He's always seen ghosts ... but they've never offered him a job before.

Dead Stop

by Mark Clapham

The latest ebook exclusive release from Abaddon Books

OUT NOW!

ISBN (Mobi): 9781849975353  ISBN (Epub): 9781849975346

In 2012, we put out an open call for submissions from Abaddon Books and this month sees the release of the first e-novella from one of the authors who answered our call!

The new digital exclusive from Abaddon Books is Dead Stop – a chilling new Tomes of the Dead novella from Doctor Who and Warhammer 40,000 writer Mark Clapham.

David Larkin can see ghosts. It’s a blessing – or a curse – that’s been part of his life since his eleventh birthday. It’s not much use to him, and he mostly just tries to ignore them and get on with life, travelling around and keeping to out of the way places where not too many people have died.

Until the ghost of Melissa appears to him, in a forgettable truck-stop diner on a highway in the American Midwest, warning him about the flood of zombies heading his way. Melissa offers him a deal: she’ll help David escape the zombie horde – in exchange for finding her zombified body and destroying it...

Dead Stop is available through the Rebellion online store as well as on Amazon, Nook, Kobo, and all good online retailers.

About the author

Mark Clapham has been writing professionally for 15 years, which probably counts as a career. He has written novels for the Warhammer 40,000 and Doctor Who book ranges, and lots of other things that you can find out about at the modestly named www.markclapham.com. He lives in Exeter with his wife, the writer Mags L Halliday, and his daughter, but prefers to vacation in Raccoon City.

Chuck Wendig’s 'Gods and Monsters' series for Abaddon to continue with 'Myth Breaker'

Abaddon is very proud to announce the next title in the Gods and Monsters series, created by genre superstar author Chuck Wendig.

Gods and Monsters: Myth Breaker by Stephen Blackmoore will be the second novel in the series and will be published in December 2014.

Wendig imagined a brand new world for Abaddon Books last year, in which gods and goddesses are real and fight one another for mankind’s belief and devotion. But when one god drove all others out of Heaven, it was back to the bad old days of cults and sycophants, and the terrible retribution the gods visit on those who spite them. Gods and Monsters: Myth Breaker continues the story of humanity pitted against both the natural and the supernatural in a world of violence and faith.

Blackmore is the author of the urban fantasy novels City of the Lost and Dead Things and the 1930's pulp novel Khan of Mars.  His short stories have appeared in the magazines Needle, Plots With Guns, Spinetingler, Thrilling Detective and Shots, as well as the anthologies Deadly Treats, Don’t Read This Book and Uncage Me.

Chuck said: “Stephen Blackmoore is the exceedingly worthy heir to the Gods and Monsters throne, and unto him I bequeath my crown, my sword, my whiskey bottle (it’s empty, sorry), my robot butler, my monkey butler, and what’s left of the ragged cheesecloth that is my soul. COURAGE TO HIM.”

The first people the gods stopped talking to, back in the day, were the Chroniclers: people who were touched by the divine. Prophets and storytellers; Moses, Homer, Hesiod. Chroniclers don't just tell the stories, they make people believe. And when the gods don’t keep up that connection, they go mad.

Growing up an orphan, Louie Fitzsimmons always had conversations with “invisible friends,” could see patterns in the world that no one else could see. He suffered bouts of mania and depression, but with a regimen of drugs and therapy he grew out of it as a teenager.  When he was thirteen, he ran away from the orphanage and got in with organized crime as a drug runner, skimming the pharmaceuticals he sold to keep his visions at bay. Now, thirty-five years old and burnt out, Louie’s had enough. With access to the mob's finances, he plans to go out in a big way.

Only he can't. Things are conspiring against him: a broken down car, a missed flight. It's bad enough being hunted by the mob, but the gods – kicked out of the Heavens, stuck on Earth without worshippers – need someone who can tell their stories, get the word out, and they aren’t letting him go. And there are new gods on the scene, gods of finance and technology, who want him too.

Caught between the mob and two sets of rival gods, Louie hatches a plan that will probably get him killed. If his powers can make the gods, there's no reason he can't break them...

The critics on Gods and Monsters: Unclean Spirits:

“The style is gonzo and rapid-fire, with bizarre imagery and flashes of violence and the grotesque.”

