Power Up

I’m delighted to announce that Piper in Germany have picked up the rights to the Battlemage trilogy. This is fantastic news and I can’t wait to see the books being out there in other languages. I did study German in school at GCSE level, so although I won’t be able to read the whole thing, I might be able to recognise the occasional word. This is really exciting news and I’m over the moon.

This deal is in addition to AST buying the Russian rights to book one. All of this of course is in addition to Orbit who bought the trilogy in the first place. They will be publishing the trilogy in the UK and USA, starting with book 1, Battlemage, in October 2015, then every six months there after in April 2016, and October 2016.

I think it’s time I sorted out a world map and started colouring in each territory as its conquered. Huzzah!

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Stuck in the middle

I’ve not posted in a couple of weeks because I’ve been busy doing a number of different things. For the last few months I have been chipping away gradually on the first draft of book 2 in my fantasy trilogy. Progress has been steady, sometimes it flows, other times I’m distracted by all of the other stuff going on in my life and the words come out very slowly. But I am gradually getting there, bit by bit.

Last week all of that changed when I received my edits for book 1, Battlemage, from Jenni Hill my editor at Orbit. So since then I’ve been reading through those, going through the book, making changes, whittling, reshaping and generally making it better. I’ve also been away from Battlemage long enough and have had my head in another space that I can look back on it a bit more critically. I can see what I was trying to do, if the characters are as rounded as I hoped, if the pacing is right, and where the wrinkles lie. I can also see how much is actually on the page and how much remains in my head. After living with characters and a story for years and then writing it all down, I sometimes miss out certain small pieces that explain the motivation of characters, or how the dots join up in the story. In my head it’s been implied or is clearly there on the page when it isn’t, so it is vitally important to have other people look at the work and point at the voids or lack of explanation.

This editing process is going to continue for the next couple of months, then I will jump back to writing book 2, while still mulling book 3 over in the back of my head. The spine of the story for book 3 is there, the main characters are there, I know some of the major beats I want to hit, but at some point I’ll sit down and make more notes to flesh it all out. All of that will happen once the first draft of book 2 has gone off. It does help that all three books are part of a much larger story, and they all connect to one another and lead in to one another, but it also means there are a lot more balls to keep in the air at the same time.

As well as the novels I’ve also submitted an OGN I co-wrote and am working on a couple of other comic book projects and planning the podcast mini-track for the 9 Worlds convention this August in Heathrow. So once again there is a lot going on, but not all of it is happening at once which is a relief. Juggling balls is definitely an apt description of how things are at present and how they will remain for the foreseeable future.

I’m still trying to keep my brain active with fresh content, which I think is important, so as ever I am always reading one book and at the moment am keeping pace with that, usually it is between three and four books a month. The one Dresden Files a month re-read continues, so I should get to the new book Skin Game some time next year. I’m still reading a stack of comics every month as it’s easier to pick them up, read for 20 minutes and get a good chunk of story. My TV viewing has slowed even more so than usual, so I’m constantly behind on just about everything current, but a few series are now wrapping up, which is kind of a relief. It means I get to catch up with everyone else and join in with the conversations. But, for the time being, I’m writing. Better get back to it.

Beauty and the Beast – Month 4

If you’ve not read the previous posts then this will make no sense at all. But, I’m doing a rewatch of the TV show Beauty and the Beast with CE Murphy. And, much to my surprise, the show is a lot better than I remembered, or rather I was convinced my rose tinted memories would be trashed when the show was dragged into the harsh light and reality of 2014. In reality, the show is still really good today.

Ep. 13 – China Moon – This episode as a whole was quite good, not brilliant, but good. However, it was another Romeo and Juliet story where people from either two different worlds or different sides of the same world, cannot be together despite their feelings, once again reflecting what is happening with Catherine and Vincent. It’s starting to get a little thin now and I think this is the third such version. I’m also at the point where each time they don’t kiss I start to twitch and get close to shouting at the TV. Ok, I already have shouted, but I didn’t this episode, although it was a close call. This time instead of Protestants and Catholics, it’s Chinatown where a woman is marrying a young man to honour her grandfather who owes another man a great debt. Family honour and so on aplenty. Vincent goes bananas and actually kills several people to defend his home but is also shown to be a man of honour. I’ve used that word a lot in this episode but that’s it’s core. I’m hoping for more going forward, although I have a sneaky feeling it will not progress as fast as I would like.

