Afterblight Chronology

To celebrate last week's UK release of The Journal of the Plague Year we sat down with Abaddon Editor David Moore to work through the chronology of The Afterblight series so far.*

In the Beginning

1. Orbital Decay by Malcolm Cross. This one’s easy, as it starts as the virus is just getting started.

=2. School’s Out by Scott K. Andrews. Exactly where to place Scott’s opening novel is tricky, as Lee flashes back to the early days of the Cull and the story runs out over the course of a year, but I’m going to pin this one down as at least starting within a few months of the virus breaking out.

=2. Dead Kelly by C. B. Harvey. Colin’s contribution is explicitly placed six months after the Cull hits, which makes it more or less contemporary with the start of School’s out.

One Year on

3. The Bloody Deluge by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Adrian doesn’t pin Katy’s and Emil’s flight across Germany down, but it seems to begin between one and two years after the Cull.

Year Two

Editor-in-Chief Jon Oliver's
favourite Rebellion cover.

4. Death Got No Mercy by Al Ewing. Al’s actually quite specific; Cade’s rampage begins two years after the dyin’ started.

5. ‘The Man Who Would Not Be King’ by Scott Andrews. This short story, included with Paul Kane’s Broken Arrow (and the collected School’s Out Forever), bridges School’s Out and Operation Motherland and is set around two years after the Cull.

Year Three

6. Operation Motherland by Scott K. Andrews. Set a while after the end of School’s Out, as the new school has had a chance to settle in, Motherland takes place around three years after the Cull.

Year Four

7. Arrowhead by Paul Kane. Paul and Scott, I gather, sorted out between themselves that de Falaise’s invasion occurs after the destruction of the base in Salisbury plain, explaining why there was no organised resistance. Around Year Four.

Year Five

=8. The Culled by Simon Spurrier. The nameless soldier of Simon’s book explicitly gives the date as five years after the Cull.

=8. Kill or Cure by Rebecca Levene. Jasmine leaves the secret facility at Lake Erie at the same time as her lover – The Culled’s nameless hero – sets out to find her.

=8. Children’s Crusade by Scott K. Andrews. Lee and Matron clash with the Neo-Clergy’s child-snatchers, suggesting that this book is contemporary with The Culled.

9. ‘The Servitor’ by Paul Kane. This short story – published in Death Ray #21, Oct/Nov 2009 (and collected in the ebook edition of Hooded Man) – introduces the sinister new cult that kicks off the action in Broken Arrow. Between Years Five and Six.

Year Six

10. Broken Arrow by Paul Kane. It has been some while since Arrowhead’s Rob Stokes settled Nottingham and established his Rangers, putting this book around Year Six

11. ‘Perfect Presents’ by Paul Kane. A charming snapshot of life in Afterblight Nottingham, this short story – featured in Abaddon Books’ A Very Abaddon Christmas blog event, 2009 (and collected in the ebook edition of Hooded Man) – is set the Christmas after Broken Arrow.

Year Seven

12. ‘Signs and Portents’ by Paul Kane. This short story – included in Children’s Crusade (and collected in ebook edition of Hooded Man) – sets the scene for Arrowland, and takes place in about Year Seven.

Year Eight to Year Nine

13. Arrowland by Paul Kane. A little while has passed since the rise and fall of the Tsar, putting this book at about eight or nine years after the Cull.

One Decade on

14. Dawn Over Doomsday by Jasper Bark. Some years have passed since the Apostolic Church of the Rediscovered Dawn was crippled by the nameless soldier of The Culled in Year Five, placing it about one decade in.

Twenty Years on

15. Blood Ocean by Weston Ochse. This one’s made fairly easy by dint of sheer scale. It’s not clear when exactly the events occur, but it’s clear that people have been born and grown to adulthood never knowing a world before the Cull. Blood Ocean’s set at least twenty years after the virus.