– Hellnotes.com

“The tone, the pacing, the characters, all of it, and honestly, this story is just plain fun. Dark, sometimes horribly creepy, but fun.”

– Fantasy Book Critic

“… full of stark realities dragged through gutter-filled dreams ...

Even now I cannot seem to shake this novel free.”

– SF Signal

"Braaaaaaaaaains!" Or how to go back in time and make a zombie book cover...

Now out in ebook and on Amazon (or available as a paperback and ebook in North America), The Secret Zombie History of the World is a collection of three nerve-rending novels about famous zombie outbreaks of the past thousand years.

... or they would be famous, if they hadn't been suppressed by the authorities. Luckily, thanks to publishing these important stories as 'novels' rather than exposés, we've been able to get the truth out - that mankind has come closer than we realise to succumbing to the zombie apocalypse.

Toby Venables, Paul Finch, and Matthew Sprange have all bravely turned fact into fiction, lest They take notice and shut us down. Such brave warriors for the truth!

But to complete the illusion, we needed a cover; one that would accurately reveal the horrors contained within. And to make those horrors a reality, we naturally turned to our PR guy, Mike.

Mike dresses up at weekends. Mostly as a Roundhead but he has previously been spotted as a rather portly Judge Dredd and a beggar. (how would we tell that that was a disguise? - Ed.) One day in the office, this slightly unwell history obsessive declared that along with two of his 'friends' (shome mishtake, shurely? - Ed.) he was going to put the history into the hysterical (or possibly the other way around - Ed.) and provide our cover designer with some "authentic" images on which to base the cover... He was last seen clanking off into the distance with a determined look on his face (first and last time - Ed.)

Ed! Do you mind?! >:(

Anyway, along with his mates David Eliot Cooper and Rob Temple of Histrionics he found a spot in the grounds of Kirkstall Abbey in Leeds to get some shots of the three 'ages' in which the novels of tSZHotW are set: Vikings, Medieval, and Napoleonic.

These are the results...

Oh dear...

And lo. These images, SOMEHOW, were turned into this rather lovely book cover by the wonderous Pye Parr.

So now you know.

Reports that the participants have now disappeared after being bundled into cars by men in black suits and sunglasses have not yet been confirmed...

Ditch the pound shop Advent calendar - the Abaddon and Solaris daily December deals are here!

Forget the stale chocolates and badly-drawn festive image, we've got the Advent calendar you want right here...

Yes, every day in the run-up to Christmas we'll be offering a different ebook title for the tiny sum of just 99p!

Yes! Just 99 of the Queen's pennies (or corresponding amount of your non-British equivalent) and you could own some of the finest SF, fantasy, horror, and genre around!

The "Literally" Thing

Hey, yo!

So a little while back I doodled on here about expressions - turns of phrase with various roots - that have drifted, just a little, from their intention when first used. Like turn the other cheek or the game is afoot. Lovely little examples of how language and culture shift over time.

'Cause that's what editors do. Rock and roll, baby. Rock and fuckin' roll.

Anyway, it got a very modest feedback on Facebook and Twitter, and there was a little chat about misuses that people were fond of - or irritated by, as it happens - and a bit of fond discussion about usage and etymology. Then it came up again.

What about "literally"?

Ah, yes. So this is an old chestnut, and one which the internet's guardians of language are very fond of railing about (seriously, I love the Oatmeal, but I haven't got your back on this one). And it's had a bit of a resurgence in everyone's minds, lately, since the Oxford English Dictionary made the decision to include the figurative sense of the word in its entry.

(Many tophats flew off many heads, that day. Many monocles popped out in outraged splutter. That terrible, terrible day.)

But wait!

Because seriously, this is a thing. And it's not a big deal. Untwist that there knicker, podner! And let me sort this out for you, so you can stop worrying yourself about it and go back to explaining the difference between affect and effect to people. Let me explain why your objections to this are all wrong...

"You can't just change what things mean in dictionaries!"

