There’s a little shorthand I have with my editor. I imagine it’s a common thing. It’s a bit long-winded to refer to a book by it’s full title all the time, especially if you’re exchanging mails about several at once, so I tend to abbreviate them. The Warlock’s Shadow becomes TWS, The Adamantine Palace becomes TAP and so forth. I imagine this sort of thing goes on all the time with authors and their agents and editors; it certainly does in engineering, where it’s generally considered bad form if you haven’t replaced at least half the full words in any mail, memo or customer document with their TLA [1] equivalent.

Just to be clear, then, correct short form for the Order of the Scales is OOTS. It is not TOOTS. Do you call The Order of the Stick TOOTS? No, you do not. Do you refer to anything at all to do with dragons as “TOOTS”? Not if you don’t want to be burned and eaten. OOTS, right. Are you listening? you know who you are.

Anyway, this was supposed to be a quick note about signing appearances. Just needed to vent there for a moment. Forthcoming opportunities to acquired signed copies of OOTS-without-a-leading-T are as follows:

As part of the Chainsaw Gang I’ll be doing a signing session at Redbridge Library on 21st May, 2-3pm.

I’ll be at the Centre of the Universe Writtle Library on 4th June, 2.30pm

I’ll be at Alt.Fiction on 25th-26th June

Oh, and some little thing at Heffers in Cambridge on Wednesday 11th May, 6:30-8:30. First chance to buy copies of Order of the Scales. One or two other authors may be present, although as far as I know, neither China Mieville, Steve Erikson, Peter Hamilton, Trudi Canavan, Alex Scarrow, Ian Whates, Paul Stewart, Chris Riddell, Jasper Kent, Philip Reeve, Moira Young or Sophia McDougall have written about dragons. But I don’t know that for sure, so don’t write them off. And maybe Krakens count? Also a few of them may have won an award or two…

[1] If you don’t know what that means, you’re not a software engineer.

[1] OK, Three Letter Acronym. We have E(xtended)TLAs as well. And ETLAG(losarries) too. And probably, once you’re a name-level ninja in the business, JETLAG too.

Until Easter I’ve given myself a little downtime. After Eastercon I’ll be working on The King’s Assassin and Prince of Swords until summer, but I thought hey – a few days off, right? And there’s that Genre for Japan story to write.

In the meantime, here’s a couple of tasters for your amusement: For the Order of the Scales and for The Warlock’s Shadow. Enjoy.

Over here, the dust has settled and the news media has largely moved on. Over in Japan the dust may have settled too, but for the people whose lives were washed away, I imagine it will be a very long time before they, too, can move on.

In the big scheme of things, the money raised by the Genre for Japan auction probably doesn’t seem like very much. I’d like to think it means more than just the money, though. Any one of us putting a hand in our pocket alone and fishing out whatever loose change we’ve got, that’s not going to make a difference, but the sum of all of us does, and for each individual, it’s a little message of support. A tiny signpost raised to say ‘I see your need. I see your suffering.’ Put aside the actual money – I see it as the difference between struggling to put your own life and those around you back together on your own, and doing it in a metaphorical stadium-of-life with millions of distant supporters cheering you on. I hope, somehow, the people whose lives have been literally washed away somehow get to hear a little of that voice.

I’d like to think it’ll mean more for those who supported the auction, either as bidders or donors, too. Some of you will be appearing in stories over the next couple of years. I hope there’s a mention in the acknowledgements of each of those characters and how they got to be there. For my own part, I’ll now be writing a short story about a dragon a girl called Lyna. I’ll be doing it for someone for whom english isn’t even their first language, I’m going to thoroughly enjoy it, and when it’s done, it’ll be online for anyone to read. Might even go looking for some art and stuff…

So here’s to you, Genre for Japan, Amanda, Louise, Jenni, Ro, Alasdair and Robert, I salute you.

There’s Karatos, the alchemist sentenced to death for being what she is. There’s Siff in the next cell. His death sentence is for killing four soldiers with his bare hands even though he has no memory of how he did it. There’s Skjorl, the Adamantine Man whose job it is to watch over them.

Thing is, though, Siff knows something. He knows something that might just change the fate of the world and right now, any change at all is looking like a good thing. So Kataros has to get him out, so he can show her what he’s found, and never mind that he’s likely going to stab her in the back the first chance he gets. To get him out, she needs Skjorl, even if the Adamantine Man would rather stab himself than help someone like Siff, and that’s only the start of what he’d do to her, given the chance.

And then there’s the dragon. The dragon doesn’t hate any of them. It’s a dragon. It simply wants to eat them.

