Write for Abaddon!

Write an Abaddon Novella!

Abaddon Books is celebrating its sixth birthday this summer, and we’ve come a looong way in that time: nearly eighty original novels in ten shared-world series, not to mention fistfuls of short stories and novellas and some quite beautiful omnibus editions. We’ve learned a lot and done a great deal of which we’re very proud, and are looking forward to a pretty exciting future.

And we’ve kept a strong identity throughout. Abaddon’s books are pacy and action-filled, but smart and sharp, with characters that pull you in and challenge you. And our stories are all at least a little dark, whatever the genre.

And, perhaps more than anything, Abaddon provides a channel for launching new, upcoming writers, keen to strut their stuff and show the world what they’ve got. We gave the talented and irascible Chuck Wendig his fiction debut, not to mention the wildly imaginative Al Ewing; uncovered Kitschie-nominee Scott K. Andrews, and gave the brilliant Gary McMahon, Pat Kelleher and Toby Venables their mainstream fiction debuts. And we’re still looking for new talent to give a leg-up to.

Moving On

So what’s next? The likes of Pax Britannia, Tomes of the Dead and The Afterblight Chronicles got us noticed, and we’ve loved working on them. We were, if you’ll forgive the smugness, doing zombies, post-apocalypse and steampunk before it was cool. But everyone else is on the bandwagon now, and with around a dozen books in each series under our belts, the last thing we would want to do is get tied down. Obviously we’re not saying goodbye to these great lines just yet, but we’ve got to keep breaking ground!

So with that in mind, we’ve been launching new series. Over the past few years, we’ve kicked off the gothic espionage series The Infernal Game, the dark-Arthurian “found manuscript” series Malory’s Knights of Albion, and the WWI classic-pulp-style scientific romance No Man’s World, and our authors have blown us away every time. This year saw the launch of Eric Brown’s eerie space-opera world Weird Space, and we’ve got even more exciting projects planned for the coming year, with two new novels kicking off two more shiny new worlds.

Looking Back

But we’re not giving up on our beloved old worlds! Chuck’s done us a novella-length follow-up of Tomes of the Dead: Double Dead called Bad Blood, and Scott K. Andrews has written a novella following up on Sniper Elite: Spear of Destiny called Target: Hitler, both out now in ebook format. This is working out pretty well for us, and we think we’d like to do more of the same. So our fans will still be able to dip their toes in Magna Britannia, or the grim future of the Cull, or any of our other worlds from time to time.

Where You Come In

We’re looking for novellas! Whether you’ve an agent or are going solo, whether you’re an established writer or trying to get your first project, we’re interested. Ever wanted to tell the story of Ulysses Quicksilver’s counterparts in the Austrian Secret Service? Ever wanted to show us the hell that the Cull left behind in Mumbai? How about the story of Sir Alymere’s father, and how exactly he died?

Or, if you want the challenge, sell us on a new story and world, but be sure and read the next section first, so you have the whole picture. If you know Abaddon’s work, you’ll also know what we like. Choose a genre, make it fast, make it tense, make it dark. And make us care about your characters. Make it original! Make us want to come back and see what happens next.

The Small Print

This is a paying gig! We pay professional rates for all our work, and this is no exception. Abaddon Books operate on a Work For Hire basis: we create shared worlds that many authors contribute to, and all the rights to those worlds and characters are retained by Abaddon. We hire talented writers to write a story that becomes the intellectual property of Abaddon Books. Take note that this will apply even if you submit a story set in a new world; that world, if we commission it, will become one which we may let other writers loose in, and they also will be doing so on a Work For Hire basis. If you have any questions as to what all this means to you, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us and we’ll take you through it.

Don’t send us anything yet! Submissions will be open for the month of September 2012, from midnight British Summer Time on the 31^st August to midnight on the 30^th September. At that point, send us:

1.     An email to submissions@rebellion.co.uk, basically saying “hi” and telling us a very little about yourself, and attaching

2.     A 150-word synopsis to grab our attention, followed by a 1000-word chapter-by-chapter (or section-by-section, however you structure it) breakdown of your novella, and

3.     A 2000-word sample of the novella. It doesn’t have to be the first 2000 words, although if it isn’t, we’d be interested in knowing why you picked the passage you did.

If we’re fired up by your pitch, we’ll ask for more and go from there. What we’ll eventually want is a 30,000-40,000-word novella, in any of our worlds or in a new world of your choosing.

