First of all, Signings and Events for the near and moderate future now include:

This weekend (30th September-1st October) Fantasycon, Royal Albion Hotel, Brighton. Complete programme here and rather like Alt Fiction earlier on, there's plenty of stuff I simply want to be in the audience for. However, as a gentle reminder:

Friday — mass signing of the authors, 8pm, Regency Lounge

Saturday — "Trends in Fantasy Fiction" panel, 10am, Russell Room

Saturday — My reading slot is at 2pm, room 134 of the hotel — please do come to the reading if you can! I can promise prose the like of which nobody has ever heard. Seriously (2).

However, there are some other shenanigans on the horizon, not least of which is:

Forbidden Planet joint signing at the, er, Forbidden Planet bookshop in London, Saturday 15th October where I will be sitting alongside Adam Nevill and Mark Charan Newton. This is 1-2pm, and it's the first time I've actually got a signing slot in those August halls (3). London, baby! (4)

Some other signings also around that date that have yet to be sorted out but it looks likely that I will be in Reading or Oxford on that Friday 14th October, details to follow very shortly. There should also be a Leeds Waterstones date and one at the Leeds Travelling Man also.

Also, there will be some manner of Alt Fiction offshoot get together on 5th November but that one's still being put together, so if I give you any details I'll… ah, damn. Oh well. Forget I said anything. Probably Derby Quad again, as a venue, given how very supportive Derby is being.

Finally, I have been confirmed for SFX next February, no idea what I'm doing. It's in North Wales.

(The new covers previously posted here were sent on to me bona fide as stuff to put up, but Alan Brooks, the artist, has asked that I take them down as they were unfinished work, not intended for final display, so should have these for you at some later date, but not now).

Finally, one reader of this site, the very diligent Roderick Easton, has produced a Unified Map of the Insect-kinden Lands based on the various maps previously posted up, but frankly that deserves a post of its own to showcase it.

(1) and if you look at the gaps between posts you'll surely agree those times ain't too frequent.

(2) offer lasts until the end of the reading, when your having heard it will invalidate this warranty. Terms and conditions may apply. Art-assisted flight can go up as well as down.

(3) Unless you count the time when I basically invented one without telling FP.

(4) A Friends reference, just to show how up to the minute I am.

Firstly, I will be at Fantasycon 2011 this year (1) and I've been asked to sit on a panel on Trends in Fantasy Fiction, 10am Saturday. I will hopefully be essaying a reading too, as the five people who came to the last one at Alt Fiction seemed to enjoy it (2). Reading, if it goes ahead, will either be the section of The Air War or a new short story.

Secondly, cheap kindling!  In that there is an Amazon offer for the Kindle version of Empire in Black and Gold that can be found here. Ideal present for someone who hasn't read it, might like it, and has a Kindle thingie.

Finally, and most momentously…

NEW COVER ART

Although mentioning the above in the header probably killed that as a surprise reveal, the earlier Shadows of the Apt volumes are getting something of a remodel. The new editions will be trade paperback format (to fit with the the upcoming release of Heirs of the Blade and feature completely new art by Alan Brooks. So far designs for Empire and Dragonfly are in the pipeline:

The new editions should be out around March 2012.

And finally finally finally, and just so I've not been blowing my own trumpet for the whole post, I have just finished reading Dan Abnett's recent novel Embedded, and good lord it is good. Go get yourself a copy if you haven't already.

(1) because being at Fantasycon 2011 any other year would be stupid.

(2) In all fairness that was about how many the room sat.

I've been criminally lax in linking to David's other art (1), so I've added him to the blogroll (ridiculously ungracious name!) and you can see more of his work here.

(1) the reflex to put the capital 'A' is hard to fight.

empire-in-black-and-gold-world-map