The Black Mausoleum. Someone’s going to die.

Submitted this week.

I bought a tablet. That is all.

Berren: Here, look master, no one’s doing anything useful with this site at the moment – let’s crash here again for a bit.

Syannis: Can we just go home?

Berren: There was this bloke in the night market last night and he was selling all this weird stuff that looked really cool. Yeah, and next to him was this old bloke with a stack of books. Had a sign up that said something like Johnner for jug pan. Dunno what that was about.

Syannis: I think you mean Japan.

Berren: A what-pan?

Syannis: Japan. It’s a place.

Berren: Never heard of it.

Syannis: Powerful rich kingdom across the sea. Sea swallowed a a good chunk of it and then spat it out again. Lots of people died.

Berren: And who’s this Johnner?

Syannis: Genre, idiot.

Berren: Eh?

Syannis: Stuff like us. Made up stuff from places that don’t exist. Low-brow escapism if you ask some people. Stories. Bad for you, apparently, like listening to the story of some miserable old quack-intellectual merchant musing over the spiritual emptiness of his life of obsessive avarice and acquisition has any more relevance to my life. I’m talking about stories that touch upon the primordial myths we all carry inside us, our basic hopes and fears and desires stripped of contemporary complexities and concentrated to their bare essentials.

Berren:Uh?

Syannis (with a quiet sigh): With swords and dragons and fighting and stuff.

Berren: Sweet! (frowns)

Syannis: Mind you, with these bloody sword-monks busy cutting everything to bits left right and centre and with us being all out of work and skint, I dare say you can’t afford a bunch of tawdry stories about dragons and stuff.

Berren: Oh that’s all right. I’ll just go and steal s . . . er, go and do some extra work. Dragons? Did you say dragons? Are we in it?

Syannis: ‘Fraid not. Go and have a look for yourself. Visit the night market, genreforjapan.wordpress.com or click here for more. Can we go now?

Berren: Dragons! Dragons dragons! Oh, wait, and there was this bloke hanging around shouting stuff. Rijerd Little-Dick or something. Said we shouldn’t be helping foreigners.

Syannis: You mean foreigners like me?

Berren: Er . . .

Syannis: I’ve really had enough of that nob. (heading for the exit while sharpening sword) Where was he, exactly . . .?

Berren (running after): Anyway, Johnner for jug pan! I mean Genre for Japan! Cool stuff! Rare stuff! Cheap stuff!

The Genre for Japan auctions opens at 9am today (monday 28th) and will run until the following Sunday. If you’re after dragons, you can bid on a complete set of A Memory of Flames here; alternatively, if you want something read, written or can otehrwise think of something useful for me, you can bid for some of my time. Unless it’s too do software, because that counts as too humiliating. There are loads of other great books up for grabes and numerous opportunities to get yourself into various fantasy and SF novels.

For more Berren and Syannis, The Thief-taker’s Apprentice is available in paperback from 7th April

This week’s post was going to be on leakage and how writing several series at once inevitably (if you’re me) leads to a certain level of cross-fertilisation. But that’s going ot have to wait, because this week’s been Busy McBusy.

The Black Mausoleum has finished it’s penultimate rewrite. One more to go – spit and polish and scrub up the fine details of the words. Another one I’m pleased with and that’ll go to my editor around Easter.

I’ve now got the editorial rewite of The Warlock’s Shadow in front of me, which is going to be the biggest rewrite I’ve had to do after a submission. I don’t know quite how it’s possible to write a story and read thorugh it several times and be quite sure you’ve written something good, only to have a series of flaws pointed out that largely amount to having forgotten to put the story into the second half of the book. OK, it’s quite not as bad as that makes it sound, but I do feel like I’ve got a very pretty looking corpse in front of me that is somehow missing its spine.

All of which mean’s The King’s Assassin, which was coming along nicely, has gone into suspended animation pending the outcome of surgery, just to make sure there aren’t any characters central to the plot who suddenly aren’t there any more. Yes, this can happen.

However, most of what’s been keeping me busy these last few days has been storyboarding. Storyboarding, storyboarding and more storyboarding. Partly that’s been for the next dragon book, current working title The Prince of Swords. A lot has been on something new. Yes, an entirely new top secret hush hush project.

More details will follow shortly. In the meantime, for anyone interested, those clever chaps at the Functional nerds were kind enough to ask me to podcast with them, so if you want to listen to me pontificate about covers, bookshops, dragons and which classic eighties fantasy series had a real let-down of an ending, go listen here.

