Interviews!

Here are the final two parts of Jonathan Oliver's interview with Pornokitsch. See the earlier parts here.

Part Four
Part Five

And here's an interview with another Abaddon author from the guys at Horror Reanimated.

Interview with Simon Bestwick.

I had the pleasure of meeting Joseph D'Lacey from the site and the dubious pleasure of interviewing Simon B myself over the weekend at Brighton World Horror. Let me just say, I admire Joe for being able to get a word in edgeways!

I've just been listening to said recordings I made at the convention. We're going to be using them in the next Podcast. I interviewed Simon Bestwick, Paul Kane, Steven Savile (who'll be writing the first Knights of Albion) story, Paul Finch (who'll be writing Stronghold for the Tomes of the Dead line) and several Solaris Books authors.

Most of these interviews took place in the hotel bar, which is, to say, in the natural habitat of this species we refer to as 'author'.

So, for laughs, I've sorted the interviews into two files entitled 'Drunk' and 'Sober.' And no, I'm not telling you which is which!

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Post the Third: Neil Gaiman is surprise World Horror Con guest!

Here's Neil Gaiman and Abaddon author Paul Kane - the two friends worked together when Paul edited the Clive Barker-inspired anthology Hellbound Hearts. (See below!)

Here's my copy, signed by Paul and Neil, with a little pinhead doodle by Neil! Neat! Makes you wonder why he pays Dave McKean to draw for him. ;-)

Post the Second: Live-blogging from the Brighton World Horror Con!

Steven Savile looking pleased with himself 'cause he'd just received his advance for the Knights of Albion book. Welcome to Abaddon, Steve!

Read our first post about Brighton World Horror, over at the Solaris Blog!

This is just to show you guys a couple of photos and tell you about the interviews that'll be appearing on our next podcast! I spoke to Simon Bestwick about Tide of Souls yesterday, and Steven Savile, who'll be writing the first novel in our Knights of Albion series. But you'll have to listen to the podcast to find out why we'll be calling that podcast 'The Muffin Man.'

Simon Bestwick raising his eyebrows suggestively at the camera

Weston Ochse with Empire of Salt

Weston Ochse brought us a present from Arizona


See the full set of WHC photos over here on Flickr

I also interviewed Paul Kane, author of Arrowhead, for the podcast this morning! I listened to Ellen Datlow, Sarah Pinborough, Maura McHugh, Allyson Bird and Suzanne McLeod in the 'Femme Fatales' panel on women in horror, and then went out with Jon and Ellen Datlow to a very kitsch Chinese restaurant for a business lunch. Seriously, plastic swans and stuffed peacocks and blown-glass fish everywhere, to a soundtrack of obscure nineties pop music. It was out of this world.

Paul Kane is Kick Ass!

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Pornokitsch interviews Jonathan Oliver

Those folks at the dodgy-sounding geek culture website, Pornokitsch, have interviewed our very own Editor-in-Chief, Jonathan Oliver.

Read the interview:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three

To see some of their previous interviews with Abaddon authors such as Paul Kane, Scott Andrews and Rebecca Levene, take a look over here.

New Series Announcement!

Okay, everyone, this is it: a world exclusive scoop.

Abaddon is proud to announce Malory's Knights of Albion, a new series of high-action Arthurian fantasy books, starting in 2011.

Here's the background:

In 2006, volunteers working in the archives at a church in Salisbury uncovered a fifteenth-century manuscript, previously unknown to scholarship. It was apparently a sequel to the Morte d'Arthur; the frontispiece titled it The furtherre boke of Kyng Arthur & of his noble knyghts of the round table, by Sir Thomas Malorie. The style and vocabulary proved consistent with the Morte, and analysis of marks on the edges of the pages suggest that the paper was from Caxton's workshop around the time the Morte was printed.

Specialists at King's College, London, have suggested that the stories may have originated as notes made while Malory was writing the Morte and discarded as superfluous, that Caxton persuaded Malory to develop into full tales after the success of the first book. The second volume was apparently never completed and at any rate never printed.

Late last year, Abaddon successfully negotiated exclusive access to the material, and is commissioning some of the UK's most exciting up and coming authors to modernise the language and make it accessible to our readers.

Malory's new stories are good British chivalric adventures at their best: brave, noble knights, questing for honour and glory; wise and beautiful women, shrewdly seeing into the hearts of those around them; monsters and evil men, defeated at last and thrown to their destruction.

