The fine folks at Angry Robot are gearing up their diesel-powered PR machine for the impending debut of Amortals. Check out the snazzy action-movie-style cover on the left for a good gander at their graphic-design chops. I’m in total love with it and have been staring at it as my computer’s desktop background for months.

I have a lot more to say about the book and to help promote it myself, but I’m still blazing away at Vegas Knights, my next novel after that. Just brace yourself for loads of information about the book and why you’re going to want to grab copies for yourself and all your friends.

While I’m chained to my keyboard, though, the Robots are still hard at work. They recently released e-book ARCs (advanced reader copies) of Amortals to their Robot Army. If you’re a blogger or reviewer with a penchant for great genre fiction, you can volunteer for the Robot Army and get early access to Amortals and all sorts of other excellent books too.

They must have some fast readers in the Robot Army because one of them has already posted Amortal’s first review, and it’s a good one. (Whew!) As Lisa Farrell writes, “I really enjoyed this novel. It’s gripping, exciting, imaginative.” My favorite part of the review, of course, is its complaint: “My only gripe is, this novel is really American. I mean really American.”

Guilty as charged. I can’t wait for the rest of you to read it.

It’s been a long time coming—longer than I thought it would be—but I finally finished Amortals and shipped it off to the fine folks at Angry Robot. It seems like this fall has been a rigorous series of disruptions designed to throw me off track, but the book is done and in the hands of Marc Gascoigne and Lee Harris, where it belongs.

This is a good thing, as the book is due in stores in the UK and Australia in April. Those of us in the rest of the world get to put our hands on it in June.

Next up? Vegas Knights. But first, I think there’s some sort of holiday season coming up fast.

The fine people at Angry Robot have announced the release dates for both Amortals and Vegas Knights, my first two original novels. Amortals should be out in the UK and Australia in April 2010 and in the US and the rest of the world in June 2010. Vegas Knights is slated to hit the UK and Australia in June 2010 too, with the US/rest of the world release in July. Combine that with the release of my upcoming Guild Wars novel sometime next year, and it’s shaping up to be an amazing summer.

Now I just have to finish writing them.

My friends (and publishers) at Angry Robot have helpfully provided a solution for all your Halloween costuming needs: the Angry Robot mask. Just print, cut, strap (or staple, glue, weld, etc.), and you’re all set to scare the simpering souls out of your fleshy, free-willed friends.

Better yet, the Angry Robots promise the nebulous award of “prizes” for the best photos taken that include Angry Robot masks. That’s over and above the fun from playing with/wearing/fearing the mask itself, I think.

[By the way, if you're interested in review copies of Angry Robot books, plus a shot at other prizes, be sure to join the Robot Army too.]

I’m now told that Amortals, my first original novel, will be delayed until the spring. For various reasons, the Angry Robots decided that this would be a better launch window for the novel. That means you can expect to see it in the UK in April and the US in June.

I would love to have the book out now, now, NOW, but I understand the decision. What’s more, I’m all for it because it gives us more time for two things.

1. To make the book as excellent as it can be.
2. To give us plenty of time to ramp up the marketing for the book.

That means I’ll have a book I can be most proud of and that will sell as best it can. For that, I can be a bit more patient. And so, I hope, can you.

In the meantime, here’s something to whet your appetite: the sales text posted on Amortal’s HarperCollins page:

Today you die.

Today you are reborn.

Today you hunt the man who killed you.

It’s Lee Child vs. Altered Carbon in a high-tech blast of tough-as-nails future thrills.

Matt Forbeck arrives as the new king of high-concept — with a blockbuster action movie in a book. In the near future, scientists solve the problem of mortality by learning how to backup and restore a persons memories into a vat-bred clone. When Secret Service agent Ronan “Methusaleh” Dooley is brutally murdered, he’s brought back from the dead to hunt his killer, and in doing so uncover a terrible conspiracy.

FILE UNDER:Science Fiction [Future Thriller / Cheat Death / Rogue Agents / Who Killed Who?]

Angry Robot, the new imprint from HarperCollins that happens to be publishing two of my novels next year, is having its official UK launch party on October 10th, 2009, at the London Megastore location of Forbidden Planet. Come on out and meet authors Dan Abnett, Andy Remic, and Colin Harvey, plus the triumvirate of Angry Robots themselves: Marc Gascoigne, Lee Harris, and Chris Michaels. The event starts at 12:30 and ends at 2 PM. If you’re anywhere near the area and love great science-fiction and fantasy, be sure to stop by and say hi!

I had a fantastic time at PAX (the Penny Arcade Expo) last weekend. Unfortunately, since then I’ve been laid up with some evil con crud, and that’s substantially changed a few things in my schedule.

Allow me to explain.

Read the rest of this entry »

The press release went out early this morning (my time), which means I can finally announce that I’ve signed a deal for two original novels with Angry Robot, a new imprint of HarperCollins run by my old friend Marc Gascoigne (formerly of Black Library fame). This puts my new novels in some excellent company among the early Angry Robot releases, including books by my friends Rob King, Tim Waggoner, Dan Abnett, and (also announced today!) Maurice Broaddus.  

As the press release says, the first of these books is Amortals, a gritty science-fiction mystery thriller in which the wealthy have unlocked the secret of eternal life by backing up their minds and uploading them into clones—which works fine until the world’s oldest man wakes up in a new body and has to solve his own murder. The second is Vegas Knights, a modern fantasy heist/con story set in the City of Sin, in which a few young wizards decide to use their talents to break the bank, only to get played by wizards working for the house.

These are both stories I’ve been itching to tell for a long time, and I’m thrilled to finally be able to sit down and start writing them—just as soon as I polish off the first Guild Wars novel, of course! One of the banes of the working writer is that after a full day of writing other stuff, it’s difficult to carve out time to work on your own stories, especially without a guaranteed sale waiting for those books when you’re done. Now I have that, and I’m ready to roll!

More as I write it. Woot!