Paul Cornell's Friday Newsletter

I’m a Guest at Caption!

On the afternoon of Sunday, August 17th, I’m going to be a guest at the Caption Small Press and Comics Festival in Botley, Oxford. I’m on the Networking in Comics panel. Do come along if you can!

Jill Mansell at Fairford Festival

On Saturday, June 7th at 2pm, as part of Fairford Festival in Gloucestershire, I’ll be interviewing bestselling romance author Jill Mansell about her career. (I’ll also be running the Festival Quiz on the Sunday night and doing a couple more bits and pieces too.) You can find out more info and buy tickets here.

Ace Jacket

I’ve contributed a short story to this anthology in aid of autism charities, edited by Sophie Aldred and Shawn J. Levy. It’s out on June 17th. You can read all about it and pre-order a copy here.

‘The Longest War’

That’s the title of the issue of Commando I’ve written, which is tentatively due to be released in August. The artist is the great Steve Yeowell, and it’s amazing work. I’m delighted to have contributed to this very exacting classic format. More news nearer the time!

Gnomes of Lychford and The Lychford Collection

On 9th September, Tor.com Publishing is releasing the sixth book in my Lychford series of rural fantasy novellas, Gnomes of Lychford. It’s a re-editing of the serial I ran on this newsletter, and I’ve taken the opportunity to sort out a couple of little plot problems. I think it’s my best Lychford book, and, weirdly, it’s a great jumping-on point, because everything about the series is explained at the start. You can read all about it here.

And you can now pre-order!

“An unlikely group of supernatural creatures terrorizes the sleepy village of Lychford. Okay, they're gnomes. That's not a spoiler: you worked it out it from the title. When an ancient prophecy clashes with an unfortunate modern design aesthetic, the people of Lychford must band together to put out fires (both literal and metaphorical) to save their town before the king of the Gnomes (King Greg, and it's dangerous to laugh at a gnome) calls in the terms of an old promise. Trouble is: no one knows what the promise is, nor how to fulfil it. It's going to be a long night.”

And also up for pre-order, and out on the same day is The Lychford Collection, which contains my first three Lychford novellas. (Cover design for both by FORT.)

Who Killed Nessie Bookstore Edition and London Signing!

On 18th September, Avery Hill will be releasing a bookstore edition of Who Killed Nessie?, the graphic novel by myself and the great Rachael Smith.

You can pre-order it already from Amazon UK and Amazon US. And you can order it from all good bookstores and comic shops.

“A cosy comedy murder mystery… with a monstrous twist! Lyndsay Grockle has just started her new job at an isolated hotel. She’s trying to get over heartbreak. She’s amazed to be left in sole charge just before a big convention. When the terrifying guests start to arrive, she realises why: this is a gathering of the fantastic beasts of myth and legend! The attendees ask her to stay in her room and let them be. But when the Loch Ness Monster is found dead, there’s nobody else they trust to solve the murder. She may not entirely believe in them… but they believe in her! Lyndsay is going to have to dig deep into her own fears and vulnerabilities to discover… WHO KILLED NESSIE?”

Those of you who backed the graphic novel on Zoop, don’t worry, you’ll be getting a unique edition with a different cover. (And you’ll be getting it first.)

And on Saturday, 20th September, from 1pm-2pm, Rachael and I will be signing the book (copies of which will be on sale) at Waterstones London-Piccadilly!

You can read all about that free-to-attend event here. I hope to see you there!

The Mighty Avengers vs. the 1970s

On November 13th, I’ve got a book coming out from Bloomsbury that’s part of a new range of popular studies of Marvel Comics! The Mighty Avengers vs. the 1970s is fully illustrated with panels from the comics, and is my journey through how Marvel’s main super team navigated that difficult decade. You can read the announcement here at AP News. This is very much a labour of love for me, a book I’ve wanted to find a way to write for the longest time.

And you can now pre-order it from the publisher (and from all good booksellers)!

Thought Bubble

Our application has been accepted, so I’m pleased to say that Lizbeth Myles and I will once more be tabling at the wonderful Thought Bubble comic convention in Harrogate on November 15th and 16th.

Of Intrigue and Espionage

I have a story in this just-announced forthcoming volume from Stars and Sabers publishing, which is due out in October 2026. I’m in good company, as you can see from the full announcement here.

Telefantasy Time Jump

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 May (covering 1957) are The Sky at Night and Dutch SF show Morgen Gebeurt Het (plus US cartoon Colonel Bleep). 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.

My Ko-fi and eBay Stores

Here’s my Ko-fi store, where you can buy my books and comics, signed and personalised, for shipping worldwide. And here’s my ebay store, full of Bronze Age Marvel comics at bargain prices.

My Linktree

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 Work of Friends

My friend the comics writer Si Spurrier has a new series coming out from Image! Concerning The Voice Said Kill, he says: “Expect: gorgeous feverish impressionistic Vanesa Del Rey art. My words. A heavily pregnant park ranger in the Louisiana bayou getting tangled up with alligator poachers, drug runners and a mushroom-gobbling killer. Think Fargo meets Deliverance. Big departure for me. Spicy gumbo.” I’ve read the first issue and it’s gorgeous. You can get all the details here.

