Tomorrow for the Leeds Waterstone alongside Robson, Remic & McMahon, please do come along if you can.

End of the month is Pyrkon over in Wroclaw, Poland. I'm doing a talk. Apparently. This is a bit new, and it will also be kind of through-translated. Not sure how that's gonna turn out. We'll see. Possibly I'll be touring the after-dinner fantasy/entomology circuit before you know it.

On a completely separate note, Adam Gauntlett, whose work graces the story section of this site, has written a very interesting (not to say mind-boggling if you haven't seen the film in question) article over at Escapist concerning Role-playing games, and reactions to them — find it here.

12th March — 11am-1pm signing at Leeds Waterstones in excellent company, vis Justina Robson (last book of her Quantum Gravity series just out!), and Gary McMahon and Andy Remic who write for Angry Robot.

9th April — signing at Oxford Waterstones — time to be confirmed. This is the 5th March event that's been rescheduled.

I am just finishing the first round of edits on Heirs of the Blade (1), which has probably seen more reworking than any previous book. Mind you, I could have said the same about Sea Watch at the time. I suspect it's something endemic to late-series books.

(1) trips off the tongue. You'd never know just how much brainstorming went into getting that title. Original working title was Broken Threads, and we went through dozens of ideas and permutations before we got something everyone was happy with. But 'heirs', plural? you ask? Why yes indeed…

4th-5th February — SFX Weekender convention at Camber Sands.

11th February — signing stock for Forbidden Planet and Blackwells bookshop in London — not an actual signing but there will be signed books kicking about from then.

12th February 11am - signing at Waterstones, Broad Street, Reading.

19th February 2pm — signing at Travelling Man games shop, Leeds

5th March — time to be confirmed — signing at Waterstones Oxford (1)

12th March — time to be confirmed — signing alongside Justina Robson, Gary McMahon and Andy Remic at Waterstones, Leeds

25th-28th March — Pyrkon in Posnan, Poland, plus possible some sort of signing or similar in Wroclaw, thanks to Rebis for making the arrangements!

25th-26th June — Alt Fiction in Derby, more details to come.

(1) if there is more than one Waterstones in Oxford then I don't know which one.

And I owe a huge debt to Steve's Fantasy Book Reviews who are running a series of Shadows of the Apt themed articles in the run up to Scarab's release, including an extremely pleasant review of Salute the Dark, together with a cover review and some new Q&A which touches on future releases.

Yeah, about that cover review… well, thunder stolen somewhat — I hadn't realised it was cleared to go, but if you do pop on over there you'll get your first sneak peak at the astonishingly scary cover that Jon Sullivan's done for Book 6, The Sea Watch. New kinden? Oh hell yes. Jon's request to me, in fact, was for something a little more monstrous than before, and thankfully the book does deliver the ideal material (2).

Signings: 14th August at the Leeds Travelling Man as I think I mentioned, southern signings still being haggled over, hopefully news soon on those.

Trivia: at my local Waterstones a growing stain of "Dark Romance" (3) has bloated out from the teen shelves and entirely displaced the fantasy/SF section, which now lives in a ghetto on the first floor, where it clusters around the trashcans and tries to keep warm. Still, one unexpected result is that my books, from being at ankle level, are now on the top shelf, so at least the average height of my readership should climb a bit. You know what they say, if you can crack the tall market, you're made.

(1) Not literally, of course. That would be unnecessarily confusing.

(2) No that's not Stenwold. I know we were talking about it being Stenwold but, seriously, he doesn't look like that.

(3) Teen vampire fetishistry.

Speaking of The Scarab Path, yes, out in August. I will admit to being nervous — Salute the Dark finished the first internal division of the series plot (2), and Scarab has new ground to cover, and so there's an ambiguity about reception and take-up that the previous books didn't necessarily have. Also, despite having seen so much of it recently, I really do like Scarab, and it feels a very personal effort. There is a great deal of character work I'm very happy with, and also a lot of revelation about the world, the Art, Aptitude and some very key ancient history. Crossed fingers for August. There will be signings, by the way, although arrangements are still being made. On the 14th August at 2.00pm I will be at the Travelling Man in Leeds for a signing and perhaps a reading or some such. I'm likely to be down south for a signing a fortnight later, 28th August, possibly in Oxford, but no firm details yet. Apparently there may be all sorts of shenanigans in September as well.

However none of that qualifies for the New Age monicker (3). Tonight, this very night, I put pen to paper on what should be book 8 in the series and rattled off the first few pages (4).

Also tonight on Channel 4 was a program entitled The Untold Battle of Britain about the Polish pilots who fought for Britain during the war.

Book 8's working title is The Air War.

Odd how things work out.

(1) And Mr L has surpassed himself with his notes on Sea Watch. There were an awful lot of moments where he was able to catch exactly what I was trying to say, in a way that I myself hadn't really appreciated, and set it out plainly and simply for me to follow. I am extremely blessed in having his assistance.

(2) Like all good insects, it's divided into three.

(3) and this is nothing to do with the Age of Aquarius either.

(4) which may not be the first few pages if I end up having to restructure as much as I did with book 7.

Weekend of the 5th February — SFX Weekender convention, at which I will be signing books, either at a pre-arranged time or just mug me as and when the opportunity arises. Mid-panel is probably not recommended.

Saturday 13th February — signing around lunchtime (figure 1.00pm start in all likelihood) at Waterstones, Broad Street, Reading (not the one in the Oracle). (Waterstones, 89a Broad Street, Reading, RG1 2AP, 0118 958 1270)

Saturday 20th February — signing at 11.00am in Garforth Library , (1–5 Main Street, Garforth, Leeds -  — Contact Garforth Bookshop — Leeds — 0113 286 3534) and then:

Saturday 20th February (again) — signing at 3.00pm at Travelling Man, Leeds (32 Central Road
Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS1 6DE, 0113 242 7227)

All welcome and please do come along if you're in the area.

I will also sign some stock for Tor and, probably, some for Forbidden Planet in London. I'm aware that some readers outside the UK are interested in getting hold of signed copies, and the easiest way might be to make enquiries at Forbidden Planet or any of the above places. I would hope that somewhere in possession of signed copies would be willing to post them to you. Authorial enquiries will follow and if I get a definite route for the smuggling of signed copies onto the continent I will disseminate the information here.

In other news, we have tropes! Check it out: and yes, I know that, from a certain point of view, this is essentially pointing out all the cliches I've resorted to, but on the other hand, I'm in decent company, and better writers than I have pointed out that there is a reason certain concepts keep turning up in literature, films and the like (1)

I should also draw your attention to Jon Sullivan's website, firstly because he's a fantastic author, but also because he's currently displaying all the cover designs he's produced for the series, including some of the recently completed US edition pictures, such as the US Blood of the Mantis that gave me goosebumps.

(1) No, not just because writers are lazy.