Well, that's just silly, for starters. If you couldn't "just" add or change words in the dictionary, it would look like this and would be worse than useless. Obviously English changes, and the dictionary tells us how to use words in English, so the dictionary has to change. You may choose to rail against drift in the language if you wish, although I can think of better uses of your time, but you can't really complain about the dictionary doing its job, which is reflecting how language is used. Don't blame the OED for being the world's pre-eminent English Dictionary...


"But it's the opposite of what it means! You can't do that!"

Why the hell not? Cleave means "to stick together" and "to separate." Sanction means "to grant approval to" and "to withdraw support from." Fast means "moving quickly" and "fixed and immobile." Trimming that tree, are you? Would sir like the secateurs or the tinsel?

And anyway, it doesn't. People say that the modern usage of literally means "figuratively," but who in the history of saying things with your face has ever actually pointed out, mid-metaphor, that they're being metaphorical? Can you imagine anyone saying, "My father figuratively exploded when he saw the scratch on the car; I say figuratively, because I don't want you to be alarmed at the prospect of my father's detonation. He's actually quite well. I meant to say he was very angry."?

(You can? Huh. I'd keep away from that guy. I bet he tucks in his t-shirt and collects used matches.)

The contemporary, figurative use of the word literally actually completely depends on both the speaker and the listener being aware of its traditional meaning. It's used for emphasis. I'm presenting what is clearly a metaphor ("I'm neck-deep in paperwork down here!") and then playfully suggesting that it's not a metaphor ("No, help me! I'm genuinely, literally, neck-deep in paperwork here! Haha! It's funny because it's not in fact true, but I'm pretending it is!") in order to emphasise the metaphor.

Get it? It's supposed to be funny, you jerk. And you ruined it.

I love you. Please don't be angry.

"But it's not what it's supposed to mean! It's new!"

You're dead right... in about the seventeenth century.

This usage goes back hundreds of years. There was only just such a thing as dictionaries when people started using literally this way.

Jane Austen was "literally rocked in bed" in a stormy night; Mark Twain was "literally rolling in wealth"; Louisa May Alcott's land "literally flowed with milk and honey." This is not a new thing. How can it be an irritating change to the language you speak if it happened before your grandmother's grandmother was born? There is honestly no way you can claim to remember a time when you only knew the original sense of the word and was unpleasantly surprised to discover its new meaning.

Which means you've learned your distaste of its figurative sense. Someone - some low-down son of a gun - has gone to the trouble of teaching you to be irritated by a usage that's been utterly ubiquitous since long before the people who taught the people who taught the people who taught them to hate it were even born.

So frankly, if you're gonna get angry at someone, I'd track down that guy. 'Cause he just plumb filled your world with aggravation to no good effect.

You're welcome.

Ritual Crime Unit OUT NOW!

Hey all,

So shut up and set down your coffee and donut - yes, I can see you, stop hiding it behind that stack of paperwork and pretending it's somebody else's donut; it's okay to eat donuts, I don't mind - for just one moment and check this motherfunster out right now.

Because E. E. Richardson, the brilliant and talented young adult horror writer, has made her adult debut right here at Abaddon Towers, and it is awesome.

Ritual Crime Unit: Under the Skin is a novella, the first in a new series of urban fantasy police procedurals which I'm frankly sure will have nerds all over the country saying "Who Aaronovitch? Is that even a real name?" in about a month. Maybe two, tops.

Elizabeth come to my attention via the open submissions month last year (which you may remember), and was a very happy discovery.

Here's the blurb:

A tough, hard-nosed career officer in the male-dominated world of British policing, DCI Claire Pierce of North Yorkshire Police heads Northern England’s underfunded and understaffed Ritual Crime Unit. Unregarded by the traditional police, struggling with an out-sized caseload, Pierce is about to tackle her most shocking case so far.

Following reports of unlicensed shapeshifters running wild in the Dales, DCI Pierce leads a failed raid to capture the skinbinder responsible. While the dust is still settling, a team from Counter Terrorism turns up and takes the case off her.

Pursuing the case off the record, she uncovers something murkier and more terrible than she suspected. Has her quarry achieved the impossible and learned to bind human skin?

Under the Skin is available right now, from the Rebellion Store,  from Kindle (US, UK, and elsewhere) and most other ebook channels. If you don't buy it, you might be unprepared.

