Announcing To End All Wars

It felt like I spent the back end of last year sitting on more news than I was sharing, but finally I get to announce one of those big secrets that it's been driving me crazy to keep quiet about, and that's that my novel To End All Wars will be coming out this year from publisher Aethon Books.  Indeed, it's actually quite far on in the process, as I'll come to in a minute, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's out sooner rather than later.

To End All Wars was one of three novels that materialised out of the reckless burst of creativity that was my first year of writing full time - the other two being The Bad Neighbour and what ended up as A Savage Generation, both of which have since come out via Flame Tree Press.  But of those projects, To End All Wars was by far the most personal, the most ambitious, and probably in many ways the most difficult, both from the point of view of writing it and the point of view of subsequently convincing anyone that it was a valid commercial prospect.  For To End All Wars belongs to what, so far as I can tell, is an extremely small sub-genre, maybe even a sub-genre of one: it's a serious science-fiction story set during the First World War.  Or, thinking about it, maybe it's a novel about the First World War that happens to contain some elements of science-fiction, but either way, there are surprisingly few books out there that bring the two together.

But Aethon, thank goodness, were willing to look past that hard-to-categorise awkwardness to the equally hard to categorise book underneath.  They're a new publisher for me, and their approach is excitingly different to what I'm used to: To End All Wars will be out in all the usual formats, but there's an added focus on the audio edition, which they're putting a good deal more care into than usual.  And for that reason and others, while I've been unusually lucky on that front, I  suspect this one's going to be in a whole 'nother league.  The book's currently in the hands of actor Macleod Andrews and, based on the brief sample I've heard, I've got absolute confidence that he'll bring infinitely more to it than a mere reading, because that sample was as faithful to the tone of To End All Wars as I could have hoped for.  Oh, and the same, by the way, goes for the cover art; isn't that stunning?  I'm still amazed every time I see it, it's so precisely what I had in mind and so full of the sort of period-specific detail that only a seriously dedicated artist would bother to get right.

The upshot is, the book of mine that I'm perhaps proudest of, and certainly poured most of myself into, is finally close to seeing the light of the day, Aethon are knocking it out of the park on the presentation front, and I can't wait to have it out there and in people's hands - and, perhaps even more so, their ears.  As ever, I'm bound to be talking a lot more about this one now that the cat's out of the bag, and hopefully that'll include a release date in the not-too-distant future.  But for the moment, I guess I'll just go back to gaping at that cover art in slack-jawed delight and listening to Macleod's sample recording over and over again.

2019: Is It Bad to Have Had a Good Year?

Looking back, it feels absurd to say that 2019 was a good year, even when I'm only trying to sum up my own experiences.  Whatever your stance, it's safe to assume you probably got as fed up as everyone did with the unremitting tire fire that was British and US politics, which increasingly looked like a cruel parody of how you might imagine modern democracies ought to be run.  And even all that seemed like nothing besides a messy sideshow to far more cataclysmic problems, as the world in general finally caught on to the fact that we're not centuries but decades away from irreparably trashing the only planet we have and then proceeded to go back to sticking its fingers in its ears and whistling.  In the face of all that, anything that's not screaming despair seems a bit silly.

Still.  Personally I had a pretty good year, all told.

To immediately row back from that glimpse of optimism, it's fair to say that probably had a lot to do with 2019 not being the horror show of 2018, and thus being better basically by default.  But it's also fair to say that, while it had its share of tribulations, nothing went horrifically wrong, and there were a lot of happier moments along the way.  On the writing front, I was convinced at the end of 2018 that I wouldn't still be in business by this point, and I am, and I have four books lined up, among them a project with one of my favourite publishers that came absolutely out of the blue.  In that sense, it's probably also true that 2019's biggest virtue is the extent to which it set up good stuff for 2020.  Okay, so I have no clue how I'm going to get through this one, either, the money hasn't exactly been rolling in and I can't keep on operating at a loss forever, but this time I'm determined to stick with the writing career for another twelve months at least.  Things have gone well enough to warrant that commitment, but even if they hadn't, there are a couple of novels I'm itching to write and I'd really like to get one of them out of my system.