With each new title and each new author bring a whole new perspective and history to the world of The Afterblight we're already really excited to see what the next wave of books brings. Let us know where or when you'd love to see the next title set, either in the comments below or @abaddonbooks on twitter. Plus, why not take advantage of our current Afterblight sale to explore the series more - titles start from just £3 until July 17th 2014.

Journal of the Plague Year is out now in the UK in print and kindle edition, as well being available worldwide through the rebellion store. 

Out in the UK now

*For those new to Afterblight a quick explanation: the series is shared world writing experience. Each book or story contributed is a stand alone title in its own right and you can start the series anywhere you like. As more and more authors contribute to the series new points in the history of The Afterblight are uncovered around the world that may affect future stories. Malcolm Cross, author of Orbital Decay, discusses the experience of contributing to Afterblight in more detail here.

COMING SOON - a battle that spans all time...

Welcome to The Summer of Steampunk!

Longest running steampunk series raises the heat in fortnight-long genre celebration

Break out your top hats and holster your Tesla Mark Seven blunderbuss, the Summer of Steampunk from Abaddon Books is here!

To mark a major new direction for the world’s longest-running series of steampunk novels, Pax Britannia, Abaddon is running two weeks of steampunk shenanigans at the new dedicated Pax Britannia Facebook page.

From free eBooks and competition giveaways to debate and word from our authors about what makes steampunk so much fun, join us for two weeks of celebration of this most charming, exciting and ever-growing line of books.

The event will culminate in a major announcement about a surprising new book which throws away the rulebook of how genre publishing works.

A must for any fan of steampunk or pulp adventure action, Pax Britannia is set in a radically different version of the late 20th Century where the age of the Victorians never ended and Queen Victoria remains alive thanks to steampunk technology.

From Jonathan Green’s swashbuckling agent of the Empire, Ulysses Quicksilver, to Al Ewing’s ultra-violent El Sombra, Pax Britannia takes steampunk adventure to a new level.

Jonathan Oliver, editor-in-chief of Abaddon Books, said:
“Pax Britannia is one of the longest running steampunk adventures in publishing, and our Summer of Steampunk will bring a host of goodies bound to appeal to new and old readers of the series alike.”

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

Gods of Manhattan Book Giveaway!

Wotcher all,

Graeme Flory over at Graeme's Fantasy Book Review is giving away some copies of Al Ewing's Pax Britannia: Gods of Manhattan. All you have to do to take part is tell him you're interested. Head on over to his blog to enter the comp!

Check It Out Here!

Cheers,

David

Review Backlog: Gods of Manhattan

Hi all,

As I've just explained over at the Solaris blog, Jenni and I have been so busy - since, basically, the start of November - with our editing and proofing, that we've only really been able to occasionally jump on the blog. I know Jenni's been slightly more helpful than me at keeping you updated; I've been rubbish.

Anyway, inevitably, my "reviews" email folder has been spilling over in this time, with reviews and stuff we've found on the internet, and since I know you're faintly ambivalent always thrilled to hear about reviews, I've decided to try and catch up with them a bit - not in order, but grouped by title.

Second update: Al Ewing's Gods of Manhattan. All of the Pax Britannia books are a whole bunch of fun, and this is no exception. Pretty much everone who's read this book has loved it.

Here are some of the people who have...

SF Site's Nathan Brazil was "in luck" when he received the book, writing:

"The story is a curious coupling of the straightforward and the subtly devious, playing with archetypes and sometimes using them like blunt instruments, but also blending in conceptual complexities and cunning plot twists. Most of all, Gods of Manhattan is a book in which the characters are written in such a way as to make the reader feel as if one has always known them."

I get the feeling it wasn't entirely Total Sci-Fi Online's Brigid Cherry's cup of tea, but she still obviously felt it was well done:

"This is real pulp material, the stuff of brooding humour, gritty violence and all-out action, with rugged (super)heroes and sarky dames."