If you decide to use one of our worlds, we only ask that you be careful not to step on our existing authors’ toes, some of whom have plans to return to their worlds in future (we’re more likely to publish your Pax Britannia story about a new character from the Italian People’s Republic Secret Service than a story about the further adventures of Ulysses Quicksilver, for instance).

Looking forward to hearing from you in September...

David Moore

Rebellion Publishing, Oxford

We are six! Abaddon Books is taking open submissions for its new series of e-novellas!

Shared-world imprint celebrates sixth birthday with open call for e-novella submissions

For the past six years, Abaddon Books has been publishing genre-busting novels from break-out authors and in brand new formats.

So to celebrate its birthday this summer, we are is calling for open submissions for our new e-novella series.

Starting later this year, Abaddon will publish a series of brand new e-novellas – and authors can either play in one of our ten shared worlds or create their own!

Whether you’ve an agent or are going solo, whether you’re an established writer or trying to get your first project, we’re interested. Our books are pacy and action-filled, but smart and sharp, with characters that pull you in and challenge you. And our stories are dark, whatever the genre.

Since 2006, we have published almost eighty original novels in ten shared-world series, and have given the world the talented and irascible Chuck Wendig his fiction debut, not to mention the wildly imaginative Al Ewing. It has uncovered Kitschie-nominee Scott K. Andrews, and gave the brilliant Gary McMahon, Pat Kelleher and Toby Venables their mainstream fiction debuts.

If you know Abaddon’s work, you’ll also know what we like. Choose a genre, make it fast, make it tense, make it dark. And make us care about your characters. Make it original! Make us want to come back and see what happens next.

Submissions will be open for the month of September 2012, from midnight BST on 31st August to midnight on 30th September.

For full details on the submissions process, go to www.abaddonbooks.com

Happy birthday, Abaddon Books - let's make it one to remember!

Singing Coburn's Praises

So, you like vampires and you like kick-ass zombie fiction too, right? Good. So you should certainly check out Chuck Wendig's blistering vampire/zombie romp Bad Blood:

In the very latest issue of Black Static (29), one very astute reviewer has said:

"Bad Blood is a romp of a story, serving up thrills and spills in a no nonsense prose that is rich with attitude, but with a little more thought in the mix." - Peter Tennant

So, you should totally point your Kindles here or here.

Diabolical fun to be had in the depths of space!

Of course, by now you've already read Eric Brown's brilliant novel set in the world of Weird Space, The Devil's Nebula. However, for those yet to make up your mind about why you should give this rip-roaring space-opera adventure a try, those fine folk at Mass Movement magazine state the case very clearly.

"Part Heinlein, part Harrison, part Lovercraft, part Lumley, but so much more than the sum of its parts, The Devil's Nebula is pulp science fiction for the twenty-first century."

New acquisition announcement: Chuck Wendig brings the gods down to Earth

New acquisition announcement:

Chuck Wendig brings the gods down to Earth

New series by Tomes of The Dead: Double Dead and Blackbirds writer to debut in 2013

Don't look up. Don't send your prayers skyward. Because the gods aren't in the sky. They're here. All of them.

After publishing Chuck Wendig’s debut novel Double Dead, in 2011 Abaddon Books is proud to announce that it is set to publish a brand new title from the inimitable author of Blackbirds.

Gods and Monsters: Unclean Spirits, the first title in a brand new shared world series, will debut in summer 2013 with Wendig’s characteristically sharp, take-no-prisoners style sure to win him even more fans.

Exiled to Earth, the gods now walk amongst us, bringing with them their children and their servants and their monsters. Their power is a mere fraction of what it once was, but even a mote of divine magic is awesome - in the truest sense of the word.

Cason Cole knows this firsthand. He's been serving the gods for the better part of a decade, their leash fastened tight around his neck. But when his most recent divine master gets killed - a thing Cason didn't even know could happen - he finds himself once more a free man. All he's got left is a burning need for vengeance against the very gods who forced him to kneel, but he'll soon discover that getting revenge against the gods is no easy feat. He'll have to put his life, love, sanity and soul on the line. Will he pay the cost? How priceless is his wrath?

Wendig’s is an utterly unique voice in contemporary urban fantasy – fresh, visceral, and witty. Gods and Monsters promises to unleash more invigorating hell upon his unsuspecting characters…

“I enjoyed working with Chuck on his debut novel, Double Dead, hugely,” said Abaddon editor-in-chief Jonathan Oliver, “so the intention was always to continuing working with him. To be able to launch a brand new Abaddon series with Chuck at the helm is very exciting. His writing is witty, punchy and entertaining as hell. A perfect fit for what promises to be a brilliant new series.”

