Since we know how many eager readers are looking forward to this book, we thought, let’s celebrate Midsummer’s Day by sharing Ben Baldwin’s fabulous artwork, and letting you know a little bit about this new story.

When you do a good job for someone, there’s a strong chance they’ll offer you more work or recommend you elsewhere. So Daniel Mackmain isn’t particularly surprised when his boss’s architect brother asks for his help on a historic house renovation in the Cotswolds.

Except Dan’s a dryad’s son, and he soon realises there’s a whole lot more going on. Ancient malice is stirring and it has made an alliance in the modern world. The Green Man expects Dan to put an end to this threat. Seeing the danger, Dan’s forced to agree. The problem is he’s alone in a place he doesn’t know, a hundred miles or more away from any allies of his own.

A modern fantasy rooted in the ancient myths and folklore of the British Isles.

We’re in the final stages of production, and as soon as we have a firm date for publication, we’ll share that too!

It’s Book Quote Wednesday and the word is ‘scream’. These kids out in the woods at night would be a whole lot more terrified if they knew what Daniel Mackmain knows about The Green Man’s Foe…

I’m very pleased to say that I will have a story in this anthology coming soon from Newcon Press. This is going to be a particularly interesting collection of original stories blended with reprints from classic writers whose names you may or may not recognise. We’re all exploring the dark corners and shadows of life in London from the Victorian era onward. In my case, I’m looking at the harsh lives of peripatetic governesses, and an unexpected opportunity for one unjustly dismissed young woman.

My story also proves the old maxim that no writing is ever wasted. I wrote it for a different project entirely which never came together, alas, quite a few years ago now. Editor Ian Whates remembered seeing it back then, and he realised how well it would suit this particular collection. I’m delighted to see it in print in such fine company.

The full table of contents –

1. Introduction by Ian Whates
2. Hunger – Bryony Pearce
3. A Street – Arthur Morrison
4. A Maze for the Minotaur – Reggie Oliver
5. The Phantom Model (A Wapping Romance) – Hume Nisbet
6. The Ghost of Cock Lane – Rose Biggin
7. The Hand That Rocks The Cradle – Juliet E. McKenna
8. Watercress Girl – Henry Mayhew
9. Queen Rat – David Rix
10. Christopherson – George Gissing
11. From The Casebook of Master Wiggins, Esq. – Paul di Filippo
12. Albert And The Engine Of Albion – Terry Grimwood
13. In the Tube – E.F. Benson
14. A Romance of the Piccadilly Tube – T.G. Jackson
15. Blood and Bone – Susan Boulton
16. Behind the Shade – Arthur Morrison
17. Southall Tantra – Paul StJohn Mackintosh

This week’s word is ‘year’, but rest assured, you’ll be able to read this story within a couple of months.

A brief post to share a few things. Firstly, I will be a guest of the Super Relaxed Fantasy Club on Tuesday 14th May, alongside Jen Williams and Stewart Hotson. We’ll be meeting upstairs at The Star of Kings (just north of King’s Cross) from 7pm. The event promises ‘a reading, some Q&A, a chat, a lemonade’, and the evening is open to all.

In writing news, The Green Man’s Foe is well on its way to a final text, with thanks to Editor Toby. The cover art is really coming together, thanks to Artist Ben. As soon as we have a definite publication date, and information on how to pre-order from Wizard’s Tower Press , I’ll post all the details.

Meantime, I’ll be posting weekly snippets as part of the Book Quote Wednesday hashtag #bookqw on Twitter and Facebook. It’s a fun bit of promo run by Mindy Klasky and taken up by an eclectic range of authors – if you do Twitter and/or Facebook. Obviously not everyone does, so I’ll cross-post here.

This week’s word is ‘friend’, so here’s a taste, just to whet your appetite…

‘Daniel, good to see you.’

‘Ben.’ I offered him my hand and we shook, by way of a greeting somewhere between friends and business acquaintances. ‘What brings you here?’

Benjamin Beauchene – pronounced ‘Beechen’ – is an architect who lives in London, even if Blithehurst Manor is his ancestral family home, and he has shares in the trust that now preserves the property for future generations. Not that the dryads were convinced that the humans who couldn’t see them could be trusted to look after their domain.

‘I’m looking for a favour,’ he said with a frank grin. ‘Shall we head up to the restaurant for a coffee?’ He gestured towards the repurposed stable buildings that stood at the top of the shallow slope by the main road.

I checked my watch. It wasn’t even nine in the morning. I wondered what this favour might be, to get him here so early.

