On Tour
Yesterday was a momentous day in both my children's lives. It was my son, David's, 13th birthday, which means he is now officially no longer a child, but a teenager. And it was my daughter, Polly's, last day at primary school, which means that from now on she will catch a bus to and from school with her brother, and that I will never again walk round to meet either of my kids at the end of their school day.
It's an odd and rather sobering feeling. Life hinges on little milestones like this. Each one reminds us - should we need it - that life is an ever-progressing journey, that at no point can we get off and stop for a breather, that we simply have to sit tight until the bitter end, sustained only by the hope that our particular journey will be a long and happy one.
But enough of the existentialism, I hear you cry. We didn't come here for this! And so, in the best tradition of the great Trevor MacDonald (or is it McDonald? I can't be bothered to check), here is the news:
As I'm sure I've mentioned before, my Doctor Who book, Forever Autumn, will be out on September 6th, as a consequence of which our lovely publishers at Random House have decided to send myself and my fellow September authors - Paul Magrs and Mark Michalowski - on tour. The dates and times confirmed so far are:
Saturday 8th September
Signing at 10th Planet (12.00-3.00 pm). 10th Planet Ltd, Unit 37a Vicarage Field Shopping Centre, Ripple Road, Barking IG11 8DQ
Signing at Forbidden Planet (4.00-5.00 pm). Forbidden Planet, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8JR
Saturday 15th September
Reading/panel & signing at Borders Leeds (12.00-2.00pm). 94-96 Briggate, Leeds LS1 6NP
Thurday 20th September
Reading/panel & signing at Borders Manchester Fort (7.00-8.00pm). Manchester Fort Shopping Park, Cheetham Hill Road, Greater Manchester M8 8EP
Friday 28th September
Writing Doctor Who - a panel discussion with the three of us, plus Justin Richards (Doctor Who fiction range editor), Steve Cole (author) & Michael Stevens (Doctor Who range editor at BBC Audiobooks) at the Bath Festival of Children's Literature (7.00-8.00pm). Bath Guildhall, High Street, Bath.
As well as this, I'll be at the Festival of Fantastic Films in Manchester on the weekend of Friday August 31st-Sunday September 2nd, and at the British Fantasy Convention in Nottingham on the weekend of Friday September 21st-Sunday September 23rd.
So all in all, September's looking quite busy.
Those lovely fellers at Humdrumming are imminently about to reissue my first novel Toady as a 'Printed Paper Case' hardback. For those unfamiliar with the format, it's basically a hard-backed book where the artwork is printed onto the boards themselves rather than on a separate dust jacket. If you still don't know what I'm on about, check out the Doctor Who and Torchwood range of novels published by BBC Books, or some of the more affordable hardbacks that the wonderful PS Publishing are currently releasing. The reason Humdrumming have decided to do this is because it looks much nicer than the oversized paperback they released last year, and yet is actually cheaper to produce, and therefore cheaper for potential readers to buy, so everyone's a winner.
Hot on the heels of the re-release of Toady will be my second novel Stitch, again in the same format. We're hoping to get Stitch out in time for a launch at the British Fantasy Convention in September, and until then Toady will be available in its new format at the special price of £9.99 direct from Humdrumming's website (see the address on my Links page) - so get 'em while they're hot!
I've read some cracking books recently: Blaze by Richard Bachman/Stephen King (this is a novel King originally wrote and then discarded in the early 70s, but which has now been re-edited and pared to the bone - and is all the better for it); The Road by Cormac McCarthy (stunning, heart-rending stuff that speaks volumes about both the futility and the nobility of life); and Blood of Angels by my old mate Mike Marshall Smith, here writing as Michael Marshall (I'd fallen behind with Mike's stuff, so am desperately trying to catch up, especially after reading this, which is a page-turning stunner of a thriller).
Film-wise, I've seen a whole slew of horribly sleazy but often hilarious early 70s British movies recently with a friend of mine who has the same warped tastes. In recent weeks we've watched Pete Walker's The Flesh & Blood Show, an astonishing little oddity called Bizarre (shown in Soho cinemas circa 1970 under the more salacious title, Secrets of Sex), and a seedy little London-set psycho thriller called Night After Night After Night, which involves a high court judge who kills young women whilst dressed in fetish gear (don't ask). As well as these, I've also seen Hannibal Rising (far better than I was expecting), Dellamorte Dellamore, a deliriously bonkers spanish zombie movie starring Rupert Everett, and a flawed but interesting little UK horror film called The Toybox. Oh, and blockbuster-wise the family and I went to see Pirates at the Caribbean at World's End, which I thoroughly enjoyed, Shrek 3, which we all thought was far better than Shrek 2 and so were rather baffled at the bad press it has been getting, and Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix, which, even at two and a half hours, I thought was a bit sketchy and disappointing - and completely confusing to those who hadn't read the book.
