Win a Signed Copy of The Black Chalice!

Wotcher all,

Fancy a signed copy of Steven Savile's groundbreaking Arthurian fantasy, Malory's Knights of Albion: The Black Chalice?

'Course you do.

Well, check this. How about the world-exclusive, first ever signed copy of The Black Chalice? Authenticated by Mr. Savile himself?

Now we're talking.

Steven has been so good as to sign his first ever copy of the book, and will be giving it away to one lucky subscriber to his newsletter in the next few weeks.

The newsletter is kicking off very soon, and will include such goodies as excerpts, teasers in advance of his coming books, and links to unlock special content on his site.

So pop on over to his website, StevenSavile.com, right now, and you could be in on a genuinely special piece of collectibilia.

Collectibilia? Is that a word? You can have memorabilia. This is kind of memorabilia. It's collectible. It's collectibilia.

To Hell with it. I'm an editor; I can add new words if I want.

You still here? Why are you still reading this? I'm just waffling about new words I made up. You should be at StevenSavile.com, registering for his newsletter!

Cheers,

David

Black Chalice Out Now!

Steven Savile's in good company, between George R. R. Martin, Patrick Rothfuss and... Ron Hubbard? Guess you can't win 'em all.

We've been sent this photograph this morning, taken in Barnes and Noble, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, because The Black Chalice is out now in North America and all over the world! You can find it in the fantasy section in your local bookshop or for sale online, and the ebook will be coming out very soon!

Son of a knight and aspirant to the Round Table, Alymere yearns to take his place in the world, and for a quest to prove his worth. He comes across the foul Devil's Bible – written in a single night by an insane hermit – which leads and drives him to seek the unholy Black Chalice. On his quest he will face, and overcome, dire obstacles and cunning enemies, becoming a knight of renown; but the ultimate threat is to his very soul.
Malory’s Knights of Albion: The Black Chalice is the start of an exciting new fantasy series of never-before-seen Arthurian adventures.

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The Devil's ISBN

Okay, check this out, dudes.

The ISBN, as I'm sure you're all aware, is a unique code that every single published book in the world gets. It's used to track and archive books, for the barcodes that the shopgirl uses to scan your purchases in, and for databases that log information about books.

Anyway, your ISBN is allocated to you randomly by various agencies. You get a book, and you fill it in and send the details back to them.

So we just entered Steven Savile's Malory's Knights of Albion: The Black Chalice into our ISBN list, and Ben pointed out the ISBN we just gave it:

978-1-907519-66-6

Not bad for a book about the Devil's Bible and the anti-grail.

Kick ass.

David

The Third Podcast is Up!

Hi all,

Sheesh. To think, only two months ago the first Podcast was going up. How young and naive we were. We thought we were changing the world. We thought we knew the lot. Now, two months on, we're putting up the third podcast, and we're older. Wiser. More seasoned. Makes you look back on old times and get all nostalgic.

Yes, you heard it right! The third Abaddon & Solaris Books Pocast is even now on your iTunes Store! 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. As usual, if you reeeeeeally luff us and have subscribed to the 'cast, iTunes should find and upload the new episode automatically.

Jenni, Jon and David, at Abaddon Books and Solaris Books thrill with the "most insanely groundbreaking instalment yet"* of their much-loved, widely-discussed podcast.

The Abaddon & Solaris Books Podcast #3: Staples of Horror! is introduced by desk editor David Moore, who they didn't let do any real interviewing this time as he scares authors. Editor-in-Chief Jon Oliver interviews Greg Staples, cover artist and comics legend, about his inspiration and his thoughts about different art media, and junior editor Jenni Hill runs around the World Horror Convention at Brighton interviewing our authors. Simon Bestwick, author of Tide of Souls, accosts Steven Savile, our new Knights of Albion author, and basically doesn't give him a chance to speak. How rude...

Now, this one's a doozy. It's, like, an hour and a quarter. We're going to try and rein that in next time, but basically, this is how much good stuff we had this month! Think of it as, like, two podcasts. Listen to Jon and Greg, put the podcast away, then come back later and listen to Jenni and various drunk authors. So you're getting two podcasts for the price of one. How cool are we?

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



*2010, noted talking head and vox pop specialist, David Moore's mum.

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• Not on iTunes, and have sworn to end your life rather than download a single Apple application? Here to help! Just point your RSS client here to download the feed without putting a penny in Steve Jobs' pocket. Keep an eye on the blog for updates, in case we change the host or something crazy like that.
  
• Bewildered by the term "RSS" and unsure what all this means? No problem, ignorant Luddite! Just follow the exact same link, click on the link to the mp3 of the episode you wish to hear, and you can listen right on your browser! Everyone's a winner!

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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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. :)