Loved it.

Impossible Dreams by Tim Pratt, also on Escape Pod. A beautifully balanced and paced story, I thought, blending romance, parallel worlds and movies. If you're a film buff, it's made for you.

Shark God vs Octopus God by Jeff VanderMeer, on StarShipSofa. A fairly simple but perfectly-formed little number riffing on what sounds like Polynesian mythology.

And finally, The Onion is funny: Novelists Strike Fails to Affect Nation Whatsoever. (via UK SF Book News).

Labels: Books, Podcasts

It's a bit disconcerting when forgotten relics of your distant past unexpectedly resurface from the bottom of dusty drawers - stuff you'd forgotten, which abruptly reconnects you with the child you once were.

In this case, I got my hands on some stories I wrote in my pre-teen years. Clearly, I was doomed to plough the fantasy furrow from an early age, since I evidently had a thing about maps of imaginary places even then:
This is from The Tomb of Beledon (a title which I think only really works if you imagine it being spoken by James Earl Jones). The plot concerns a chap called Michael who survives a plane crash only to find himself on a strange island full of tunnels and villages, hostile and out of place wildlife, malign and possibly supernatural forces ... yes, if only I'd had some contacts in the TV industry at the age of 12 or 13 or however old I was, Lost could've been on your TV screens a whole lot sooner.

I wonder what the me of all those years ago would think if I could reach back and say 'Keep at it, kid. All this scribbling will pay off one day. Maybe hold off on the exclamation marks a bit, though.' (The thing's got a rash of exclamations all through it, like some unfortunate skin condition. Even some of the chapter titles are exclamation marked.)

The thing is, I suspect mini-me would not be particularly surprised to hear he was going to get stuff published one day. At that tender age we - those of us lucky enough to have safe and stable and comfortable upbringings, anyway - tend to live in worlds of possibilities and imagination; the barriers and the obstacles and limitations and difficulties, not just in writing but life as a whole, tend only to become apparent as we climb the ladder of years. Still, it'd be nice to whisper a few words of encouragement in the junior me's ear. It's all you can say, really, to any aspiring writer, whatever their age: Keep at it. Get better. Try. And go easy on the exclamation marks.

Labels: Writing

The programme for Alt.Fiction, the one day sf/f/h extravaganza in Derby in April has been published. It amounts to a seriously packed day of genre goodies, with so many authors crammed into a few hours and a few rooms that it makes you wonder how they find the space for anybody else. If you like your fiction speculative, it's definitely the place to be on April 26th.

Me, I'll be talking worldbuilding in the afternoon, and then I'm apparently launching a book. That'll be Bloodheir, then. Means a little reading and signing, I guess, so hopefully the printing presses are gearing up even now. What it also means is that if you're at Alt.Fiction, you might get the chance to acquire a copy of Bloodheir a whole six weeks before it turns up in the shops. Bargain. UPDATE: No, Bloodheir won't be available on the day. Too soon. Oh well.

Anyone else who wants one can also have a signed copy of Bloodheir, mind you. Transreal Fiction will take orders for signed (and optionally dated, dedicated, inscribed, whatever) hardbacks and post them off to you as soon as it's published. As far as I know, the cost is just cover price plus whatever packing and postage costs are to your part of the world.

On a wholly unrelated subject, if you've got a couple of minutes to spare, turn your sound on and go try this awareness test. It's not easy ...

Labels: Bloodheir, Events, Signing

Is Spring Clean one word, two words, or hyphenated? Unsure, and can't be bothered to check, so apologies to any grammar/spelling police if I'm doing it all wrong.

Anyway, however the phrase (word?) is properly formulated, the website's had a bit of a one. Most of the changes are so minor as to be of no interest to any but the most dedicated of website-watchers, but I'll point to one or two that might be of interest:

Bloodheir now has its own page in the Books section, so publication must be drawing near. Well, three months isn't exactly near, but neither is it far. As can be seen there (and all around the site, including in the banner up at the top), the final cover image has been settled upon, and I'm pleased with it. I think it's the best variant of the (extremely good) illustration that's previously been on show here and elsewhere, and complements Winterbirth's cover beautifully.

For Winterbirth cover completists, incidentally - and I know I'm probably the only one on the entire planet who actually falls into that category (but I'm allowed, right?) - the latest version of the cover for the US mass market paperback, due out in a couple of months, can be seen here, in the right side bar. Big black band. Striking, no?

And there's a new map in the Gazetteer. Specifically, the one that will be appearing in Bloodheir. (And yes, anyone who's been prowling the Winterbirth page on Facebook will already have seen it, so you don't need to go look again. Unless you want to, in which case feel free.)

Labels: Bloodheir, Covers, Gazetteer