Monday 28 February 2011

Steampunk at Waterstones and the Vitruvian Fankenstein...

Wotcher all,

We're all pretty excited here at Abaddon Towers, as we're just sending Jon Green's seventh Ulysses Quicksilver adventure, Pax Britannia: Anno Frankenstein, to the printers. That means it's now only a matter of weeks away from hitting the shelves!

In Anno Frankenstein, dandy and adventurer Ulysses finds himself thrust back in time to the Second Great European War, to combat the horrific super-soldiers of Germany's top-secret Frankenstein Corps. Among other terrors, he will fight with - or alongside - werewolves, vampires, the extraordinary Edward Hyde, the beautiful agents of the Monstrous Regiment, and his own father, Hercules.

Quicksilver's (now, I suppose, "the Quicksilvers'") adventures are continuing to make a stir out there in the steampunkophile world, as evidenced at Waterstones's flagship store in Picadilly, which has put up this Steampunk promotional display.

Note particularly that we make two appearances on the shelf, which we share with some extremely good company - something that, otherwise, only China Mieville seems to have achieved:



This is what Waterstones's "Dave" has to say about the Quicksilver Omnibus:


"That's always good news, surely?" We certainly like to think so, Dave.

Anyway, the very last thing we put together for the book was a kind of "Vitruvian Frankenstein," named in honour of da Vinci's most famous sketch, to put in the section headers (to understand why, buy and read the book...). Our brilliant artist and designer Pye Parr drew it for us, and we thought we'd share it with you:



Just to get your juices flowing even more, be aware that this will be available as a free downloadable desktop, on a lovely old-paper background, a little closer to the launch date. Keep your eyes on the blog!

Cheers,

David

Thursday 24 February 2011

Scrolls Interviews


Scrolls is one of the finest literary podcasts around, so imagine how pleased we were when Dion Winton-Polak, creator of Scrolls, interviewed not one, but two of our Abaddon authors when we met him at the SFX Weekender.

The podcast has now gone up, with interviews from post-apocalyptic author Scott Andrews and steampunk author Jonathan Green from Abaddon, NYT-bestselling author James Lovegrove, sci-fi author Andy Remic from Solaris and also fantasy authors Joe Abercrombie and Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Scrolls: Author Interviews

Dion says: "Authors by and large get very little direct feedback from their readers, so make their day and show them your love (and if you’ve enjoyed this episode of Scrolls, for goodness sake let them know that as well. It will increase the likelihood of them letting the bald-nutter-with-the-tiny-microphone interview them again in future.)"

You can contact Scrolls by tweeting @, or e-mailing them on scrolls@hotmail.co.uk. Scrolls is now hosted by the dashing chaps of Geek Syndicate.

-

Wednesday 16 February 2011

Photoblog - The SFX Weekender

So, finally posting some of the great photos we got from the SFX Weekender! Okay, so you had to wait, but do you remember the days when you had to wait at least a week for your holiday snaps? Well, pretend this is like that, alright?

The SFX Weekender saw a great turn-out from the authors of Abaddon Books!

We had Al Ewing, Jonathan Green and Scott Andrews with us for the weekend, signing books, selling books, scaring away loyal fans, singing karaoke, (because as we all know, Abaddon has a fine history of karaoke) and generally helping us spread the Abaddon message to more and more people. What is the Abaddon message, you say? We think it's MORE ZOMBIES. But send us your alternative suggestions...

Scott Andrews wears his Serious Author Face while signing books.

Jonathan Green meets his biggest fan! This guy had all of Jon's science fiction and fantasy books, even ones Jon didn't have copies of himself!

Al Ewing scares away the children. Whe people talk about the New Weird, they're talking about this man.

Al Ewing and Jonathan Green were on a panel, 'Dual Britannia' with the illustrious Bryan Talbot, China MiƩville and Kate Griffin, about creating alternate Englands. It was a great panel, and we had a ton of people rush up to the dealer's room afterwards to check out their books!


The Abaddon Pub Hour was a great hit - where fans and authors alike sat down, with drinks, to talk about how to create pulp fiction novels, and to have a laugh brainstorming silly ideas for new pulp novels. You could hear people inside giggling and shouting their ideas even from outside the bar!

The most popular idea turned out to be full of bad puns, enter Mortal Wombat, a world where the time-travelling Dr. Hoof fights evil wombats... or something. David's chart might explain it better than I can.
So, a great time was had by all, thanks to all the authors and to all the fans who made time to meet us to tell us how much they love Abaddon! We love you guys too.