It's even available, in strictly limited numbers, as a physical edition from Forbidden Planet! These babies are signed and numbered, and won't last long.

DO IT! DO IT NOW! YOUR LIFE MAY DEPEND ON IT!

About The Author

E.E. Richardson has been writing books since she was eleven years old, and had her first novel The Devil’s Footsteps picked up for publication at the age of twenty. Since then she’s had seven more young adult horror novels published by Random House and Barrington Stoke. Under the Skin is her first story aimed at adults. She also has a B.Sc. in Cybernetics and Virtual Worlds, which hasn’t been useful for much but does sound impressive.

Save Lincs Libraries!

Hey all,

So bit of a serious moment here (what do you mean, I never did Day Two of my con report; it's coming, okay?). So the fine folk at reviews/fiction/geek culture website warpcoresf.co.uk have asked us to highlight stuff going on at Lincolnshire County Council, and this is serious stuff. Libraries are many people's primary or sole source of books, and they deserve our protection.

Here's the spiel:



Lincolnshire County Council plan to close all but 15 of the county's library buildings. They want to reduce the hours of the remaining libraries, take mobile library stops down from 400 to 126, sell off buildings, and cut 170 skilled library jobs. In all, these cuts are worth some £2 million, out of a front-line libraries budget of around £6 million.

You can read more details of the campaign here.

In order to save our libraries, we need to make our opposition to these cuts known before the 3rd of December, when the council executive make their decision. This is an outrage that will cut thousands of people off from the discovery of literature, it will damage literacy rates, and it will deprive many people of access to the internet. Libraries are also hugely important for midlist writers, for whom discovery is proving harder thanks to the closure of so many independent book stores.

Please tweet your opposition to @savelincslibs. If you'd like to go further and blog about this, an email to q@warpcoresf.co.uk will ensure I see your post and get it included in the Save Lincs Library links round-up, Facebook page, and so on.

I've heard quite a few authors say things like "Well, I'll help, but I don't know what good I can do." Having heard Patrick Rothfuss state that he still considers himself a newbie during a panel on world building at WFC, I suspect a lot of authors underestimate their impact on people. Please don't. Every word of support matters a great deal to the campaign, and to those communities that are threatened with losing their libraries. You are all more awesome than you suspect. 

The Facebook page is here.

World Fantasy Con Report, Day One

Wotcher all,

So, here a day so far. Good times.

GUYS THIS EVENT IS LIKE HUGE there's thousands of people here, and loads of panels, and people wandering around and oh my god.

We managed to scramble onsite about 2pm yesterday, rushed to get our stand set up (Molcher above looking pretty), and sold books for a couple of hours.

I was in a panel, "When does copy-editing go too far?" (Hint: The answer is DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? I'M A FUCKING EDITOR! ON YOUR KNEES, WORM!), and was predictably fabulous. I shared the stage with Jo Fletcher, Oliver Johnston, Rina Weisman, Laurel Hill and Ramsay Campbell. Illustrious old company.

Dinner was Wagamama's after a fruitless search for the many bijou restaurantettes we knew Brighton was full of, then booze until real late.

Honestly, I think the barman spiked my beer with alcohol. I'm a trifle disappointed. Bit of a hangover.

Today was bookselling and more being fabulous. Clifford Beal showed me an awesome pizza stand in town for lunch. And now I have no hangover, which all said is better than having a hangover. Quite relieved.

There are parties waiting; will update tomorrow.

From the Viking undead to zombie knights and Napoleonic revenants: this is the Secret Zombie History of the World

The Secret Zombie History of the World

by Paul Finch, Matthew

Sprange & Toby Venables

Coming to life on 10^th Dec

in paperback (US & Can)

and ebook (worldwide)

$12.99/$14.99 ISBN 978-1-78108-160-0

Northern Europe, 976 AD: a Viking crew find themselves in a bleak land of pestilence, where the dead return as draugr to feed on the flesh of their kin and a dark castle in a hidden fjord hides a terrible secret.

Britain, 1295 AD: A young English knight joins a force sent to capture a castle from Welsh rebels, but druids summon an army of the undead, bent on revenge. Will the stronghold – once thought impregnable – hold out?

