News

March 2004

Alchymist (Scrutator) is published in the UK in trade paperback at the beginning of March.

Chimaera has finally gone to my editor (March 2). It's a bigger book again than any of the others (240,000 words or about 750 pages) and has been the hardest to write since The Tower on the Rift, which is going back a long way. I feel as though I've been beaten with mallets.

I had a brief rest (!) by dashing down to Sydney to the Magic Casements Festival at the NSW Writer's Centre, surely one of the most beautiful locations in the world for such a gathering, where I was on a fantasy panel with Sophie Masson and Robert Stevenson, and a future histories panel with Terry Dowling and Simon Brown. www.nswwriterscentre.org.au/

This was followed by a 600 km sprint from home in the other direction, to be Writer-in-Residence at a 3-day workshop near Toowoomba, QLD, on Sustainable Futures, with a host of luminaries including sustainable living guru Ezio Manzini. http://www.edf.edu.au/Resources/Manzini/ManziniWhoBody.htm.

Chimaera will be published in October in Australia and November in the UK, and I'm presently liaising with both publishers on their cover designs. This is the biggest year of my publishing life, with Chimaera wrapping up a fantasy series I've been working on since 1999, and The Life Lottery finishing the eco-thriller trilogy that's been going just as long.

And now, editing of The Life Lottery begins. I finished it so long ago it'll be like re-reading it from scratch.

I've also accepted an invitation to be one of the tutors at the second Clarion South Writing Workshop, to be held in Brisbane in January-February 2005. http://www.clarionsouth.org/about.htm. Other tutors will be Michael Swanwick, Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan, Sean Williams and Ellen Datlow. Enrolments are restricted to 17 so get your application in early.

February 2004

A Shadow on the Glass has its twelfth Australian printing and Geomancer its first reprint.

In the UK, Geomancer was the No. 15 bestselling fantasy paperback for 2003. Wow! I had no idea.

Tetrarch is published in the UK in A-format this month.

I'm working like a dog on Chimaera, the final book of the Well of Echoes Quartet, which is taking months longer than the other books have. It's proving rather tricky to wrap everything up at the end, to the standard I expect of the book.

January 2004

The Sydney Morning Herald runs a full page interview about my books and writing in the Saturday book section, Spectrum (January 17). It's the first time I've ever had major publicity for my writing.. It's not online, unfortunately.

Van Ikin, SF reviewer for the Herald since 1984, does a terrific review of Scrutator, which he describes as 'The most engrossing book I've read in years' (January 31).

December 2003

I've accepted an offer from Fantasy World Publishers, Athens, Greece, for Greek publication of The Well of Echoes. The first book will appear in mid-2005 and the others at 6-monthly intervals.

Terminator Gene is shortlisted for the Aurealis Award for best SF novel of 2003. The Aurealis winners will be revealed at Swancon in Perth in April 2004. http://www.sf.org.au/aurealis/aa2003.html

Scrutator receives an Honourable Mention in the Aurealis shortlists for best fantasy novel of 2003.

Scrutator is one of five speculative fiction titles listed in the Sydney Morning Herald's BEST BOOKS OF 2003 (December 6). Reviewer Tim Cadman describes the series as 'Superb.' http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/05/1070351774413.html

November 2003

I've signed two new contracts with Penguin Books Australia, hurrah! The first is a three-book contract for a new Three Worlds trilogy entitled The Song of the Tears. This series will follow on from The Well of Echoes, ten years later. Santhenar has been transformed as a result of what happens at the end of The Well of Echoes, and the new series will follow some of the surviving (!) characters as well as a host of new ones. I'll start writing the first book of the Song cycle in mid-2004, for publication towards the end of 2005.

The second contract is for the first book in a fantasy quintet for slightly younger readers, loosely entitled The Childrens' War. It's set in a completely different fantasy environment, the parallel worlds of Earth and Iltior. The first book will be called The Gate to Nowhere and it will be published in Australia in early-mid 2005.

The View from the Mirror now has over 400,000 copies in print and net sales have topped 300,000, which is pretty amazing.

October 2003

Scrutator is published in Australia in trade paperback and I'm doing a lot of interviews, though thankfully only on the phone. At 219,000 words it's the longest book I've ever written and, I think, the best. It certainly made me sweat more than any book I've written in the last five years. The mass market edition will appear in July 2004.

In the UK the book will be called Alchymist and will be published in trade paperback at the beginning of March 2004. The A-format edition will appear in December 2004.

September 2003

The Life Lottery, the third of my trilogy of eco-thrillers entitled Human Rites, is delivered to my editor at Simon & Schuster Australia, for publication in August 2004.

De Schaduw Op Het Glas (A Shadow on the Glass) is published in the Netherlands in a lovely trade edition.

A Shadow on the Glass has its seventh printing in the UK. It was first published there in 2000.

I was Guest of Honour at the inaugural Uralla Book Fair, near Armidale in northern NSW, a lovely hospitable place and I hope the festival works out in future. http://bart.northnet.com.au/~newc/Uralla_Book_Festival.htm. I also gave a two-day fantasy writing workshop. Very enthusiastic students and much to learn as well as teach.