The first tale, Thee sad comedie of Sir Alymere and thee Blacke Chalyce, is being novelised by Steven Savile as The Black Chalice even as we speak, and is due to hit the shelves at the beginning of next year.

Caveat Emptor: Some of the statements made above are, in fact, lies. :)

Pat Kelleher interviews Weston Ochse!

WESTON OCHSE is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Abaddon's upcoming zombie horror novel, Empire of Salt. He lives in Arizona, but if you're a Brit and you fancy meeting him, get on down to the Brighton World Horror Con next week, where he'll be reading from and signing copies of his book!




PAT KELLEHER is the author of Abaddon's upcoming new series, 'No Man's World' - which starts with Black Hand Gang, due to be released this spring!



PK: With all of time and space in which to set your Zombie novel, Empire of Salt, the Salton Sea is a very specific location. What was it about that place that appealed you as a setting for a story, let alone a Zombie-pocalypse (without giving too many spoilers)?

WO: Location. Location. Location. Like in advertizing and commerce, novels must have a sense of place. Some novels are made for the normal and everyday. We hide the events of the plot in the mundane of every day. We want people to think that what they have could change at any minute.

But then some novels cry out for exotic locales, especially if the location is intrinsic to the plot. Song of Kali by Dan Simmons would have been a snoozer if the plot took place in Upstate New York. The novel had to be set in India. Likewise, The Shining had to be set in a remote hotel in the Rockies. A Holiday Inn near the interstate just wouldn’t have worked.

Like a lot of authors, I prefer locations that are near and dear to our hearts. I want to lull readers into recognizing street signs, businesses, parks and cultural icons, before I introduce elements of fantasy into the locale. But then there are some locations that just scream to be used; the Salton Sea is one of them.

It’s a dead sea smack dab in the middle of California that almost no one has heard of. Just south of Palm Springs the Salton Sea used to be the vacation destination that everyone went to from regular Dick and Janes, to Richie Riches of Hollywood. Now it spawns red tides of dead fish. Birds fall from the sky. Where water meets earth, it bubbles green putrid residue. Yet people still live there. God bless them, there are people too tough to be scared away or too desperate to leave. Those kind of people aren’t the normal kinds of people regular folks are used to dealing with.
Folks from the Salton Sea are made from stern stuff. They’re a little crazy. They’re a lot desperate. And they are perfect grist for my authorial mill.

And to reward them for their perseverance and never-say-die attitudes, I’ve done what any right-minded author who doesn’t care who gets hurt would do. I infested the entire area with flesh-eating, eyeball-munching zombies. How cool is that?

Abandoned homes at the Salton Sea, wikipedia stock photos.

With eclectic collections of horror stories and a Brammy in the bank for your first novel (yes, I´m looking at you, Scarecrow Gods) what was it that drew you to the good ol´ classic Zombie?

Zombies! Taste like chicken! Seriously, I’ve never been one to get too excited about tropes. The traditional monsters of horror seem to be done to death. Probably of the hundred or so stories I’ve had published, less than ten of them deal with vampires, zombies, werewolves and the like.
I’ve always been more of a dark fantasist; I like to create textured landscapes populated by real characters who I then put in improbable situations. I’ve tended to create my own themes, my own monsters, and my own horror elements. So writing zombies was something new for me.

But zombies have something going for them that all the other tropes do not; they are pop culture icons. I inhale pop culture and exhale satisfaction. I love the iconography of registered trademarks and consumer logos. I crave music and television and magazines. I’d sleep on a bed of TV channel guides if it would mean that I could by osmosis relive the first 50 episodes of Gilligan’s Island, Bewitched or I Dream of Jeanie.
Because of their post modern representation in the original Dawn of the Dead, zombies have become as much a piece of pop culture as the Golden Arches, delivery pizzas and over-priced coffee from teenage American baristas.

If I was ever going to do a trope it was always going to be a zombie.
Zombies are cool. Zombies are badass. Even better, zombies are so badass cool that they don’t even know they’re monsters.

Cover artwork for Weston Ochses' 'Empire of Salt', painted by Greg Staples. Click for horrible high-def version!

As an American, how did Abaddon, a publisher that´s as British as Fish `n´ Chips and 2000 AD, first appear on your radar? What attracted you to them as a potential publisher? Or more to the point, what exactly do they have on you?

