Out now, from Bantam: ebooks of The Sword of Albion and The Scar-Crow Men.

Elizabethan spies, supernatural threat, and the forces of Faerie – just in time for Christmas (or the holiday of your choice).

Here’s the cover of the new German edition of World’s End. An interesting approach – that appears to be the long-buried bones of a dragon…

I’ve set up a Google+ page for my writing. Feel free to add me to your circles:

Mark Chadbourn on Google+

Here’s the cover to the third Swords of Albion book, The Devil’s Looking Glass, which is published in the UK April 2012.

Artist tbc.

It’s been very quiet around here in recent weeks, mainly because I’ve been pulling 12-hour days, seven days a week to finish up the final draft of The Devil’s Looking Glass, the third Swords of Albion book.

It’s now been delivered to my editors at Transworld in the UK and Pyr in the US.

Publication is scheduled for April 2012 in the UK. Not heard a date from Pyr yet. So tonight I will be having a beer or two to celebrate. And tomorrow…

Back to work on a new project.

Here’s a brief review of The Scar-Crow Men. The book is out in the UK in May.

UPDATE:
The first UK review from Lizzy.

I’m currently hard at work on the third book in the series, The Devil’s Looking Glass, with an expected delivery date of late June for publication in 2012.

According to my old publisher, ebooks now account for a quarter of all sales in their science fiction and fantasy categories, and that rate is increasingly rapidly. It’s understandable with so many early adopters in this genre, though I could have guessed it with the number of ebook queries I’ve been getting lately.

So as a resource, I thought I’d list all my ebooks currently available and point to those about to be published. You’ll find that below.

I’ve also recently been talking to some colleagues about making out-of-print backlist books available. A quick skim of the files suggests I could do Lord of Silence, the British Fantasy Award-winning The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke, a bunch of short stories, possibly in an anthology, the dark fantasy novels The Eternal, Nocturne, Scissorman, Underground and the non-fiction paranormal book Testimony. If you want to register any interest in these, contact me through the usual channels, or comment here, and I’ll talk to some people…

In the UK we have the full nine-book Brothers of Dragons sequence:

Age of Misrule
World’s End
Darkest Hour
Always Forever

The Dark Age
The Devil in Green
The Queen of Sinister
The Hounds of Avalon

Kingdom of the Serpent
Jack of Ravens
The Burning Man
Destroyer of Worlds

(I’m reliably informed that all these are also available in ePub format from Waterstones.

In the US, we have:

Age of Misrule
World’s End
Darkest Hour
Always Forever

The Dark Age
The Devil in Green
The Queen of Sinister
The Hounds of Avalon

Swords of Albion
The Silver Skull

In the UK, The Sword of Albion and The Scar-Crow Men will be available shortly. In the US, The Scar-Crow Men, Jack of Ravens, The Burning Man and Destroyer of Worlds will be out in the very near future.

If you want to announce your new book has just been published, this is the way to do it.

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Thanks to the always excellent John Anealio. And how many SFF books are on the shelves this month?????

The Sword of Albion has appeared in two best of 2010 lists – at SFFworld.net and at Rob Will Review.

Edit: make that three: The Eloquent Page also listed it, as Paul mentions in the comments…

You can pre-order the UK version here.

Or the US version here.

I’ve just been informed that my novel, World’s End, the first book of the Age of Misrule sequence, has been shortlisted for Prix Julia Verlanger, France’s premier SF/Fantasy book award.

Under it’s French title, La Nuit sans fin, the novel was published by Orbit towards the end of 2009.

The other nominees are:

Ceci n’est pas un jeu – Walter Jon Williams (L’Atalante)
Cygnis – Vincent Gessler (L’Atalante )
L’Empire ultime – Brandon Sanderson (Orbit)
Le Nom du Vent – Patrick Rothfuss (Bragelonne)
Nuigrave – Lorris Murail (Robert Laffont/Ailleurs & Demain)
L’Odyssée du temps 1 – Arthur C. Clarke & Stephen Baxter(Bragelonne)
Rien que l’Acier – Richard Morgan (Bragelonne)

Happy New Year everyone. A quick catch-up post as I get my head back into work-mode after the seasonal festivities, during which I saw and enjoyed both Sherlock Holmes and Avatar amid the usual carnage of what is my favourite time of year. I’m definitely a mid-winter person.

I’m currently snowed-in and watching the reports of Britain grinding to a halt (again). I’m afraid to consider how we’ll cope in a real catastrophe.

My work had a good showing among the usual “Best of…” lists, published at the end of 2009.

The Silver Skull (Swords of Albion) appeared in the favourite novels of Locus magazine critic Paul Witcover, SteveReads, Fantasy Book Critic Cindy’s best of 2009 list, and Fantasyliterature.com.

Meanwhile, Age of Misrule was flagged up in the best of 2009 lists of Rob Will Review, Fantasy Book Critic Cindy’s list (again!), and Nethspace.

Thanks to all.

The UK publication date for my new series, Swords of Albion - Elizabethan spies vs Faerie, in a nutshell – has just been announced by my publisher Bantam for April 2010. The book is now available for pre-order at the usual sites.

And a quick plea to all UK readers, please don’t order the US version, if you can possibly resist. The global market is causing a headache for publishers with staggered releases (it’s not always possible to align publication dates around the globe) – and if everyone orders the US version on import, my UK sales will tank and my editor will give me a good kicking.

The Age of Misrule Omnibus has sold out in the UK, although copies might still be available at retailer level. The Omnibus was always intended to be a short-term special edition, but the publisher was overwhelmed by the initial demand.

The story will still be available in the individual volumes – World’s End, Darkest Hour and Always Forever. World’s End has just gone into its fifth printing so there should be loads of copies around.

Hellboy cover

Cover by Duncan Fegredo and Dave Stewart. Details to follow

Here’s the cover for the forthcoming US publication of World’s End: Age of Misrule Book One. Please note it’s a WORK IN PROGRESS by the artist John Picacio, and will evolve. The final version will be released closer to publication (May 2009).

You can buy the book here.

“I am reminded of how the Sex Pistols kicked rock’n'roll stagnation where it hurts”.

Thanks to Nathan Brazil and SF Site.

I’ve seen early drafts of the covers for the American editions of World’s End, Darkest Hour and Always Forever, by the award-wining artist John Picacio, and they are absolutely breath-taking. Once John has got them into a form he feels comfortable with releasing publicly, I’ll post them here. But for the record, I’m very pleased.

For US readers, the books have just gone up on Amazon for pre-ordering. You can find them here:

Age of Misrule Book One: World’s End

Age of Misrule Book Two: Darkest Hour

Age of Misrule Book Three: Always Forever

Destroyer of Worlds done and delivered.

For those interested – and to allay some of the emails I’ve been getting – the first draft of Destroyer of Worlds: Book Three of Kingdom of the Serpent is now complete and we are still on course for an August 2009 publication.