The Cape of Good Hope, the 1820s: Captain Havelock discovers his ship and the French frigate he has been ordered to hunt down are not alone as an enemy thought long since vanquished rises from the deeps...

This is The Secret Zombie History of the World – an omnibus of historical zombie stories, released in this new format for the North American market, that reveals the outbreaks that have plagued mankind for hundreds of years. From Viking ‘draugr’ to the medieval undead and Napoleonic corpses, this trio of tales from the popular Tomes of the Dead series will keep you awake at night wondering just how close humanity has come to joining the hordes of the infected!

Toby Venables, Matthew Sprange, and Paul Finch each weave historical fact into thrilling tales of rotting revenants and cutthroat cadavers!

About the Series

Rotten bone and raddled flesh, shuffling perils and moaning menaces – Tomes of the Dead re-imagines the zombie genre not as an endless retread of the same tired themes, but as a prism crack’d, exploring the gut-churning, flesh-biting world of the shambling dead from new, different and unexpected directions!

About the Authors

Paul Finch is a former cop and journalist, now turned full time writer. He first cut his literary teeth penning episodes of the British TV crime drama, THE BILL, and has written extensively in the field of children's animation. However, he is probably best known for his work in horrors and thrillers. He has won two British Fantasy Awards and the International Horror Guild Award, and has written Doctor Who audio dramas for Big Finish as well as scripts for several movie adaptations of his own stories and novellas. Paul lives in Wigan, Lancashire, with his wife Cathy and his children, Eleanor and Harry.

Matthew Sprange has a solid history in roleplaying design as well as writing over two dozen gaming books, including the Babylon 5, Judge Dredd and Starship Troopers games, and has won two Origins Awards for his work in miniature wargames. Death Hulk is his second novel, with his first being a trip into the Babylon 5 universe, entitled Visions of Peace.

Toby Venables is a novelist, screenwriter and lecturer in Film Studies at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. He has since worked as a journalist and magazine editor – launching magazines in Cambridge, Peterborough, Oxford and Bristol – and once orchestrated an elaborate Halloween hoax for which he built and photographed a werewolf. He still works as a freelance copywriter, has been the recipient of a radio advertising award, and in 2001 won the Keats-Shelley Memorial Prize.

FREE EBOOKS!

YO THIS IS SOME CRAZY SHIZ RIGHT HERE.

So we're so keen to get you into our critically-acclaimed Afterblight Chronicles and Pax Britannia series that we're offering the first book in each series, Simon Spurrier's The Culled and Jonathan Green's Unnatural History, absolutely free!

They're free on our own website, and on as many online stores as we can manage. GET THEM! YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN WE'LL CHANGE OUR MINDS!

The Abaddon/Solaris signing schedule for next week's World Fantasy con is now up!

Well, World Fantasy Con is almost upon us, when the genre publishing world descends upon Brighton and makes it 27.1% more crazy...

We have a host, no, a bevvy of book-writing braves attending the con who will be furiously scribbling their monikers into books thrust beneath their clever noses. The Abaddon and Solaris signing schedule looks thusly:

THURSDAY	AUTHOR
16.00-16.30	Lou Morgan
16.30-17.00	Jonathan Green
FRIDAY	AUTHOR
10.30-11AM	Steve Rasnic Tem
11-11.30AM	Guy Adams
14.00-14.30	Jonathan Strahan
14.30-15.00	Jan Siegel (Amanda Hemingway)
15.30-16.00	Paul Kane
16.00-16.30	Clifford Beal
16.30-17.00	Gareth L. Powell
SATURDAY	AUTHOR
14.00-14.30	Geoffrey Gudgion
14.30-15.00	James Lovegrove
15.30-16.00	Ian Whates
16.30-17.00	Gaie Sebold
SUNDAY	AUTHOR
10.30-11AM	Simon Bestwick
11-11.30AM	Ben Jeapes

We're looking forward to it - hope to see you there!

Phrases That You Almost, But Don't Quite Use Correctly

So I was doing some editing the other day and reflected that there are a bunch of phrases in English - quotes, popular coinages and so on - that are widely (but generally only by a small degree) misunderstood. So widely, in fact, that the distorted meaning is the generally accepted one, and most people don't know the original sense at all. They don't irritate me - English is a wonderful, fluid language, and usage changes all the time - but they fascinate me nonetheless.