Ep. 14 – The Alchemist – This was an interesting episode exploring a little further what happens to a person who doesn’t fit in or abide by the laws of the underground society. What if their crimes are so severe? What happens to them? A new street drug has ties to the underworld and is traced to a man exiled from the underworld, but he is still living underground, beyond the reaches of their territory. He threatens to reveal the secrets of those living underground if arrested and he’s beyond the borders of Father’s jurisdiction which creates a thorny issue to deal with. The episode itself was pretty good, but the information beneath the surface that they hint at was what really held my attention. The exiled man was one of the founders of the society with Jacob, he came up with the idea of communicating on the pipes and Jacob hints at other things. He also manages to disarm Vincent by hinting that there’s more to his origin than Jacob has told him, being found abandoned outside St Vincent’s hospital. This is the first time someone has said anything about his origin. For most people Vincent is simply different and that’s the end of it, but every time you see his face it’s hard to forget. This episode definitely asks lots of interesting questions but only answers a couple of them. Hopefully more of them will be addressed in the future.

Ep.15 – Temptation – This was a Joe focused episode, so Vincent had very little to do which was fine for a change. It focused on Joe being seduced by a beautiful attorney who was actually using him to delay a case he was due to take to court. It was handled really well and not ham-fisted at all, with him slowly becoming more and more distracted, leaving Catherine to be the bad and point out he’d been acting like a teenager. This episode highlights their friendship and it’s also the first time in years I can remember there being a strong friendship between two leading characters, a man and a woman, that didn’t then lead to a romantic connection later down the line. They’re close friends, she tells him how much she cares for him and only wants what’s best for him, but at no time does she get that look in her eyes or vice versa. For a show that’s coming up on twenty years old, it continues to surprise me, open my eyes to things I’ve apparently forgotten about the show and characters on TV in general, because I just don’t see it very often these days.

Ep.16 – Promises of Someday – This episode was written by George R.R Martin, and in some ways it turned out be a very personal and small story, with wider emotional repercussions. It dealt with the return of a character from Vincent’s past, a boy called Devon whom he grew up with, and one left physically scarred by an incident with an angry Vincent. It also showed Vincent as a boy, and it gave an indication of his age for the first time of being somewhere in his early thirties. Father was painted in a less than favourable light and it showed him to be human, fallible and not the perfect father-figure. I really liked seeing the flashback parts where we saw a young Vincent and hearing Devon talk about how he carried the tunnels and world below with him as he travelled around the world. I don’t want to spoil it too much, but this episode really added more texture and history to the characters of Vincent and Father. It also showed Vincent as less than perfect and that not everyone liked him. Catherine didn’t have as much to do, except act as a sounding board, but it’s good to get a balance between episodes set predominantly above and those below.

 

 

Comics are a medium not a genre

I thought this post was apt as Saturday 3rd May is Free Comic Book Day. A date where shops order a quantity of special comics which they then give away free. It generates a lot of business for them and it attracts a lot of people, some of whom will hopefully be new readers. So if you’ve not tried comics before, now is the time to try.  Also if you’re not convinced about comics, keep reading.

Comics are a medium not a genre. I’ve said it many times already and no doubt I will continue to say it many more times in the future. For those who don’t read comics, for those who’ve only become aware of them via other media, in particular films, it can seem like comics are just superheroes. But it’s worth repeating, comics are a medium, not a genre.

