Shadows of the Apt

2017 has been a good year for me, which goes rather against the tide of crap stuff happening globally. The BFS Holdstock award for The Tiger and the Wolf was particularly nice, and I've got three books out somehow — The Bear and the Serpent, Ironclads, and Dogs of War, which has just made the Guardian "best recent SF" list, which is particularly pleasant.  Children of Time goes on in leaps and bounds with the audiobook and the film option, and Pan Macmillan has started its own audiobook production with Guns of the Dawn (more to come).

Looking to the wider genre, this has been a cracking year all round for books (see posts passim), including some phenomenl debuts — the 2018 award scene is going to be particularly interesting, in particular the Morningstar debut award in the Gemmells. The convention scene has been fun this year too, especially the Helsinki Worldcon (although I reserve a particular fondness for my GoH stint at Novacon).

And I loved the new Star Wars film, for the record. I am working up to some detailed thoughts about pros and cons, and just how bold that film really was, for a SW film and for a big budget actioner in general.

2018 is going to see three more offerings. February or March will pop out The Hyena and the Hawk which will bring a conclusion to the Echoes of the Fall series. Eastercon will lunch For Love of Distant Shores, a new Shadows of the Apt collection/novel — it's a bit in the middle as this one is four linked novellas. Shores will also shed some light on just what the hell is going on in some other fantasy writing of mine, and once it and Hyena are out I will be putting together a big old spoiler-laden post setting out all the details for those who want the lore of it. Finally, around July will be my entirely new epic fantasy offering, Redemption's Blade, the first book of Rebellion/Solaris's After The War series, which I had an indecent amount of fun writing. The book picks up after the traditional War-Against-The-Dark-Lord and looks at the question of what happens next, now that all the Nations of the Free are on a war footing, half the world is on fire and there are still rather a lot of Dark Minions around the place. There is also a novella floating around to come from Tor.com, but I'm not sure when the release date is for that.

Convention-wise, I am currently planning to be at Eastercon, Nine Worlds, Fantasycon, Edge Lit and I'll probably be back at Novacon given how much fun that was. I have also been invited to Copernicon in Torun, Poland, and SFerakon in Croatia. There was some word of a French visit as well, as the French language edition of Children of Time is coming out next year, but that hasn't been finalised yet.