So I thought, heck, I'll just blog about it. Here are four of my favourites: 

Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw

Where It's From: Tennyson's In Memoriam A. H. H., a lengthy elegiac to his friend Arthur Hallam, who'd died suddenly in 1833. It's a long, meandering discourse on love, loss, and human nature. 

How It's Used: Usually to describe the violent and impersonal nature of Nature; them animals, they do so love to bite and scratch and stuff. Grr.

What It Really Means: It's actually about people! Tennyson was struggling with humanity's tendency to selfishness, and the growing materialistic worldview that was doing such a good job of explaining what it saw. If we are all driven by the simple mechanisms of evolution, then where can we see proof that love - God's ultimate law - does or should govern us?

Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravin, shriek'd against his creed 

Turn the Other Cheek

Where It's From: A little thing I like to call The Bible. Matthew, chapter 5. It's from the middle of Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount," where he passes down the law on how people are gonna behave from now on. 

How It's Used: This is something your mum or teacher used to tell you if you were bullied or provoked at school. It suggests stoicism and self-discipline; just look away ("turn your cheek") and ignore them.

What It Really Means: Jesus was going a bit further than just "don't rise to their bait." He's telling you to actively participate in your own victimisation; if a man hits you on one cheek, he says, then turn the other cheek so that he can hit that one too. Your mum should not be telling you to do this. The Sermon is famously one of the most challenging parts of Christian doctrine, presenting such an extreme model of virtue that it's usually seen as rhetorical rather than intended literally.

I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also.

The Game is Afoot

Where It's From: Shakespeare, baby. Specifically, Henry IV Part 1, Act 1, Scene 3. Although it's also probably Sherlock Holmes's most-quoted line (from The Adventure of the Abbey Grange) after "Elementary, my dear Watson."

How It's Used: Generally, to suggest a game - you know, with dice and a board, and cards or something. It means something interesting and challenging has begun in earnest.

What It Really Means: It's a hunting metaphor. The "game," in this instance, is an animal hunted for its meat (as in "game bird" or "game pie"). When the game is "afoot," it's on the run and the hunt has begun. Holmes most certainly used it in that sense - his "game" being Sir Brackenstall's murderer - but hunting is less relevant to most of us than it used to be, and so nowadays we mostly assume he's talking about chess or something. He liked chess, right?

"Come, Watson, come!" he cried. 

"The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!"

(Good) Samaritan

Where It's From: The Bible, natch. Luke, chapter 10. It's one of the "Parables," which were sort of moral riddles that Jesus used to tell his followers. He was crazy about riddles.

How It's Used: A Samaritan, "good" or otherwise, usually means someone who helps a stranger - especially one in dire need, who others are ignoring - with no expectation of reward or recognition. Aww. There's even a suicide charity called The Samaritans - without the "Good," which makes me insanely suspicious of them.

What It Really Means: The Good Samaritan of the parable behaved in exactly that way, sure enough. But the point of the story was that Samaritans were famed for their selfishness and officiousness; "good Samaritan" was intended as a surprising dichotomy. A bit like saying "good investment banker" or something (of course, the Samaritans are an ethnic and religious community that exists to this day, but I guess it's okay to be a bit racist when you're quoting the Bible).

And a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.

So those are four of my favourite slightly misused phrases. What are yours?

WEEKEND AUTUMN FLASH SALE!

If you missed out on this summer’s best books from Solaris, Abaddon and Ravenstone, now’s your chance to catch up with all of these recent releases at just £4 each!

Act now! This sale is only on this weekend!

SAXON’S BANE by Geoffrey Gudgion 

AGE OF GODPUNK by James Lovegrove 

PHOENICIA’S WORLDS by Ben Jeapes 

PLASTIC by Christopher Fowler 

BLOOD AND FEATHERS: REBELLION by Lou Morgan 

CRASH by Guy Haley 

WEIRD SPACE: SATAN’S REACH by Eric Brown 

LUPUS REX by John Carter Cash 

FICTIONAL MAN by Al Ewing 

GODS AND MONSTERS: UNCLEAN SPIRITS by Chuck Wendig

The Solaris and Abaddon Books Mob gear up for World Fantasy Con...