During the last fifteen years or so, comic book movies have gone from those that don’t appear to be based on comic books at all, such as Blade, Road to Perdition, A History of Violence, The Losers, RED, right up to billion dollar box office smash hits with larger than life characters in bright costumes, like The Avengers, Nolan’s Batman trilogy and the X-Men franchise. It’s a wonderful and amazing time to be a comic book fan as now we can enjoy seeing these characters all over the world, and watch as people discover them for the first time. The films might even attract a few new readers to the comic book medium, but sometimes there’s still that moment of surprise that comics are more than superheroes.

If you walk into a bookshop, a Waterstones in the UK, or Barnes and Noble in the USA, you wouldn’t expect every title on the shelf to just be crime, or history books, or biographies. It’s exactly the same with comics. For every single genre you can think of, and many you’ve probably never considered before as they mash-up different elements, there is a comic book. Superheroes dominate the US and UK comic book market, and I have a theory about why this is which I will come back to, but in other countries superheroes are seen as just one of many genres, not the main focus.

Comics are an important medium. There, I said it. Over the years I’ve heard many stories of how children first learned to read with comics and how it helped create a love of stories and reading in general. That has to be something that is cherished and encouraged. We all start out with picture books as very small children with only a few words, which then progresses to fiction and non-fiction for school work. But comics are not a poor man’s novel, it is a unique medium which I’ll address in a bit.

Comics can and have been used to tell some of the most important stories in modern history. Art Spiegelman chronicled the experiences of his father, a Polish Jew, during the Holocaust and his life at Auschwitz. It is one of the most moving stories I’ve ever read and in 1992 it was the first comic book to win a Pulitzer Prize. Yes, THE Pulitzer Prize for an outstanding work of journalism or literature. Only last year Top Shelf Comics published March, a graphic novel memoir about US Congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis who has been fighting for equality for over 50 years. March includes his memories of the Civil Rights Movement, including the 1963 March on Washington, and it is his first-hand account of the struggles over the years. It is an important piece of literature that just happens to be in comic book form.

Of course comics don’t have to be about heavy subjects. They can be light fun, entertaining, humorous, silly and entertaining. From coming of age stories, to romance, to horror, to westerns to crime to science fiction and fantasy. I grew up reading superhero comics, but now I read all sorts, such as Saga, an intergalactic space adventure, reminiscent in some ways of Star Wars, or Sixth Gun, a pulpy horror western, or Grandville, an anthropomorphic steampunk crime adventure series. I still read and enjoy superheroes, but like any other medium I don’t just stick to one genre. The possibilities with comics are endless.

Comics are also a unique medium. They’ve existed in one form or another for thousands of years and a creative team on a comic book (writer, penciller, inker, colourist, letterer) can create stories in such a way that it can’t be done in the same way in any other medium. Scott McLeod is a cartoonist and comic book theorist who has written several non-fiction graphic novels about this that detail different aspects of comics, from their ancient history to their rapid evolution. He breaks down and explains some of the elements that make comics unique and a remarkable medium. Understanding Comics is the first of his books and the best place to start if you’re interested, then he moved on to Reinventing Comics which looked at how much comics had changed since he first started writing Understanding Comics. The medium is also constantly evolving and being reimagined by creative people who even now do things on the page that I’ve never seen before.

Going back in time a little, and focusing on the American market, comic books in multiple genres used to be common. During the 1970s, Marvel published among other things horror, western, war, martial arts, and humour comics. These days both Marvel and DC, the two biggest publishers in the US market are synonymous with superhero comics. They do a little in other genres, but superheroes are their bread and butter. They feed into all of the other areas, from film and TV to computer games, merchandise, toys and even clothing. But it all comes back to those iconic heroes. So why are we still obsessed with them?

I have a theory, and it’s not an original one, so I’m not claiming I came up with it first, but of the many ideas I’ve heard it seems the most plausible to me. Superhero comic books are the equivalent of modern myths and legends. I grew up reading the likes of Hans Christian Anderson, the Brothers Grimm, Greek and Roman myths and legends, folk tales from all around the world in fact, and these parables and mythological stories are being replicated in comics. They are the ongoing adventures of larger than life characters. Some superhero characters are direct figures from mythology in modern day, such as Thor and Hercules, some are obvious analogues such as The Flash as Mercury, Aquaman as Poseidon. Some are not as clear cut and they represent ideals such as Hope, Justice and Equality, but these basic principles, wrapped up in an interesting character never go out of fashion. There are other reasons we love superheroes, but I believe this is a key element.

