Zombies!!

I just had to interrupt your regular broadcast to say - how effing Abaddon Books are these shoes?

Honest to god, I must have these. Like, now. Zombie shoes! They're even in Abaddon colours!!

('Zombie Stomper' high heels by Iron Fist)

If you see a brunette tottering around the next Horror convention wearing these, it's probably me. Help me back to the Abaddon and Solaris Books table as I can't walk in high heels to save my life. And yet I still want these shoes. (Hey, who needs to actually walk? I'll just sit and look at them.) Which reminds me - I'm going to be at WHC in Brighton and Eastercon in London in a few weeks, comment if you're going!


Right, back to proofing Weston Ochse's Empire of Salt, his zombie novel for our Tomes of the Dead line. It's brilliant, by the way. One thing that completely jumps out at me is the setting, he really makes me want to visit the Salton Sea, (although not if it's full of zombies, obviously! I'd be rubbish with a shotgun). It just sounds like such a spooky, interesting place.

If you don't know already, (and I didn't) the Salton Sea is a large lake in California that was once hailed as a tourist resort, although due to environmental problems the water is getting saltier and saltier, the fish are dying out and tourism has decreased.* There're loads of abandoned holiday houses and motels, - in short, it's a really spooky setting for a zombie story!

I love ghost town photography of abandoned places, so here's two photos from the Salton Sea to get you in the right frame of mind... The book's out at the end of April!

Right, back to work...**

(photo of an abadoned motel by 'pretzelpaws' taken from wikipedia)

The Olivers have a chance to make a new home at Salton Sea. Looking forward to California fun, sun and adventure they are unprepared for the ecological devastation they find. The sea is rotting, the town of Bombay Beach is dying and the citizens are like bait, waiting to be plucked from their homes by what comes from the sea. Beware the coming of the green, they say. Beware the coming of the night...

('Ghost town photography' by Steve Bingham)


*There's lots of information over here at the Salton Sea Restoration website if you're interested in the hows and whys of this.
** This proofreading would totally be more fun if I was wearing zombie shoes. Now where's my credit card...

Aliens vs. Predator

Just a big shout out to our colleagues in Rebellion Video Games, who you may or may not know that we at Abaddon and Solaris Books share an office with. Their recently released game Aliens vs. Predator is currently number one on all platforms in the UK, beating games such as BioShock 2! It's also the fastest-selling game in the UK of 2010!

Props to be you, guys! Guess all those months of making us poor publishers listen to weird alien noises coming from the sound room actually came to something, huh?

-

Gemmell Award: Vote Now!

Hi all,

As I'm sure I mentioned, Mike Wild's Twilight of Kerberos: The Crucible of the Dragon God (cover by Mark Harrison) and Matthew Sprange's Twilight of Kerberos: Night's Haunting (cover by Greg Staples) have both been longlisted for the David Gemmell Award, in both the Legend (for best heroic fantasy) and Ravenheart (for best cover art) categories.

Current voting is for the short-list, to be published in April, and ends on March 31st; there will be another round of voting, the details for which will be given when the shortlist comes out.

The Gemmell Award is relatively new - this will be the second award - but already well supported and quite widely recognised, and winning either category will be a great coup for the author or cover artist (and for us). So be sure and jump on the website, sign up and get your votes in!

Cheers,

David

eBooks, redux

Hello all,

Right. For those of you eagerly awaiting the latest Ulysses S. Quicksilver (dandy and secret agent) adventure in electronic format, Jonathan Green's Evolution Expects is now available from Mobipocket and our other usual vendors.

"Why is this newsworthy, David?" I hear you cry, "loads of Abaddon books have gone up as eBooks over the last few months, and you don't normally make a great hue and cry about individual titles. What gives?"

Quite right, because &E7's output is so prodigious it would be futile keeping up. Futile!