Emotionally Fourteen's Brad Harmer evidently thought it was a hoot:

"The action scenes are fantastically well written, and you can actually feel each and every impact as it strikes home. If this was a comic, it would be written and drawn by Mike Mignola. It plays into the conventions of the superhero story, without ever being hampered by them."

Finally, Graeme Flory of Graeme's Fantasy Book Review gave it an extraordinary 9 and three quarters out of ten:

"I can’t emphasise enough how much fun I had with Gods of Manhattan, a read with no pretensions other than to give its reader a ride like never before. Not only does it succeed but it does so in some style."

So lots of good responses there. What are you waiting for? Go and buy it!

David

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 Miéville 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.

-

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

Al Ewing Interview (Not By Us)!

Hey all,

Al barely gets the time to breathe between being interviewed these days. Seems Ed Kaye, over at Hypergeek in Canada, has interviewed everyone's favourite bearded lumberjack-slash-serial-killer.

Here it is!

Al's on top form. "I need to grab you by the heart first, the balls second, the mind third and any other body parts are gravy."

Cheers for tweeting us the link, Ed.

David

Happy Monday!

We recommend you check out Graeme's Fantasy Book Review today. As well as the great reviews he writes every week, he's currently got an Abaddon-themed giveaway going on! You could win a copy of our first Pax Britannia omnibus, or maybe a copy of our first Tomes of the Dead omnibus! The competition is open until the 14th November.

These omnibuses/omnibi* are now out in all the shops - such weighty tomes - each comprising three Abaddon books, make a great Xmas present for anyone who loves their zombies and/or their steampunk fiction, so get buying!

Also, don't forget to check out our interview last week with an author who's written for both of those series, plus plenty of 2000 AD comics, the illustrious Mr. Al Ewing...

-

*Let the comments war begin...

Whee! Al Ewing Interview!

Wotcher,

Well, we're pretty excited here at Abaddon Towers today. It's taken a lot of pleading, a certain amount of cajoling, a libation of raw meat, and your reporter... entering into certain offices he would rather not discuss openly, but we have finally persuaded notorious manimal Al Ewing - beloved 2000 AD comics writer, jobbing DJ, humorous Youtube movie maker, renowned star of karaoke and four-times critically-acclaimed Abaddon author - to emerge from his isolated fortress in Yorkshire to answer several questions. Rejoice!

Al graciously agreeing to an interview.

Abaddon: Hi, Al. Thanks for making time out of your busy schedule.

AE: Thanks, Dave, and sorry my schedule’s been busier than intended - I should have done this for you weeks ago.

Abaddon: It’s all good. You are, after all, a national treasure. Comics, novels, karaoke, short animated movies on Youtube. Is there no end to your talents? Do you sculpt? Dance the Rumba?

AE: I’m occasionally a panel guest on the Freaky Trigger show, Lollards Of Pop, on Resonance FM, as well as on its occasional ancillary shows. I’ll likely be a guest on the current season, so London listeners and visitors to freakytrigger.co.uk might want to keep an ear out for that. Plus I’ll be doing some DJ-ing at this year’s Thought Bubble in Leeds, along with Phonogram creators Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie and a bunch of other folks.

Not to be confused with the fourteenth-century
followers of John Wycliffe.

Abaddon: You DJ-ed at Thought Bubble last year, didn’t you? Ever gone (or considered going) pro with the DJing? Or is it strictly cons and socially?

Taking a well-earned break from DJing to dance

to Take That at Thought Bubble 2009.

AE: All cons all the time at the moment - I occasionally DJ friends’ weddings, but there aren’t any on the immediate horizon, and since Poptimism breathed its last earlier in the year (hopefully to withdraw into a healing cocoon and evolve into something new and fresh) I’ve been lacking an opportunity to pretend to take requests for Disco 2000 into consideration with my lying face while cuing up yet another Robyn track.

Poptimismism.