I realise that getting into comics can be difficult and intimidating. But this weekend is the perfect opportunity to try if you’ve not done so before. If you have a local comic shop go along and talk to the person behind the counter. Tell them the kind of genres that interest you, the type of stories you like, even the type of TV shows and books you read. They’ll be able to point you in the direction of a few different places to start. Getting into superhero comics can be difficult, with over 75 years of character history in some cases, but there again they can give you some good jumping on points. If you don’t have a local shop, then I’m happy to make suggestions myself. So tell me what kind of stories you enjoy, in any medium, and I’ll try to pair you up with some comics to suit your interests. There’s a lot going on in comics and if you’re reading them then you are missing out on some amazing stories.

 

Holiday Reading List 2014

Every year I save up some special books to take on holiday with me. Books that I’m really excited about, books that are sequels in a series I’m reading, or just fantastic sounding books by familiar and also new authors. I normally managed 5-6 books in a week on holiday, which is a massive increase on my usual reading speed of 2-3 books a month, but with fewer distractions and only a pool to tempt my away from the page, I manage a lot of reading.

Aalphalpha by Greg Rucka – I’m a big fan of Greg Rucka and his work in general, but particularly his independent comic book work (Stumptown, Lazarus, Veil, Lady Sabre, Queen and Country) and I have also read and enjoyed several of his Kodiak novels. Alpha is the first in a brand new series with brand new character and I’ve heard great things about it from other people who have already read it. Someone kindly bought me a copy for my birthday so I’ve been saving it for a few months now already.

king11/22/63 by Stephen King – I’ve been reading King books for decades and think he’s an amazingly creative writer with a remarkable imagination. I love time travel, always have. From Back to the Future to the hammy Time Cop, I just love time travel and this is the ultimate version of, ‘what if I could go back in time and change an event earlier in my life?’ This goes far beyond something  small and personal. It asks, what would happen if someone tried to change the horrific events on that tragic day in Dallas in 1963?  I’m sure there will be plenty of twists and turns, a lot which I won’t see coming, which is another real plus for me as I like to be surprised but often see them coming ahead of time. King always surprises me with his choices and where a story goes so I’m really interested to see what he does with this.

jackalThe Iron Jackal by Chris Wooding – I loved the first two of this series and flew through them as they’re so funny, dark, exciting, clever, packed full of ideas and great characters. An easy touchstone is Firefly, but it goes far beyond that into a world that is completely its own thing. The story in these novels fly along at a cracking pace and are full of great characters, moments of genuine creepy horror, and clever twisty turny plots, dog fights in the sky and laugh out loud moments. It’s incredibly rare that a novel actually makes me laugh out loud. I smile, I might almost chuckle, but properly laugh is one in a hundred but Wooding does it.

heavenThe Dirty Streets of Heaven by Tad Williams – I’ve read a few of his novels over the years, starting back in the day with his fantasy books, Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, and then his massive Otherland books which were remarkable in their scope and achievement. This new series sounds exactly like my kind of thing, noir crossed with supernatural and urban fantasy. No doubt it will have his own unique  twist as well and this is another one I’ve been desperate to read but have been saving it for a time when I can read it without interruption and can just sit for hours at a time and sink into the book. The second book in the series is already out so if I really like this I’m sure I will pick up the next one in record time.

I’m going to add at least one more, if not two books to the list before I go. Do you save books up to read at a later date? If so what books are you saving up? It might give me a few ideas to add to this list.

Real Ale: Cumberland Ale – Jennings Brewery

“A superb golden coloured ale, brewed with English pale Ale malt and using only the finest English aromatic hops.”

Cumberland AleI received a few ales for my birthday, what a surprise, and among them was a couple of bottles of Cumberland Ale. I’ve had this before several times in the past, in bottles and on a pump in a bar just around the corner from Kings Cross and every time I’ve found it to be very tasty.