"Wendig is ferociously inventive and effortlessly sharp"

– Richard Dansky, author of Beloved of the Dead and Firefly Rain.

"A bloodthirsty ride through zombie-infested Route 66. Chuck Wendig gives horror fans exactly what they need in this slick, cross-genre romp"

– Wayne Simmons, author of Flu, on Double Dead.

Cover story: World War One Tommies trapped on an alien world

No Man's World is, without doubt, this reporter's favourite thing we've published. The combo of British World War One soldiers trapped on an alien world is such a perfect blending of historical setting and sci-fi pulp madness that it's hard not to be entranced, and Pat Kelleher's eye for detail and character just bring the whole thing alive.

Black Hand Gang and Ironclad Prophecy each focus on a different part of the Tommies' fight to try and get back home to Blighty, with each new challenge this unfamiliar world throws at them greater and more heartbreaking than the last.

So it's with some sadness that we're fast approaching the third book in the trilogy, which will be a season finale to end them all...

The stunningly evocative covers by our lead designer, Simon 'Pye' Parr, have been the cream on the cake and Pye has put together a blog post about his work on the cover for the third book, The Alleyman, which will be out in October.

Pat Kelleher has also written quite a bit of background to the series on his No Man's World blog, which shows how much research has gone in to recreating the horror of the trenches ... and transplanting it to an even more horrific world.

Eric Brown returns to the Weird

Second title in thrilling space opera series announced

Abaddon Books is very proud to announce the second book in its exciting new shared world space opera series, Weird Space.

Satan’s Reach is due for release in the summer of 2013.

Written by the series’ creator, Eric Brown, Satan’s Reach returns to world of the human smugglers,  veterans and ne’erdowells who are part of the Expansion – and their uneasy neighbours, the Vetch Empire.

This second novel in the series is a rip-roaring space opera with the emphasis on starships, aliens, exotic worlds – and the perennial threat from the Weird.

“With Weird Space Eric has created a brilliant new space-opera for Abaddon Books,” said editor-in-chief Jonathan Oliver. “For years it had been my intention to do a solid SF series with the imprint and when Eric became available I knew that he was the man for the job. Up there with Iain M. Banks, Eric is one of the most exciting genre writers around.”

Den Harper is a telepath on the run from the Expansion authorities, and Sharl Janaker the bounty hunter chasing him across badlands of Satan’s Reach.

On a far-flung planet in the reach they must set aside their mutual enmity and face a foe that threatens not only the colonists of the Reach, but the entirety of the Expansion beyond.

With the launch of this new SF epic, Abaddon added to its series of shared worlds which already include the post-apocalyptic The Afterblight Chronicles, the new take on Arthurian legend Malory’s Knights of Albion, the World War One soldiers marooned on an alien world in No Man’s World, steampunk adventure in Pax Britannia, the zombie-infested Tomes of the Dead and the fantasy quests of the Twilight of Kerberos.

About the Series

Best-selling author Eric Brown has created a brand new shared world for Abaddon Books: Weird Space. This thrilling space-opera series begins in June 2012 with the release of The Devil's Nebula. In the first book in this epic new series, Brown will introduce readers to the human smugglers,  veterans and ne’erdowells who are part of the Expansion – and their uneasy neighbours, the Vetch Empire. When an evil race threatens not only the Expansion, but the Vetch too - an evil from another dimension which infests humans and Vetch alike and bends individuals to do their hideous bidding, only cooperation between them means the difference between a chance of survival and no chance at all. Brown has meticulously created a massive shared world of interstellar potential, which other writers will explore with each new book.

With the launch of this new SF epic, Abaddon is adding to its series of shared worlds which already include the post-apocalyptic The Afterblight Chronicles, the new take on Arthurian legend Malory’s Knights of Albion, the World War One soldiers marooned on an alien world in No Man’s World, steampunk adventure in Pax Britannia, the zombie-infested Tomes of the Dead and the fantasy quests of the Twilight of Kerberos.