What’s 2000 AD? Is that a motor oil? HA! Just kidding. Put down the knife. Seriously, the folks at Abaddon caught me pilfering nursery rhymes from a Grimms' Fairy Tales book and selling it to the Star Trek franchise as Klingon Fables. They also caught me coming out of a massage parlor in West Hollywood, where I was only asking for directions, I swear. The kicker was when I was filmed beating up a herd of Girl Scouts and stealing their cookies. With all the evidence against me, it was too easy for Abaddon to force me to pay them money and send them a kick-ass free zombie novel.

Seriously this time; I was first drawn to Abaddon when 'The Afterblight Chronicles' first began. I thought the idea was incredible. I still do and would love to work on the franchise. I communicated with Jonathan Oliver, editor-in-chief of Abaddon, during this time. We agreed that we’d like to work together sometime in the future, but couldn’t decide in what capacity. Then came 2008 and the Book Expo of America which took place in L.A. Abaddon had a space in the show and I took the time to drop by and say hello. Pretty soon, Abaddon reopened their submissions and were looking for some more zombie novels. I’d been thinking about doing one regarding the Salton Sea anyway, so this became the perfect opportunity to pitch the project. Jon loved it and here we are today, with me sitting here being interviewed about a zombie novel coming out from Abaddon with a super-kick-ass cover.

Apart from your award winning novel, you´ve also had great success with your `Backwoods Horror´ short stories. You obviously enjoy working in both forms. Do you have a preference?

For me the story decides the form. I was lucky starting out. I began writing short stories. Me and a fellow named David Whitman became household names in a very short time with our collection Scary Rednecks and Other Inbred Horrors. The collection garnered insane attention and outsold everything the then publisher, Darktales, had to offer. The stories in the collection inspired independent film projects and hearkened in a period of backwoods horror fiction in America that is only now beginning to slow down.

I still meet folks at conventions and book signings who bring copies of that old book, or the hard cover reprint from Delirium. Instead of what I’m working on now, they want to talk about those old stories and how much they meant to them. I still remember a reading I did at Horrorfind I in Baltimore. There must have been seventy five people in the room. I’d advertised that there would be cheese balls and beer and I didn’t lie. I went to the discount store and bought ten big bags of cheese balls. Then I went and bought 8 cases of the local brew, National Bohemian, or Natty Bo.
I passed out the beer and encouraged everyone to throw cheese balls during the reading. It was sheer and utter chaos with me reading at the top of my lungs. People still come and talk to me about that. What a blast that was; even more fun than the bass boat radio hour reading we had the following year. Ah, the good old days.

What is it about Horror as a genre that attracts you as a writer?

Funny thing about horror is that I never knew I was a horror author. In fact, the question is still up in the air. When I first started writing I was just an author. I wrote what I wanted. It wasn’t until I began to sell things that I was called a horror author. But then I sold my first novel, and although it won a Bram Stoker Award, I have it on record from several other publishers that it’s a dark fantasy novel. I’ve since pitched a few novels to agents and publishers only to have them come back and tell me that what I was pitching wasn’t horror, and it wasn’t science fiction, and it wasn’t fantasy, but instead, some kind of amalgam of all three. At that point I usually naively bat my eyelashes and ask, “So? Is there a problem with that?” As it turns out those sorts of novels are immensely popular, but because publishers have a hard time marketing them, they are few and far between.

So do I write horror? I think so. Do I write science fiction? Yes. What about fantasy? That too. I have two trilogies in the works right now. One is 'The Cycle of the Aegis' and is a combination of all three. Those books are immensely popular. In fact, I’m writing the final book now. The other trilogy is 'The Vampire Outlaw' trilogy, which is horror, adventure and space opera. This is also immensely popular. It’s what I want to write.
It’s what people want to read.

But you asked me what it was about horror that I like, didn’t you. I’ve always felt that horror is an emotion and it’s the manipulation of that emotion that makes horror good horror. Horror is about the psychology of fear, which gets to the very heart of characterization. There’s nothing better than to give a character something nice, then make them terrified they’ll lose it, whether it’s a Barbie Doll or their very lives...

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Stay tuned for the follow up to this interview, where we turn the tables and Weston interviews Pat about his forthcoming series!

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'Tide of Souls' review

Matthew Fryer reviews Simon bestwick's Tide of Souls here.

"A recent addition to Abaddon’s 'Tomes of the Dead' line, I expected this to be a zombie horror-thriller. And while indeed it is, there’s far more to Simon’s novel than necrotic innards and masticated brains..."


