A short tale of the Half-Continent well worthy of your time (IMO)

Hello folks, I have just returned from England's sunny shores and am so jet-lagged my body keeps asking me in a feed back loop, "Should I sleep now? Should I eat now? Should I go out and run about now?..." Taken up in the name of research for the next Half-Continent story (now in its 4th chapter) the trip to the UK has filled my head and soul with so much historical and contextual excellence I scribbled half a notebook's worth of notes and am fit to burst with an expanded sense of the Half-Continent (... once I can tell which end is my head and which is my hind).

I am however compos mentis enough to have found a most excellent short story over at the MBT Forum, penned by a soul who goes by the apt name of Master Come Lately. It is an ingenious passage of prose describing a scene you will recognise (as I did with a steady and wonderful dawning sensation) from MBT/TFT yet seeing it through a novel perspective.
I do not want to spoil it by saying any more than this.

Brilliant.

What is brillianterer still is that the tale has helped me see that much better from this novel perspective!

Well done, Mr Lately - I think I owe you...

Legends of Australian Fantasy

For all of you wanting/needing a bit of Half-Continent action as we wait for October/ November/ some time not toooooo far away, Legends of Australian Fantasy has hit the shelves and it has a story of mine in it, a whole new non-Rossamünd, Half-Continent story of 90 pages long! If you can not tell, I am very excited...

Unfortunately it is currently only an Australian release, but we hope to reach the world with it soon.

Good News & Bad News

Well, in the midst of completing the 3rd draft, I shall, with great trepidation, start with the bad - as is customary. There is no way to say it but straight: the release of Monster-Blood Tattoo Book 3 will be delayed until September of next year (2010).

*wince*

Sorry, sorry, sorry. The fault is mine for the time I have taken to write it. Apologies to everyone for causing any consternation at such a revelation. A silver lining to such a cloud is that it gives it all time to be just that bit better (the flip side of this being, it better be pretty darn good now then, huh?); also it will give you more time, Ms Ventress, to get a Sebastipole costume ready *hopeful face*.

Okey dokey, on to the better stuff...

June next year (2010) is when my very first short story - The Corsers' Hinge (see your nearest explicarium for what a 'corser' is) - will be released here in Oz as part of an anthology called,

Australia's Legends of Fantasy

It will be published by Harper Collins, Australia. For you folks in other lands, I shall let you know closer to the date how you might (if you wish it) get your own far-away hands on a copy.

I am very chuffed to be included as a "legend" (who would not!) and some of the other genuine legends involved will be Sean Williams*, Kim Wilkins*, Garth Nix, Trudi Canavan, Ian Irvine*, John Birmingham, Cecelia Dart-Thornton, Juliet Mariller, Jennifer Fallon, and on and on... Quite a list, huh? When a cover image becomes available I shall post it so you know what to look out for.

*I have illustrated one or more of their texts.