Abaddon: So. Books. After six years’ writing credits for 2000 AD, you wrote your first novel for Abaddon, El Sombra. Talk me through that. Had fiction writing previously been a major ambition?

Cover One: Shirtless Zorro vs. Nazi steambot.

AE: In a way – I’d tried to do a couple for Black Flame, including a great idea for how to handle Chopper that I touched on in the 20th Anniversary Judge Dredd Megazine story I wrote recently, and one that eventually became my first entirely-written-by-me Dredd story. But I always figured writing novels would be boring, so I never gave them much thought. Two things changed - Sue Fletcher, an old friend from University, wrote a brilliant and critically-acclaimed novel called Eve Green that made me realise how much fun writing a novel would be, and secondly it became very clear to me very quickly that I can’t write novels at all to save my life. So what I do is write comics without any pictures in them, and pretend they’re novels, and don’t tell anyone the truth. And that seems to make all the difference.

Abaddon: But you’ve told us now. I guess you’ll have to kill me! Heh, heh.

...Ahem. So, er... what led you to put forward an idea for the Pax Britannia world, rather than any of the others? Did you start with Zorro and Nazis, and then work it into a steampunk world, or start with steampunk and populate it with Zorro and Nazis?

AE: The former. Originally, it was going to be a fantasy setting, with winged creatures preying on normal humans inside a giant Eyrie, and then I took a look at the bible for the fantasy world and realised that wouldn’t fly (Ba-dum tissch). Anyway, it kind of fitted better into the steampunk world – I’m not really a fan of steampunk as such, but out of the four possibilities, the four universes, that Jon Oliver was offering at the time, it seemed like the one where I could most easily explore that kind of pulp-action sensibility.

Abaddon: Then we had I, Zombie. In the foreword to the omnibus edition, you mention that John Doe first took shape in an unwritten comics epic called Bountyman that you outlined in your angst-ridden teenage years. Did Zombo spring from the same roots? Are talking zombies your “thing”?

Cover Two: Zombie gumshoe.
...Weird insect-guy thing.

AE: Zombo sprang from Henry – you’ll have to pick up the first TPB*, Can I Eat You Please, for an in-depth chat between me and Henry on the subject of his creation, but when you do you’ll see that Henry was the God figure who created the garden of Zombo and I’m the Satan who corrupted it and brought it around to my way of thinking.

Al corrupted this.

I prefer talking zombies to non-talking zombies, but zombies generally aren’t really my deal – both I, Zombie and Zombo take the idea of zombies and turn them around into something else that the average zombie punter might not recognise so easily. Again, it’s using the genre on offer to talk about the ideas I want to talk about.

Abaddon: I think most of the authors on Tomes have subverted the genre. Forty years after Romero, you sort of have to. To be honest, I’m always surprised at how much very traditional zombie fiction (both prose and film) is out there.

So, third book and third protagonist: Death Got No Mercy’s Cade. Forgive me, but you’re just about the mildest, most contemplative man-mountain I have ever had the pleasure to meet. What made you decide to write about a force of unstoppable human carnage, and how do you feel you relate to him?

Cover Three: A Man! Punching! A Bear!

AE: I really wanted to write something incredibly violent, to be honest – I wanted to write the most violent thing I could imagine, and just have a load of fun with that. I don’t think it’s necessary for an author to relate completely to their character – you can see shades of my politics in Cade, but I certainly wouldn’t agree with how he handles most of his problems. It’s probably the least sympathetic protagonist I’ve written – he’s more of a spectacle than a character, really.

Abaddon: That helps. But why exactly did Scooby Doo have to die?

AE: He’s solving the Ultimate Mystery now.

Abaddon: Right. Er... And now you return to the scone of your first crime with Gods of Manhattan, the steampunk-superhero pastiche follow-up to El Sombra. Tell us a bit about it.

Cover Four: Super heroes and totty.