P.S. Simon's a bestseller, too! Stats from the Dark Delicacies Horror Bestseller List in California. Outselling even zombie fiction author Max Brooks (World War Z), ey?

Lethal Behaviour

Hey all,

So The Bookseller's slightly peculiar Diagram Prize "for the oddest book title of the year" has announced the shortlist for 2009. Go check it out. Now.

I mean it. When I'm speaking rhetorically, my voice rises at the end of the sentence.

Right. So, did you check out no. 4?

Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots, Ronald C Arkin (CRC Press)

That's not odd, surely? That's sensible! In fact, to hell with "governing"! We should be stamping out lethal behaviour. We should, in fact, be stamping out autonomous robots. Or not making them autonomous in the first place. Or not, ideally, building robots.

It's coming, brothers and sisters.

Pornokitsch interviews Paul Kane

Those wacky folks at Pornokitsch have been up to their old tricks again - after their interviews with Abaddon authors Rebecca Levene and Scott Andrews, they've now interviewed Paul Kane, the author of Arrowhead and Broken Arrow, in the Afterblight series.

Paul chats about writing for Abaddon, and how he and Scott Andrews have planned the overlap of characters and event in their respective Afterblight series, both previously and in upcoming novels...

Part one of the interview is here, part two is here, and part three should be coming out in the next few days or so.



P.S. I notice Pornokitsch are also running a Sexy Steampunk Competition - comment there and nominate your favourite sexy steampunk characters to be entered into a prizedraw. I notice that nobody has nominated our very own Mr. Ulysses Quicksilver, yet! Nor any one of his many lovely female companions from the Pax Brittania series. It's an outrage, say I, an outrage!

Review at TheNovelBlog.com

There's a great review of Way of the Barefoot Zombie, by Jasper Bark, over here at TheNovelBlog.com.


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10 rules for writing according to Jon

Okay, so apparently the Guardian has been running a 10 rules for writing thingy, and David and Jenni thought it would be interesting/amusing/shocking/inspiring for me to give my take on these, seeing as I'm an editor and I've written one book and that. Anyway, this is going to be messy so bear with me:

JON'S RULES FOR WRITING AND GETTING PUBLISHED (AND MAYBE STAYING PUBLISHED).

1. If a publisher says they are closed to submissions don't e-mail them an entire novel and then spend every other day asking them whether they've read it yet and reminding them how amazing this novel is. They will not thank you, your submission won't be read and, very likely, neither will your future ones. Also do some research on your chosen publisher, don't just use a scattergun submission approach. It's unlikely that Graveyard Books (I made that name up, apologies if it's real) is going to want to see your book on Breeding Newfoundland Dogs.

2. Enjoy what you're writing. If you're writing SF/Horror/Fantasy you should at least be a fan of these genres and well read in all. After all, you're going to need to know what has gone before and what works or doesn't work. In fact, read as widely as possible anyway. If you just confine your knowledge of literature to the genre stuff then not only are you missing out on some gems, but your work is likely going to tread too familiar territory. Mix it up a bit.

3. Don't think that just because an idea would make a great film/TV series that it's going to translate well into prose. Sometimes fiction can do things that film can't and vice-versa. Also, don't write a book with a view to it being one day a great movie. That's a hostage to fortune and, ultimately, you'll probably be disappointed when it happens anyway and the studio rapes your precious work.

4. Don't just repeat what you've read and imagine that it will work. I've you're a big fan of David Gemmell I'd be unlikely to publish your novel Driss The Legend. "You'll love this, it's just like Gemmell," you'll say. Well, in that case I'll read Gemmell then won't I? Influences are fine, but try to make your work your own.

5. And this is where I start running out of ideas... erm. Nice weather.

6. Oh yes, it's usually useful once you've finished your mighty tome to get someone else to read it, in fact several people will be ideal. After all, after months/years of working on the damn thing you probably no longer have any critical distance from it and can't see the wood for the trees. A fresh view on it will pick up on things you may not have noticed and show you the way to further revisions and improvements.

7. On that note, when you submit a final manuscript to your publisher, send them something you would be happy to go to print the very next day. In other words, send out the most final and polished version you can.

8. If you're writing a fantasy novel, avoid overly complex names. Okay, so we don't particularly want to know a story about Bob The Slayer, or Derek The Destroyer (or maybe you do?) but neither do I want to get bogged down in the trials of Yglikinikas The Third, Son of Ylinkizasmus The Second, Heir of all Allundrianianuyhusus.

