You don’t want to seem like a nutter when you’re on public radio. So when the host asks me – as they always do – where do you get your ideas from, I steer clear of the truthful answer: “psychic connections through the aether” or “hypnagogic messages dictated by our mysterious overlords“. I usually mutter something about stumbling across an interesting fact. Always go for the boring option. It keeps you out of the coats with no arms.

But we can speak honestly here. We all know about the mysterious connections in life. The stuff that goes on behind all those scientific processes. The weird, inexplicable occurrences lurking in the corners of day-to-day existence. The gods and imps and fairies and demons that we like to call other things because, you know, that whole coats with no arms thing…

When I say “the universe speaks to me”, I mean it speaks to all writers, all musicians, all artists. We each tend to put a different face on it, but it’s the same voice. So where do my gods and fairies and demons lurk?

In pubs with stone and timber and glowering locals and beer with strange names. In deep rural life which city folk think is backward, but is wild and dangerous and so removed it might as well be another planet. In bands that you might stumble across in the back rooms of pubs and never hear from again. In stone circles, crumbling ruins, lonely pools, old houses. Across those city liminal zones – industrial estates under sodium at 3am, empty, broken-windowed factories and wasteground with rainbow-streaked puddles. In black-faced, mirror-glassed morris men and biker gangs. In snatches of music heard after midnight. In moots and meets and markets held under moonlight. These are the places where stories are born. These are the locations where my writing gods live.

And for a specific example, here’s one of the inspirations for Age of Misrule…

The Dancing Did remain one of my favourite bands, a quarter of a century after they split up. Characterised as “neo rustic pagan bop” or “a cross between The Clash and Steeleye Span”, you can find out more about them here.

Their album, And Did Those Feet, is little-known but essential, particularly if you like fantasy or any of those things I listed above. The lyrics are clever, witty and poetic and deal with ancient things encroaching on the modern world – listen to ‘The Wolves of Worcestershire‘ or ‘Charnel Boy‘. A remixed version with a booklet and additional tracks is available from Cherry Red.

The Dancing Did’s thematic equivalent today may well be Cornish collective Kemper Norton though the music is very, very different. I came across them through the regular ravings of Warren Ellis, another fan. More inspiration. I bet they never imagined they’d be dragging a story about Elizabethan spies and Faerie into the light…

Medieval knights hid and secretly venerated The Holy Shroud of Turin for more than 100 years after the Crusades, the Vatican said yesterday in an announcement that appeared to solve the mystery of the relic’s missing years.

They had the Loch Ness Monster and a crashed alien spaceship too.

Today I signed a major three-book deal with UK publisher Transworld for an epic Elizabethan fantasy. ‘The Swords of Albion’ will be published annually from 2010, in the UK and Commonwealth. The sequence has also been acquired by a US publisher, and I’ll be talking more about that later.

It’s an epic story filled with intrigue, mystery, adventure and romance, set against the rich backdrop of the Elizabethan era. I hope it’ll appeal to readers of both fantasy and historical fiction. I’m very excited to be working with Transworld for the first time on the launch of this new series.

You want to know what it’s about? Here’s the pitch:

‘Spies are men of doubtful credit, who make a show of one thing and speak another.’ ~ Mary, Queen of Scots

A devilish plot to assassinate the Queen, a Cold War enemy hell-bent on destroying the nation, incredible gadgets, a race against time around the world to stop the ultimate doomsday device…and Elizabethan England’s greatest spy!

Meet Will Swyfte – adventurer, swordsman, rake, swashbuckler, wit, scholar and the greatest of Walsingham’s new band of spies. His exploits against the forces of Philip of Spain have made him a national hero, lauded from Carlisle to Kent. Yet his associates can barely disguise their incredulity – what is the point of a spy whose face and name is known across Europe?

But Swyfte’s public image is a carefully-crafted façade to give the people of England something to believe in, and to allow them to sleep peacefully at night. It deflects attention from his real work – and the true reason why Walsingham’s spy network was established.

A Cold War seethes, and England remains under a state of threat. The forces of Faerie have been preying on humanity for millennia. Responsible for our myths and legends, of gods and fairies, dragons, griffins, devils, imps and every other supernatural menace that has haunted our dreams, this power in the darkness has seen humans as playthings to be tormented, hunted or eradicated.

But now England is fighting back!

Magical defences have been put in place by the Queen’s sorcerer Dr John Dee, who is also a senior member of Walsingham’s secret service and provides many of the bizarre gadgets utilised by the spies. Finally there is a balance of power. But the Cold War is threatening to turn hot at any moment…

Will now plays a constant game of deceit and death, holding back the Enemy’s repeated incursions, dealing in a shadowy world of plots and counter-plots, deceptions, secrets, murder, where no one… and no thing…is quite what it seems.

The entire world is the battleground – from Russia, across Europe, to the Caribbean and the New World. And while great events play out in the public eye, the true struggle takes place behind the scenes: the Spanish Armada, the Throckmorton Plot, the colonisation of the Americas, the Court intrigues, the battles in Ireland and against Spain, the death of Marlowe, the plagues, the art, the music, the piracy, the great discoveries…all are simply window-dressing as the great sweep of recorded history is peeled back to show the truth behind.

My short story, Who Slays the Gyant, Wounds the Beast, starring Will Swyfte, Elizabethan England’s greatest spy, has been selected as one of the best short stories of the year for the prestigious Year’s Best Fantasy anthology.

Edited by David G Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, the annual book – this one is number eight – also features work by Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, Tad Williams, Elizabeth Hand, Jeffrey Ford and more. Full list on the link above.

The story, originally published in the Solaris Book of New Fantasy has received a fair amount of pleasing praise from various corners, including media commentator and editor Lou Anders among others.

All of this bodes very well for more tales of Will Swyfte and his secret war with faerie.

The first review of my short story Who Slays the Gyant, Wounds the Beast from the Solaris Book of New Fantasy is here.

You may recall the story stars Elizabethan England’s greatest spy Will Swyfte from Jack of Ravens. There’s actually been quite a lot of interest in my swashbuckling hero. More soon, possibly…

Pimp alert. The good people at Solaris have kindly offered to publish one of my short stories in their excellent new anthology. The story is called ‘Who Slays the Gyant, Wounds the Beast’ and features Elizabethan England’s greatest spy, Will Swyfte, the devilish forces of Faerie, intrigue, romance and a touch of swashbuckling.

And if that’s not enough – and why should it be? – the book also includes work by Steven Erikson, Juliet E McKenna, Lucius Shepard, Jeff Vandermeer, Hal Duncan, Janny Wurts and more. Find out more about it here and buy it in the UK here for the very reasonable price of £2.82 (currently) and in the US here for $7.99.

Will Swyfte, who made his debut in the Elizabethan chapter of Jack of Ravens will be going solo in a new short story to appear in a prestigious fantasy anthology from Solaris later this year.

Entitled ‘Who Slays the Gyant, Wounds the Beast’, the tale fits into the mythos established in my recent books. It’s Christmas Eve, 1598, and the aristocracy of Elizabeth’s court has gathered at a country house for a night of debauchery. Will Swyfte, Elizabethan England’s greatest spy, is despatched by spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham to prevent a terrible turning point in the cold war with Faerie. But the Tuatha de Danann are gathered in the cold wastes beyond the house and will do anything to achieve their aim before dawn breaks.

Details on publication date and other authors coming shortly.