February 2009 Archives

Last night's event at LSE went rather well, I thought.  A good crowd, good questions from them, and the rest of the panel were good, feisty company, particularly the very cool Anthony McGowan and the extremely lovely Elizabeth Laird.

It was also cool to meet the young writers who'd entered the accompanying writing competition.  They were all 13-14, that age where you tend to complete silence in the presence of anyone not also 13-14, but charming and smart and eloquent once you got them going.  A pleasing time all around.

Next week, I'm appearing at a school in Hove, and then the festivals begin in earnest through the rest of the year.  Watch this space.

Jetlag from Florida proved extremely convenient in staying up to watch the Oscars yesterday.  Having not missed them since 1985, it continued an unbroken stream of mostly tedium.  I thought it was actually a decent show, whooshing through all the boring awards (Will Smith doing 4 awards in about 5 minutes must be some kind of record), but that having-5-actors-sing-the-praises-of-the-5-acting-nominees was toe-curling.  Must never do that again.

As for the winners, well, they're all pretty good, I guess, though Mickey Rourke should definitely have beaten Sean Penn.  As for the real best picture of the year?  I joke not when I say it's Wall-E.  Seriously, watched it twice more on the transatlantic flight.  It's genius.

Speaking of geniuses, one of the bizarre strains of British culture is its hatred of cleverness.  Witness the furore over poor bright girl Gail Trimble on University Challenge.  Leave her alone, for Christ's sake.  Fortunately, she doesn't seem all that bothered.  Which is the cleverest thing of all.

And a new event to announce.  In addition to the LSE event on this Friday, I've just formally booked for Brighton Festival on 10 May at noon.  It's my first big appearance where people have to get tickets to see just me, so all comers welcome.  I'm tentatively booked at a couple of other big festivals, but I'll let you know when they're formalised.  Hope to see you there.

I kinda fibbed.  I was away on holiday (no need to tell the world that my house is unoccupied, now, is there?).  It was my tenth anniversary with my other half, so we did something extremely silly for us and spent it in Orlando.  Really, how many times can you see the Rijksmuseum in one lifetime?  There's room for theme parks.

And my god, what a lot there are in Orlando.  We had to leave out the five different waterslide parks just to fit the others in.  It was mostly Disney, which was good fun, especially the fab Disney Animal Kingdom, which I didn't even know existed (though the Finding Nemo musical is godawful).  We also went to the two Universal Studios parks and Busch Gardens in Tampa...

...which has the scariest roller coaster I've ever been on.  It's called SheiKra and has a literal (and I mean that literally) face-down, 200-foot, 90-degree drop straight towards the ground.  It was bloody brilliant.  We went on it four times.

As for the rest, I can safely say I've had my lifetime's fill of "4-D" shows where you watch Shrek or Flik or the Terminator spray water at you and poke you in the back.  Plus, good luck finding a vegetable on any menu or a proper jogging path.  But very good fun.

And now back to work.  Events to come, including one this Friday at the London School of Economics.  Check it out.

The Big A is in foil on the hardcover and all the blue printing is on the clear acetate sleeve.  Pretty nifty, eh?  Wait 'til you see it in person.  The US cover (not coming out until September) is different, but this UK one will be out 4 May.  Not long to go.

I'll be back to the diary in a couple weeks (it's coming time for a redesign here, so I'm looking into it) with a nice little announcement or two.

Details of the imminent release of book two are below, but today's a big day for another reason:

I just finished (moments ago) the first draft of book three.  There's months of rewriting to come (where the book starts to become a real book) but after months and months of work already, there'll be no more blank pages. 

Hurrah for me!

To give it its full title.  I've been getting a lot of queries about book two in recent days, so as I sit here still frozen solid inside my house in an area of Kent where ice doesn't melt, it's a good opportunity to put all the info about it together in one place.

Book two is called The Ask and The Answer and is out in May in the UK (already for sale on Amazon), July in Australia and September in the US (with Italy, Germany, Spain and France to follow and more to come, details when I can).  It's got a very snazzy cover, based on the hugely well-received acetate cover of The Knife of Never Letting Go and as soon as I get a good image of it, I'll post it here.

Looking for more?  Here's the blurb:

"Fleeing before a relentless army, Todd has carried a desperately wounded Viola the last few feet into Haven...  And right into the hands of their worst enemy, Mayor Prentiss.

"In exchange for Viola's safety, Todd is forced to work with the Mayor in creating a new society for the settlers to come, one based on bringing an ominous-sounding order to the chaos of New Prentisstown.

"But what secrets are hiding just outside of town? And where is Viola? Is she even still alive? And who are the mysterious Answer?

"And then, one day, the bombs begin to explode...

"Tense, shocking and deeply moving, The Ask and the Answer is a terrifying novel of resistance under the most extreme pressure."

Exciting, eh?  I'll say no more.  You'll just have to read it when it comes out (soon...) 

Still training very vigorously for the London Marathon (and you can still sponsor me; in fact, why haven't you, you cheapskate?  You come to this site, you leave comments, I answer them very nicely...  Where's the love, people?).  Anyway, I ran 18 miles yesterday around Victoria Park and the East London canals with my good friend Wayne.  It was as difficult as you'd imagine, but I finished it, running the whole way.

And then the snows came.  For the first time in 10 years of living in England, I'm properly snowed in.  There's a good 6 inches outside with a drift a foot deep on my front step.  I can't even get on the SouthEastern Trains page to see if there's anything running at all (so I'm guessing not).  I'm supposed to see a play at the Almeida tonight which I was really looking forward to, but we're going to have to see about that...