New book announcement (and also parrots)

Hello, beautiful people (yes, even you), I hope you're doing well out there in internet land.
First of all, I am getting settled into my house in Kirkby Stephen. Still got a lot of decorating to do, not least because I bought some truly crappy paint that I tried out on one of the windows and I'm now going to have to remove. Seriously, it was like treacle. Some nice walking around here for the dog to look at while I'm carrying her because her poor old legs are tired.
Also, there are parrots. It's a truly surreal sight, seeing such a bright flash of colour go flying past against the backdrop of a cold, grey, wintry Cumbrian town (this place is a long way from resembling the Caribbean). They make a hell of a noise as well - get four of them in the same area and it's like a dozen cats trying to kill one another.
Here you go, in case you think I'm imagining things

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They were on the chimney on my neighbours house. Very weird.
Also, I'm now officially announcing the forthcoming release of the sequel to Crystal Eyes - Sorrow's Herald, due out on the 10th of July!
The journey continues for Crystal and friends, trying to stay one step ahead of the Solanist preachers who are following their trail. With shooting, running, angst, more shooting, jumping, stabbing, fire, and even more shooting!
If you feel inclined to travel along with them, it's available for pre-order right...about...now! At least it's available from Amazon now, it's not quite filtered through to the other retailers yet but it shouldn't be long.
Here's a peek at the cover!

I'm also in the process of setting up the hard copy versions of both Sorrow's Herald and Heroes Wanted, soon to be available from Amazon!

Other stuff...I've been playing a load of Heroes of the Storm (Sylvanas for the win), and quite a lot of Elder Scrolls Online as well - definitely worth a look since it dropped its monthly sub fee.
Also, Star Wars trailer! WOO HOO! And that little droid thing was awesome, I badly want one.
Been watching Daredevil as well. Got a couple of episodes left I think. Man, it's good but it's not one for the kiddies - the whimsical, pithy Marvel of Joss Whedon it is not.

That'll do for now.
Later,
Al

Terry Pratchett

A few minutes ago, as I was sitting on the sofa drinking a tepid cup of coffee, bemoaning the ache in my back from cleaning nicotine stains off the ceiling and wondering which wall I should test the paint on that I had bought the previous day, the news appeared on Twitter that Sir Terry Pratchett had died and everything else was rendered completely unimportant.
Terry Pratchett has been a hero and an inspiration to me ever since I first borrowed Guards! Guards! from my local library over 25 years ago. His books shaped everything about me, from the way I write to how I look at the world. Whatever redeeming qualities can be found in either my stories or my personality stem to a large extent from him.
The world and characters he created often seemed more real to me than this world and, as selfish as it is, I find that I'm mourning the fact that I will never learn any more about the lives of Rincewind, Granny Weatherwax, Vimes, Nanny Ogg, Vetinari, Carrot and everyone else whose adventures filled up my life, almost as much as I'm mourning the passing of a wonderful man. But the fact that all those people existed at all is something to be celebrated and something I will forever be grateful for.

I suspect Sir Terry wouldn't approve of this hand-wringing nonsense so I'm going to try and stop being quite so maudlin and, instead of that, I'm going to say bollocks to decorating, make myself a fresh coffee (with perhaps a splash of Irish Cream in it), and see if I can find the box where I packed all my Pratchett books, because if there's one thing I've learned over the last quarter of a century it's that reading one of those will always make things seem a little bit brighter.

Goodbye Sir Terry, and thank you.

Wait, where am I?

I have moved house, all is chaos and cardboard! I have no idea what's going on.
If you're at all interested, I now live in a small town in Cumbria, north west England, by the name of Kirkby Stephen. It's a nice little house with a small garden that looks out over a green hillside on which sheep wander. The dog likes to bark at them, which I'm sure my new neighbours are thrilled about.
The only downside is that the previous owner must have been on a lifelong quest to rid the world of cigarettes by smoking them all - the walls are stained a lovely shade of emphysema brown. I'm spending most of my time trying to scrub them down at the minute. I stink of cleaning fluid.
Here's a sample:

I've also just turned 39, so there's that.

There's not been a lot of writing work this last couple of weeks. Hopefully going to try and get back into it soon. Got a release to set up for the Crystal Eyes sequel and I've another story I might try sending to a publisher.

Heroes Wanted is doing okay on Amazon, had some good reviews, at least on the UK site. There's not a single one in the US! Come on, you beautiful American types, you know you want to throw me a few stars! What can I do to tempt you?

Right, I'm off to cope with the existential dread about the inexorable, pitiless march of time that I always get for my birthday (I'd rather have got a bike) by playing Heroes of the Storm.

2015, eh?

So far...could be better, could be worse. Kind of meh. Is it 2016 yet? No? Bugger.
I was holding off doing much promotion for Heroes Wanted (available at all good eBook retailers) after Christmas but I'll probably start again soon. I meant to start last week but, well, started out on Monday morning thinking "Huh, I must have been sitting funny, got a bit of an ache on the left side of my lower-back". By Monday afternoon I was lying flat on the floor gasping at the painful spasms - huzzah for kidney stones!
Middle-aged ailment - Achievement Unlocked!
Incidentally, if you hear a terrible screaming then it may be because the stone has finally worked its way through to the, er, "exit point", as it were. An experience that someone on twitter said was second only to his spine shattering in terms of pain.

On top of all that, I just dropped the last bit of my cheese pasty on the floor. Truly, this has become the year of horror.

My ageing carcass aside, I've been editing Sorrow's Herald, the sequel to Crystal Eyes, and what I'm tentatively calling Once Upon A Mech In The Desert, an entirely new sci-fi story. I might change the title though. It's a cool story but still needs some tweaking. Here's a slight spoiler: there are mechs in it. Also a desert. No desserts though.
Suddenly I want cake.

Who am I kidding, I always want cake.

I'm gonna have some cake.

Cake.

7 days was all she wrote...

Reference to a Sting song there, because I exist at the cutting edge of popular culture!
Zeitgeist is my middle name.

Anyway, the reason for the song reference - it is a mere seven (7) days, one singular week from the time of writing this, until Heroes Wanted, my hilarious new fantasy novel, is unleashed into the big, wide world! Just in time for Christmas!
It's an interesting, stressful time, especially if you're as neurotic as me.
Will people like it?
What if no one likes it?
What if it sucks?
It sucks, I know it does, I should have set fire to my hard drive and forgotten the whole thing.
No, it's awesome - pull yourself together and have some self-confidence, man!
You can do this, you can totally do this.
...I need a drink.
Repeat until comatose.

So please pre-order it, and get your friends to do the same, if only to stop me turning into a gibbering wreck. Although if more people buy it, that's more people who might not like it - oh gods!
But this is marketing (or a feeble facsimile of it) and I'm meant to be encouraging you to buy it and spread the word so please just ignore that last bit.
Here's the animated trailer I made in which I butcher an American accent.