About the author

Eric Brown sold his first book in 1990, the collection The Time-Lapsed Man and other Stories, and has since published over forty books – novels, collections, novellas and children's books. He has published more than a hundred short stories, and has won the BSFA story award twice, in 2000 and 2002. His latest book is The Devil's Nebula for Abaddon Books, and he writes a monthly SF review column for The Guardian. He lives in Dunbar, Scotland, with his wife and daughter.

His work for Solaris includes Helix, Kethani, Necropath, Cosmopath, Xenopath, Engineman, Guardians of the Phoenix, and The Kings of Eternity.

Weird Space: charting the unknown with Eric Brown

Best-selling author Eric Brown has created a brand new shared world for Abaddon Books, full of cosmic horror and intriguing characters. So we had a chat with him about Weird Space and the first book in the series, The Devil's Nebula.


* Tell us a bit about The Devil’s Nebula and why people should buy it.



The Devil’s Nebula features a small starship and its crew of ne’er-do-wells in a future fascistic human empire. They sail close to the judicial wind, keeping just to this side of the law – until they land on a world within the out-of-bounds territory of the alien Vetch, commissioned by a rich art collector to obtain a precious alien artefact from a derelict museum. As they leave they’re apprehended by the Terran authorities and are given a choice: face the death penalty, or take their ship beyond Vetch territory to the Devil’s Nebula in search of a rogue colony ship that left human-space a century earlier.


It’s out-and-out space adventure, of the type I love to read, set in a universe where an evil alien life-force, the Weird, is bent on invading our universe from another dimension. It’s a space opera with Lovecraftian overtones.


It should appeal to fans of Vance, Asher, and space opera in general.


* What was it like creating a whole new world for others to play in?


That’s the great delight of the Weird Space project. I never normally, with my own novels, create a ‘world’ or universe from the ground up. I usually have an initial idea, and then a cast of characters, and the characters often dictate the nature of the setting. With WS it was different: I started with the background and built that up. I had a meeting or two with Jon Oliver and he told me the type of thing, very roughly, Abaddon were looking for: fast action space opera, strange cults, maybe telepaths, and – importantly – Lovecraftian aliens from another dimension. I took these and imported them into a far-future human-based expansion, ruled by a dictatorial government which kept a strict, militaristic control on the many planets within their domain. Neighbouring human space is Vetch territory. The Vetch are bellicose aliens who, before the series opens, cleared – ethnically-cleansed – a stretch of human-occupied planets in their margin of space. But beyond Vetch space is the Devil’s Nebula, where the Weird – the aliens from another dimension – first manifest themselves.


* What are the elements that make a fictional world work well?


It’s all in the mix. With space opera you’re working with a set of… you could say well-worn… tropes. There have been hundreds of novels about starships and aliens and space battles and telepaths – but to make it work you need to get the mix right; the right degree of threat, from within and without; an engaging set of characters which rub up against both the authorities on one side and the threat of the Weird on the other. What I especially liked about writing Weird Space was describing this fascistic regime and having the central characters coming, over the course of the novel, to the realisation that to defeat the Weird they must work together – and the same will be true of the humans and the Vetch: in following novels they must put their hostilities to one side and co-operate. This necessity will prove the engine for further story-lines.




* Were there any influences on Weird Space, and what are your hopes for the world?


Influences were legion. Every space opera I’ve read, to start off. Vance: I liked his baroque, wide-open far-future scenarios, his lone-wolf characters. To a certain extent Neal Asher’s excellent depiction of aliens… Peter Hamilton’s complex, intricately detailed futures… And, of course, Lovecraft: his tentacled creatures from beyond… I think the mix will work well.


My hopes for the world? Well, one of the interesting aspects of doing Weird Space is seeing where other hands take the series, seeing in which direction it will go, and what ideas are shared, cross-pollinated, and developed. I’m looking forward to reading books further along in the series and seeing what they inspire me to do next.

* Tell us a bit about your writing routine.


Once I’ve begun a project, I have a very rigorous work routine. I work from nine till twelve, then from twelve thirty to three five days a week, and I’m very unhappy and curmudgeonly if I don’t produce four thousand words a day in this way. (That’s with novels; with stories, it’s probably two or three thousand a day). I finish a novel in a month or two, then lay it aside and come back to it in a month, if possible. (I work on shorts, or children’s books, in the interim.) Then I come back to the novel and go through it minutely, rewriting every line, cutting, cutting, and cutting again. Then I send it out to two or three trusted and brilliant readers, and when it comes back I go through it again with the red pen. I can’t stress the importance of cutting, making the finished novel as lean and readable as possible.


