Monday 27 June 2011

Pat Kelleher Reading

Hey all,

So as you know, me and Jenni hit the Derby QUAD over the weekend, to meet some extraordinary people, drink a little beer, talk - a lot - and generally get our vibe on with the community of British writers, current, new, up-and-coming and aspiring.

A fantastic time was had, by us and by the people around us. Not, you understand, because you were around us, but because they were also at the very good event we just attended.

I mean, they probably also enjoyed being around us; as far as I know, we were perfectly charming company. Jenni was, certainly. I was a little drunk for some of it, so I may have just been loud company. Charmingly loud, maybe. I don't know. I mean, you don't, do you? There you are, getting on with your evening, having fun, thinking everyone around you is having a good time too, but maybe they're not, and they're too polite to say. Does that ever bother you? Or did it not, but now it will?

Anyway.

So we will be getting some kind of blogpost out about our experiences - tomorrow, hopefully - but in the immediate term, here's a bit of a treat. Our own Pat Kelleher was there, pimping his latest ouvre, No Man's World: The Ironclad Prophecy, and fine company he was too.

He also did a reading, Sunday afternoon, and I was on hand to capture it on my phone:




Forgive slightly shaky camera work.

Anyway, more tomorrow.

Sleep tight...

David

Friday 24 June 2011

Alt.Fiction this Saturday!


Tomorrow David and I will be heading off to Derby for one of the best alternative literary festivals around, Alt.Fiction!

Not only will you be able to meet the editors (us!), but Pat Kelleher, the author of the No Man's World series, will be on several panels, and reading from his newest book on the Sunday.

Gary McMahon, author of The Concrete Grove (Solaris) and Hungry Hearts (Abaddon) will also be there, as will Paul Kane, author of the Arrowhead trilogy and Paul Finch of Stronghold fame.

From Solaris we will have science fiction author Ian Whates and acclaimed fantasy novelist Juliet E. McKenna doing the rounds!

Check out the Alt.Fiction website for ticket details, you can turn up for the Saturday, the Sunday or the whole weekend. View the programme for full details of all the sci-fi, fantasy and horror-themed events on offer.

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Thursday 23 June 2011

Out Now! in June

Hey all,

As you may have seen over at our partners at Solaris, we've decided to run monthly articles on our blogs about what's actually out now on the shelves and what we think of it. Of course, we love all our children equally, but here's a chance to see why...

The Afterblight Chronicles: America, by Simon Spurrier, Rebecca Levene and Al Ewing

The Blight arose from nowhere. It swept across the bickering nations like The End of Times and spared only those with a single fortuitous blood type. Hot headed religion and territorial savagery rule the cities now. Somewhere amidst the chaos, however, there are groups of people fighting to survive. Heroes determined to create a better world. But can these warriors of the apocalypse hope to rediscover the humanity lost long ago in the blood and filth and horror of the Cull?

The Afterblight Chronicles Omnibus: America features three action-packed novels set in a dangerous, broken America ruled by crazed gangs and strange cults.

David Says: Fast, maniac, bloody and action-packed. It almost feels like Spurrier, Levene and Ewing are playing some kind of game of one-upmanship, both in the craziness/grotesquery of the villains and in the hard-boiledness of the heroes. By the time you get to cannibal bankers and a man punching a bear to death, it almost feels reasonable. Brilliant.

So go get it!

David

Wednesday 22 June 2011

Jon Green Interviewed in SFX!

Hey gang,

Not sure if you're a regular reader of SFX Magazine, or of their website, but if not you should jump on there and check out the interview with Jon Green, author of the Ulysses Quicksilver books in the Pax Britannia series.


The interview is, of course, in honour of the Ulysses Quicksilver Collection, collecting three of the early novellas from Ulyssess Quicksilver's career: "Fruiting Bodies," "Vanishing Point" and "White Rabbit."

If you want to catch up on this neat little collection, you can buy it now for as little as 99 cents.

Outstanding.

David

Monday 20 June 2011

Abaddon & Solaris Books Podcast #11 now up!

Hi all,

Check it out! Twice in one month!

Well, kind of. Truth be told, I got a bit behind updating the blog on the podcast, so for those of you who wait to read it here before going to listen to it, I decided to trickle the last two in rather than tell you both of them at once.

The eleventh podcast, No Man's World But Pat's, brings together handsome and debonair Desk Editor David Moore (hey, I can say what I want; nobody checks these things) and dry raconteur Pat Kelleher, author of the stunning No Man's World series, including the up and coming Ironclad Prophecy. Find it here on iTunes, or go to the Store and search for "Abaddon and Solaris."

You can also just go here to look at the feed direct, or to subscribe using an RSS application, like Outlook.

Cheers,

David

Thursday 16 June 2011

Double Dead Preview: Coburn is coming, November 2011!


Here's a treat for all you Chuck Wendig fans, we've got a preview of Chapter One of Double Dead sitting right here on our servers.

Download the epub version, the Kindle version or the .pdf version now, for free!


Coburn’s been dead now for close to a century, but seeing as how he’s a vampire and all, it doesn’t much bother him. Or at least it didn’t, not until he awoke from a forced five-year slumber to discover that most of human civilization was now dead— but not dead like him, oh no. See, Coburn likes blood. The rest of the walking dead, they like brains. He’s smart. Them, not so much. But they outnumber him by about a million to one. And the clotted blood of the walking dead cannot sustain him. Now he’s starving. And nocturnal. And more pissed-off than a bee-stung rattlesnake. The vampire not only has to find human survivors (with their sweet, sweet blood), but now he has to transition from predator to protector—after all, a man has to look after his food supply...

Double Dead will arrive in stores in November 2011. It is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.