Now and then we find little gems that no one else seems to have noticed. Maybe it’s a book whose author remains largely unknown. Maybe it’s a TV show no one else seems to like, or a piece of music that goes largely unplayed. Perhaps it might be a particular flavour of ice-cream that no one else seems to care for (yes, Ben and Jerrys, I’m looking at you).

My little secret gem is The Boxer Rebellion. I’ve seen them four times in the last three years since I first heard them supporting The Editors, always in little venues. Now I like little venues. I like the intimacy and I like not having to re-mortgage my house for a ticket, and when my little secret bad that I like but no one else has ever heard of finally gets some notice, I shall put on my sad face, because it just won’t be quite the same in a bigger venue with thousands of people. But on the other hand, what’s a fan for if not to prosthelytize. Fans should do that (Readers of A Memory of Flames, I’m looking at you now

So do me a favour and maybe yourself: go and take ten minutes to listen to some good music and a current single from a band that ought to be on the cusp of being big. Comes with a rather steampunk video for added cool.

I shall have more to say about little secrets, this time one of my own, shortly.

There was going to be a long post about the Jorvik Viking festival today, filled with juicy facts and photos of people covered in lots of metal hitting each other with more metal. It’s certainly the first time I’ve seen sparks really fly when two fellows have at each other with swords and the whole experience was quite educational for anyone wanting (as I do) an understanding of the evolution of military tactics and technology in the middle ages.

But then some stuff came up that was more exciting. MUCH more exciting. And rather appropriate to the setting but sadly I can’t talk about it just yet. There will be an announcement at the start of April, and that’s all I can say. In the mean time, I leave you with the facts that the vikings used to wash their hair in horse piss to burn the nits out, which is why they often had yellow hair, and that a certain kind of parasitic worm was rife that just wandered around inside viking bodies as it pleases. So add to your generic picture of a viking a strong scent of horse wee and maybe a worm hanging out of his eye. Yum.

Proof-reading for The Order of the Scales is done. Working on The Kings Assassin now – should have a finished first draft in the next couple of weeks. No flying castles in this one, but a nasty, nasty little girl.

There’s also a nasty rumour going around that Diamond Cascade was eaten by a sand-shark while I wasn’t looking. There. Will. Be. Trouble.

Progress report: Second draft of The Black Mausoleum completed. No significant structural defects apparent. MS will be delivered on time. Possibly early to make up for the last one. However, there’s just one little detail to be ironed out…

The Black Mausoleum revolves around a smaller number of characters than the previous books in The Memory of Flames, arguably five, depending on whether you count the dragon or not. However, there are a handful of very minor supporting characters kicking about, in particular a couple of hapless dragon-riders and a band of dragon-hunters to whom bad things happen. These are the red-shirts, the spear-carriers, utterly two-dimensional and more akin to part of the scenery than an actual character. They’re speaking parts, but only just, and in some cases, their speaking is limited to saying “Argh!” Right now, they need some names. Currently they’re called Lenk, Logan, Nico (short for Nicodemus) and, er… Dave[1]. It’s possible my editor may have some issues with this selection.

So yes, they need some names. I have a back-catalogue of other people’s annoying RPG characters that I’d happily use and then gain vicarious pleasure from watching them die in various burny squishy ways, but before I do that, here’s an open invitation to all you readers out there: send me a name for someone you’d like to see stomped on by a dragon/crushed under a falling temple/burned/eaten/eaten by canibals. They kind of have to be fantasy-ish and not either obviously copyright infringements or likely to get me thumped by another author at some future con, but other than that, I’ll pick and choose as I fancy from whatever I’m offered and there might be a note on the source in the acknowledgements…

[1] Because they’re Extras and I have a mate called Dave who looks exactly like… oh never mind.

I have done a thing. I don’t know if it’s a stupid thing or a brave thing or a marvellous thing or all three of the above. I have agreed to do ‘a thing’ at Foyles for a class of 11-12 year olds for world book day. I think I’m supposed to be vaguely informative. Entertaining. That sort of thing. Inspiring, gods help us. For an hour. Or more.

I have never done this before.

Help!

It’s the SFX Weekender and I’ll be there with some freebies, but for those who can’t make it – well, that’s hardly fair. So, to celebrate the release of King of the Crags in the US and in the UK in small paperback format, I have the following to give away:

• SIX first edition hardback copies of The King of the Crags

• TWO ARCs for The King of the Crags

• And, because I have no idea whatsoever what to do with it, ONE copy of Der Drachenthron (that’s The Adamantine Palace in german, but if you neede me to tell you that, it’s probably not much use…)

Signed and lined if you want, available to anyone in the EU (or worldwide to anyone prepared to paypal me the postage!) If you want one, you have to tell me. And that’s it.