9. Just because one publisher doesn't like what you do, don't give up and don't chuck your work away. After all, none of us editors are perfect and sometimes what doesn't work for us, may well work fine for somebody else. Hell, it may even become a huge seller. If someone had pitched Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to me for example, after I'd stopped laughing at them, I'm sure I'd have politely said no.

10. Tell the best story you can. Doesn't matter what kind of writing you're doing, if you're working on your finely created opus, or doing a series of action/adventure books based on a cartoon/film/cereal then just do the best job you can. Professionalism and commitment will get you a long way. If you do a project half-arsedly it will certainly show and you won't be invited back to the party.

Anyway, that was profound wasn't it? I may well be wrong about all of the above and it may turn out I'm a massive hypocrite or something, but them's my thought at 4 in the afternoon on a Thursday.

Happy writing folks!

Jonathan Oliver

(Editor/Overlord/International Playboy - delete as applicable)

Podcast Part #2!

Hi all,

The second Abaddon & Solaris Books Pocast is now up! Point your iTunes to this link, or search "Abaddon" (or "Solaris") in the "Search Store" box at the top-right corner of iTunes, to check it out. Or if you're a good boy/girl and subscribed to our feed last time, just run iTunes and it should find and upload the new episode automatically.

The editors and staff at Abaddon Books and Solaris Books continue to deliver the "very best, most hard-hitting and innovative"* of podcasting entertainment in this second, thrilling instalment.

The Abaddon & Solaris Books Podcast #2: Juliet McKenna and the SFX Weekender (okay, it's a functional title; it does what it says on the tin) is introduced by junior editor Jenni Hill, who's trying to overcome her fear of the microphone, so everybody be really nice about her. Jon Oliver interviews Juliet McKenna, author of Solaris's The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution books, sharing thoughts on coming up with fantasy names, writing and the future of fantasy fiction, and Juliet gives us a reading from the second Lescari book, Blood in the Water. Finally, Jon and David talk about the SFX Weekender, and we hear David's interviews with daleks, authors, and a couple of special guests.

Seriously, you can't get this stuff anywhere else. Barack Obama's considering starting a war with the UK, just so he can justify sending the CIA in to kidnap us. That's how cool we are.

Please listen to it, and once again, we'd love feedback. We got some great feedback last time, and have tried to make completely different mistakes this time.

Cheers,

David


*my mum again.

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Podcast Coming Up!

Hi all,

The Abaddon & Solaris Books Podcast second instalment, "Juliet McKenna and the SFX Weekender: From Lescar to Camber Sands," is underoing final editing now, and should be up tomorrow afternoon.

Featured is an interview with Solaris Books author Juliet McKenna and a reading from her book, Blood in the Water, and a convention report from Editor-in-Chief Jon Oliver and the roguishly charming David Moore on their recent jaunt to the SFX Weekender at Pontins Camber Sands, including interviews with Abaddon's own Al Ewing and Jonathan Green, with a dalek, and some pretty exciting surprises.

Keep an eye out on the blog. Should be a good one.

David

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?

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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.

The Podcast is Here!

Hi all,

Slightly delayed, but The Abaddon & Solaris Books Pocast is here! Point your iTunes to this link, or search "Abaddon" (or "Solaris") in the "Search Store" box at the top-right corner of iTunes, to download what is already being called* the most influential podcast of 2010.

Thrill as the editors and staff at Abaddon Books and Solaris Books - two of the fastest-rising stars of Fantasy, SF and Horror publishing - have a lovely cup of tea. Wonder as we chat about our books, other people's books, the state of the industry, and whatever random crap pops into our heads. Er... Glow as we ruthlessly grill special guest authors, listen to readings, and hear convention reports and special announcements.

The first podcast, The Abaddon & Solaris Books Podcast #1: Evil Fish Demons!, featuring the roguishly-charming, ruggedly handsome and debonair David Moore and Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Oliver - author of our current release Twilight of Kerberos: The Call of Kerberos - is available now. This is literally the most important thing that has ever happened; missing it will make the rest of your piteously wasted life a hollow, wretched sham.


Did I go over the top just now? I'm never sure where to pitch these things. Never mind.

Download it. Listen to it. Let us know what you think.

Awesome.

Cheers,

David


*by my mum.

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