* What are your five favourite novels?


That’s a difficult one! Can I cheat, and list five SF novels, and five mainstream novels?


Okay, the SF would be: The Girl with a Symphony in Her Fingers by the great and sadly
neglected Michael G. Coney; Brontomek! by Coney again; (and his Hello Summer, Goodbye is excellent too); Silverbergs’s Thorns; Bob Shaw Orbitsville (or perhaps his Wreath of Stars); The Time-Machine by Wells (though technically that’s a novella… So I’m allowed another. Very well: Inner Eclipse by another excellent but neglected writer, Richard Paul Russo.


Mainstream: Wilkie and Seven Thunders by Rupert Croft-Cooke (my all-time favourite writer); Endless Love by Scott Spencer (a harrowing, brilliant depiction of obsessive love); Portrait of Jeanie by Robert Nathan; Hunters and Gatherers by Geoff Nicholson.
 But ask me again tomorrow and the above will probably have changed.


* What advice would you give to new writers hoping to break into the field?


Write a lot, obsessively, and write what you enjoy reading; read a lot. Copy other writers to begin with; work out what they’re doing right and wrong. Set aside at least a couple of hours a day, if possible, and write. Don’t let yourself believe that there’s such a thing as writer’s block: if you’re stuck, and you don’t have ideas, and the words aren’t forming, just plough on and write – gibberish, if need be, and trust in the subconscious and, eventually, the good words will come. Remember that fiction is modular. You can go back and lift out the sections that don’t work and slot into place things that do. Research your market. And, lastly and most importantly, don’t be downhearted by rejections. We all get them. I had hundreds before I made my first sale. Just keep at it, keep at it, and you’ll get there.


Weird Space: The Devil's Nebula is available in the UK as paperback and on ebook, and in North America in paperback and ebook.

Abaddon Books round-up: "makes The Hunger Games look like a middle-schooler’s writing assignment"

Those lovely chaps over at Pornokitsch have been bigging up the Abaddon Massive, citing two of our writers as Excellent Types Who Deserve Some Readin'.

In their piece, “For a small island, we’ve got some big books…”, Jared Shurin and Anne Perry pick out Scott Andrew's post-apocalyptic trio of books for our Afterblight Chronicles: the St. Mark’s Trilogy, including School’s Out, Operation: Motherland and Children’s Crusade.

The three books are being collected as School's Out Forever within a stunning new cover for release later this year and, according to Pornokitsch, are well worth the read: "This is a hard-hitting series that mixes the cinematic with the introspective, and makes The Hunger Games look like a middle-schooler’s writing assignment."

They also single out the insane genius that is Mr Al Ewing for particular praise. The man behind I, Zombie and the gleefully violent Death Got No Mercy (which according to Pornokitsch has the "Greatest Cover Art Ever") has written a trilogy of novels for our Pax Britannia series and it's one of these that garners the greatest praise thinkable: "Mr. Ewing’s greatest contribution to date ... is undoubtedly Gods of Manhattan (2011) which we’ll boldly declare the best deconstruction of superheroes since Alan Moore’s Watchmen."

Also by Mr Ewing is the latest book in our Steampunk series Pax Britannia, Pax Omega, of which Sci Fi Bulletin has just said: "Pax Omega is a major step away from the normal Steampunk Pax Britannia books, but once you realise what Ewing is attempting, it’s a case of going with the flow and seeing if he can pull off something this audacious."

 And speaking of Pax Britannia, there's still time to have your say in the novel where readers get to decide what happens!

Pax Britannia: Time's Arrow is our unique experiment in reader interaction - you get the chance to vote on where the plot goes next. After each ebook episode, there's a vote and the option with the most votes is written by author Jonathan Green!) The completed book will be released as a paperback in November.

Geek Syndicate has reviewed the latest installment, Black Swan: "The story rattles on at a fair pace with little time to draw your breath between the action. Rampaging gorillas, mechanical parrots, steam-powered flying bicycles and damsels firmly in command all play their part with a sinister villain plotting worldwide destruction all in the heart of Paris. Gaston Leroux, Conan Doyle and Poe are all paid homage to, amongst others, as we are drawn excitedly towards the cliffhanger ending in readiness for part three."

To cast your vote, read about the options, e-mail your choice to Abaddon Books at abaddonsolaris@rebellion.co.uk now and you could win a copy of the finished paperback!

The first installment, Red-Handed, is available to buy now as an ebook and you can pre-order the finished book!