Other stuff at the weekender.

Elsewhere, rewrites are in progress on The Black Mausoleum (early days but going well) and The King’s Assassin (about to have a huge chunk cut out of its middle grrrsnarlgnash).

The Warlock’s Shadow has been submitted! Hurrah!

King of the Crags hit the Ranting Dragon’s best of 2010 list! Hurrah!

Now what?

Another year, and things are gonna change around here. At some point, the graphics of my site are all going to change. It’s time, I’m told, to get a bit more dragony. So expect to see some of this…

OK, it’s not the final cover, which won’t have the quote from Joe on it. But I’m an impatient man and bored of waiting for the final cover art (pokes editor gently with a stick. But only gently because I’ve just missed a deadline…)

WHAT? MISSED A DEADLINE? WHAT KIND OF AUTHOR DOES THAT?

A very shame-faced one in this case, because it’s all my own fault. All I can say to anyone else out there who might one day find themselves in the same position is DON’T assume the manuscript you wrote six months ago is ‘fine and just needs a bit of touching up’ and leave looking at it again until a month before it’s due for submission.

The good(ish) news is that The Warlock’s Shadow will only be about two weeks late on my editor’s desk, at which point I can go back to poking him with a large stick instead. About things like THE FINISHED COVER ART FOR ORDER OF THE SCALES,DAMMIT! (although actually, we should all feel a little sorry for the man, as he’s had to pick up a load of extra authors on top of the too much work he already had, and I dare say a lot of them are every bit as annoying as I am).

In more dragony news, the rewrites for Order of the Scales are going fine and the first complete draft for The Black Mausoleum is now sitting on my laptop. Hmmm. Won’t put off those rewrites quite as long with this one.

There are some other changes coming for 2011. I’m thinking of some slightly different content. I’ll try not to be boring, but, tempting as it is to go into detail as to whether the VAT is or isn’t a regressive tax, frankly I’m not that interested, and I suspect that goes the same for most of the people who actually read this. And it would be a huge piece of work. And then we’d get into arguments that would drag on for ages, and I’ll disagree with you about stuff you believe in passionately because the foundations of almost every argument made either way are built on the sand of dodgy statistics, and if there’s one thing that really gets my goat, it’s dodgy statistics… There, see, ranting already!

<Runs off. Has cold shower. Comes back>

No. Expect the occasional post about Star Wars, gaming, and how five-year-old children absolutely understand Munchkin in a way it takes a mature adult years to learn.

Finally, 2010 ended with a couple of rather nice reviews for King of the Crags, anticipating (perhaps) its forthcoming US release.

“Stephen Deas has combined all that’s good in fantasy and spun it around in a thriller-paced tale that will leave you breathless.” The Ranting Dragon.

“Prince Jehal … is brilliant. One of the most complex, twisted and ultimately human characters I’ve read … When I think back over what I’ve read this year … I’m hard pressed to find one I enjoyed more than this one.” SF Crowsnest

Happy New Year!

It’s that time of year again. The King of the Crags and The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice are on the long-list for the Gemmell Legend Award and the cover of Thief-Taker is up for the Ravenheart award (which, let’s be clear, is an award for the artist, not the author).

You can vote here for the Legend award (at the time of writing that’s the only award that’s set up for voting) or find out more about the Gemmells on their home page here.

There are a lot of good titles to vote for, at least a few of which I happen to think are better than mine. If you happen to disagree but can’t decide which one to vote for, got for King of the Crags. Sadly (not) you can only vote once!

I’m going to start something a little different in the New Year once my logjam of deadlines is out the way. In the mean time, happy holidays and have a good start to 2011

I have an emergency editor. I know several writers who have them these days, or else beta-readers or someone who’s going to give them a second opinion on their work before they submit it to their publisher. I have no idea whether we’re a small minority or a vast majority, or whether such things are far more common now than they used to be. I’d say I don’t really care either, but if some knew the answer, I’d be curious enough to listen. Point being, really, we all have our own way of doing things; for me, every now and then, that means wheeling out the emergency editor whenever something just isn’t working.

Roughly, the way it works is that I read the manuscript, chapter by chapter, and get stopped every seventeen-and-a-half seconds to be told that I’ve now used the word effervescent twice in living memory and why is one of my characters explicitly walking slowly in one sentence and then observed to be moving quickly in the next (fortunately allowing me to simply skip the next sentence in which they dismount from the horse they never actually had in the first place). Often there is a little coda, along the lines of ‘that chapter’s quite good’ or ‘that was a bit long’ or the dreaded ‘Meh. OK I guess,’ which means it isn’t.

