Phantoms round-up

Okay, so my story for this year's Phantoms gigs is now back to where it was twenty-four hours ago when I tore it up. I think it's better, this time round; but I'm a day short and I don't have the weekend, so this is my last clear day to work on it. Urk.

Outside that, it's all good: yesterday we picked up the first copy of 'Phantoms at the Phil - The Second Proceedings', which is the record - complete with two CDs - of last year's stories. And a beautiful object in itself, hardbound in green with gold embossing; indeed, it is uniform with The First Proceedings, which you can see here.

Vol II (for brevity) will be published and go on sale on Monday, at the gig and from the website; priced at £12 for a limited period only, a month or so, before we distribute it to dealers and the price goes up to its formal £18. For this you get six new stories - by Sean O'Brien, Gail-Nina Anderson, Ann Cleeves, Simon Morden, Carol McGuigan and myself - with recordings of the live readings last year, plus an introduction by Christopher Fowler. How lovely is that?

Also on Monday, I will declare Vol I officially out of print. There may still be a few copies kicking around, but I'm down to my last one, bar the handful of seconds that I shall remainder. I like it, that we've shifted the entire edition in one neat year. It's good to be publisher.

Darling du novel

I just sent off the proof corrections for 'River of the World' - by e-mail, hurrah! So much more civilised (and cheaper) than posting a dead tree - and that's that, then, nothing more to be done to the book, no way to rescue it now. It's on its own out there.

Which reminded me, I had not remembered to post my favourite line out of the whole novel, my utter darling; so here it is. It's short, it's sentimental, it's me all over (and, in context, it's bitterly ironic - but you won't get that without you read the book). It is:

He had his crippled city at his heart's door, knocking.

'River of the World' - cover news

...So when I sent Ace the proof corrections just now, I asked if there was any news re the cover, as the book's due out in, what, less than four months now. Haven't heard back from them, but I was prompted to duck onto Amazon just to check the pub date - and behold! I shoulda known. There's the cover.

If anyone's interested, you'll find it here - and I'd be very interested in any feedback. Sorry I can't post it here directly, but I lack fu.

Cooking with gas

Here's a rare event: I just went racing downstairs to the kitchen, into the rising smell of gas, and you know what? I was actually glad, when I found that I was right, that the oven had gone out and the house was filling with lethal fumes. 'Cos the reason I was racing wasn't because I'd smelled the gas, that was a happy bonus. I was racing because I wanted to intercept the dish I'd slid into the oven fifteen minutes ago, just in case I was still in time to lift all the fat off the surface; and I was, because the blessed oven had gone out. It must've known...

Fallen angel meme

Ganked from szandara (but I think it must be broken; this has to be wrong):


Take The Which Fallen Angel Would You Be Quiz
Brought to you by Angel August's Abode