Hello
Keith and I (our marketing bod) returned, this week, from Fantasycon in Nottingham after having a marvelous weekend with some of the brightest genre talents around. Abaddon did well and the feedback we got was generally very positive. I sat on four panels, mediated one, and it was great to discuss the field with fellow enthusiasts and professionals such as Adam Neville, Mark Morris, John Grant, Ian Watson, Christopher Golden, Simon Guerrier and others. It was also great to hook up with old friends and I was over the moon that my good friend Joel Lane won the award for best short story. Joel is, in my humble opinion, one of the country's finest short story writers and you should all check out his collection
The Lost District. It was also my pleasure to properly launch Paul Kane's
Afterblight novel,
Arrowhead. In fact, Paul's book was the best-seller (for us) of the convention and many thanks must go to Lee Harris of
Hub Magazine for his stellar reviews of the title. Many thanks also to Marie O' Regan for her invaluable help. Feedback on this book has been great and should you need reminding of Mark Harrison's beautiful cover here it is again:
It was also great to be able to hook up with future Tomes of The Dead scribe, Simon Bestwick. Simon's novel, Tide of Souls, will be released next November. I first met Simon back when the 1990s were in their later years and it was a great pleasure to be able to hook up again for a pint or five and shoot the breeze.
Big love must also go to the very fine writer
Gary McMahon, who is a true gent and a superb writer. Gary is fairly new to the scene (well, new-ish) but is already writing up a storm with distinctive, vicious and perceptive fiction. It was a pleasure to see him again and I only wish we'd had more time to chat.
Fantasycon is the very first convention I went to as a fan back when I was 17 and it felt a bit like a homecoming to do it this year as a professional.
In other news, Mr. Harrison has done yet another beautiful cover for us for Scott Andrews forthcoming Afterblight novel, Operation Motherland (March 2009 UK/June 2009 US).
This is Scott's sequel to the superb School's Out and follows the adventures of Lee Keegan as he goes to Iraq to search for his father. I've only read the first chapter so far but it looks like it's shaping up to be absolutely superb.
Now, let us pour ourselves a goblet of mead and talk about the Twilight of Kerberos series. "But Jon, what are your plans for the Twilight of Kerberos series?" I hear - well imagine actually - you ask. Well the vision for Kerberos is that we're going to introduce four characters in four trilogies, one trilogy per character in other words. You may have already met the first two of these characters with Lucius Kane in Shadowmage by Matthew Sprange and Kali Hooper in The Clockwork King of Orl by Mike Wild. Next February (June for the US) you can meet Gabriella DeZantez in David A. McIntee's Light of Heaven and there will be one more hero introduced next year. The idea is that each of our extraordinary heroes have a legacy linked to the ancient races of Twilight and they will discover the strange history of their world. After the four trilogies run their course there will be a further 3-4 books dealing with massive world changing events and our heroes will be right at the heart of it. That's the plan anyway, since you ask. I hope that you'll join us for the ride as it promises to be fun. We'll be increasing the frequency of the volumes for this so you don't have to wait too long to see the saga develop.
Well, that about wraps it up. Until next time.
Jonathan Oliver
Editor