As you can imagine, sometimes this can mean that reading through a chapter, even one of mine, can take quite a long time. I’d been mentally thinking of it as extreme editing, since we really do pick apart the manuscript line by line sometimes. However, I understand from several of my fellow authors that extreme editing is already taken and refers to re-writes carried out while free-climbing the Tsaranoro Massif or hiding inside a cave somewhere on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. My version takes place curled up somewhere warm and cosy and usually involves either hot chocolate or hot and sour soup. Not all that extreme really.

Admittedly, what comes to mind when I think ‘emergency editor’ is the emergency pilot from Airplane! but that just. . . No, just let’s not go there.

So next time you put down a book and revel in the buzz of just how good it was, spare a thought for the beta-readers, the emergency editors, the unpaid (I’d say unsung, but I guess they’re often among the names credited in the this-novel-would-never-have-existed-if-it-wasn’t-for bit that I never used to read up to a few years ago (please tell me I’m the only one) helpers who do it for the love. And the chocolate. And the soups. And maybe an episode of Dexter every 2-3 chapters, but still, mostly for the love.

(You can follow my muse, my better half, my emergency editor and many other things, the gorgeous and heroic @adamantine_lady, on Twitter. Just, for the love of Planck’s Constant, don’t say anything bad about Name of the Wind. Meanwhile The Warlock’s Shadow has been moved out of theatre and into intensive care).

So here’s a rather soundtrack for the whole Memory of Flames trilogy. It’s not music that I write to, but they’re a few songs that resonate with the story or the characters within it.

Ultravox: Young Savage

Placebo: EveryYou Every Me

Tool: The Grudge

Muse: Knights of Cydonia

OK, not much of a soundtrack for three whole books, but it makes quite a good set for a session on the cross-trainer

And here’s a little taster for book three. It was quite hard to find a chapter that didn’t have a spoiler in it, but I don’t think it’s giving too much away to let it be known that there are some seriously peeved dragons on the loose. I reckon y’all were expecting that…

It’s Christmas. The time for cheer. For giving. For forgiveness and happy endings…

Oh. Wait. Wrong author.

Having finished the editorial rewrite of Order of the Scales last week and finally managed a draft for The Warlock’s Shadow that doesn’t suck last night, this is not the season for joy at all, at least not fiction-land. I wonder, as I start the rewrites for the Warlock’s Shadow, whether this is going too far. It’s not horrific in a gore-fest sort of way or a creepy sort of way, but it’s definitely dark. Ah well – that’s what editors are for.

In the meantime, to get in the right sort of seasonal mood, the Chainsaw Gang bring you the Twelve Days of Christmas, reworked to be filled with chainsawy goodness. We’ve bludgeoned a bunch of bloggers half to death, cut pieces out of their souls[1] and threatened them with various forms of despicable un-life until they agreed to let us write stuff on their websites. We might also have answered a few questions about writing horror for a YA audience while we were at it, but the main point was to get that song out there, to be revealed day by day in an exquisite striptease, until at last it is revealed in all its terrible glory and the great old ones are called back to own the earth once more [2]. It’s kicked off already (yes, too late to stop us now, bwahaha) at My Favourite Books and will then be infesting the blogsphere like the bubonic plague:

So off you go an have a bloody good Christmas.

[1] That was a spoiler for The Warlock’s Shadow, that was.

[2] Karaoke was also discussed, but none of us could cope with that much SAN loss.

First person to make sense of the title of this post gets a prize.

Finally, finally, my editor has sent back his comments on The Order of the Scales. If you like my dragons, you should thank him. Every time, and this is no exception, he comes back demanding more, more shock and awe. I’m beginning to think he’s an American military strategist in disguise.

The other thing he always comes back with is ‘ditch the prologue.’ And I have to admit he’s always right. It’s easy this time to see why – the prologue explains a load of stuff about the Taiytakei and, in particular, the mysterious Picker, that maybe takes the edge off what comes next. I thought you guys deserved to know at least part of what was going on over on that side of the plot, but that was before we had a deal for a pile more books. So those who were looking forward to having the secrets of the Taiytakei revealed, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a little more – but there is an upside: they will be revealed in considerably more detail. Unlike the King of the Crags’ “Night of the Knives,” this one won’t be going up as a taster.