It’s fairly light in taste, what some would describe as a delicate palette, and unlike some beers it’s actually really difficult to describe. It has a very slight bitter aftertaste, but there again that’s not a problem for someone like me who doesn’t like bitters or ales that leave you needing something sweet to cleanse the palette. You can drink a couple of these and not feel as if you’ve been sucking on a lemon. It’s very smooth, a bit malty, at 4.0% it’s not heavy and is slightly amber in colour and sort of golden as well with a slight head. Overall it’s a really nice easy drink which some might find boring, but I really enjoy it and will always go for it if I see it on the pump. Other flavours I’ve not noticed but are mentioned are apple and biscuit so I’ll have to look out for them next time I have a pint!

Cumberland Ale won silver in 2009 and bronze in 2010 at the International Beer Challenge and it’s a favourite as it’s stocked nationwide. Jennings have been going for 185 years and despite having not been to the brewery I think I’ve tried all of their core range, except for the Bitter. If I’m ever up that way in the Lakes I’d definitely pop in to take a tour and pick up a couple of bottles or ten. I’ve been to the Lake District lots of times on holidays but it’s rare that I go that far north in the area so at some point I’ll have to make a special journey.

Have a look at their website and if you are up that way, or are coming down from across the border, pop in and take the tour.

Beauty and The Beast – Month 3

My rewatch of the classic TV series Beauty and the Beast with C.E. Murphy continues. We watch one episode a week, try to watch it at the same time and chat over twitter. We’re about halfway into series one now, so there’s still time to catch up if you want to join in.

Ep. 9 – Dark Spirit – This was for me the weakest episode so far of the series. The basic concept was interesting; a high profile figure is apparently killed by voodoo, but then all of the little weird details that were probably meant to be interesting, just felt a little too contrived for me. The evil voodoo spirit just happened to look a lot like Vincent. The one person Catherine turns to for help just happens to be the person responsible, and there were a few other bits that made me roll my eyes. Father tells Vincent it’s all nonsense, people preying on the weak, the power of suggestion and so on. There were some interesting moments, a strange weird woman who lived underground, and yet, it just felt a bit ham-fisted to me. Catherine was drugged and in terrible peril and Vincent rescued her. Her transformation and paranoia was handled very well and Linda Hamilton did a great job, plus she looked incredibly sexy all vamped up in red, but I just really struggled with this episode. I’m hoping it picks up again in the next episode.

Ep.10 – A Children’s Story – This was a return to form for me after the previous episode which was quite disappointing. We get a glimpse of the underground network that later comes to be more important in the series. In this episode one of the many children who live underground comes across a boy from above who is in trouble. He reports it to Father and Vincent who then get Catherine to investigate the foster home, as Vincent can’t look into it during the day above ground. It was very Oliver Twist at times, kids disappearing, being trained to steal if they want to eat, lost in the system, forced into a life of crime with the constant threat of violence from their so-called protector who tries to foster the idea that they are all a family now. Edie, the IT genius, gets a moment to shine, to play the seductress and distract a nerdy guy in the records department who looks suitably flustered. Strong supporting performances from Catherine’s boss, Joe, who is ever the realist. He knows they have a lot of cases to work through without Catherine finding new ones by herself, but he’s also a stand-up guy and trusts her to find the time around other projects. Roy Dotrice has a nice moment as Father with the latest orphan, where he lets the boy make his own decision about their secret, while the adults smile on as Father nimbly but subtly guides the boy to the right decision. A great episode and I hope it continues like this.