And it's not as though 2019 didn't have a few legitimate high points.  I've had a couple more books released, that's certainly something.  With some doubts towards the end of last year as to the future of the Black River Chronicles, it was a tremendous relief to get book three, Eye of the Observer, out there, knowing I'd be wrapping up the series exactly as I was hoping to in the upcoming Graduate or Die.  And while the release of my standalone thriller A Savage Generation wasn't such a joyous experience - the reception has been on the decidedly quiet side - I was still glad to finally usher it into the world after a gestation period of nigh on a decade.  After all that time and so much revision, I was past the point where I could objectively say whether it was any good, so the fact that what reviews there have been are positive was a big weight off.  Sad to say, the under-performance of both my books with Flame Tree Press means that writing more thrillers in the foreseeable future feels like too big a gamble, but I hope it's something I'll return to eventually, since I feel like I didn't altogether suck at it.

Elsewhere, while the short story side of things didn't prove terribly profitable, a lot of what I had out was exciting in its own right.  After a desperately slow start, the year saw my first translations into Italian and Japanese, my first pick for a best-of anthology, a return to Interzone after too long a gap and my fourth appearance in those stunning hardback anthologies the other branch of Flame Tree have been routinely putting out.  Add to that a couple of new stories appearing and a couple more reprint sales upcoming for this year, and the short fiction front definitely offered up its share of treats, not to mention a reminder that it's something I really want to go back to devoting more energy to if I can possibly find the time.

And then there's the personal stuff, which hasn't been particularly dramatic and was all the better for that.  Mostly it was a case of plodding along, both figuratively and literally; most of my happiest moments were spent wandering in the wilds, and the highlight of my year was getting through all twenty-six miles of the Yorkshire Three Peaks on my own, an achievement I've been meaning to tick off my bucket list for an awfully long time but certainly didn't expect to enjoy half so much as I did, or to get such phenomenal weather for.  Oh, and I got to the end of my first fully fledged D&D campaign, which was an awesome experience ... thank you, Jimi, if you happen to read this, for the immense amounts of work you put into our crazy epic of an adventure, I'm about to wrap up a four book series and I still don't have a clue how you pulled it all together!

Now, I'm not much for new year's resolutions, and if I was going to make any, they'd mostly involve continuing stuff I've already started.  Foremost is a bid to stop working such nutty hours, which I've made some real advances with - yay for not hammering away until nine o'clock most nights! - but still have a way to go on.  Generally I've come to appreciate that you can't become a successful writer by simply throwing every waking hour at your career, or that maybe you can, but it's probably never going to be worth it in the long term from the point of view of not becoming a burned-out shell of a human being.  This job has demanded a lot of me over the last decade, and I don't resent that - I hope to have fourteen or fifteen books out by the end of 2020, and that seems a fair payoff - but there are other things I'd like to be devoting attention to, and it would be amazing to get to the end of a year and not feel ready to drop.  Actually, I think that maybe is my new year's resolution: to not put writing first to the extent that it totally kicks my ass.  That seems reasonable, right?  If I could pull that off, get these upcoming books out, and, I dunno, maybe make some proper headway with my snail-paced attempts to learn Japanese, then I reckon that'll be 2020 put to good use.

My Fantasycon 2019 Schedule

I've been largely skiving from the convention scene this year, and 2019 might even have proved to be the first year in goodness knows how long that I didn't go to any at all, but a recent bit of (as yet undisclosed!) good news spurred me to take the leap and, as the kids say, get me some Fantasycon.  And at time of writing, I'm glad I did, since I've managed to blag my way onto a lot of fun, interesting stuff over the course of the weekend.  Here's what that looks like:

Friday 7pm - Scotland on Screen (with Allen Stroud, Shona Kinsella & Heather Valentine)

Highlanders, Outlanders, Trainspotters, Scots! The best of Genre film that draws on Scotland for inspiration, direct or otherwise.