I like prologues, though. Always have. Comes from a fondness for the old pre-credits sequence that Bond movies used to have (which, I realise, rarely had anything to do with the subsequent plot). If I manage to finish The Warlock’s Shadow by the end of the year (bit of an if at the moment), I shall try again

Round-up of the week’s other news: Jasper Fforde, Leanna Renee Hieber and I talk about the differences between adult and young adult fantasy over at SFF chat; The Ranting Dragon has (another) Sneak preview of the cover art for Order of the Scales while the Yetistomper has noticed the US cover for King of the Crags (and who wouldn’t)

Pretty pretty cover art for The Warlock’s Shadow. Night in the scent garden. And no, once again, the figure in the archway is NOT Berren. Pleasingly androgenous though, given the scene this is meant to be.

Nice blues. Still working on the lettering though

After the near miss at this year’s Gemmells, it’s about time something of mine won an award. So here it is. The prestigious… LEMON OF HONOUR

Not, as you may expect, for any of my currently published pieces but for a little one-side of A4 dashed off last weekend during the launch party for fellow gang-member  Alex Bell’s Lex Trent vs. The Gods. An award for the most fanciful, most imaginative, most…

…most biggest pile of utter rubbish as to why the killer in our murder mystery for the weekend had actually done the deed (although I did at least get WHO bit of whodunnit right).

I’ll not say who did it, but I will say that my AWARD-WINNING contribution did include the words “Master of Disguise” at least twice… Only time will tell whether the editorial staff from Hodder Headline were truly as impressed as they seemed, but let’s put it this way – I’ll not be straying far from the phone for the next few days[1] and I wouldn’t be at all surprised it we’re seeing some BIG NEWS soon[2]…

(with thanks to the cast from ItsMurder)

Meanwhile, its National Novel Writing Month apparently, so for no reason other than to give myself an ulcer and annoy the hell out of everyone around me, I’ve decided to try and finish the first draft of The Black Mausoleum by the end of November instead of the end of December. I’m also going to be working on a short children’s book simply for the sheer hell of it; anyone fancy doing some illustrations that would be marvellous, but it’ll be pro bono work, so I’m guessing that’ll be a no then. If it’s any good, it’ll go up on the site as a freebie some time after Christmas.

Another week, another review: apparently the Thief-Taker’s Apprentice is very well written and full of action and adventure. So I’ll forgive the repeatedly mis-placed apostrophe, Fringe. Tsk.

[1] Not

[2] also Not

Over on Steve Feasy’s blog, Alexander Gordon Smith explains why we’d all gang up on him if we were ever stuck on a desert island together. Most of the gang will be at Foyles on the 31st for the store’s Angels vs. Demons event, which I’m rather sad to be missing, even as Joe Public.

I have seen the draft cover of The Order of the Scales, and I that pretty much made my week last week. I’ll put it up when it’s been. I pride myself on not buying books for their covers EVER, so it’s just as well I’ll be getting my author copies of this one. The dragons… The colours… I can’t stop looking at it.

Excuse me. Have to, er… go do something else now.

Caught on camera in the alleys behind Downing Street…

Equally dubious going on over here, as Alex Bell interviews Sam Enthoven for the Chainsaw Gang

Sadly there’s not so much fun to be had with this week’s collection of reviews, but one of them comes from a site called Ranting Dragon, so they’re immediately in my good books:

“Though you will immediately notice the depth of this world, it has not been given the attentions it deserves yet. However, that is what gives The Adamantine Palace its tempo, and I’m unsure if that’s such a bad thing.” Ranting Dragon. Interesting comment. Haven’t seen anyone say anything quite like that before, but that’s definitely the choise I was making when I wrote it.

Also, what amounts to a ’suitability for its target audience’ review for Thief-Taker from Readplus in Australia: The novel does contain positive messages and meaningful themes for teenagers about growing-up too fast and wanting to live in an adult world before they are fully prepared to deal with the full consequences.

There’s an interview up at Literary Musings, in which you can find out one or two little snippets about where the dragon books are going, although I should point out that nothing is certain until it’s published. In a possibly more interesting interview (in that it involves monsters and eating people), Sarah Pinborough interviews Alex Milway on her blog today. In theory.

Have finally started writing again after what’s been month off altogether now. The Black Mausoleum rumbles onwards once more. And yes, I’ll put up an page for it in the bibliography at some point. Maybe when it’s done.

It’s not long since I joined up with the Chainsaw Gang experiment, but I’ve now read Sarwat Chadda’s Devil’s Kiss (Sorry, Retribution Falls, but he had a VIP pass).

Billi SanGreal is the first girl in the Knights Templar. She might not like it, but that’s the way it is, the way it’s been since she stumbled into something she shouldn’t when she was ten. Then again, maybe she didn’t have much choice. Her father is the Templar Master, and her mother was murdered by monsters.