It is now a month until the crème de la crème of genre publishing meet in Brighton for World Fantasy Con. We're VERY much looking forward to this veritable bacchanal of book bods - last year's event in Toronto was a blast and now that it's come back to Britain 

We here at Solaris and Abaddon have gathered together a tip top table of talent for the weekend's festivities, ranging from debut authors to old hands. We're very pleased to announce that the following authors will be appearing at WFC13:

Guy Adams (The Good The Bad and the Infernal)
Clifford Beal (Gideon's Angel)
Simon Bestwick (The Faceless and Tide of Souls)
Chaz Brenchley (Desdaemona)
Ellen Datlow (Poe)
Jetse de Vries (Shine)
Paul Finch (Stronghold)
Jonathan Green (Pax Britannia)
Amanda Hemingway (The Devil's Apprentice)
Ben Jeapes (Phoenicia's Worlds)
Paul Kane (Hooded Man trilogy)
James Lovegrove (Pantheon series)
Juliet McKenna (Hadrumal Crisis series)
Lou Morgan (Blood and Feathers)
Libby McGugan (The Eidolon)
Gareth L. Powell (Ack-Ack Macaque)
Gaie Sebold (Babylon Steel)
Lavie Tidhar (Osama)
Jonathan Strahan (Edge of Infinity)
Steve Rasnic Tem (Deadfall Hotel)
Ian Whates (Solaris Rising)
Conrad Williams (Loss of Separation)
Geoffrey Gudgeon (Saxon's Bane)

To celebrate the coming storm, we'll be giving away books all month on our blogs and Twitter - so stay tuned!

Everything you think you know about Robin Hood is a lie - this is the Hunter of Sherwood!

Hunter of Sherwood:

Knight of Shadows

by Toby Venables

A legend will be rewritten on 29^th Sep

(US & Canada) and 10^th Oct (UK)

£7.99 (UK)

ISBN 978-1-78108-161-7

$9.99/$12.99 (US & CAN)

ISBN 978-1-78108-162-4

Robin Hood is a cold blooded killer and Richard the Lionheart is a ruthless butcher who cares nothing for England – Toby Venables is taking one of the most beloved English folk legends turning it on its head.

This is the story of Guy of Gisburne. Portrayed in legend as a lackey to the Sheriff of Nottingham, Knight of Shadows reveals Guy as an outcast, a mercenary, and now newly knighted, an honourable servant of King John in his intrigues against the vicious and bloodthirsty Lionheart.

Tears up the clichés of the Robin Hood myth to reveal the deeper issues between this chaotic period of English history, Knight of Shadows will delight readers of Bernard Cornwell and the Flashman series, as it deftly weaves history and legend into a brand new pattern, with Gisburne firmly at the heart of events.

Guy’s mission is to intercept the jewel-encrusted skull of John the Baptist from the clutches of the Knights Templar before it can reach Philip, King of France. Gisburne’s quest takes him and his world-weary squire Galfrid into increasingly bloody encounters with ‘The White Devil’: the fanatical Templar de Mercheval.

Relentlessly pursued back to England, Gisburne battles his way with sword, lance and bow. But if he survives there lies ahead an even more unpredictable adversary!

About the Author

Toby Venables is a novelist, screenwriter and lecturer in Film Studies at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. He grew up watching old Universal horror movies when his parents thought he was asleep, reading 2000 AD and obsessing about Beowulf. There was probably a bit more to it, but he can't quite remember what it was.

He has since worked as a journalist and magazine editor – launching magazines in Cambridge, Peterborough, Oxford and Bristol – and once orchestrated an elaborate Halloween hoax for which he built and photographed a werewolf. He still works as a freelance copywriter, has been the recipient of a radio advertising award, and in 2001 won the Keats-Shelley Memorial Prize (both possibly due to typing errors).

His first novel (for Abaddon) was The Viking Dead – a historical-zombie-SF mashup which has been described as "A fantastic mix of history, violence and horror" and "ludicrous fun".