But this is a bit special. Those of you who read the hardcopy books - and you really should - will know that the Pax Britannia titles normally have lovely borders, twiddly Victoriana stuff around the chapter heads, mock-newspaper adverts for hair tonic and the like. Stuff which is normally hard to convey through the slightly limited mark-up tools of eBook designers.

But &E7 has been hard at work, exploiting new developments, tweaking the paramaters of the software, and generally making the design tools his bitch. And now Evolution Expects is out with all those bits kept in. Yes, Virginia, you can enjoy both the convenience of electronic reading and the beauty of our fine gentlemen's adventure chapbooks...

David

eBooks!

ROBO-&E7, the eBooks 'bot, has just rolled over to our booth, one wheel broken and trailing a USB lead, and asked us for requests for eBooks. So head on over to Mobipocket, check out our titles, and let us know any Abaddon book we don't currently have available that you'd like to see. There's only five or six yet to come - some of our latest titles - but put up a request here or email us to tell us your preference, and we'll let the little guy know.

Greetings from your Evil Over Lord

Hello

It has been many moons since I last posted here and I must apologise for my luddite, non-net savvy ways, but haven't Jenni and David been ace in keeping all ticking along? But, you know, I thought that I should show my face now and again and remind you that I am watching over you all... especially you. Yes you! Put it away! Honestly.

Anyway, as always things have been uber busy with busy on top here at the Abaddon manse, and that's because we have so many ace things in the pipeline. Obviously our most recent release is my own tome Twilight of Kerberos: Call of Kerberos and many thanks to those of you who have said such nice things about the book. There will indeed be a sequel at some point next year.

But even more exciting than this are the goodies we have coming up for you this year. There will be Weston Ochse's chilling zombie horror Tomes of The Dead: Empire of Salt in April and two new series this spring. Yes two! These are The Infernal Game: Ghost Dance by Rebecca Levene and No Man's World: Black Hand Gang by Pat Kelleher. My design minions have created these two lovely covers:

And these are just a handful of the lovelies coming up. For behold, there will be more in the Twilight of Kerberos series. Feast ye, on the covers of Greg of Staples:

And now, because we are down with the kids and love technology (but not quite as much a Kip in Napoleon Dynamite) you can get virtually all our Abaddon titles in e-book format.

Now to talk about 2011 because even though - to you - that seems a long way away, in publishing terms it's next Monday and we're all running around trying to figure out what to put your way. Two new commissions have already happened. The first being a Tomes of The Dead novel called The Viking Dead by debut novelist Toby Venables. More on this very soon, but let me just say that the pitch was the business. Zombies, Vikings, weird goings on = Win! I'm also very pleased to say that we will be doing further Pax Britannia novels, the first of which next year will be Pax Britannia: Anno Frankenstein. It's a pleasure to continue to work with Jonathan Green on this series and I can promise you that this steampunk pulp adventure will go from strength to strength.

And, what is more (yes more my pulp hungry friends), there is going to be a NEW series launching in 2011. David Moore - my erstwhile Desk Editor - is helming this up and we're going through the pitches at the moment. Not to give too much away, but this will be a new take on a very well known fantasy legend. We're already getting in some great ideas and it looks like this one is going to be a real winner.

Anyway, that is all for now. I shall retreat to my lair to pour over forbidden tomes and strange brews, or whatever it is us evil editor overlords are supposed to do.

Until next we meet, happy reading!

Jon Oliver

(Editor-evil-emeritus)

Dinosaur Zombies!

Ooh! Ooh! Check it out. Dinosaur Zombies.

Zombies: quite scary. Dinosaurs: also quite scary. Zombie dinosaurs: Chuck Norris.

"Wait!" I hear you cry. "Wait! Surely zombie dinosaurs aren't much scarier than regular variety dinosaurs!"

But no, gentle reader. Do you know why?

Tiny, hard to hit brains.

Two tiny, hard to hit brains.

You're running away from Zombisaurus Rex, right; you're doing well, lots of ammo, got one of them Jurassic Park-themed jeeps. Okay. Ol' Z-Rex corners you, and blam! You let him have it in the head.