At fifteen, her life is a rigorous and brutal round of weapons practice, demon killing and occult lore. Lessons and a whole lot of bruises, whether she likes it or not. Everyone wants something from her. Her father wants another warrior for the order. His right-hand, Gwaine, wants her gone. The enigmatic Mike Harbinger, he wants her phone number. Even the devil himself wants something from Billi SanGreal, but there’s not too many people giving a thought to what Billi wants – a slice of a normal life, please.

Trouble is, when you’re born and bred a demon-slayer, when you’re the most kick ass weapon-wielding heroine around, normal isn’t on the menu.

“I am Michael, the Angel of Death. It was I that rained fire on Gomorrah … I am God’s killer and I will not be judged by the children of clay.”

Billi spat in his face.

Billi SanGreal. Like Buffy. But with teeth.

If you’ve been following any of the Chainsaw gang at all, you’ll know by now that we’ve been asking each other a few questions. Here’s what Sarwat had to say:

What’s your favourite book? The Hobbit. It’s the reason I write fantasy.

What’s your favourite monster? The minotaur. I love the old Greek myths and this is the one I remember best from my childhood. Tragic and terrifying. I can really picture the dark, bone-littered labyrinth with the massive beast-headed monster at its heart.

Favourite bad-ass monster-slayer? Buffy. She’s got the look, the Scooby Gang and the attitude. And it’s the title, ‘SLAYER’.

(no surprises in that answer, once you’ve read Devil’s Kiss)

If you could make a pact with the Devil, what would you want in exchange for your immortal soul? An afro. I know it’s shallow and superficial and I should be wishing for world peace or something, but an afro would be very cool.

The Chainsaw Gang are all trapped on a desert island with no food. Who would you eat first and why? Alex Milway. Young, succulent, not too fatty. Some onions, garlic and maybe a touch of corriander, tumeric and yoghurt I think he’d make a lovely curry. With rice, of course.

And remember the great Chainsaw Gang Giveaway. Earn your chances to win the entire chainsaw library by commenting on our blogs, tweeting about us or writing on our facebook pages.

Up and ready for you: Sam Enthoven interviews Alex Bell. Everything you wanted to know about the creator of Lex Trent, including how he likes to turn people to stone, and who she’d most like to eat!

The next stop in the Chainsaw Gang tour: Alex Gordon Smith reviews interviews David Gatward.

And an assortment of review for Thief-taker that have piled up over the last few weeks.

“…Berren’s imaginary city is full of recognizable people and emotions all of which are brilliantly conveyed in Stephen Deas’s spare and powerful storytelling” www.lovereading4kids.co.uk

“any reader, young or old, should give this a try and see what I am talking about.” Literary Musings

“…gripped me enough that I want to read the sequel! Great, unique storyline with well-crafted characters.” Chicklish

One from Australia too: “The characters are interesting and even mysterious … a good, well-written story for teens.” Ysfetsos

But the world is a big place, filled with diverse opinion. “‘The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice’ by Stephen Deas is another example of mediocrity that shouldn’t have been let past the editor’s desk,” Yes. Stupid editor. Blame him, but don’t worry, the hose is quickly turned on me. We could also call it “very soggy and misshapen cake, or book, depending on how far we’re taking this analogy.” Why? Well because it plot has been “thrown against the wall like the proverbial pasta to see if it’ll stick” with “one contrivance after another” and “Nothing is explained, everyone acts entirely unrealistically, and by the end of the book the characters you have been reading have as much depth as a sheen of water on the driveway.”

Crikey, Fantasy Book Review. That sure sounds like a that sucked as a reading experience. And I kept you up late and made you miss sleep and everything, even though you skimmed and skipped large chunks? I do apologise.

Reviewed by an aspiring fantasy author who, I guess (I hope!) reckons he could do a lot better. Well go on then. Let that wasted evening goad you into achieving something and not be wasted after all.

Over the course of the next two weeks, members of the gang are going to be interviewing each other on their blogs:

Later TODAY: Sarwat Chadda interviews Sarah Pinborough

Tuesday 12th Alexander Gordon Smith interviews David Gatward

Wednesday 13th Sam Enthoven interviews the inimitable Alex Bell

Monday 18th: Sarwat Chadda will be interviewed HERE, and I shall be reviewing Devil’s Kiss (which I have been reading this week and look, there’s two things it doesn’t take much of a brain to realise don’t mix – teenagers and Secrets With Which Man Was Not Meant To Meddle).

Tuesday 19th Sarah Pinborough interviews Alex Milway

Wednesday 20th I explain to Alex Milway exactly which of member of the gang I would most like to eat.