AE: It’s going back to El Sombra’s pulp roots. I basically got a little bored with the character – everything to say about him had been said in the first book, unless I wanted to cure him, which I didn’t. So I made him part of an ensemble cast.

In the third book – working title: Pax Omega – which I’m plotting as we speak, that ensemble cast is going to widen even further and I’m going to basically go to war with those nasty steam Nazis once and for all, so get ready for the final battle between man and mecha-fuehrer. There are possibilities beyond that - is it still steampunk in the year 1,000,000? How about the year 1,000,000,000? (Remember when a billion was a million million? I feel the humble billion has been devalued over the years, not to mention the trillion.) These are thoughts that have occurred to me. I’ll either take care of them in this book, if me and editor Jon Oliver can work out a way to make it sing, or I’ll chat with Jon Green about it in depth for an upcoming fourth volume. I’m still in plotting mode at the moment.

Today, the plight of the poor billion
is more relevant than ever...

But back to the second book, on shelves now! It’s all the wonderful energy of New York wrapped up into a high adventure package, with superheroes, pulp-noir detectives, dazzling ingenues, breakdancing, polygamy, BMX detectives, just a taste of pulp-cover naughtiness and what happens when Ebony White grows up… my own little attempt to grow a Wold Newton universe in Jon Green’s backyard. Buy it!

Abaddon: Excellent plug, and neatly worked in. So... Ah, yes. Noted reviewer Smashy McFace recently quashed (largely imagined) rumours about you by insisting that you have proven yourself a “real human man.”** Care to comment?

AE: Smashy is secretly one of my oldest friends and he’s well known for that sort of talk. He’s quite wrong, as the fleshy ones will soon discover - to their regret. Lock your doors.

Abaddon: Thank you. And I’ve just realised I have something I have to do, so we must wrap up. Any final comments?

AE: Thanks to anyone who’s written a glowing review, or even a semi-tolerant one. Like all writers, I pretend not to read my reviews while secretly craving the smallest scrap of appreciation and being crushed by the tiniest criticism. So please, don’t crush me! Love me! Love me, I beg of you!



At this point, Mr. Ewing had to be physically restrained and sedated, signalling an end to the interview. Out thanks go to him for very kindly providing these words.

Gods of Manhattan is out now in the US, and will hit the shelves in the UK in January. It will also be exclusively available at the Thought Bubble convention in Leeds on the 18th - 21st November, at the Travelling Man stand (if you track Al down while you're there, you can get him to autograph it right after you buy it!).

Cheers,

David


*For “Trade Paperback.” Al is part of the “Comics World,” and they have all kinds of cool acronyms and slang. I guess it’s hip, or something.
**No, seriously. Search for him now.

Reviewspam and Chips

Wotcher all,

Two review quickies and a reviewesque.

Graeme Flory over at Graeme's Fantasy Book Review has offered some words about Paul Finch's Tomes of the Dead: Stronghold.

It was a book that I had a lot of fun reading. Another chilling entry in the library that holds the Tomes of the Dead...

Kerl at Un:Bound has delivered this lovely review about Jon Oliver's Twilight of Kerberos: The Call of Kerberos.

The stunning setting provides a backdrop for action that leaps from a harbour raid by marauders from below the sea to a duel and boarding action between living submersibles with star-ship grade weapons. There is also a monster in the book that’s creepy-weird enough to unsettle me, and I’ve read a lot of odd stuff in my time!

Thirdly, for Al Ewing's Gods of Manhattan, reviews haven't really started coming in yet, but we stumbled on this awesome commentary out there in internetland, from a guy who described the book as "kind of like shooting pure pulpy joy into my brain":

I finished Gods of Manhattan and was very impressed. It did something with the superhero/modern pulp hero novel I've been waiting for and have only gotten with a couple of books- it played it mostly straight. Sure, there were twists and some modern themes but there was no "Oh, this all takes place while the heroes are in therapy" or some other silly "well, supers/comics/pulps are boring unless you 'fix' them with quirky stuff" and it wasn't jokey and such. It was a story about a bunch of heroes and a bunch of villains.