Nothing.

Dude's totally still coming.

He's got a massive layer of bone and a tiny, tiny brain.

His mate Zombegasaurus comes along, and okay, not so much of a thick skull, maybe you'll hit his peanut-size grey matter, but bam! Fecker's got a spare down in his tail!

Doomed! All of you!

For real.

David

PS: Jenni wants it on record that she came up with the idea.

SFX Weekender: Eleventh Post

(Following on fron the tenth post, just here.)

So, a quick wrap post for our adoring fans. Here is Mr. Al Ewing serenading us with Eddie Cooley and Otis Blackwell's "Fever" on the Karaoke stage at the SFX Weekender on Saturday. Yes, his voice is really that deep. No, he's not putting it on.

He also gave us a memorable rendition of Larry Weiss's "Rhinestone Cowboy," and I offered Satchmo's "What a Wonderful World" (okay, I did put it on, but rather well if I say so myself) and the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" (I also gloriously cocked up the Gorillaz' "Clint Eastwood," but the less said about that the better; let's just say that Del tha Funkee Homosapien's job is in no danger just yet), but they were sadly not captured.

Then on to the Masquerade Ball, DJ'ed by Pat Sharp. Do you know what? He's not all that. I danced a couple of songs, thought "blow this for a lark," and went and found some friends.

Crashed out at a fairly responsible 2am, did some last minute packing, and cleared out around 11.30 on Sunday. Our wonderful PR girl left her mobile at Clackett Lane services and I had to drive back and forth on the M25 for half an hour, but an otherwise uneventful drive and a splendid weekend had by all.

And that more or less wraps it up. Some final images I didn't get around to including:

There were more David Tennant cosplayers than you could shake a stick at. There were, in fact, no other Doctor Who cosplayers that I could see (not withstanding one bloke in a multicoloured scarf, who may have been trying for the world's worst Tom Baker impression, or may just really dig long multicoloured scarves; I will leave it up to history to decide that one), although I had it on good authority that there was a Troughton cosplayer.

I mean, good show that man. Troughton's a courageous decision and one of my favourite Whos. But, you know, I didn't see him.

Our very own Jonathan Green signing one of his Ulysses S. Quicksilver books for a fan. Jon wasn't in for the long haul - I believe he has a tiny one at home, so fair play - but he kicked around for about a day, and I had a chance to chat with him and capture an interview for the next podcast.

And finally, the resident 2000AD artists Leigh Gallagher and Clint Langley did some sketches live at the event: here's Leigh with Defoe and a zombie, and Clint with a massive Dredd.

I believe they were given away as prizes, which must have been a good coup for someone.

Right. Off to get some more caffeine.

David

SFX Weekender: Ninth Post

Eighth post is here.

So, yeah, some more costumes for you. Pretty cool, I thought.




Part ten here.

SFX Weekender: Seventh Post

Sixth and final post last night is here.

So we hit a bar in Rye last night to have a bit of a drink and get down. Here's us around the table.

Not me, obviously. I'm holding the camera.

The taxi driver recommended it to us. We walked in and Brian Glover shouted at us to keep off the moors and stick to the path.

Well, he didn't, really, because he's dead and that would have been creepy. Also awesome.

Seriously, it was quite a nice pub and they were quite friendly.

The DJ was extraordinary. He'd brought about fifty CDs with him and was all "yeah, come up and let me know any requests!"

Fifty.

So we went up and asked, but even trying to be as cheese-friendly as we could, we had about a 30% hit rate. His face fell every time we asked, but he was so happy every time he could help. It was kind of half-DJ, half-Spaniel.

So now it's Day Two of the con (Day Three onsite). Tired, bleary, slightly hungover.

Living the dream, baby. Living the dream.

Eighth post, for those reading the whole thing in order, is here.

SFX Weekender: Fifth Post

Fourth Post is here.

Check these out. They got girls on stilts wandering around freaking people out.

Mmm... giant, terrifying women in fishnets.

Next post is here.