In other news, we can now share the cover art for the anthology Alternate Peace, and Justin Adams of Varia Studios is the artist. This is coming soon from ZNB, and my story’s set in 1939, twenty-five years after a very different outcome to a tragedy in Sarajevo…

All fans of ZNB’s fabulous anthologies will be thrilled to learn that this year’s three wonderful projects will now be released on June 15th rather than August as originally scheduled 🙂

For those of you in the US, this means copies will be for sale at the various summer conventions where ZNB are in the Dealers Room (or equivalent), so do check in with them on social media, to find out where they’ll be.

Kickstarter supporters will receive their copies in customary fashion, and everyone else can pre-order the ebooks online, and the trade paperback via ZNB’s online store.

Wondering what on earth I’m on about? Here’s what’s on offer for your reading pleasure –

Second Round: A Return to the Ur-Bar:

For thousands of years the immortal Gilgamesh has presided over the legendary Ur-Bar, witnessing history unfold from within its walls. Some days it is a rural tavern, others a fashionable wine shop. It may appear as a hidden speakeasy or take on the form of your neighborhood local. For most patrons it is simply a place to quench their thirst, but for a rare few the Ur-Bar is where they will meet their destiny.

Join R.K. Nickel, Rachel Atwood, Kari Sperring, Jean Marie Ward, Gini Koch, Jacey Bedford, William Leisner, Garth Nix, Diana Pharaoh Francis, David Keener, Mike Marcus, Kristine Smith, Aaron M. Roth, and Juliet E. McKenna as they recount all new tales from the Ur-Bar. From humor to horror, from the Roman Empire to Martian Colonies, there’s something to please everyone. Just remember to beware when the mysterious bartender offers you the house special …

Preorder SECOND ROUND here:
Trade Paperback
Kindle US
Kindle UK
Nook
Kickstarter Edition (limited)

The Razor’s Edge:

One man’s insurgent is another man’s freedom fighter…

From The Moon is a Harsh Mistress to The Hunger Games, everyone enjoys a good rebellion. There is something compelling about a group (or individual) who throws caution to the wind and rises up in armed defiance against oppression, tyranny, religion, the government—you name it. No matter the cause, or how small the chance, it’s the courage to fight against overwhelming odds that grabs our hearts and has us pumping our fists in the air.

Win or lose, it’s the righteous struggle we cherish, and those who take up arms for a cause must walk The Razor’s Edge between liberator and extremist. With stories by Blake Jessop, William C. Dietz, D.B. Jackson, Gerald Brandt, Sharon P. Goza, Walter H. Hunt, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, Kay Kenyon, Steve Perry, Seanan McGuire, Christopher Allenby, Chris Kennedy, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., Alex Gideon, Brian Hugenbruch, and Y.M. Pang.

Preorder THE RAZOR’S EDGE here:

Trade Paperback
Kindle US
Kindle UK
Nook
Kickstarter Edition (limited)

Guilds & Glaives

Stop right there!

If you like your fantasy filled with fellowships and noble quests, this anthology is not for you. And if you love lengthy tales of politics and power, then it won’t be to your taste either. But if you like a little intimacy with your evil, and your vengeance short and sweet, with perhaps a pinch of silliness in the witchcraft, then these fourteen delicious sweetmeats of sword and sorcery will prove right up your alley. And it will be a dank, twisting, fetid alley, too.

In this book you will find no high elves (only low), no politics (unless assassination is involved), and certainly no nobility. Join Lawrence Harding, Howard Andrew Jones, Esther Friesner, Jenna Rhodes, Gini Koch, Violette Malan, Leah Webber, David Farland, R.K. Nickel, Ashley McConnell, D.B. Jackson, James Enge, Jason Palmatier, and Amelia Sirina as they explore the perilous streets and clashing blades found in GUILDS & GLAIVES.

Preorder GUILDS & GLAIVES here:

Trade Paperback
Kindle US
Kindle UK
Nook
Kickstarter Edition (limited)

This August/September will see SECOND ROUND: A RETURN TO THE UR-BAR, one of three new anthologies from Zombies Need Brains. As with all ZNB’s anthologies, you’ll find stories by established and best-selling authors alongside new authors who’ve impressed ZNB’s eagle-eyed editors.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Ur-Bar, it’s a time-traveling hostelry where patrons are served by Gilgamesh. The Assyrians invented beer, after all…

(If you’re already intrigued, you can read the first anthology AFTER HOURS: TALES FROM THE UR-BAR, available from DAW Books in mass market paperback and ebook – Amazon US – Amazon UK)

The stories in this new collection are –

“Honorbound” by Russ Nickel

“Forest Law, Wild and True” by Phyllis Irene Radford

“The Wizard King” by Kari Sperring

“A Favor for Lord Bai” by Jean Marie Ward

“A Lawman, an Outlaw, and a Gambler Walk Into a Bar …” by Gini Koch (writing as A.E. Stanton)

“Make Me Immortal With a Kiss” by Jacey Bedford

“Bound By Mortal Chains No More” by William Leisner

“Welcome to the Jungle Bar” by Garth Nix

“But If You Try Sometimes” by Diana Pharaoh Francis

“The Whispering Voice” by David Keener

“Ale for Humanity” by Mike Marcus

“West Side Ghost Story” by Kristine Smith

“Thievery Bar None” by Aaron M. Roth

“Wanderlust” by Juliet E McKenna (…in which we go to Mars…)

Personally, I can’t wait 🙂 If you want to guarantee you’ll be reading these stories as soon as possible, remember this anthology and the year’s two other projects can be ordered direct in advance from ZNB.

