Star Wars Mighty Muggs

Asajj Ventress (seen here) is one of the central characters of Star Wars The Clone Wars and now fans of the series - or indeed the Star Wars The Clone Wars Decide Your Destiny gamebooks - can get hold of her in Mighty Muggs form.

And she's not the only one. With everyone from Obi-Wan Kenobi, to Grand Moff Tarkin via the Wampa and Darth Maul, Mighty Muggs have got something for everyone. Why not check out my store to see which one you'd like to get your hands on?

And which of all these characters do you think might be making a guest appearance in my forthcoming Crisis on Coruscant?

Stephen Fry on writing

"Many of us wake in the mornings with a deep terrible feeling of foreboding inside us: hot lead seems to leak into our stomachs as we contemplate the day. When I’m in acting or presenter or comic prancer mode it isn’t so bad – but writing. Writing is bloody."

To read more, click this link.

I got a mention on the Terry Pratchett message boards!

I've just discovered that Stormslayer got a mention back in March on the forum of TerryPratchettBooks.com on the Discworld News, Articles and Interviews forum. And it's all because Stephen Player illustrated the book as well as the illustrated edition of Mr P's The Wee Free Men.


Soon the world will be able to enjoy what I and the editors at Wizard Boooks have already seen for months now, and that's Stephen's fantastic illustrations for Stormslayer. I'll see if I can post some here soon, but for the time being you'll have to settle for his painting of the Ice Elemental from the front cover.


In other Pratchett-related news, the next Discworld novel Unseen Academicals is out in hardback in October with another brilliant cover by Paul Kidby. And if you're over in Arizona in September, you could take part in the First North American Discworld Convention a.k.a. The Turtle Moves! guest staring TP himself.

The new Fighting Fantasy editions

From the offices of Icon Books this morning...


Mine's the one quite clearly visible at the bottom of the pile.

Stormslayer - from the back cover...

The book you hold in your hands is a gateway to a world in which YOU are the HERO! YOU decide which route to take, which dangers to risk and which creatures to fight. But be warned – it will also be YOU who has to live or die by the consequences of your actions.

There are dark powers at work in the kingdom of Femphrey. Magic more fearsome than you have ever seen has somehow harnessed the destructive might of Nature.

With time running out, you must uncover the oldest truths about the lore of the elements – only then can you command earth, wind, fire and water and venture into the terrifying eye of the storm.

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain - exclusive!

Here is the brand new cover for the 2009 edition of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, written by Fighting Fantasy legends Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. The new cover has been painted by the very talented Martin McKenna and is (in my opinion) the best yet!


You can get hold of your brand new larger format edition of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain here!

May your STAMINA never fail!

Stormslayer - dare you enter the eye of the storm?

Here it is, revealed at last for all to see, the brand new cover for Stormslayer, a brand new Fighting Fantasy gamebook out on 3rd September! Pre-order your copy here.

Hear me Tweet

You can now follow my progress with various projects via Twitter.


Either check out the updates on the sidebar or click here.

The Wolfman

How good does this look?

Okay, so it looks like an American Werewolf in Victorian London, but that sounds like a great combination as far as I'm concerned.


And look out for some more Victorian-inspired Werewolf action in the forthcoming Pax Britannia: Blood Royal from Abaddon Books.

23 and counting...

The other day my son asked me how many books I'd written... and I couldn't remember!

It may sound ridiculous but now that I'm writing full-time, producing about five books a year (plus short stories and other bits and pieces), with four or five projects at various different stages of development all on the go at the same time, I've lost track of how many books I've actually had published.

(My wife has similiar problems and has to ask for clarification when I strat talking about my 'new book'. 'Is that the new book that's just come out, the one that's about to come out, the one you've just finished, the one you're writing now, the one you've just had commissioned or the one you're writing the pitch for now?')

Anyway, back to the question of how many books I've written. Since I was first commissioned back in 1992, the books I've had published are...

1. Spellbreaker (1993)
2. Knights of Doom (1994)
3. Curse of the Mummy (1995)
4. Theme Park Panic (1995)
5. Stormin' Sonic (1996)
6. Go Gos Are Go Go! (1997)
7. The Dead and the Damned (2002)
8. Crusade for Armageddon (2003)
9. Magestorm (2004)
10. Iron Hands (2004)
11. Necromancer (2005)
12. Conquest of Armageddon (2005)
13. Bloodbones (2006)
14. Unnatural History (2007)
15. Howl of the Werewolf (2007)
16. Leviathan Rising (2008)
17. The Horror of Howling Hill (2008)
18. Match Wits with the Kids: A Little Learning for All the Family (2008)
19. Go, Go Crazy For Those Bones (2008)
20. What is Myrrh Anyway? (2008)
21. Human Nature (2008)
22. Evolution Expects (2009)
23. Stormslayer (2009)

And still to come are...