Honestly, I'm not sure there's forty-five minutes of subject matter here, and yet, of all my three panels, this is the one I'm most excited for, partly because I love talking movies and partly because I love even more talking about obscure movies, and this has the scope to get pretty damn obscure!

Sat 1pm - YA genre fiction (with AK Faulkner & Ian Hunter)

Writing it, reading it, what works, what doesn’t, and how it overlaps with fiction marketed towards older and younger readers. What do you want to see more of? What gives it a sustained home in our hearts?

Whereas this is theoretically safe territory, except that my approach to writing for young adults is just to write for adults and hope no-one ever calls me out on it.

Sat 3pm - Person or Pet? (with RJ Barker Katherine Inskip & Jacey Bedford )

Sentient non-humans, nonsentient pets, soulbonds and free will in fantasy stories. The panel explore the muddy waters of how we treat non-human characters, and the problematic issues of consent tied into these tropes

In which I'll be talking a lot about a certain floating eyeball companion who, as up-to-date Black River Chronicles readers will know, is steadily getting that series' weirdest plot line.  Yes, it's the Pootle panel!

Sat 5.45pm - Reading

Though actually, due to an apparent programming snafu, my slot amounts to eight minutes or so somewhere between half five and six o'clock, since there are three of us crammed in there.  Then again, I have Pete Sutton and Ramsey Campbell as more than respectable company, and I'm sure that if I talk fast I can get through a page or three.  It'll almost certainly be from the newly out A Savage Generation, assuming I don't forget to bring a copy.

Sat 10pm - Dungeons & Disorderly D3: Vault of the Cow (with David Thomas Moore, Mike Brooks, Ali Nouraei, Stewart Hotston & Jonathan Oliver)

The Terrifying Sorcerer of Terrifying Evil has been defeated, the Sheep on the Borderlands sheared and penned, and the Temple of Elemental Weevils properly fumigated. It is time to venture in the Underdork! In module D3, Vault of the Cow, the players will clash with the sinister, mysterious race known only as The Cow of the Underdark...

Very likely to be the highlight of my event weekend, this, since David Thomas Moore's surreal, audience-interactive role-playing pastiche proved great fun last year, when my barbarian accountant managed to save the day (or possibly undermine the entire quest, I can't exactly remember) by realising at the last minute that our party had gone over budget.  Incidentally, gang, I'm still waiting on your expenses claim forms, and no, Lembas bread is not tax deductible.

-oOo-

So that's me.  I'll be around from around six on the Friday, assuming that by some rare miracle the British transport system doesn't fail me, and ducking out at banquet-time on the Sunday, since banquets are a tool of the wealthy oppressor and not for us impoverished writer types.  (Okay, it's mainly because I want to get home in time for tea.)  Do find me and say hello if you're there, and assuming I genuinely don't forget, I might have a few budget copies of A Savage Generation to sell to anyone who's interested.

A Savage Generation Reviews Round-Up

A Savage Generation has been out for a couple of weeks now and has already gathered itself a smattering of reviews, so I thought I'd compile them here for anyone who's on the fence about grabbing a copy.  Fortunately, they mostly seem to be very positive, and a couple are seriously glowing, so clearly the consensus is that you should!

Given how far outside my usual wheelhouse this one is, it was reassuring to discover that a couple of people I know to be familiar with my wider work hadn't been put off.  Andy Angel, who blogs at Ebookwyrm's BlogCave, must have read just about everything I've written, as he himself says: "I'll admit I'm a big fan of Tallerman and his writing in various genres, I've been reading him for years."  So that he concluded, "I tell it as it is and this is one of his best" means a lot!  The same goes for Theresa Derwin's very thorough (and five star) review on Goodreads, which I'd recommend to anyone who wants to get a solid sense of what the book's about, since it does a great job of setting out the major characters, conflicts, and themes.  And she wraps up by saying that "It’s an excellent novel and there were genuinely tense moments throughout, as well as some great characters.  Another great book from Tallerman."

