October 2008 Archive

Best Served Cold Copy

So, we have some copy for Best Served Cold now that all parties are happy with. It goes something like this:

Springtime in Styria. And that means war.

There have been nineteen years of blood. The ruthless Grand Duke Orso is locked in a vicious struggle with the squabbling League of Eight, and between them they have bled the land white. While armies march, heads roll and cities burn, behind the scenes bankers, priests and older, darker powers play a deadly game to choose who will be king.

War may be hell but for Monza Murcatto, the Snake of Talins, the most feared and famous mercenary in Duke Orso’s employ, it’s a damn good way of making money too. Her victories have made her popular – a shade too popular for her employer’s taste. Betrayed, thrown down a mountain and left for dead, Murcatto’s reward is a broken body and a burning hunger for vengeance. Whatever the cost, seven men must die.

Her allies include Styria’s least reliable drunkard, Styria’s most treacherous poisoner, a mass-murderer obsessed with numbers and a Northman who just wants to do the right thing. Her enemies number the better half of the nation. And that’s all before the most dangerous man in the world is dispatched to hunt her down and finish the job Duke Orso started…

Springtime in Styria. And that means revenge.

Artwork is pretty much there as well. I’ll be talking about that in due course. For now let me only say it’s pretty damn good. Oh, yes, sir…

And, since folks are asking, the book will be out June 2009 in hardcover in the UK, then a month later in July in hardcover in the US.

Read more | 35 comments | Posted in news, process

An Evening in Casualty

OK, true story, so don’t laugh. Well, you can laugh where you’re meant to laugh. My wife has college on a Tuesday, and my daughter goes to nursery with her. I go to meet them off the bus to lend a hand when they get back most days, just down the end of my road. […]

Read more | 61 comments | Posted in Other Life

Two More Things

Tired of reading me make an arse of myself? Now you can LISTEN to me make an arse of myself, because I’ve been interviewed by Michael Stackpole, Summer Brooks and Michael Mennenga at The Dragon Page. I am really not so good at this spoken interview business yet … but conversation runs towards language, violence, […]

Read more | 11 comments | Posted in interviews, reviews

Two Things

Some fantasy-minded folks are setting up an award to commemorate the late, much-loved, David Gemmell. The David Gemmell Legend Award for Fantasy will be given for the first time in June 2009 for the best fantasy novel of 2008, which means … oh … Last Argument of Kings will be eligible, fancy that, I hadn’t […]

Read more | 13 comments | Posted in news, reviews

The Other The Blade Itself

So I’ve just done a little piece for a website called Writer’s Read, a website where writers say … what they read. Shockingly, I have actually been reading something recently. Thought I’d crosspost it here: Over the last couple of weeks – in an airport, on a flight, and standing on the stairs for an […]

Read more | 3 comments | Posted in interviews, reading

New Covers

The UK Mass Market editions of The First Law are being given a new cover treatment, to be phased in over the coming months in preparation for the mass market release of Last Argument of Kings in Februrary. Check out these bad boys: Of course it lacks the full impact created by the oft-praised grip-friendly […]

Read more | 14 comments | Posted in artwork, process