Caroline and I went to Macmillan yesterday, then on to lunch with the new senior commissioning editor for PanMac, Julie Crisp, and Peter Lavery, now retired from everything bar the part he loves, the actual editing, so he can still set writers quivering in their boots whenever he reaches for a pencil. Some interesting stuff, like the huge spread I have in DeathRay Magazine (more about that later), like changing my cover picture and, when the IT guys arrived, setting up a Macmillan-based website for me. But all that’s not the point of this post.

As usual on these visits, we were let into the lobby, signed in, then waited to be collected. Whilst there I gazed at the big flat screen they have up on the wall which has a constant slide show of books, their blurbs and taglines. I’ve sat there many times before hoping to see something of mine come up, but never seen it until now. It’s there, at last! Damn I’m sad.

Very nice review of The Gabble over here and Greenman Review:

Best story? I really can’t say, for much the same reason that I can’t pick out the best novel of the entire Polity series. Having read eleven novels and one collection comprising over ten thousand pages of reading, I can only say that all of it is excellent, all of it well-worth reading. If you haven’t yet read your way through this series, I envy you; if you have, go get your copy of The Gabble and Other Stories right now before it sells out in hardcover!

Cat Eldridge.

I just finished Galactic North the other day, and am now looking forward to reading The Prefect. It’s nice to be once again reminded why I enjoyed reading his Revelation Space series. A few of the stories in here I’d read before (was The Great Wall of Mars in Interzone?) but I still enjoyed them second time around. The story Galactic North seemed a bit disjointed, but I still enjoyed the big space and huge breadths of time. All of it: huge Gothic spaceships, weapons like dangerous beasts lurching in cathedral caches, borge-like ultras, nano-plagues and … more stuff with Conjoiners in it, please, Alastair!

My thanks to the staff at Forbidden Planet for having me there signing books again (and providing sandwiches, cake and tea). Not a vast attendance, but more than made up for by the enthusiasm of those who did turn up. I also signed plenty of stock so if you’re after a signed copy you can order one here, just put in a search with my name – it would also be worth checking because I know they have signed copies of those shown here but not marked as signed.

Nice also to meet Julie Crisp, senior commissioning editor at Tor/Pan Macmillan and Chloe Healy the press officer there. Also great to see Simon Kavanagh and Peter Lavery, as always.

Sorry to have missed any of the usual crowd afterwards – the Angel was packed so we went to the Phoenix Club. Maybe this coming April when The Shadow of the Scorpion comes out?

Subterfuge: A clever device or strategy used to evade a rule, escape a consequence, or to hide something… Ian Whates just visited me today to get me to sign the remainder of a signed special edition of Subterfuge, in which you’ll find a Polity story of mine called The Rhine’s World Incident. On Amazon we have: A Signed and Numbered Limited edition of just 150. Each copy is signed by all contributors (barring Neal Asher). This special edition contains three additional stories to the other two standard editions (By Ian Watson, Storm Constantine and Ian Whates). The ‘barring Neal Asher’ has now changed for about the remaining 90 copies. Authors also included in this are Tanith Lee, John Meaney, Storm Constantine, Dave Hutchinson, Steve Longworth, Nick Ravensworth, Sarah Singleton, Neil Williamson, Nick Wood, Una McCormack, Juliet McKenna, Tony Ballantyne, Pat Cadigan, Gary Couzens, and Ian Whates (Editor). It’s further worth noting that the Dave Hutchinson is the very same as who posts comments here (I look forward to reading Multitude, Dave).None limited edition here.