Of course, you can never be totally certain that people you've met aren't sparing your feelings ever so slightly, so it's reassuring to get a similar response from total strangers!  There's a nice, in-depth write-up at The Coy Caterpillar Reads which begins "The book world is rife with Post-Apocalyptic novels of zombies, disease and despair.  A Savage Generation cracks that mould and gives us something alarmingly real" and ends "Overall, this one of the best Post-Apocalyptic novels I have had the pleasure of reading."  But perhaps my favourite of the exceedingly positive reviews is the one from Bekah's Bookshelves, which states that "I read a lot of post apocalyptic fiction and I'd say this book is up there with the better ones."  While the reviewer struggled to start with - "Initially it was a little difficult to connect with the characters as the book switches POV quite frequently" - she urges that it's worth sticking with to "...see all these different characters come together in unexpected ways" and wraps up, "I highly recommend this book..."

Not quite so positive or detailed, but still definitely on the thumbs up side of things, there's the review at The Bookwormery, which notes, "...while this does feel like an episode of The Walking Dead, there is so much more to it. Yes the Sickers are out there and if they bite, scratch or spit on you, you will get infected, BUT, this is also about children, and how they are affected, left to pretty much fend for themselves while the adults plot and fight amongst themselves and the Sickers."  And Booker T's Farm awards 3 paws, which I think is a fairly good amount of paws, and says, "I found "A Savage Generation" to be a very action-packed, speedy read.  I was invested in what was happening to most of the characters," adding, "I felt an attachment to some while others I not-so-secretly wished would meet then demise."  Given how horrid a few of them are, that seems fair enough to me!

Inevitably, there were bound to be people who didn't dig A Savage Generation quite so much, and one of those was The Caffeinated Reader, though they're nice enough to point out that the only real reason was down to personal taste: "I would have enjoyed this SO much more if it hadn’t been in the present tense and I have to say because it was I found it a struggle to get through, just solely on that. Because the plot is interesting, the characters are stereotypical but I’m not looking for unique ones in a zombie story, they’re appropriately awesome and simultaneously scared sh**less when the time calls for it."  In fact, does that even count as a negative review?  They even add that "it’s not the book, it’s me" which seems awfully fair-minded.  So that only leaves Dark Reads, and even they didn't exactly hate it.  While they "...found the story slow moving and ... didn’t get the suspense and excitement I would usually get from this type of book" the reviewer does go on to say that "overall ... the premise, imagery and writing were good, this one just didn’t work for me on an emotional level."

So there we go!  A fair bit of love, a lot of liking, and a couple of folks who didn't get on with A Savage Generation but were nice enough to point out that maybe the book wasn't altogether at fault.  Given some of the bizarre reviews I've had before now - yes, person who gave the second Black River book one star based on the synopsis, I'm thinking of you! - I'm pretty happy with that.  And if you've been won over, you can find A Savage Generation at all the usual stockists, in e-book, audiobook, paperback and really lovely hardback edition.

Black River Latest, A Savage Generation Updates, and Other Vague News

Ah, writing!  You'll have months of trudging, just trying to hit the next deadline, months of getting lost in a project, months when nothing much comes along and it feels like nothing might ever again, and then suddenly everything kicks off all at once and just won't stop.  That's certainly what's been happening in recent weeks, in a mostly good (but also baffling and exhausting!) fashion.

Much of that comes down to the Black River books, and the fact that my clumsy scheduling left me getting the third ready for publication while writing the first draft of the fourth and final book.  On that initial front, the news is all good; expect Eye of the Observer out somewhere around the end of this month or start of June.  And as for book four - boy, first drafts, huh?  They're always an adventure.  To be honest, it ought to have been finished by now, and the reason it isn't is partly that I got distracted by another project demanding my immediate attention (see below) and partly that I've gone way over my intended word count.  Like, entire chapters over!  Basically my chapter plan held good until somewhere around the four fifths point and then exploded, meaning I had to go back to the drawing board for the big climax and  that all bets were off about what amount of space it was liable to fit in.

