It lives, I tell you...it lives! Full wraparound cover for Survival Game

Well, it's only been two damn years since my last book came out in hardback, so it's good to know the release of SURVIVAL GAME, the sequel to EXTINCTION GAME is just a very few months away. I just got the full wraparound cover from the publisher, and here it is in all it's glory. You can click on it to see the small print, as it were.

Got to be said, a very nice collection of reviews there, and it behooves me to remind you that the one from Publisher's Weekly is the much-covered starred review.

Anyway, a truly stupid amount of work went into this book, and I really hope you like it. It'll be hitting your bookshops, e-readers and tablet-like objects of your choice some time in August.

You can pre-order it here.

Shoreline of Infinity

Shoreline of Infinity is a new-ish print and ebook science fiction magazine published out of Edinburgh, Scotland, and their fourth issue has a new short story by me running in it. The magazine looks smarter and slicker with every new issue, and the art for the forthcoming issue is downright spectacular, as you can see here.

My story is called Senseless, runs to about five thousand words, and opens like this:

Bill tasted the sweet, sharp scent of violence in the back of his throat just a moment before the fight broke out - although calling it a fight was stretching it, given O’Hare was a notorious sociopath from Hut Thirteen and Ade, the object of his ire, was a skinny little guy on crutches who could hardly stand straight, let alone defend himself. 

Bill heard O’Hare’s guttural roar as he grabbed hold of Ade and sent him tumbling to the canteen floor, his crutches clattering down beside him. 

Bill reacted without thinking. He threw his tin tray to one side and shoved O’Hare in the back as hard as he could with both hands. 

O’Hare lost his balance, his cheap prison-issue boots performing a complicated shuffle as he tried to stay upright. He collided with a kitchen trolley, sending dishes scattering across the tiles with a noise like cymbals thrown down a stairwell. 

Number Four is now available for pre-order and you can get it here. Or, you can check out previous issues. 

Free ebook and mailing list

I said a while back I was going to try and build one of those mailing lists everyone and their Uncle is saying writers need these days, and I finally did it. I tested it on a couple of people and, so far, it works. Hopefully that'll be the case for many more of you as well if you choose to sign up.

As mailing lists go, it's going to be pretty darn low key, meaning you'll get very, very occasional newsletters from me. And since I like to think you might get something out of it, when you sign up, one of the confirmation emails you receive will have links to download a novelette first published in Interzone magazine last year. You have the choice of downloading in either Kindle/mobi or ePub format.

All you need to do is click on the link at the top of the sidebar on the right, and that'll take you to a form where you can enter your email address.

EDIT: Some people are having trouble seeing the sidebar. If you can't see it, click on "contact/mailing list" in the menu bar (hopefully you can see that) and that'll take you to another version of the signup page. Alternatively, click here.

Note that, outside of buying the relevant issue of Interzone (which I also highly recommend, because it's Britain's oldest and best science fiction magazine and helped launch the careers of dozens of well-known writers), this is the only way you're going to be able to get hold of that story. For now, anyway.

Once you've entered your email address, you should get a confirmation containing links to the ebook emailed to you. I'm new to this, so any problems, let me know!