- Paul Cornell's Friday Newsletter
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- Paul Cornell's Friday Newsletter
Paul Cornell's Friday Newsletter
For 15th September. A double release week, plus: I'm a guest!
Secret Invasion is Out Now! (And you can read the start for free.)
My novelisation of the Marvel comics series Secret Invasion is now in all good book shops!
The novel adapts the central mini-series of that name by Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Francis Yu, plus lots of excursions into the other comics involved in the crossover, my own Captain Britain and MI-13 included. I’m excited to be once again grappling with the Marvel Universe, and particularly to be writing for Faiza Hussain and Pete Wisdom again!
You can order the book from Amazon UK and Amazon US at those links, as well as from any other good online bookstore!
And you can read the opening chapter here at Marvel.com.

(Cover by Leinil Francis Yu.)
I’m a Guest at Thought Bubble!
As was announced this morning, I’m going to be a guest at this year’s Thought Bubble convention in Harrogate on November 11th-12th. It’s always a highlight of my year, and I’ll once more be meeting people and selling copies of my work all weekend, with Lizbeth Myles again being my table partner. I look forward to seeing some of you there.

Con and On #3 is Out Now! (And there are preview pages!)
The third issue of my satire on the comics industry across decades (with art from Marika Cresta), Con and On, is out now from Ahoy Comics. It’s 2008: fame grows and departs; Anthony Mole is not comfortable in the size of room he now has to sign in; death touches someone on the shoulder.
You can see the first few pages here at Graphic Policy.

(Cover by Peter Snejbjerg.)
October Subscriber Meet-Up
I’ll be Zoom meeting with paid subscribers again at 9pm UK time on Sunday, 29th October. The first one was great fun, so I’m going to keep this going for at least a while, see where it goes. Those subscribers will get an invite on the Friday before.
Witches of Lychford: Night of the Gnomes
My new sequel to my bestselling Witches of Lychford rural fantasy series (urban fantasy in the Cotswolds) is in the form of a serial right here on Substack, and lots of episodes are now out there!
On the first four Thursdays of every month, at 5pm BST (or GMT when we get there) paid subscribers will get an episode of the new serial. It’ll run until the end of November, then there’ll be a four-episode Christmas Special, then another new Lychford serial will run until the end of May, 2024. (So those who’ve subscribed for the whole year will get a full year of episodes.)
It’ll be absolutely fine for those who haven’t read the books to start reading with this serial, because we’ll re-introduce the whole concept. (Though you will be spoiled for what’s happened previously.) And paid subscribers can read all the previous episodes too, so you’ll be able to catch up if you join late.
Lychford is a little modern-day market town in the Cotswolds that borders many of the hidden worlds of the supernatural, the lands of the fairy folk, of demons, of a whole array of magical creatures. Protecting it are three very different women. There’s a lot of comedy in this series, mostly about the clash between everyday life and the world of magic, but there’s also some dark heartfelt emotional stuff and some real-world commentary on what life in such a town is like right now (because I live in such a town).
I’ve missed writing about Lizzie, Autumn, new coven member Zoya and their increasingly-large supporting cast of town councillors, pensioners and creatures of the night. I’m also looking forward to the rollercoaster of having to put fingers to keyboard on a regular basis.
To get this Lychford serial, just subscribe to the paid option on this Newsletter. It’s $8/month or $80/year.
Subscribed
And of course you’ll always get the Friday Newsletter and exclusive subscriber content for free. (And I don’t share your email address with anyone.)

If you’d like to catch up on the Lychford series up to now, five novellas have been published by Tor.com. You can find them all here at Bookshop.org and support UK indie bookstores, or here are links to the first one at Amazon US and Amazon UK.

And if you want to see the last story about my three heroines, it’s a Christmas story from a few years back, available for free here on my blog!
I’m looking forward to my adventure into serial fiction.
If you want to read the Prologue to Witches of Lychford: Night of the Gnomes, you can find it here for free.
Hammer House of Podcast
Hammer House of Podcast, in which myself and Lizbeth Myles watch the Hammer horror movies in UK release order, is out on the 13th of every month, with our September episode being about Dracula A.D. 1972. You can get these episodes free wherever you normally get your podcasts, as well as on our site, but if you sign up to our Patreon, for any sum of money from £1/$1, you get an extra episode every month too, on the 27th, in which we watch Patron requested movies and films from other horror studios of the same era.

(This film does not feature Christopher Lee in hotpants.)
Find my Books at Bookshop.Org and Help Out Indie Booksellers!
Bookshop.org is a collective selling tool that sets up a marketplace for all indie bookstores in the UK, functioning exactly like Amazon, except you’re supporting your local bookshop. You can find a selection of my books here, and I get a little cut of the proceeds too if you order from here!
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 artist Alison Sampson is, for the first time ever, taking on commissions, either to be finished and delivered to you at New York Comic Con, or shipped worldwide. Read all about it, and see more of her work, here.

Peter Bebergal, he author of so many great texts on the gothic, has a new essay up at the Virginia Quaterly Review, talking about the pop culture impact of Frankenstein’s Monster in the 1960s and 1970s and his own relationship to it.
And my first comics (and Doctor Who) editor John Freeman and my Doctor Who artistic collaborator Neil Edwards have a new comic, Pilgrim, that they’re funding via Kickstarter. Check out the video and rewards here.

My Week
It’s been a really good week. I’ve got my mental health in order, largely thanks to making sure I get a large dose of exercise every day, and new work has started to come in on a regular basis. I have deadlines again. So, as well as an exciting Zoom meeting, I sent off two pitches and the first episode of a new comic strip. I’ve also been proofreading the final PDF of The Complete(d) Saucer Country, which thus stands a chance of being in the hands of our backers by the end of the year. It’s a massive volume, and it’s intensly satisfying to me to have managed to finally get that story finished.
Also, the Thought Bubble guest announcement is very pleasing. It’s only my second time, and, as a long-term fan of this most wonderful of UK comics events, and also as someone who’s often paralysed by imposter syndrome, such recognition feels very welcome. (At last year’s event I was at perhaps my most socially hobbled, feeling unable to join in conversations even with fellow pros I counted as friends. Hopefully I’ll be able to mentally use the guest status to persuade myself I do actually belong.)
It also helps that Thomas has got back into the swing of school and is now having Good and Brilliant days again. There was a little bit of a setback on Saturday, when he had a big autistic meltdown about us watching the wrong TV show on the wrong night, but Caroline and I felt we had to maintain our right to do that. Thomas has to learn to deal with a little bit of pushback every now and then when it comes to letting other people live their lives. Since then, however, he’s relaxed, doesn’t have to exert control at home when he feels he’s lost it at school, and has had one of his favoured cold baths while obeying the rules about not getting water on the floor.
So all in all, with the weather now becoming slightly more apt for the time of year, I’m swinging around to wishing for the end of summer, embracing autumn, and looking forward hugely to Harrogate in November.
To Be Continued
I hope to see some of you in Harrogate, and all of you again next week!