And my friend the writer Alec Nevala-Lee has a new book coming out, Collisions: A Physicist's Journey from Hiroshima to the Death of the Dinosaurs.

“From the acclaimed biographer of Buckminster Fuller, a riveting biography of the Nobel Prize–winning physicist who became the greatest scientific detective of the twentieth century. To his admirers, Luis W. Alvarez was the most accomplished, inventive, and versatile experimental physicist of his generation. During World War II, he achieved major breakthroughs in radar, played a key role in the Manhattan Project, and served as the lead scientific observer at the bombing of Hiroshima. In the decades that followed, he revolutionized particle physics with the hydrogen bubble chamber, developed an innovative X-ray method to search for hidden chambers in the Pyramid of Chephren, and shot melons at a rifle range to test his controversial theory about the Kennedy assassination. At the very end of his life, he collaborated with his son to demonstrate that an asteroid impact was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs, igniting a furious debate that raged for years after his death.”

I’ve loved Alec’s previous non-fiction work, and this looks to be just as exciting.

My Week

I won’t lie to you, I’m not doing so well. I’m trying desperately to finish re-writing the fantasy novel, aiming to get it it done in time to start a commissioned book which is on a deadline of early next year. However, many other things, all of which I need to get done, have got in my way. And next week it’s Half Term, so I’ll be looking after Thomas for half of every day. I don’t think people who don’t have special needs children really get how draining it is. Last Sunday, on Thomas and I’s weekly expedition to the Arboretum, I reached a breaking point. In order to make his Sundays the most relaxing time in terms of his autism, I’d been doing everything on that day in the same order every time. The trouble is, it had got so routine that the ‘driving along a familiar road’ part of my brain had started to run just about all of it, leaving the other part of my brain to… well, brood on the terrible things happening in the world and how bleak the future is. Plus, Thomas gets very vexed by roadworks, and we’re on a clock to get back in time for a McDonald’s bacon roll (which they only serve until 11am). (One of his things is being very nervous about timekeeping.) So he keeps up a pretty continual annoyed commentary at the cars in front of us, traffic lights, etc. When we get to the Arboretum, if he’s wound up by that point, which he now usually is, he runs ahead of me, so I get a cursory visit to my favourite place on Earth, with everything done just because we always do it, and no communication with my son, which was the point of us going there in the first place. So last Sunday I snapped, and raised my voice to him, and we had a row all the way home, and he just about melted down when we got home.

I apologised to him that night, and the next day we had a lovely time together at his drum lesson. But still, I spent the week feeling pummelled, and very vulnerable, anger and sadness very close to the surface. And I’m still there, honestly. A lovely cricket nets session on the Wednesday was spoiled by one of the newbies afterward casually revealing his far right stance. (Which was met, thank goodness, by awkward coughs and wit as his expense.) A was very tense at the Festival meeting. I had a meeting in London which seemed to me to be some sort of meaningless dream. I watched the new Mission: Impossible movie which both invoked the current end-of-the-world atmosphere and proved extremely lacklusture.

Last Saturday, I went to support Cav Scott at his Forbidden Planet signing in Bristol, which was pleasing, and popped into the wonderful Mike’s Comics in St. Nicholas Market in that city, but… I kid you not, I was caught in a fascist riot.

That is to say, I was aware there was some sort of demonstration going on in the city centre. It was, I read later, a pro-deportation march by an extremist party. There was also a counter demonstration. On the ground, with everyone going about their business around this small knot of police containing the protests, it was actually impossible to work out what they were about and who was who. I’d headed off down a bustling side street with a market filling one end of it, when around the corner, right in front of me, sprint a group of about fifteen men, all dressed head to foot in black, with balaclavas covering their faces. They’re running right at me. I had no idea if they intended violence to those in their way. I managed to dive into a betting shop, just as a bunch of folk inside came out of the doorway to see what the sudden noise was. When they reached the end of the street, two police officers with shields stepped out and yelled at them to turn back. One of the officers smacked the lead runner across the shoulder with his baton. The runners stumbled back, took a few camera pictures, then ran off back in the other direction. Everyone looking on went back to what they were doing.

I can only assume they were from one of the protests trying to outflank the other. But I have no idea whose side they were on. The everyday life all around on that hot afternoon made the whole thing seemed surreal. I think perhaps the men running down the street felt that others might join them. Instead, a moment later, I was leafing through old comics on a stall. I suppose I witnessed police brutality. I honestly don’t know how I feel about that. I should feel something, I suppose.

This Sunday, I’ve said to Thomas that we’re going to try mini golf, in a place he’s been to before, a visit he enjoys. He’s up for it. I’m hoping the differences in the expedition will be soothing for me, and okay for him. I need to try to find some space for my own mind… and to finish this bloody novel.

To Be Continued

No riots this week, I hope.

I hope to see all of you again next week!