Firstly, thanks to everyone who turned up at the signing on the 14th, which went very well indeed. Still waiting on a signing down south. I think Tor are seeing what I can link up with.

Speaking of Tor, they've put in place a nice new feature of their publicity — authors' A to Zs — rather than bumble about explaining what this means, see mine here.

For contrast, here is China Mieville's and here is Mark Charan-Newton's.

In other news, there's an exceptionally pleasant review up for Scarab already at Fantasy Book Critic, which at least suggests I achieved what I set out to with the book, especially Che's character arc.

I'm also making surprisingly fluent progress with the manuscript of book 8 — usually when I start a book there is a brief period where everything is clipping along at high speed, the first couple of chapters practically write themselves, and then everything slows down and the main business of writing begins. This is mostly because, as I prepare for a new project, it's the first few chapters that get turned over most in my mind. With book 8 being started considerably later than planned (owing to various shenanigans with books 5 and 6) I've had an extra 6 months to subconsciously mull over the plot, and so that golden period has currently taken by 25% of the way through the plot already. As I've felt the looming shadow of the series at my shoulder, catching up with me as the books are put into print faster than I can conceivably write them, this is a Good Thing. 

(1) Yes, I am borrowing a Friends joke. Sign of the apocalypse, I tell you…