Ep.11 – An Impossible Silence – This was another great episode, one that was actually really emotional as well. The premise was pretty simple, a dodgy cop kills another cop and there is a witness. Someone else is blamed for the crime and arrested and the deaf girl, who lives below, has to come forward to see that justice is done. She has to step out of the shadows and face up to the risks that come with being the witness in a very sensitive case. Catherine’s boss Joe wants her to leave it alone and for the first time we find out a bit more about him and his background. A tragic event shaped him at an early age and quite possibly put him onto the path of becoming a district attorney. Vincent also shows great sensitivity and awareness in this episode and he disagrees with Father’s approach to the situation. We also had our first glimpse of Pascal, a character that crops up a lot in the future, portrayed by the talented Armin Shimerman, who people will know from a host of SF shows including Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Buffy. The pacing in this episode was a lot slower than more modern shows, but it really helped give the actors space and time to breathe in the scenes, to build the atmosphere and explore character. Catherine was tough as ever, even going so far as to not let Joe off the hook when he later apologises for his attitude. There were a few pretty harsh moments, some things I doubt we would see happen on TV these days to a main character, but they did it here and didn’t flinch away from it. Definitely a favourite episode so far.

Ep. 12 – Shades of Grey – This is the first episode where the balance of the story felt more in favour of Vincent and the people below than Catherine, which is not a bad thing. It opens with a large group of people gathered to render judgment on one of their own who has broken one of their most important rules. Father is trying to get the boy to understand what he’s done but he doesn’t see it as a problem leaving them no choice but to decide on a punishment. Mouse is sentenced to a month of the Silence, where no one will talk to him which sounds easy but is actually pretty tough given that they’re a small and close community who rely on each other. Meanwhile Catherine is dealing with issues of her own at work as someone tries to exploit her past relationship with Elliot Burch to help the DA’s office get rid of someone even worse. This was still a relatively simple episode compared to modern standards, but it started to pull different threads together from previous episodes. Elliot Burch, Father and his firm but fair approach to punishment, the difference in opinion between Vincent and Father, an orphan from above who ended up living down below with his sister and also Catherine’s relationship with Joe. We also are introduced to Winslow for the first time, played the late and very great, James Avery, a giant of a man, who was a remarkably talented actor. We get another glimpse of Pascal but only a little and several other adults down below. Another cracking episode, one that while I could predict what was going to happen for the most part, I was still surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Rewatching some old TV shows makes me realise I really am wearing rose tinted glasses, but definitely not with this show. If you’ve not seen it before, you really are missing out.

Blue Elf Needs Food Badly

Gauntlet Arcade GameThat title is probably confusing unless like me you grew up playing the computer game Gauntlet. This is an old school dungeon crawler where you look down on your character and wade through a seemingly endless series of dungeons battling thousands of minions alongside your fellow heroes. It was a multi-player game, which sounds like something that isn’t worth mentioning, but co-op games were not the norm back in the day. In fact it was one of the first multi-player arcade games ever. It was also in the era where a lot of the best games came from the arcade machines and if they were really popular they might progress to one of the relatively basic personal computers or games consoles that were around at the time. That’s actually pretty remarkable and although the landscape has completely shifted these days, and arcades are now very limited, they used to be the frontier for games.

Gauntlet came out in 1985 and at the time it was pretty ground-breaking. Gauntlet was basically the grand-daddy of a lot of fantasy games. This spawned a whole host of other games where the game was a bit more advanced like Golden Axe, a sideways scrolling game with special moves! Altered Beast was another side scrolling adventure game that was favourite of mine where you and another player could shape change from a human into a werewolf for one level and a dragon for another.

I grew up in a seaside town where there were many arcades for the tourists, but a few of them were really orientated at locals with the better games at the back and pool tables. I spent a lot of Saturday mornings feeding 10 pence coins into arcade machines and having countless hours of fun. Gauntlet was an epic game and unlike a lot of games if you had even a little bit of skill you got your money’s worth. You could get about five to ten minutes of play out of one credit.

Well it’s finally happened. I’m delighted to say that Gauntlet is coming back. You will be able to get it from Steam for the PC this summer and I cannot wait to play it. The graphics, sounds, gameplay and everything else has obviously been updated to modern standards, but from what I’ve seen so far, the core of the game remains. An aerial view, dungeon crawler where each of the four different character classes has a strength and weakness. You can hopefully pick your colour, you pick your class and off you go, battling a seemingly endless sea of minions for treasure. Arrowhead Games have developed it and it will be coming out this summer. Count me in!