Happy UK publication day to Eric Brown's Weirdspace: The Devil's Nebula!

io9.com called it one of the 'Books you can't afford to miss in May' and now the first novel in Eric Brown's new series for Abaddon Books is hitting UK shelves.

Renowned SF author Brown has created Weirdspace for us - a brand new shared universe full of looming threat, intergalactic politics, intriguing characters, sinister worlds, and taut action. 

£7.99 (UK) ISBN 978-1-78108-022-1
$7.99/$10.99 (US & CAN) ISBN 978-1-78108-023-8

And it's also available as a DRM-free ebook in the UK and North America.

Place your vote on the next exciting twist for Pax Britannia: Time's Arrow!

WHAT WILL COME OF OUR DASHING HERO NEXT?

Have you ever read a book and wished you could change the story?

Have you ever wanted to shout a warning to the hero, or advise him on how best to proceed?

Now's your chance to directly influence the events of this thrilling saga and be in with a chance to win the paperback omnibus edition of Time’s Arrow!

In the third and final thrilling installment of Time's Arrow, White Noise, Paris faces utter destruction, and our hero is faced with a deadly dilemma. And what of the enigmatic Cadence Bettencourt, if she even survived the destruction of the Opera House? Is she to be trusted or not? You must decide: 

A) Is Cadence the friend she appears to be, helping a stranger in need out of native kindness? 

or

B) Does Cadence have a hidden agenda, in service to those Ulysses is determined to stop?

To cast your vote, e-mail your choice to Abaddon Books at abaddonsolaris@rebellion.co.uk now and you could win a copy of the finished paperback later this year!

The first installment, Red-Handed, is available to buy now as an ebook and you can pre-order the finished book, due for publication in November right here!

Happy US publication day to Harmony, Toxicity, and The Devil's Nebula!

Every day's a party day at Solaris and Abaddon Towers, especially a day when we have three (count 'em, THREE) books hitting shelves in North America! We have a cake and balloons, so it's time to welcome our babies into the world:

Harmony

by Keith Brooke

$8.99/$10.99 (US & CAN) ISBN 978-1-78108-001-6

Available as an ebook

The aliens are here, all around us. They always have been. And now, one by one, they’re destroying our cities.

Toxicity

by Andy Remic

$8.99/$10.99 (US & CAN) ISBN 978-1-78108-004-7

Available as an ebook

Andy Remic returns to the world of the Anarchy with another brash, no-holds-barred action!

Weirdspace: The Devil’s Nebula

by Eric Brown

$7.99/$10.99 (US & CAN) ISBN 978-1-78108-023-8

Available as an ebook

When an evil race threatens not only the Expansion, but the Vetch too - an evil from another dimension which infests humans and Vetch alike and bends individuals to do their hideous bidding, only cooperation between them means the difference between a chance of survival and no chance at all.

Toxicity and Harmony are both published in the UK on 7th June, with The Devil's Nebula arriving on the 21st.

Words for free: download the first chapter of the Shadowmage Trilogy

"Shouts for his blood echoed off the walls of the narrow alley, the worn buildings bouncing the sound so it seemed as though he were surrounded. Casting an anxious glance over his shoulder, he saw nothing through the shadowy gloom and guessed they were still on the street behind."

And so begins the first of the three novels contained within The Shadowmage Trilogy by Matthew Sprange, which is available now in the UK and Ireland, and in North America.

This stunning fantasy features a never before seen final part of the Shadowmage Trilogy, completing the saga of Lucius Kane. And we're giving away the first chapter for free! Click on the link to download now and enjoy right this minute!

Forced onto the streets of Turnitia after the army destroys his home and murders his parents, Lucius Kane becomes an excellent thief, gaining notoriety in his new profession. Soon drawn into a war between rival thieves guilds, Kane fights for friends and profit but finds himself pulled into the darker and more mysterious world of the Shadowmage. Mercenary practitioners who combine stealth with magic, Shadowmages make the best scouts, infiltrators, spies ... and assassins!

Out this week: The Shadowmage Trilogy

The Shadowmage Trilogy

by Matthew Sprange

OUT THIS WEEK!

Forced onto the streets of Turnitia after the army destroys his home and murders his parents, Lucius Kane becomes an excellent thief, gaining notoriety in his new profession. Soon drawn into a war between rival thieves guilds, Kane fights for friends and profit but finds himself pulled into the darker and more mysterious world of the Shadowmage. Mercenary practitioners who combine stealth with magic, Shadowmages make the best scouts, infiltrators, spies ... and assassins!