Meantime, we can enjoy the fabulous cover art by Justin Adams of Varia Studios.

Alongside this fabulous artwork by Ben Baldwin, I thought I’d share some of the inspiration underpinning this new novel from Wizard’s Tower Press.

I grew up with the folklore of the British Isles, by which I mean English, Welsh, Cornish, Irish and Scottish legends, from the Lowlands to the Highlands and Islands. These were stories of giants and witches and dragons and trolls and goblins and boggarts and serpents and will o’the wisps, to name but a few. There were all sorts of fascinating books in the library alongside The Hobbit and the Chronicles of Narnia. Publishers like Pan and Picador offered paperback collections of folktales, retelling the legends of Jack the Giant Killer, Jenny Greenteeth, the Lambton Wyrm and many, many more besides.

I saved up my pocket money and bought some of them; second-hand, dog-eared paperbacks that have somehow vanished over the years through umpteen house moves. That doesn’t matter. The stories have stayed with me and with the benefit of hindsight, I now realise those tales have had a lasting effect on my own writing. Most of them weren’t about heroes and princesses. They were about ordinary boys and girls finding themselves in extraordinary situations, and in very real danger. Getting out of potentially lethal trouble meant using your wits and courage to outfox and defy these mysterious supernatural beings. I still buy books on folklore, from scholarly examinations of the social and psychological underpinnings of stories of witches and fairies, to collections of local legends found in English Heritage, CADW, Heritage Ireland, and National Trust bookshops. I am still fascinated by that intersection between the everyday and the eerie that was part of everyone’s life for centuries.

So I suppose it was inevitable that when I found myself with an idea for an urban fantasy novel, it wasn’t going to be about vampires and werewolves. Those weren’t the creatures that lurked in the shadows outside the window when I was growing up. Similarly, the story wasn’t going to be any sort of urban fantasy, but a tale set in the countryside because that was where these legends took place, amid the forests, caves, rivers, stone circles and barrows that still link these islands to its mysterious past.

How might such ancient eeriness intersect with the modern world? I first started thinking about that when Patricia Bray and Joshua Palmatier invited me to write a story for an anthology they were editing, “The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity”. What would supernatural beings do in the 21st Century if, for instance, a local authority wanted to drive a new road through their grove or watermeadow? That made for a fun story. But the thing about authors is, once we start thinking about something like that, it can be very hard to stop…

As someone who’s been reading SF for over forty years now, I’m fascinated by the different ways life on Mars has been portrayed over the decades. My earliest encounters were through books like Robert Heinlein’s Red Planet, H.G Wells’s The War of the Worlds, and in my early teens, C.S. Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet. Alongside such fiction, I remember reading about Mariner 4 in my grandfather’s National Geographic magazines. So I already knew that real scientific discoveries meant these enthralling stories were impossible. That didn’t matter. Mars fascinated me.

That’s still true today, as books on my shelves by Alastair Reynolds, Andy Weir and James Corey attest. The film of The Martian and the TV adaptation of The Expanse series are merely the latest depictions of Mars that I’ve enjoyed on screen, from Flash Gordon through Doctor Who to Babylon 5. I’m still reading National Geographic, and any articles I see elsewhere discussing the real practicalities of sustaining human life on our near neighbour. Then there’s the ongoing exploration of Mars by the Opportunity rover. Go robots!

So now I want to write my own story set on Mars. It’s the ideal setting for me to explore a notion that’s been coming together in my imagination thanks to several recent popular-science articles that I’ve read. The last piece I needed was the invitation to write a new story featuring the Ur Bar, the eternal, time-travelling tavern from the ZNB anthology ‘After Hours’.

So now all I need is this year’s ZNB anthologies Kickstarter to fund. At the time of writing, we’ve got a week to go, and we’re just over two-thirds funded, so there’s $6333 still needed. Do take a look, if you haven’t done so already, and flag the project up to friends who might be interested. There are three anthologies to choose from, and to consider submitting something to, if you’re a writer yourself. You can get involved for as little as $7.

If you’re really keen, there’s a tuckerisation up for grabs. Do you fancy giving your own, or someone else’s, name to my story’s protagonist?