Cool, huh?

Cheers,

David

Pax Britannia Goodness: Covers, Releases, Blogs, and Competition!

Wotcher all,

Well, it's a pretty busy time over in the parallel universe where Victoria is still Queen of England.

Let's see...

We've had The Ulysses Quicksilver Omnibus back from the printers (shown here with Pye Parr's gloriously grim Londinium Maximum skyline and the new Victorianesque layout), and it is beautiful. So much so that we've decided to use the same layout and design for all our future Pax Britannia books. That should be hitting the shelves in the next month or so, just in time to buy as stocking-fillers for the steampunkophile in your life.

Er, the other steampunkophile in your life. Obviously you're a steampunkophile. You wouldn't lie to us, would you?

(Pye has actually written a blog about creating the cover for this, and another one about putting the final touches to the artwork on the cover. Pop over to his blog and take a look.)

We've also just had Gods of Manhattan back from the press. Unfortunately too late to incorporate the sexy new formatting, although it does have Mark Harrison's awesome montage cover art.

(Fun fact: Al saw this art, concluded there were more hot women in the cover art than there actually were in his book, and immediately set out to add more hot women to the book. The final book has, I believe, two more hot woman in it than it initially did, wholly due to Mark's cover art and Al's OCD/whimsy. Thanks, Mark!)

Gods of Manhattan sees the Saint of Ghosts travelling to New York in the United Socialist States of America, where he encounters the impossibly heroic Doc Thunder and the dark and bloodthirsty Blood Spider, and helps uncover sinister plots and secret pasts and more evil Nazi goings-on.

We've just sent the next Ulysses Quicksilver adventure, Dark Side, off to press, with the new format cover.

Also very sexy. Particularly love Mark Harrison's dark homage to the famous "man in the moon" image from Georges Méliès' 1902 film Le Voyage dans la Lune (Okay, I had to look that up on Wikipedia; but didn't I look all informed and educated for just a second, there?), only slightly late, so you should be seeing that early next year.

This book sees Ulysses travelling to the Moon in search of his brother Barty, who's apparently (and fairly characteristically) fleeing gambling debts. Once he gets there, our intrepid dandy-adventurer encounters murders, conspiracies, secret bases, and all the usual shenanigans that he seems to find wherever he goes. It's as silly and fun as usual, but a bit... darker than the earlier books. Ulysses goes through the wringer a bit. You'll see.

(Also see a cameo by competition-winning Jared Shurin of Pornokitsch. He's well excited about this.)

...which brings me neatly to the next Pax Britannia competition! Jonathan Green loves Lego. Hell, who doesn't? He also loves steampunk. And we all love steampunk, or we wouldn't be reading/writing this blog post. And he's seen some steampunk lego that people have put together, and that's got him well-chuffed.

So he's offering another walk-on part in his coming Pax Britannia novel, Anno Frankenstein (Mark Harrison's cover shown right, although this will get redone with the new layout and text before it goes to press). Just send in a picture of your own Pax Britannia-inspired lego, and the one he likes best gets to be in his next book.

Check out his blog post about it.

Phew! That's a lot of stuff about Pax B. Might need a cup of tea and a sit down.

Cheers,

David

Podcast #5 out now! Er, two weeks ago. Sorry.

Hey guys,

So you remember me saying we might just skip May and call the next one the June one, to catch up on ourselves? Well, we went right ahead and did that shit, and then took so long getting the blog out that it went up on iTunes in July. And then I forgot to blog about it. So you're hearing about it in August.

So, er. Yeah. Sorry.

At any rate, you'd already know this if you're subscribed to the 'cast via iTunes, but if not, the Fifth Abaddon & Solaris Books Pocast is now available to download and listen! 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. If you are subscribed, you probably already have it. If you don't, then I guess resubscribe to it or something? How should I know? Call Apple's helpdesk.