SFX Weekender: Third Post

So the Second Post is up on the Solaris blog.

And the con is in full swing. We're selling books - Paul Kane's Arrowhead and Broken Arrow are quite successful today, as are Scott Andrews' Lee Keegan books - chatting folk up, and pottering about.

Our very own (and 2000 AD's) Al Ewing has been up for a comic-writing workshop along with 2000 AD's Leigh Gallagher, talking up the audience and getting them to call out plot ideas while Leigh drew.

The ideas posed a bit of a challenge, in the end; they ended up writing a story about Dredd investigating an MP who bought porn on expenses, only to discover that the porn was poisonous.

Hm.

At any rate, above is Al rocking the mic like a born MC, and below is Leigh getting his penmanship on.

Fourth post is here.

SFX Weekender: First Post

Hi all,

As promised, I am blogging live from the SFX Weekender, where I will be updating you intermittently throughout the day.

So we got on site yesterday after my first time ever driving a van - a harrowing, but in the end reassuringly straightforward experience - and went for a pint. Because that's how we roll.

Then we unloaded the van and had another pint.

Then we went to find our chalets and had another pint.

Then we wandered around Camber looking for a fictional restaurant, gave up, grabbed some supermarket pizza and came back for another pint.

Limped out of bed at around 8.30 (or so; some got up earlier than later), sorted the boxes a little and saw these guys.

Do you suppose convention stormtrooper guys turn up, see other convention stormtrooper guys, and think, "Oh my god! Somebody else came dressed as the same thing! I'm going to just die."

No?

Whatever.

Breakfast at some horrifying cafe where the woman made us fix her lights before we were allowed to sit down - this is actually true - and back to set the stall up.

More as the day progresses. I'm really just in it for Tom Baker.

The second post is here.

Seriously...

...what the f*ck is wrong with these people?

A couple of scientists in France have experimented with allowing robots to evolve skills like co-operation and hunting.

"The researchers described 'spider' hunting techniques among the bots in which hunters would lie in wait for prey (which in this case, fortunately, consisted of other robots)."

Yeah, for the time being, assholes.

The one thing we had over the relentless titanium-clawed harbingers of our destruction was evolution. We were better than them, and had a reasonable chance of remaining better than them over the generations as they crushed our children under their terrible feet, until one day a man would rise as a leader to overthrow the metallic overlords, to a sound-track by Guns 'N' Roses. Now, one of them will probably rise up to fight him, and it'll have lasers.

In the meantime, the US Army has equipped robots with actual guns. Some 3000 of the psychotic little bastards are actually in use now. I don't care if you've given them a cute name like "SWORDS." Don't get them used to being armed! Seriously, did South Africa teach us nothing?

I give up. Clearly, as a species, we want to eaten by blood-drinking, lamprey-eel-brain-controlled, intelligent, climbing, gun-toting machines. I'm stocking my bunker now. We'll see who's laughing/receiving a court injunction when Skynet goes live.



In other news, we're heading off to the SFX Weekender shortly. If you're coming, be sure to swing by our table. Otherwise, I'll be slinging up Tweets and blogposts over the course of the next few days.

See you soon!

David

SFXWeekender Tomorrow!

We're heading off to SFXWeekender tomorrow!

This time tomorrow I'll be driving a huge rental van somewhere along the M25, shouting at other drivers, The Bloodhound Gang blaring out of the stereo.

Then this time Friday, Jonathan Oliver, Paul Kane and I'll be nobbing with the stars of science-fiction and fantasy, getting on down and generally having a good time.

If you're coming, make sure and drop by the 2000AD/Abaddon/Solaris stand and say "hi." We'll be chuffed to chat.

I'll try and sling Twitter (@AbaddonBooks) and blog posts up periodically over the weekend.

Cheers,

David

Special Announcement

It's official. "Exemplary" is the new "awesome."

Seriously, "awesome" is getting a bit long in the tooth, isn't it?

"Exemplary." You know it makes sense.