This stunning fantasy features a never before seen final part of the Shadowmage Trilogy, completing the saga of Lucius Kane.

Mr 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.

We asked him about fantasy worlds, finding time to write, and reading books on wildlife...

* Tell us a bit about The Shadowmage Trilogy and why people should buy it.

The Shadowmage Trilogy charts the return of one of Kerberos' 'legacy' characters to the free city of Turnitia, Lucias Kane. He is a rogue, a mercenary, really he is a bum with a sword. However, he is also a Shadowmage, someone who combines magic with stealth. He gets drawn first into one of the thieves' guilds of the city, and then the small group of Shadowmages who are beginning to return after being persecuted some years before.

The first book concentrates on the Thieves' War as rival guilds clash, but the backstory shows Lucius developing his Shadowmage skills. As the trilogy unfolds, his thieves' guild finds itself up against the Vos Empire, a tyrannical state that invades Turnitia, while lucius himself finds his loyalties split between the thieves and the Shadowmages.

* With three books set in the same world, how did things evolve over time?

Well, the first book really sets the scene, putting Lucius at the centre of several struggles between thieves, Shadowmages and two two rival empires of the world (Vos and Pontaine). After that, it was really just a case of thinking 'how can I make life more difficult for Lucius?' So, one of his fellow Shadowmages really goes off the deep end (and ends up destroying a fair portion of the city), a preacher from one of the empires makes it his personal mission to finish Lucius off and, to top it all, there is a rogue artefact from the time of the Older Races that Lucius wants no part of and yet cannot ignore.

* What are the elements that make a fantasy series work well?

Honestly, I think they are the same things that make any story, of any genre work well - conflict, drama, the ordinary man doing extraordinary things, or the extraordinary man affected by ordinary things. With fantasy, however, you have a much bigger canvas to work on.

* Tell us a bit about your writing routine.

I wish I had one! I try to set aside 'writing blocks' of 4-5 hours at a time, during which I will try to complete a whole chapter. That does not always work for long chapters, of course, so sometimes it gets split. As for when I schedule this writing time - whenever 4-5 free hours pop up!

* What are your five favourite novels?

Oh, now you are asking... In no particular order, I would have to say Starship Troopers, Frank Herbert's Dune sequence, and Bernard Cornwell's Arthur books. And I am going to hope you don't spot that is actually 10 books!

* What advice would you give to new writers hoping to break into the field?

Read. A lot. And don't confine yourself to your favourite genre. If you want to write science-fiction, read action thrillers, courtroom dramas, epic verse. Read non-fiction, and don't confine yourself to science-fiction related topics - read histories, biographies, books on wildlife, astronomy, engineering. You can use ALL of it. And once you get into the habit of constant reading, don't forget to write. Sounds obvious, but it is very easy to get caught up in the 'real world' and forget that you always wanted to be a writer.


The Shadowmage Trilogy is available now in the UK and Ireland, and in North America.

JOB OPPORTUNITY: Rebellion looking for junior graphic designer

JUNIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER, £16-18,000 p.a.      


REBELLION, OXFORD.


Rebellion publishes two fiction imprints, Solaris and Abaddon Books, along with 2000 AD, encompassing the weekly comic 2000 AD, the monthly Judge Dredd Megazine and 2000 AD Graphic Novels. 


We are seeking a full-time junior graphic designer to join our busy publishing department in Oxford.  The successful candidate will have a graphic design qualification, a good knowledge of Adobe InDesign and Photoshop and familiarity with Quark and Adobe Illustrator.


Duties will include: flowing in text and laying out interior pages for novels; prepping comic strip pages for print; scanning/colour correction and basic image manipulation; making corrections and final pdfs; designing advertisements; assembling the files for graphic novels. The successful candidate will be required to develop a broad knowledge of our archive to source and choose images for external licensees and others. Experience of design for websites and the internet will be useful.


There will be scope to develop this design role, however this position is not a platform for submitting or producing artwork for Rebellion-published comics and graphic novels.


To apply please send your CV and any available graphic design work portfolio link or hobby work to vacancies@rebellion.co.uk


Rebellion can only consider applicants who can legally work in the UK.

Revealing the astonishing sequel to Chuck Wendig's Double Dead!

Double Dead:

Bad Blood

by Chuck Wendig

OUT NOW!

