That author photo is getting quite a workout.

SPOILER SPACE SPACE WHERE SPOILERS GO DON’T WANT THIS STUFF TURNING UP ON A CASUAL GOOGLE SEARCH HERE ARE SOME FAKE SPOILERS THE SPY IS A RAVELLER JERE’S NOT DEAD ALCHEMISTS ARE LOVELY PEOPLE HOW’S YOUR PANDEMIC GOING I HOPE YOU’RE WELL THANKS FOR READING RIGHT, THAT SHOULD DO IT.

The original blog post is over at Orbit, but here’s the cover in all its watery glory. That’s our girl Cari there, by the way. And what’s going on? Down, down, into the chill depths. Ilbarin City is almost unrecognisable, a corpse city, but sometimes the rippling blue light catches the outline of some monument or street corner, and it all snaps back in her memory. The strange impression that if she swims deep enough into the darkness she’ll reach the old docks of ten years ago, before the war, with the Rose waiting for her. Captain Hawse on the deck, looking up at her swimming down out of the sky. But she can never go deep enough. Swim up. Claw back the light. She breaks the water, drags herself over to the raft, and slings another sack of yliaster onto the pile. Then down again. They can only work for two or three hours a day before exhaustion and cold defeat

read more The Broken God Cover

2020. Fuck 2020. Actually, if I’m being honest, it was a nothing year, a hollow year. No-one close to me got terribly ill, no-one’s in dire circumstances. Finances are healthy. The kids are doing fine. Everything is on track – but it’s all been a dull grind of worry and mere survival. A slow and boring disaster, at least here. You talk to friends you haven’t spoken to in months – haven’t seen in person in a year – and no-one has any news, because no-one can have any news. The only news is numbers – infection numbers, hospitalisation numbers, r-values, lockdown levels, distance-from-home limits. Electoral college percentages, Georgia opinion polls. And now, mercifully, vaccine percentage effectiveness, vaccination schedule estimates. Better numbers, but still… It’s all fine. Work-wise, I always knew it was going to be a bit of a down year, as I switched to doing more child-care – but I assumed there’d be the option of the occasional

read more Notes From The Holding Pattern

Here’s a lovely thing – Will Musser wrote a track for the Gutter Prayer, and I borrowed some of Dejan’s art to make a sort of music video. Book 3 of the Black Iron Legacy, The Broken God, is through copy-editing. Publication has been pushed back to May ’21 because… actually, I’ve no idea why, exactly. The world is on fire. I’ve written some stories for Black Library, most recently in Warhammer Crime. Out soon, at least for preorder – The Borellus Connection. Also I’m back – at long last, on a Moria project for the new publishers of the One Ring roleplaying game. Off to the word mines I go once more. Now that I sit down to blog, I look and realise that I last updated in June. I would have sworn it was only a few weeks ago. The world’s on fire, and time’s melting. I met a friend for coffee earlier today – a last bit

read more Music and Other Matters

Here’s the colour version of the map in The Shadow Saint, by my wonderful friends over at Handiwork Games. Guerdon – the setting for the entirely of The Gutter Prayer, is up there a little north of the middle of the map. The Shadow Saint and The B***** G** (book 3) take place partly in Guerdon, and partly further afield. There’s a map on the wall. It’s old and hopelessly out of date, which, as a student of history, makes it all the more fascinating to her. It’s centred on the city of Old Haith, a hundred miles north of Guerdon. The Empire of Haith – a necrotic purple – spreads out inland north and west. It arcs north-east, along the foothills of the icy mountains, into Varinth. South, the map is speckled and blotched with purple. Speckles, for trading stations and outposts. Blotches for lands conquered by Haith in centuries past, when the undead legions and magic blades of

read more The World of the Black Iron Legacy (1)