 

New Photos

I recently had some professional photographs taken for PR and marketing in the future and to be honest I wasn’t looking forward to it. As a rule I just don’t like having my picture taken and never like the end result. I think I always end up looking goofy, or have my mouth gaping open or I look half asleep. This was also the day after my busy trip to London to visit my publisher and see my agent, so I was pretty tired.

Much to surprise the actual process itself was a lot of fun. Hannah Webster was my photographer and she has done lots of commercial portraits before as well as food photography, events, marketing and a whole host of other stuff. She’s also taught photography, so I felt that I was in very safe hands. We started with some photos at her studio and I had to try to remember to smile, then I became conscious of my smile and I thought it was lopsided, or maybe I was smiling too much. Her lovely and friendly cat Jess kept me company, calmed me down and made my smile and the photos much more natural. We took some more pictures outside at a local park and then came the awful wait for the photos to come through. In the end I didn’t need to worry. I’m actually really pleased with the photos, they look natural and very relaxed.

Publishing Adventures in London

Earlier this week I had my first official trip to London as a soon to be published author. It was an intense and pretty exhausting time, but overall proved to be fascinating. On Monday morning I visited my fantastic agent, Juliet Mushens, and Sarah, her lovely assistant, at their offices for a chat about the book and the trilogy, my plans and what happens next.

After that it was my first trip to the Orbit offices to meet with my editor, Jenni Hill, for the first time. Orbit have their offices at 100 Victoria Embankment, which is a massive and very impressive building, inside and out. I was nervous about being late, so rather than risk getting lost, I got off the tube and did the sensible thing. I asked the nearest security person at the station how tin find the building. The woman was very kind and patient, as she walked with me to the entrance to the tube station and then pointed at the giant edifice directly across the road. Whoops! I grinned sheepishly and scuttled off.

Over lunch Jenni and I talked about the book, the characters, and really got into a meaty chat about the first book, Battlemage, and how it connects to the others in the trilogy. I think it’s the first time I’ve had a proper discussion about the series and the shape of it with someone who had read the first book. For the longest time characters have just lived inside my head and on the page, but suddenly they were breathing again as we talked about the future and what happened next. I could answer all of the questions but I think it was the first time I’d said some of it aloud to someone else. I probably got a few strange looks from other people in the restaurant but I didn’t notice.

After that I was shown around the Orbit offices and met the rest of the team who were all fabulous and so enthusiastic. With little time to spare I zipped back across London, checked into my hotel, then ran back out again for an early dinner with some friends. The rest of the evening I could just sit back and try to unwind and unclench, as the attention was firmly on Jen Williams (she of the fabulous The Copper Promise fame) and Den Patrick (he of the equally awesome The Boy with The Porcelain Blade). At Blackwells on Charing Cross Road, Jared Shurin was asking the questions and the topics ranged from influences to monsters to magic. There was a great crowd who queued up in the typically polite English fashion to get a copy of each book signed. Technically Porcelain wasn’t out on Monday, but there were a few cheeky copies that had been released early, so I made sure I snagged one and got it signed by Den.

Not long after we adjourned to a local pub for drinks where I nobly battled to stay awake after a long and tiring day. I think I managed fairly well and had a few geeky conversations as well as getting a chance to talk archery with Gillian Redfearn. It wasn’t a late finish, for which I was grateful, and I crashed out in my hotel.

Tuesday morning I was back on the train, headed north again, towards home and also an appointment with a photographer. I think they came out quite well, despite the bags under my eyes and the stubble, but they’re both usually there anyway, so it’s going to be accurate.

It’s quite a few months until my next convention, 9 Worlds in August in London. I’ve settled back into my normal daily routine again, and have got back to work on book 2, but somewhere in the back of my mind I am now aware that other people are talking about the characters from Battlemage, and that they’re waiting to see what I do next in book 2. I also have a deadline for the first time, but so far, very little has changed day to day. I’m sure that will change next year but for now, it’s head down and keep writing.