24. Blood Royal (2009)
25. Crisis on Coruscant (2010)
26. Secret project - title to be confirmed (2010)
27. Pax Britannia 7 - title to be confirmed (2010)
28. Pax Britannia 8 - title to be confirmed (2010)

... and there are more to come after that.

So, how many books was that again?

A quick update...

... on what's been happening on the Greeniverse blogs lately.

Click here to read about my upcoming talk at Ealing Library.

Click here to read about my return to the Black Library and the Black Templars.

Click here to read about my contribution to Demons: A Clash of Steel Anthology.

Click here to find out more about Pax Britannia e-books.

Click here to find out why you should be reading this blog next week if you're a Fighting Fantasy fan.

Click here to learn about my small contribution to the Star Wars Clone Wars universe.

Click here to find out what I had to do with the Official Doctor Who Annual 2010.

And click here to find out how Christmas has come early (four months early!) in Rochdale here in the UK.

Until next time...

Stormslayer - the wait is almost over

It has been a good few months since I first revealed here that I had written another new Fighting Fantasy adventure entitled Stormslayer. However, since then I have been unable to reveal much more about it... until now.


Stormslayer is out on September 3, which is only a few weeks away now, and next week I will be revealing the brand new covers for the first four books that will be released as part of the Fighting Fantasy re-launch.

So, watch this space over the coming week, and prepare to be amazed!

Jenny Greenteeth surfaces on the SFX site?

I stumbled across this the other day. It's taken from the SFX Magazine website and a feature on sci-fi and fantasy tattoos.


Stephen Adey of Penzance says, "I had this done a few weeks ago... It is sort of a homage to The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Ray Harryhausen's Kraken from Clash of the Titans."

Now the reason it caught my eye is because it looks suspiciously like this...


... which was one of the images that inspired my own take on the folkloric Jenny Greenteeth that appeared as the Water-Wyrd in Howl of the Werewolf.

It made me wonder whether any of the images inspired by my books have been turned into body art? If you know of any, drop me a line and send me a picture.

A writer's lot

Crisis on Coruscant - you heard it here first

Since the title recently went up on Amazon, I can now reveal that I have just finished writing a children's gamebook set within the Star Wars Clone Wars universe. It's called Crisis on Coruscant and casts the reader in the role of a padawan learner in the service of Jedi Master Shaak Ti.

Without giving too much away, I can reveal that the adventure features clone troopers, Chancellor Palpatine, Senator Padme Amidala, dramatic airspeeder chases through the planet-city of Coruscant, bounty hunters, a visit to Tatooine and a guest appearance by Jabba the Hutt himself.

Crisis on Coruscant will be published in January 2010 alongside another title, Dooku's Secret Army, and to celebrate I have set up a Star Wars page on my Amazon Associates Store to satisfy all your Jedi (or Sith) related needs.

Dan Abnett speaks!

More videos of Dan Abnett talking about writing and his many, many works, as shot and edited by Adelie High...









BTW - Is now a good time to mention that I'm currently reading Triumff by Dan Abnett, which is not due out until October? I now await your disdainful replies...

The Official Doctor Who Annual 2010 - out now!

When I was a child, annuals were the sort of present that the big man in the red suit snuck into your stocking (or in my case, a plastic carrier bag next to the stocking) at Christmas time. But no more. The Official Doctor Who Annual 2010 is out now and, in case you haven't been paying attention, I've written a fair bit of it.

It's great to see the pages finally laid up properly. What was a rather ordinary-looking Word document when I emailed it to my editor is now there in print, with the official Doctor Who font and David Tennant's face all over it. And you know it's the real deal when you see genuine photos from the shows supporting the text you've written too.

Below you can see some of the pages I've contributed. It's not the biggest thing I've ever done, but it's definitely the most colourful and the annual is my first hardback too. And you can get your copy here.













If you haven't seen the new trailer for the next Doctor Who special The Waters of Mars, click here.

Suffer the little children

I was out of the country when Torchwood: Children of Earth first aired and only just finished catching up on it last night. All I have to say on the matter is - how good was that?