Finally, just wanted to share this with you. It's the artwork for my forthcoming novel The Deluge, out in December from Leisure Books in the US. I think it's a really striking piece of work. If you get chance, let me know what you think.
Cheers till next time.
It's an odd and rather sobering feeling. Life hinges on little milestones like this. Each one reminds us - should we need it - that life is an ever-progressing journey, that at no point can we get off and stop for a breather, that we simply have to sit tight until the bitter end, sustained only by the hope that our particular journey will be a long and happy one.
But enough of the existentialism, I hear you cry. We didn't come here for this! And so, in the best tradition of the great Trevor MacDonald (or is it McDonald? I can't be bothered to check), here is the news:
As I'm sure I've mentioned before, my Doctor Who book, Forever Autumn, will be out on September 6th, as a consequence of which our lovely publishers at Random House have decided to send myself and my fellow September authors - Paul Magrs and Mark Michalowski - on tour. The dates and times confirmed so far are:
Saturday 8th September
Signing at 10th Planet (12.00-3.00 pm). 10th Planet Ltd, Unit 37a Vicarage Field Shopping Centre, Ripple Road, Barking IG11 8DQ
Signing at Forbidden Planet (4.00-5.00 pm). Forbidden Planet, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8JR
Saturday 15th September
Reading/panel & signing at Borders Leeds (12.00-2.00pm). 94-96 Briggate, Leeds LS1 6NP
Thurday 20th September
Reading/panel & signing at Borders Manchester Fort (7.00-8.00pm). Manchester Fort Shopping Park, Cheetham Hill Road, Greater Manchester M8 8EP
Friday 28th September
Writing Doctor Who - a panel discussion with the three of us, plus Justin Richards (Doctor Who fiction range editor), Steve Cole (author) & Michael Stevens (Doctor Who range editor at BBC Audiobooks) at the Bath Festival of Children's Literature (7.00-8.00pm). Bath Guildhall, High Street, Bath.
As well as this, I'll be at the Festival of Fantastic Films in Manchester on the weekend of Friday August 31st-Sunday September 2nd, and at the British Fantasy Convention in Nottingham on the weekend of Friday September 21st-Sunday September 23rd.
So all in all, September's looking quite busy.
Those lovely fellers at Humdrumming are imminently about to reissue my first novel Toady as a 'Printed Paper Case' hardback. For those unfamiliar with the format, it's basically a hard-backed book where the artwork is printed onto the boards themselves rather than on a separate dust jacket. If you still don't know what I'm on about, check out the Doctor Who and Torchwood range of novels published by BBC Books, or some of the more affordable hardbacks that the wonderful PS Publishing are currently releasing. The reason Humdrumming have decided to do this is because it looks much nicer than the oversized paperback they released last year, and yet is actually cheaper to produce, and therefore cheaper for potential readers to buy, so everyone's a winner.
Hot on the heels of the re-release of Toady will be my second novel Stitch, again in the same format. We're hoping to get Stitch out in time for a launch at the British Fantasy Convention in September, and until then Toady will be available in its new format at the special price of £9.99 direct from Humdrumming's website (see the address on my Links page) - so get 'em while they're hot!
I've read some cracking books recently: Blaze by Richard Bachman/Stephen King (this is a novel King originally wrote and then discarded in the early 70s, but which has now been re-edited and pared to the bone - and is all the better for it); The Road by Cormac McCarthy (stunning, heart-rending stuff that speaks volumes about both the futility and the nobility of life); and Blood of Angels by my old mate Mike Marshall Smith, here writing as Michael Marshall (I'd fallen behind with Mike's stuff, so am desperately trying to catch up, especially after reading this, which is a page-turning stunner of a thriller).
Film-wise, I've seen a whole slew of horribly sleazy but often hilarious early 70s British movies recently with a friend of mine who has the same warped tastes. In recent weeks we've watched Pete Walker's The Flesh & Blood Show, an astonishing little oddity called Bizarre (shown in Soho cinemas circa 1970 under the more salacious title, Secrets of Sex), and a seedy little London-set psycho thriller called Night After Night After Night, which involves a high court judge who kills young women whilst dressed in fetish gear (don't ask). As well as these, I've also seen Hannibal Rising (far better than I was expecting), Dellamorte Dellamore, a deliriously bonkers spanish zombie movie starring Rupert Everett, and a flawed but interesting little UK horror film called The Toybox. Oh, and blockbuster-wise the family and I went to see Pirates at the Caribbean at World's End, which I thoroughly enjoyed, Shrek 3, which we all thought was far better than Shrek 2 and so were rather baffled at the bad press it has been getting, and Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix, which, even at two and a half hours, I thought was a bit sketchy and disappointing - and completely confusing to those who hadn't read the book.
Finally, just wanted to share this with you. It's the artwork for my forthcoming novel The Deluge, out in December from Leisure Books in the US. I think it's a really striking piece of work. If you get chance, let me know what you think.
Cheers till next time.
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