David, Jenni and Jon at Abaddon Books and Solaris Books assault your mind and brain with sounds and information in what a well-regarded authority* might have called "an hour jolly well spent."

In The Abaddon & Solaris Books Podcast #5: Pax Britannia Across the Pond, Jon demonstrates his versatility and leet interviewing skillz by interviewing two authors at once. Jonathan Green, author of the Ulysses Quicksilver novels (the fifth Quicksilver book, Blood Royal, is out now), and Al Ewing, author of El Sombra and the brand-new sequel Gods of Manhattan, assume their places on Jon's metaphorical couch and talk about the Pax Britannia universe, the future direction of the series and whatever pops into their heads. You also have two readings: one from each author. In our increasingly regular on-the-spot feature, Jenni Hill interviews Rebecca Levene and Scott Andrews at the top-secret launch of Rebecca's The Infernal Game: Cold Warriors, also out now.

Now, I've totally let you down, length-wise. Because we had two authors, two readings, and a launch report, this has gone well over the hour. You may have to listen to this in a couple of sittings. Two meaty, rich, fulfilling sittings.

As always, we'd love to hear any feedback.

Cheers,

David



*We tried to get a quote from Jon's mum, but then I just made one up.

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Gods of Manhattan

“You’re in New York. Protocol went out the window the second you arrived.
This isn’t a protocol kind of town.
This is a town that breeds monsters and heroes, geniuses and madmen.
This town makes gods, and heaven help you, you wanted to be one of us.”

I've just finished editing Gods of Manhattan. I'm rather sad that I've finished, I had so much fun editing it, but hey, I can console myself with the fact that, very soon, our readers will get to enjoy it! It'll be out in shops at the end of July.

Book reviewers, bloggers, friends, (Romans, countrymen) and other editors who're on my personal Twitter and Facebook feeds will know that, while editing, I just Could Not Shut Up about how good this book was. I kept on quoting from particularly brilliant passages, telling people much fun it was, even declaring myself Queen of the Leopard Men at one point, after the fantastically pulpy character, Maya, Queen of Zor-Ek-Narr and girlfriend of the superhero Doc Thunder.

Well, just one blogpost about it, and then I'll find something else to talk about, I promise...

Maya frowned at Doc Thunder, irritated.
“You were flirting with her, weren’t you?”
“I wasn’t flirting, she’s an evil–”
“Oh, please! Like she’s not your type! Chain you to a dungeon wall and you’re anybody’s, I should know. Let me guess – did you tell her that beneath her iridescent beauty her evil shone cold and hard as a diamond?”
“Well, I didn’t say that exactly…”

Gods of Manhattan is set in Jon Green's steampunk universe, an alternative 20th Century where Britannia never did stop ruling the waves, and where Queen Victoria is still kept 'alive' by steam technology: our Pax Britannia line of novels. However, whereas Green's books focus on Ulysses Quicksilver, the most dashing secret agent the British Empire has ever employed, Gods of Manhattan takes us over the pond, to the good ol’ United Socialist States of America (By the way, you certainly don't have to have read the Ulysses Quicksilver novels to enjoy Gods of Manhattan, but they are very good).

NEW YORK, USSA - 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, USSA - 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, USSA - 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!

If you like superhero comics and secret identities – and you love stories like Watchmen and Astro City that play with the genre – you'll want to read this book.

If you like steampunk and alternate histories, if you want a writer who's really thought about what steampunk and alternate histories actually mean, you'll love it.

If you want a story about heroes wrestling with human and superhuman problems, about what happens when characters' moral codes collide, about being on the right side of the wrong side of the law, you'll love this book.

And if you just want a story about some guys and gals beating up Nazis who really, really deserve it, this is also your book.

Doc Thunder says all true patriots will read this book. And you wouldn't want to make him mad, would you?

[click picture for larger, high-def version]

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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

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