Chuck Wendig rants and froths at the mouth blogs about the craft of writing, to much acclaim, at Terrible Minds. Double Dead will be his first published novel.


UK release - 10th November 2011 - £7.99 - ISBN: 978-1-907992-40-7
US release - 15th November 2011 - $9.99 - ISBN: 978-1-907992-41-4

ebook releases - November 2011
Kindle ISBN: 978-1-84997-272-7
epub ISBN: 978-1-84997-271-0

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Tuesday 14 June 2011

Get your steampunky fix for International Steampunk Day!

It is, apparently, International Steampunk Day - yes, no more hiding in the shadows of International Talk Like a Pirate Day or Global Cheese Week (we may have made that last one up), it's time to break out the cog-strewn goggles, fire up the steam-powered walking stick and sally forth into the world of steam tech amazingness!

And there's no better way of marking this global celebration of all things steampunky than by picking up a title from the world's longest running steampunk novel series: Pax Britannia from Abaddon Books!

You can start your steampunk addiction for just $0.99 (or as little as 49p) by downloading the Ulysses Quicksilver Short Story Collection from Kindle or iTunes! Fans of Boy’s Own adventure and insane steampunk shenanigans will love this thrilling collection of short stories following the dandy, detective and adventurer Ulysses Quicksilver.

These three short stories have been hand-picked by the author, taken from his earlier novels to form the perfect introduction to the acclaimed steampunk world of Pax Britannia.

Now available to download for 99 cents through Kindle (UK 69p) and iTunes (UK 49p).

All titles in the Pax Britannia series are available as eBooks – part of Abaddon’s mission to bring the best of genre fiction to fans in new and exciting formats.


Also published recently in the Pax Britannia series:

Al Ewing's stunning Gods of Manhatten (available both in the UK and the US): The steam-powered city of tomorrow where psychedelic beat-poets rumble with punk futurists in the rain-drenched alleys, and where mad science colludes with the monstrous plans of the Meccha-Fuhrer! NEW YORK, USS - City of dazzle and danger. Only here could we find The Blood Spider, Doc Thunder and the saint of ghosts known as El Sombra! NEW YORK, USS - The setting for a bloody battle of steel will and science gone wild in a contest to save the city of tomorrow - or end it!




Could Hitler’s ultimate weapon be our hero’s nemesis? - time travelling Nazi terrorists, flailing steampunk fisticuffs, dapper swashbucklers facing Hammer Horrors from before they were born – Ulysses Quicksilver may have travelled into the past, but has he bitten off more than he can chew?

It’s temporal trouble for Quicksilver as he travels back in time to stop the ultimate weapon falling into Hitler’s hands just at the crucial moment of his defeat in the Second Great War but must infiltrate the most heavily-defended fortress on the planet to stop this malignant gift from the future from changing the past – and erasing Quicksilver himself from history!

Available in the UK and the US, Jonathan Green storming steampunk adventure is Mary Shelley meets Kim Newman meets The Terminator!

“Jonathan Green gets mileage out of his monsters, with big action set-pieces
that read like things we’d like to see in a rip-roaring summer movie.” SFX

Wednesday 8 June 2011

Three slices of steampunk for just $0.99

Yes, you can now get THREE slices of steampunk for JUST $0.99

Abaddon is delighted to announce the release of its first 99 cent eBook – the Ulysses Quicksilver Short Story Collection.

Now available to download for 99 cents through Kindle (UK 69p) and iTunes (UK 49p), fans of Boy’s Own adventure and insane steampunk shenanigans will love this thrilling collection of short stories following the dandy, detective and adventurer Ulysses Quicksilver. These three short stories have been hand-picked by the author, taken from his earlier novels to form the perfect introduction to the acclaimed steampunk world of Pax Britannia.

In Fruiting Bodies a gruesome death leads Ulysses and his manservant Nimrod to the glasshouses of Kew, bringing them face to face with the horrors lurking within. A Hallowe’en séance leads our intrepid duo into a close encounter with the world beyond in Vanishing Point, while in White Rabbit Ulysses journeys into a world of madness and murder, meeting some sinisterly familiar characters along the way.

All titles in the Pax Britannia series are available as eBooks – part of Abaddon’s mission to bring the best of genre fiction to fans in new and exciting formats.

Jonathan Oliver, editor-in-chief of Abaddon Books, said:
“Abaddon is committed to bringing the best genre fiction to the widest audience possible and it’s a great delight to be able to present these stories in this format at such an attractive price.”

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Wednesday 1 June 2011

The Abaddon & Solaris Books Podcast #10: Eric of Eternity

Hi all,

Right, regularity still a slight challenge with the Podcast, but it's still trickling in...

The tenth podcast, Eric of Eternity, finds peerless Editor-in-Chief Jon Oliver face-to-face with Eric Brown, author of the Space Opera epic Kings of Eternity, out now from Solaris Books.

Find it here on iTunes, or go to the Store and search for "Abaddon and Solaris."

You can also just go here to look at the feed direct, or to subscribe using an RSS application, like Outlook.

Cheers,

David

Interview with Jonathan Oliver

The Read Horror blog have interviewed Abaddon Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Oliver for their Meet the Publisher feature:-

http://readhorror.wordpress.com/meet-the-publisher/abaddon/

What Abaddon releases are you most proud of and why?

With so many books published this is very hard to answer. I’m very chuffed that we published Gary McMahon’s first mass market novel with Tomes of The Dead: Hungry Hearts and I was delighted that Simon Bestwick got the recognition he deserved with Tomes of The Dead: Tide of Souls, but really I’m so proud of both imprints. I’m the luckiest man alive; I get paid to work with my favourite people...

Read the rest of the interview here.
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