Okay, I haven’t forgotten about this. I’m going to sort through all the pictures and pick winners in four days time, so if you’ve got something left to send, get it to me now.
Thanks to Julie and Chloe at Macmillan the prizes are these:
1st place: A signed proof copy of Orbus, a signed copy of The Gabble and signed brand new reissues (with the new covers) of Gridlinked, The Skinner, Cowl & The Line of Polity.
2nd & 3rd place: A signed proof copy of Orbus and a signed copy of The Gabble each.
I went to London yesterday to see Julie Crisp and Chloe Healey (commissioning editor and press officer) at Macmillan yesterday so, beforehand, popped into Forbidden planet to sign some of my books. They had a stack of about 100 to 150 for me to wade through (including ones with the new covers like the one here) so if you want a signed copy, keep checking out their website here – my signed copies aren’t up on it yet.
Another place for signed copies is Chelmsford. There’s about forty books divided between the two branches of Waterstones and the W H Smiths there.
A comment on the previous post is one I’ve been reading a lot from American readers. It is, apparently, difficult to obtain my books over there. The first reason for this is that Tor US doesn’t publish them all, it’s a shame, but what can I do?
However, some while ago someone directed my attention to The Book Depository which states on its website Free worldwide delivery on every book. If you go on there and stick my name in the search you get most of my books, and they’re even discounted. For example, you can buy a copy of Gridlinked, in its nice new cover, for £4.75 including postage and packing. Still suspicious I checked out the ‘to these location’ bit and the USA is there. In fact there’s a huge list of countries there. They also use Paypal.
Now, I haven’t used The Book Depository myself so don’t know how good it is or how true the promises on the website. I believe others have used it and been satisfied. Please, if any of you reading this do buy books through them, let me know how it went.
Having seen my previous post Dave Robotham tells me I may be biased as I am a huge fan of your books but I go out of my way to make sure we have all of your backlist in stock and sent me the picture below from a week ago to prove the point.
Dave is the assistant manager of both branches of Waterstone’s in Woking and tells me that since this picture The Engineer Recondition is back in stock as well as Runcible Tales, and that Cowl is flying off the shelves in its new jacket. So, if any of you reading this are in the Woking area, go buy books in Waterstones!
Okay, a little while ago I finished The Departure, wrote a couple of synopses and some blurbs for it, then sent it off to Macmillan. Good response from the commissioning editor (bloody marvelous). Here’s one of the blurbs for you:
Like Wellsian war machines the shepherds stride into riots to grab up the ringleaders and drag them off to Inspectorate HQ for adjustment, unless they are in shredding mode, in which case their captives visit community digesters, or rather whatever of them has not been washed down the street drains.
Pain inducers are used for adjustment, and soon the Committee will have the power to edit human minds, but not yet, twelve billion human beings need to die before Earth can be stabilized, but by turning large portions of Earth into concentration camps this is achievable, especially when the Argus satellite laser network comes fully online…
Alan Saul has taken a different route to disposal, waking as he does inside a crate on the conveyor into the Calais incinerator. How he got there he does not know, but he does remember the pain and the face of his interrogator. Janus speaks to Saul through the hardware implanted in his skull, sketching the nightmare world for him. And Saul decides to bring it all crashing down…
Not sure if this is what will be appearing on the back of the book, but it gives you a taste of what it’s all about.
Here’s a couple of books I read recently, both with generally the same theme: those who once considered or a certain political persuasion discovering that they no longer recognize their own political club. Their club has become authoritarian, turned the word ‘liberal’ into a dirty word and has devalued the word ‘racism’. Following through on its hate of Western civilization (though mainly America) and an ill-defined guilt about being born there, it also now supports, by making it an offense even to criticise them, fascist fundamentalists who oppress women, would kill homosexuals and aim to crush us all under a hellish theocratic regime. Through multiculturalism it has created divisions in society, reinforced by positive discrimination, which is ‘discrimination’ still. All those battles fought by the lib/left for women’s rights, homosexual rights, for freedom and against racism, all turned on their head and thrown away.
Of the two I find the Andrews’ book clearer and more cogent. Both books, however, have the power to make you angry by neatly collating and slapping down in black and white those things you probably already know. Unless you’re still a member of that club, that is.
There were a few reviews I had intended to mention here before but, operating out of an Internet cafe for the last eight months, I found it difficult to put together the information to post here. Next year I’m going to definitely have Internet out in Crete, despite the cost.
Okay, first up has to be this one over at Walker of Worlds (Mark Chitty) . It being 10/10 I guess you can understand why I like it. Then there’s Meirion’s review over at Book Geeks which is gratifying because here’s a first-time reader of my stuff.
But, if these are far too nice for you, go find the Strange Horizons review of Orbus, for the ‘this is shit because he’s not politically correct, the book is bloated and he’s a crap writer’.
Ian Whates, who edited the Subterfuge anthology published October 2008 will be producing another one called Conflicts due for publication in April. Here, as of two weeks ago is the provisional running order:
Psi.Copath – Andy Remic The Maker’s Mark – Michael Cobley Sussed – Keith Brooke The Cuisinart Effect – Neal Asher Harmony in My Head – Rosanne Rabinowitz Our Land – Chris Beckett Fallout – Gareth L. Powell Proper Little Soldier – Martin McGrath War Without End – Una McCormack Dissimulation Procedure – Eric Brown In the Long Run – David L. Clements Last Orders – Jim Mortimore Songbirds – Martin Sketchley
Maybe there’ll be another of those signed limited editions as there was with Subterfuge. I’ll let you know more about this when I know too. But maybe Ian is a bit busy since he acquired John Jarrold as an agent last year and is involved with Ian Watson producing The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories…