£2.99 (UK) $3.99 (US & CAN) 

An exclusive ebook novella

San Francisco after the zombie apocalypse. The vampire turned shepherd-with-a-shotgun Coburn is back and keen to settle some bad blood.


But just out in the Bay in the abandoned fortress prison of Alcatraz, a ketamine-snorting cult of New age weirdoes who eat the flesh of the zombie as some kind of grotesque communion bring a new threat to Coburn’s continuing existence – super zombies!


After his rip-roaring debut novel, Double Dead, the inimitable Wendig has returned to his world turned upside by the zombie apocalypse, in which a lone vampire finds himself protecting a terrified remnant of mankind. Or ‘lunch’, as he prefers to think of them.


Irreverent, bloody, and darkly humorous, Bad Blood goes for the throat from the first sentence and is another exclusive ebook novella from Abaddon Books.

“…not the standard zombie fare; the human and vampire elements really make this one worth seeking out.”

– British Fantasy Society on Double Dead

Bad Blood is available now in the UK and North America.

Top computer game changes history with exclusive tie-in ebook release

As major computer game Sniper Elite V2 tops the video games charts, Abaddon Books is rewriting history with an exclusive tie-in ebook that asks the questions – what if the allies managed to get a top sniper into Berlin before the city fell?


What if he had only one target, but an army between him and it?


Sniper Elite V2: Target Hitler is an exclusive ebook novella from Rebellion’s publishing imprint Abaddon Books that ties in to the third-person World War Two shooter that launched today from Rebellion and 505 Games.


Written by novelist and the Sniper Elite V2 game writer Scott K. Andrews, the thrilling book ties into the game’s pre-order downloadable content offer, in which players have one chance to kill the leader of the Third Reich before he escapes the ruins of Berlin.


The title is being published 4th May and will be available for Kindle in the UK and North America, Nook, Kobo, and through all major e-retailers, as well as the Rebellion online store.


Re-writing the past in fiction is one of the most popular sub-genres of recent years, with every corner of history explored with a cutting ‘what if?’. Target: Hitler focuses on one of the great debates of modern times - should the Allies have assassinated Adolf Hitler?


Everyone knows the story of Adolf Hitler’s final days – cornered, insane, killing himself in despair as Berlin burned above him.


But this story is based solely on the eyewitness accounts of the people who shared the bunker with him – the people most loyal to the Führer; the people most likely to lie to protect him. The world’s foremost Nazi hunter has never believed the official account; he has spent his life chasing a phantom, convinced that Hitler escaped the bunker.

Now, as he lies on his deathbed, he receives a mysterious visitor; a man who claims to know the true story of Hitler’s death; a man named Karl Fairburn. Is he just another conspiracy fantasist, or could his tale possibly be true…?


Scott K. Andrews has written three novels for Abaddon – soon to be collected as the School’s Out Forever omnibus in September – as well as episode guides, magazine articles, film and book reviews, comics, and audio plays for Big Finish.


For more information on the #1 selling game, go to www.sniperelitev2.com

Latest installment of the book where readers choose the plot!

Time’s Arrow:

Black Swan

by Jonathan Green

Available from Amazon Kindle Store and iTunes from Monday 7th May

 

An exclusive ebook release and an intriguing publishing experiment

 

The caper is afoot, but where it leads only YOU decide! The latest installment of the exciting new novel from Abaddon, Pax Britannia: Time’s Arrow, is coming!

 

In a unique publishing experiment, readers themselves get to decide on the fate of our hero Ulysses and where the Time’s Arrow story will take them.

 

Our hero Ulysses Quicksilver – wanted by the French Police for murder – battles his way across Paris, from the Louvre to Notre Dame, in order to prove his innocence. Readers have been voting online on where they want the story to go and they overwhelmingly voted for Ulysses to go in search of the mysterious "M. Lumière”.

 

Time’s Arrow puts the reader in charge and merges the best of print and online. Each instalment is published as an ebook with readers able to vote on where THEY want the story to go at the end of each episode. The first installment, Red Handed, was published in October and once all three instalments have been published, they will be bound together into a print edition.

 

“Lashings of derring-do, sprinkled with just the right amount of plot development to keep a reader hungry for more.”

– The Eloquent Page on Time’s Arrow: Red Handed

The first installment of Time's Arrow, Red Handed is available to download at the US and the UK Kindle Stores, and the US and the UK iTunes Stores.