-

Thursday 10 February 2011

Empire of Salt up for the Bram Stoker!

Hi all,

This is properly cool. Like, "Holy f***ing c**p this is cool!" cool.

Weston Ochse's redneck-zombie-filled opus, the extraordinary Empire of Salt, has made it onto the preliminary ballot for the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel!

If you're not sure what that is, the Preliminary Ballot is essentially the long-list. Members of the Horror Writers' Association vote on the preliminaries to produce the shortlist, from which the eventual winner will be selected. Making it onto the shortlist means that Ochse goes to the awards ceremony to sit, fingers and toes crossed, and see if he'll be recognised with the most prestigious award in horror writing.

And it's not a long long-list either. The final ballot will, if I recall correctly, consist of five books; the preliminary ballot only has eleven. This is essentially the HWA's recognition that Empire is one of the eleven best horror novels of 2010.

Hell of an achievement, even if it doesn't go any further. And, you know, it might. You can even help; do you know anyone in the HWA? Bother them! Leave copies of Empire lying around significantly when they come to visit. Frequently remind them of how cool a book it is. Mention how, maybe, you'd like to bear Weston's child, if the option were there. That sort of thing.

So, anyway, awesome news. Well done, Weston. We're dead chuffed for you.

Cheers,

David

Wednesday 2 February 2011

New PR contact for Rebellion and Abaddon Books

Computer game developer and book publisher Rebellion has appointed Michael Molcher as its new PR coordinator.

One of the largest independent games development studios in Europe, Rebellion also publishes the legendary British comic book 2000 AD, as well as the critically-acclaimed science-fiction and fantasy book imprints, Solaris and Abaddon Books.

Michael's role will be to coordinate the PR across the Rebellion group, supporting the developers and editors to maximise awareness of the firm's new and existing products.

He will be working with industry and fan contacts to boost awareness of the firm's fantastic brands, as well as establishing a greater presence in markets in both the UK and abroad.

He joins the innovative games developer and publishing house in Oxford after five years as a press officer for the second largest local authority in England, Leeds City Council, following a career as a local journalist in Rochdale and Harrogate.

For the past five years, he has also been a feature writer for 2000 AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine, for which he has interviewed some of the biggest names in British comics such as Carlos Ezquerra, Pat Mills and Dave Gibbons.

Jason Kingsley, CO of Rebellion, said:
“I'm delighted to have Michael on board at Rebellion, he'll be working closely with our fantastic creative teams to bring our games, books and comics to audiences both at home in the UK or abroad.
“Whether on the games front or in the pages of 2000 AD and our book imprints, 2011 is promising to be a great year for Rebellion.“

Michael said:
“I've been reading 2000 AD since I was 11 and was a science-fiction fan well before that, so to now be part of the team at Rebellion is really exciting.
“It's shaping up to be a fantastic year ahead for Rebellion – with everything from the new Dredd movie to great titles from Abaddon Books and new releases for Solaris from debut and New York Times Best Selling authors.
“Bringing these to new and existing audiences alike is going to be both thrilling and challenging.”
For press releases, review copies and interview requests,
please e-mail Michael Molcher or call 01865 797 016

SFX Weekender Here We Come!

Wotcher all,

We're just about packed and ready to head off to the SFX Weekender, where we hope to see a bunch of you chaps and chapesses for chats, signings, buying our books, buying us beer, and good times.

Couple of highlights we need to let you know about:

- Al Ewing's on a panel at 4pm on Friday about horror in the 21st Century in the cinema room.

- Al's back with Jon Green at 11.45 on Saturday to talk about Alternative Londons (in particular, their experiences with the Pax Britannia series...)

- Al, Jon, Rebecca Levene, Scott Andrews and anyone else we can grab while we're there will be in the pub at 2pm on Saturday for the "Abaddon Pub Hour," when you'll get a chance to talk to your Abaddon authors, get books signed, and ask questions that have been on your minds the whole time you've been reading our stuff.

Finally, Jenni and I (and Ben, for some of the time) will be at the Abaddon traders' stall both days, and will be more than happy to chat with people and generally get our groove on. You'll also probably find Al, Jon, Bex, Scott and others hanging around our stall at one time or another, and we'll have signed copies of our books on sale and stuff like that.

We'll also be blogging, tweeting and vlogging all weekend (I know, I know, I said I was going to do those three vlogs in January; it's been a busier month than I expected), and bothering people in the bar in the evenings.

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

David