Paul Cornell's Friday Newsletter

Telefantasy Time Jump #1 is Out Now!

The first episode of the new podcast from me and Lizbeth Myles, Telefantasy Time Jump, is out now. In this series, every month we’ll be covering a show from the history of UK Science Fiction and Fantasy TV, as we make our way through that history, starting with 1953 and The Quatermass Experiment. We also cover all the many UK SF TV shows from before 1953, and talk about what else was being made in the genre in the UK in that year.

Episodes will be released on the 14th of every month, and you can find them wherever you get your podcasts.

If you become a Patron at £3/$3 or above, you also get an extra monthly episode on the 28th of every month, covering what the rest of the world was doing in SFF TV in that same year. For 1953, we’ll be covering the young James Doohan in the Canadian show Space Command. You also get access to seven years of bonus episodes from the Hammer House of Podcast archive.

We hope you’ll join us on our new journey. You can find all the details, and listen to the episodes, here.

Pocket Gamer Connects London

I’m going to be on a panel at a games event this month! Pocket Gamer Connects London runs on 20th-21st January. I’ll be part of the panel ‘The Art Of Writing For Games – Lessons From Other Narrative Formats’, which will be at 4.30pm on 21st January in Track Room 3, in the Beyond Games track.

Of Shadows, Stars and Sabers

I have a new short story in a new original anthology, Of Shadows, Stars and Sabers, edited by Jendia Gammon and Gareth L. Powell, and I’m alongside a stellar group of authors, including Adrian Tchaikovsky, David Quantick, Stark Holborn and Lizbeth Myles! The book is out on February 11th, and is available for pre-order from all these different vendors!

There’s also an in-store event featuring many of the authors at San Diego’s Mysterious Galaxy bookstore on February 22nd at 2pm!

XTNCT is Out Again!

The current issue (#190) of the Hachette partwork 2000AD: The Ultimate Collection includes the complete XTNCT by myself and artist D’Israeli.

“ON A FAR-FUTURE EARTH, ONLY A FEW HUNDRED HUMANS SURVIVE AND WAGE WAR against themselves using genetically engineered plants and animals. A Crack team of GM dinosaurs have sworn revenge on mankind and are seeking to make them extinct…”

It’s great to see one of my favourite strips back in print.

For Your Awards Consideration

The project I’ve had out in 2024 that I’d like to put forward for any award nominations you might be considering this year is The Complete(d) Saucer Country by myself and artist Ryan Kelly, published by Image. (It’s weird not to have put out anything that would qualify for the Scribe Awards, but having had a Hugo Awards Best Graphic Story or Comic run last year I might have a shot there.) Thanks very much for considering it.

My Ko-fi and eBay Stores Re-Stocked!

I’ve re-stocked my Ko-fi store, where you can buy my books and comics, signed and personalised, for shipping worldwide.

Similarly, I’ve now re-stocked my ebay store, full of Bronze Age Marvel comics at bargain prices.

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!

My Week

I delivered my non-fiction book last Friday, and have been joyfully immersed in my fantasy novel ever since. I was really loving it, thinking it was my best work, until, in revising what I already had to prepare for going forward, I hit a major plot snag and had to spend a day thinking very hard about how I could solve it, because the book would make no sense otherwise. But I got there! And having put in the hard yards I feel even more like a proper novelist again.

Also this week, meetings about projects you haven’t heard about yet, and seeing loads of finished pages of Who Killed Nessie? from Rachael Smith, which is an utter delight. (We’re well on course to deliver on time.)

So mainly this week I want to tell you a story about Thomas. He lost a tooth this week, and so, as is customary, one of us (Caroline this time) snuck into his room after he was asleep, found the tooth he’d left under his pillow and replaced it with some chocolate coins. Unfortunately, when Thomas woke up and took the foil off the coins, he found the chocolate inside had gone a little pale, and wouldn’t eat them. He was hence disgruntled. I told him I’d buy him some replacement chocolate coins and would write the tooth fairy a stern letter. The following evening, when he went to bed, he found this under his pillow.

He came back downstairs, read it to us, and said, entirely matter-of-fact-ly, ‘so that’s what happened’.

That gave me a whole week of feeling like the best Dad ever, which is a rare treat. Part of me feels that Thomas shouldn’t be quite so open to the fantastical at the age of twelve, that it’s part of his autism that he accepts the world as being odd in every direction. But I also feel it’s something that should be enjoyed while it lasts.

To Be Continued

All sorts of great stuff coming up this year. Just you wait!

And I hope to see you all here again next week.