Well, okay, it's not the only thing, but it was the best series of Torchwood ever, in my humble opinion. I know that John Barrowman (a.k.a. Captain Jack Harkness) has expressed how disappointed he was that the series transferred to the Beeb's flagship channel and was then cut drastically in length but, as far as I'm concerned, it was the right thing to do.


Torchwood was always a series I wanted to love (being a HUGE Doctor Who fan) and I have seen every episode. However, it was a horribly inconsistent series (at least for the first two years). It had its highlights - Countrycide and A Day in the Death - but also it's low points - take, for example, the dire Small Worlds. (Are supposed to believe in magic now too? I know that most of Doctor Who relies on magic rather than science, but at least it's consistently dressed up as science fiction.)

Too often the sex and drugs and rock-n-roll in Torchwood, that was added to the mix to justify it's post-watershed tag, seemed too tagged on and not entirely germane to the plot. (Did we really need a sex-mad alien rumpy-pumpying people to death when Species did it long ago?) It was as if a bunch of 15 year-old schoolboys had tried to see what they could get away with and were sniggering behind their hands for the duration of the show.


And then came Children of Earth. Harrowing, taut, exciting, dramatic, dealing with some serious issues, putting our heroes in genuinely threatening situations and having to make impossible decisions that no-one should ever have to make. And as a result it was utterly compelling and brilliant.


We got to enjoy some top notch writing by Russell T and top notch direction by Euros Lyn. It featured fantastic performances by Peter Capaldi, playing tragic scapegoat John Frobisher, Nicholas Farrell as the loathsome Prime Minister Mr Green, Susan Brown as Bridget Spears, John Barrowman, Gareth David-Lloyd, Lucy Cohu as his daughter Alice and of course Eve Myles. And what's not to like about Eve Myles?

Doctor Who tops the Amazon annuals chart

I logged onto Amazon today to discover that the Official Doctor Who Annual 2010 was at number one in the annuals chart, with Horrible Histories in second, and it's already got a 5-star review.

Now, by the time you read this post there's no guarantee that the Doctor Who annual will still be in the top slot, and I fully understand that the book is a bestseller because of the presence of David Tennant and the words 'Doctor Who' on the cover, but having written a third of it, I'm still going to bask in the glory of being in the bestsellers list just a little longer.

Until next time...

The view from the other side

Martin McKenna's new website

Martin McKenna, incredibly talented artist and erstwhile collaborator of mine, has given his website a major overhaul and you can see it here.

Having had a quick look through Martin's news (both old and new), it's amazing to see how many times some of the images from various books of mine have cropped up elsewhere, everything from magazine articles to books on digital painting.

Take for example the cover to Howl of the Werewolf. As far as I can see, the seminal image of the werewolf howling at the moon has been re-used in a Chinese magazine, to promote a Heavy Metal event in Madrid and as part of an exhibition in Denmark.

You learn something new every day...

Book-cum-Staircase

A very cool way to show off your favourite volumes if you're lacking in wall space.


I won't like having to negotiate those stairs on a regular basis though.

Human Nature reviewed in Unscene Magazine

Just to let all you aficionados of dark alternative music and culture out there know that my third Pax Britannia novel Human Nature is reviewed in the summer issue of Unscene Magazine.

Meanwhile its follow-up title Evolution Expects is now available from all better bookshops or right here.

Evolution Expects... is here!

I arrived home today to discover a parcel waiting for me, sent by those kind people at Abaddon Books, containing none other than my author copies of Pax Britannia: Evolution Expects.

I never lose the thrill of opening a carton of books for the first time and holding the finished product in my hands, feeling the smoothness of the cover, marvelling at the design work and savouring the smell of fresh print.

And the excitement was only increased today because Evolution Expects, as well as being the last book in the first Ulysses Quicksilver story arc is also the first Pax Britannia book to appear in the larger B format (rather than the usual A format).

You can see what a difference it makes in the pictures below, with Human Nature and Evolution Expects shown side by side. It will certainly give the books a greater presence on the shelf, and make them easier to manhandle when it comes to enjoying them.

And on top of all that the designers have come up with a funky new series logo to go on the spine. And there's a little extra for you the reader too. As well as Evolution Expects the novel, there's Conqueror Worm the novella, which takes the world of Pax Britannia in a rather unexpected direction.

So all that remains for me to say is pick yourself up a copy today and enjoy.

Until next time...