If you've never written a novel, this probably sounds disastrous, and if you have written a novel, it probably still sounds a bit alarming, but actually it's all fine and under control.  I'll be done in a day or two, unless the last chapter somehow turns into fifteen or something, and while there's a lot of cutting needed, I'd always rather that than get to the end realising I'm missing crucial sections.  More to the point, the core of the book feels solid, and that's the big thing, right?  It's not what I saw in my head when I set out yet, but the central elements are there, doing roughly the right things in roughly the right places.  It's going to come together in the second draft, I know it, and in the meantime, there are already significant chunks I'm pretty happy with.  Black River four is, in short, moving in the right direction.

And that distraction I mentioned?  That would be getting the edits through for A Savage Generation, my second Flame Tree Publishing thriller.  They weren't altogether fun, but they were productive, and as always I was reminded of just how proud I am of the book, which feels completely different to anything else I've written in ways I can barely get my head around.  If you happen to be a reviewer, you can already find an advance copy up on Netgalley here, and the book itself will be out in September.

But all of this news is quite specific, isn't it?  And I promised vagueness in the title, didn't I?  Okay, how about we wrap up with me saying that in the last month I've signed contracts with two separate publishers, one for a novella and another for a novel?  But that I'm not at liberty yet to say what books or what publishers?  That's pretty vague, right?  Yeah, that ought to do it.

Announcing a Savage Generation

It always seems like the really big news you have to sit on forever and a day!  But okay, the cat's now out of the bag: The Bad Neighbour wasn't the only novel I sold to Flame Tree Press last year.  There was a second, and now it has a cover and it's up on their website, so I reckon I'm okay for me to announce it.

The book now known as A Savage Generation has been through rather a lot of titles and iterations since I wrote the first draft the better part of a decade ago.  For a long while it was just Funland, the first novel I wrote full time and the only one I've ever blogged regular progress reports on, what feels like half a lifetime ago.  Then it became War For Funland and sat on the metaphorical shelf for a long time, as the sale of Giant Thief and the need to write its sequels absorbed all my attention.  When I returned to it soon after I packed in the day job for good, it was with another new title, Degenerates, and a good deal more experience.  I wasn't wholly happy with what I found, but there was a ton of stuff that worked - so the only way forward was to tear what I had down to its foundations and build it up again.

Under any other circumstances, I'd feel wary about a novel that had gone through such tumultuous growing pains.  In this case, I genuinely think the result is something I couldn't possibly have written in any other way.  it's a sprawling, complex novel, stuffed with characters and ideas and plot threads, some of which belong to a much younger me, some of which came in later.  Perhaps it's not the most cohesive thing I've ever written, but it has an energy and sprawling ambition that I'm not convinced I could replicate if I just sat down and tried.  Possibly it's even two books by two different versions of me mashed together, but if so, I spent many a month neatening the seams until I was certain the results stayed glued!  In short, it's a crazy goddamn thing, but I'm proud of it, and I've glad it's found the home it has.

And here we are and I haven't said one word on what it's about, so here's the blurb:

Sickness is ravaging America, driving the infected to savagery.

Petty criminal Ben Silensky is determined to get his girlfriend Carlita and son Kyle free of the quarantined city they live in - determined enough to risk a foolhardy crime and then to team up with Carlita's equally desperate cop cousin Nando.  Once they're out, Nando is certain they'll find a safe haven in the prison, White Cliff, where his uncle works.  But unbeknownst to him, White Cliff has already become a survivalist colony named Funland under the management of entrepreneurial convict Plan John.

In Funland itself, guard Doyle Johnson is shocked when his ex-wife abandons his son Austin into his care.  Fearing the vulnerable position he's been placed in, he recruits the help of Katherine Aaronovich, the prison's doctor.  However, Aaronovich's traumatic past has left her with vulnerabilities of her own, along with a radical theory on the nature of the epidemic that will place all their lives in jeopardy.

As the last vestiges of civilisation crumble, Funland may prove to be the safest or the most dangerous of places, depending on who comes out on top - and what can't be held together will inevitably be torn apart.

Oh, and the fact that it ended up under yet another new title?  That's just because Flame Tree weren't thrilled with the previous one.  But hey, I'm happy with what we settled on, and it surely does look cool in bright blood red, smeared across that image, doesn't it?