Thursday 21st Alex Bell interviews Sam Enthoven

Friday 22nd David Gatward interviews Steve Feasey

Monday 25th Steve Feasey interviews Alexander Gordon Smith

William Hussey and Jon Mayhew are too busy doing things like actually writing their books to be engaging with such tomfoolery, but who knows? They might still get eaten.

To make this a bit more interesting, there are various opportunities to win prizes (largely that’s going to mean free books). I’ll be giving away something from my bag-o-prizes to anyone who sufficiently amuses me. BUT, probably much MORE exciting and a lot less fickle, there will also be the opportunity to win the entire Chainsaw Library (or at least, the latest book from each of us).

Apparently.To win the Chainsaw Library you need to score a token. Each token goes into a vast hat at the end of the competition and one name will come out. The lucky victim will receive signed copies off each member of the Chainsaw Gang. You can earn yourself multiple tokens, so make sure you visit each and every blog. It’ll be entertaining AND educational.

+1 token if you link the blog/website to yours (per blog)

+2 tokens if you stick our Chainsaw banner up somewhere

+1 token if you comment on the blog (per blog, but only for the first comment on each blog)

+1 token if you tell me who your favouriate SF/F/Horror villain is and why

+1 token if you tweet a link to this post (but I won’t know you’ve done that unless you include @stephendeas in your tweet, so make sure you do that!)

Note that each of the blogs is awarding tokens for much the same things, but not necessarily exactly the SAME things.

The closing date of the competition is Friday 5th November. The Chainsaw Library competition is open to UK residents only (really sorry about that!); any extra prizes I might whimsically award will be up to my discretion.

Anyway, Sarwat’s interview with Sarah is ripe and ready, so get commenting!

When I think of chainsaws in films, for some reason I always end up with the iconic Medieval Dead image and that scene in Smokin’ Aces where one of the neo-nazi hitmen ends up sitting on his own chainsaw. What WAS that film on? However, after various things I’ve said about dragons being emasculated in fantasy literature, the following kinda caught my eye: “We’ve decided to spread the word that in amongst the shelves of angsty, pale and love-lorn undead and eco-friendly lycanthropes there is blood, there is dread, there is fear.” And “it’s time that monsters got back to doing what they do best, being MONSTROUS.”

Well quite.

The Chainsaw Gang is setting out to be “the new wave of writers delivering old school horror,” and while I’m not a horror writer and never will be, I’m all for monsters being properly monstrous. Hence the Chainsaw Gang has become the new wave of horror writers with a fantasy author tacked on. Or something like that.

Put another way, Alex Bell invited me in and you don’t say no to Alex.

Now and then, therefore, there will be posts about Chainsaw Gang events and schedules of where and when the various members will be doing signings and so-forth. For now, let’s start with the who’s who:

Alex Bell. Author of The Ninth Circle, Jasmyn and most recently, Lex Trent vs. The Gods

The Gang’s founder and grand master, Sarwat Chadda, author of the Devil’s Kiss and Dark Goddess. I shall be reviewing Devil’s Kiss in a week or so along with a short interview with Sarwat, during which he will reveal which of the gang he would most like to fall upon and devour.

Sam Enthoven. Demons, death and destruction. Innocent people turned into mind-controlled psycho-killers, like the good Lord intended.

Steve Feasey. You can never, ever, have enough werewolves (eh, Mark?)

David Gatward: The Dead, The Dark and The Damned.

William Hussey. Modern science and ancient horrors.

Jon Mayhew. Spooks. Demons. Knife-throwing heroines. Enter dark, fog-bound Victorian London and the awesome Mortlock.

Alex Milway. Yetis: Seriously under-represented in modern genre literature, but Alex is putting that right.

Sarah Pinborough (aka Sarah Silverwood): Whose stories have a way of burrowing under your skin and then eating you from the inside, rather like those Scarab beetles in The Mummy.

Alexander Gordon Smith. Author of the Furnace series which is about a prison built miles underground and run by demons.

On Saturday 23rd October, most of the Chainsaw Gang (but not me) will be at the Crystal Palace Children’s Book Festival so you’ll have Alex Milway, Alex Bell, Alexander Gordon Smith, Sam Enthoven, Jon Mayhew, Steve Feasey and Sarwat. Other events will apparently follow in Norwich and Richmond. However…  In the next couple of weeks there’ll be a lot of activity and a BIG competition being run across the many blogs of the members of the gang, kicking off on Sarwat’s blog on Monday.

Waterstones in Haywards Heath, 11am, Saturday 16th October.

Yes, I know that’s not much of a post. Oooh look – a spider.

About the size of my hand and living outside my front door for the last week