For those of you nominating for the Hugo Awards, or any other sort of awards, please consider the following from me and mine:

Best Novella: Gnomes of Lychford. Published by Tordotcom Publishing.

Best Graphic Story: Who Killed Nessie? by me and Rachael Smith. Published by Avery Hill.

Best Fancast: Telefantasy Time Jump.

Best Fan Writer: I’ll be nominating Lizbeth Myles for her excellent blog.

Thanks!

Because I’ve still got some copies of Who Killed Nessie? and a couple of other books, I decided I’d take a table at a new comics event in Gloucester. Comics Assemble isn’t a ‘comic con’, but a proper comics festival, with Jim Zub as a guest. It’s on August 15th, at Gloucester Leisure Centre. You can find all the details at the link.

Tickets will cost £10 for adults, but I’ve got 10 to give away! All you have to do is email me at [email protected] with the subject heading Comics Assemble. One each, first ten to email get them!

Lizbeth Myles and I have done another commentary track for a Hammer blu-ray box set! Stolen Face (1952) is a neat little black and white thriller, and we found lots to say about it! It’s out next Monday, 16th February, and you can read all about it and pre-order it here at Hammer.

My partner on Telefantasy Time Jump Lizbeth Myles and I have written a comic strip together! It’s going to be one of the stories in Flash Gordon Quarterly #7, from Mad Cave, with the great Georges Jeanty on art! It’ll be out on April 29th (so please order from your local comic shop before the 6th), or you can order it direct from the publisher here.

My company Cosmic Lighthouse is publishing its first graphic novel this summer: Salvation’s Child.

Salvation’s Child is the graphic novel Prologue to Adrian Tchaikovsky’s best-selling SFF novel series The Final Architecture. (So new readers can start here!) It’s by Adrian himself, artist Mike Collins, colour artist Pippa Bowland and letterer Simon Bowland. We’re publishing it together with our partners ComiXology.

Check out these pre-order links at Amazon US and Amazon UK.

And you can find Cosmic Lighthouse at this link on Instagram.

Salvation’s Child will be released by ComiXology Originals on 16th June!

Up for pre-order now, and also out on 16th June is The Lychford Collection 2, featuring my fourth, fifth and sixth Lychford novellas!

I’m one of a whole bunch of comickers contributing to Legendary Comics’ Monarch: The Lost Adventures, a graphic novel anthology which tells stories in the continuity of the Monarch: Legacy of Monsters TV series. (And we stick very closely to the lore.) My story, which I loved writing, concerns Bill Randa’s wartime encounter with the Ion Dragon, and is wonderfully rendered by Drew Zucker and Brad Simpson on art and colour art. The anthology is out on 14th July, and is up for pre-order now!

I’m writing the dialogue for a forthcoming comic based on the Summoner Wars game! The new comic is plotted by Justin Zimmerman, with art by Patrick Macchi, colouring by Mo Hollowell, a story by Plaid Hat Games, and covers by Plaid Hat’s Martin Abel. Battle Quest Comics is bringing the new release to stores this autumn. You can read all about it at Screen Rant here, and see some sample finished pages at AIPT here!

I’ve re-stocked my Ko-fi online store, with all my current works, which you can get cheaper than anywhere else, plus you can have them signed and personalised! Right now, it’s just for UK residents, but that’ll change as I sort out international postage.

The new podcast from me and Lizbeth Myles covers the history of SFF on TV, from 1953 onward, with our regular episodes (on the 14th of every month) covering a show released that year in the UK, and the Patron Bonus episodes (on the 28th) covering a show from the rest of the world. The shows for February are Adam Adamant Lives! and Star Trek.

The main episode is available free wherever you get your podcasts. To get the bonus episode, you need to follow us on Patreon at £3/$3 or above. (And you get access to seven years of Hammer House of Podcast bonus episodes!) You can find all the info here.

You can now find all my social media links, my website/blog and links to where you can buy my books, in one place here, thanks to Linktree!

The first issue of Simon Birks’ adaptation of The Thing on the Doorstep by H.P. Lovecraft is in your comic stores (physical and digital) now! Art by Willi Roberts, letters by Rob Jones. It’s a lovely gothic thing too!

Thomas got a Merit on his drum exam! The grade came with a detailed three-page report of the errors he’d made, much of which one would need to be a musicologist to understand, but I appreciate the seriousness of the examination board’s approach. I’m so proud of him achieving that! He was stoically proud to hear about it too, in his way. A certificate is heading to us in the post.

On Saturday, he and I went to a Lego workshop session, with a handful of other children, all of whom could pick a set to build. (There was also a specialist shop upstairs selling individual bricks and minifigs.) Thomas typically raced through a Lego Friends building that nobody had ever finished in one session before, with half of the session remaining, then decided that was enough for him, but he’d clearly enjoyed himself, and said he’d like to go back. Weirdly, the workshop turned out to be only a few feet from the studio where he does his drum lessons.

My weeks have got into rather a good groove at the moment, with lots of work (sent off a short comic strip for an established property, heading into the final stretch of the official sequel novel) and keeping up with my exercises. The routine makes me feel useful, and the lack of anything meaningful to do is why I often struggle at weekends. On Saturdays, the only day of the week when I get a long chunk of leisure time, I often end up feeling flat and frustrated. I wouldn’t mind putting some word count in, because my work is genuinely a joy, but I also recognise the need to recharge. I need to find more missions for Saturdays, at least those when Thomas isn’t on a mission with his nanny.

Still no big announcements, I know!

I hope to see you all here next week!