Chris Wooding

Sometime approximately 10 minutes after the birth of the solar system I promised that I was going to put up a link on this site to a forum about little old me that the very lovely Kath (aka Maliris) has been running since, er, approximately 9 minutes after the birth of the solar system. Well, 13.7 billion years later (give or take a month) I finally got round to asking my webmaster to do it. If you look on the front page you will see that the never-updated Q&A section, featuring interviews with me that were conducted back when dinosaurs were just a gleam in the primitive eye-cluster of a cyanobacterium lurking beneath the deep red seas of a nascent Earth (and they really were red back then! Fact! Look it up!), has been obliterated and replaced with a link that will take you to the Crooked Lanes forum. It’s been a bit quiet of late due to lack of new members but don’t let that put you off, I fully expect it to be a swarming hive of activity now that I’ve finally got my arse in gear and linked to it. Swarm, my pretties!

So, if you want to talk among yourselves instead of talking to me, if you’ve got questions about a book, or if you just want to meet other people who are more special than your average reader due to their exquisite taste in fantastical literature, hustle on there. I will stick my face in from time to time whenever I can and bother you.

Get at it!

EDIT: purple seas now red. Thanks Katya 😉

Waaaa! Don’t you just want to run around waving your hands in the air and yelling nonsense? No? Oh, ok. Well then, allow me to inform you that Pandemonium has been released in the US.

Dreadfully exciting, no? I have noooo idea if or when it’ll be released in other territories though, including the UK. Does anyone know of a US equivalent of Bookdepository.com that does free international shipping for my poor beleaguered countryfolk?

Also, I’m in the home stretch on Silver, and it’s minus six billion outside which means my hands have frozen into frosty claws.

That is all.

The hawk-eyed among you, or those who spend every free moment on Amazon googling my name (bless your little hearts), might have spotted the curious fact that, like, there’s this book out by me that I’ve barely even mentioned. Well, here’s the lowdown: I wrote PALE a while ago for an imprint called Barrington Stoke, who produce books targeted at reluctant and struggling readers or kids with dyslexia. I haven’t really talked about it much because I thought it was mainly going to be sold to schools and such, and also because I didn’t want it  to be confused with my usual output, since it’s a very different kind of book. But since it’s out there in the big wide world now, it’s time for Pale to take a bow.

Now listen y’all. This book was written for a specialist market. It’s very short, and the language and story are much, much simpler than the books you’re used to reading from me. If you’re curious, or if you’re a completist, or if there’s someone you know who’s a struggling reader and might like this sorta thing, then by all means pick it up; it’s a creepy little sci-fi tale that may tickle your fancy. But if you’re expecting something in the vein of Malice or Alaizabel, you’ll be disappointed. I wouldn’t want anyone spending their hard-earned readies and then being gutted because of the content.

Currently dividing my time between Silver, which is getting near done, and Secret Movie Project no.30300256. Next on the slate is Ketty Jay 4. That’s 2012 taken care of, then…

Happy New Year!

“A golem is a sturdy creature on which to hang a young-adult story; the figure asks perennial teenage questions: Who am I in the world? What powers do I have? Whom can I trust? How do I create a separate existence from my parents’? How do I control my anger and manage my baser instincts?”

Interesting post here about golems in YA literature from JWeekly.com, which gives a nice little shout out to Vago from Storm Thief. I want the golem in that picture.

Just a quickie to let you know that the publisher of the ever so fine Tales Of The Ketty Jay have a newly revamped website to go with all those shiny new SF Gateway books I told you about earlier. It’s still in its early stages – which is presumably why I DO NOT HAVE AN ENTRY IN THE AUTHOR SECTION YET ARE YOU LISTENING GOLLANCZ CAN YOU HEAR ME? –  but good for all things Gollanczy 😉

General news: been working on one of my secret movie projects for a while, tap-tapping along with Silver, rather disappointed that it gets dark by 5 now although it does make me feel better about wrapping up in an impenetrable mound of blankies with a tiny hole for my eyes.

Not particularly related to anything booky, but sort of related to me which is why it’s here. Back in the day before my ears caved in I used to play in a few bands, like. And now I hear that Bombed Out, the record label that my last band was on, has just put out a free-to-download 18-track album sampler featuring all the bands they’ve put out in their 13-year history. So if you fancy some free UK-style melodic punk/hardcore goodness, or you’re just curious to hear what the inside of Joseph’s Well in Leeds sounded like on any given Saturday night in the early years of the new millennium, you can download it here. Of course, if that ain’t your bag, move along, nothing to see here.

And for those who are interested, I’m playing bass on track 4. Ahem.

For those of you disinterested in the epic tale of how I led Notts County from League 2 obscurity to winning the quintuple back-to-back, you might perk up at the news that the third book in The Tales Of The Ketty Jay hit the shelves yesterday. If you’re unfortunate enough not to live in the sceptr’d isle, you can order it from The Book Depository, who do free shipping worldwide, just in case you’re one of the three people on the planet I haven’t already told about this.

As always, release dates should be the same in Australia, Canada, and anywhere else that still pays lip service to the Queen 😉 Any other countries, including the US, I just don’t know so pleeeease don’t ask. I’ll tell you when I find out.

Movie news, for those who’ve been asking: there is none.

Release date for Pandemonium has been pushed back to February in the US.

Currently I’m working on Silver, which is rolling along nicely and is already racking up quite a bodycount. I’m also working on a movie which I’m very bouncy excited about but it’s really too early to talk about it much.

In other news, I just ate a biscuit.

Stay tuned!

Yeah, what the title says! Head over to Bookgeeks for some badass competitionage and win yourself an early copy. Only open to people in the UK, I’m afraid, but there has to be SOME consolation for our lack of summer (again).

Go compete!

Oh no, wait, am I gonna actually have to buy an e-reader now? Thousands of out-of-print classic SF and Fantasy novels resurrected like a horde of radioactive necromorphs for the delectation of the ebook generation? I can virtually feel myself being dragged by my fingernails into the future. Damn.

Check out the Guardian article here.

And the home site here.

I offer a general round of applause to all involved *clappity clappity*

The new edition of the Braided Path, after a few technical difficulties, has found its way into online booksellers just in time for the release date. In fact, it’s available now from Play.com or at The Book Depository (free postage overseas, if you don’t live in the UK), and Amazon have it up for pre-order. Sweet. Just to be clear, it’s NOT a hardback as I previously thought it was. However, that’s all good as it clocks in at almost a thousand pages and a hardback would squash you.

I recently did an interview with SF website SFFWorld.com, which you can find here if you want to kill a couple of minutes at work/school/while taking a break from gold farming on WoW.

I’ve started work on my next book, with the working title of Silver. It’s a YA sci-fi horror. And that’s all I’m telling you for the moment, except that its vibe harks back to the skin-crawling megadark of The Haunting Of Alaizabel Cray, which should tickle a few whiskers 😉 Currently it’s slated for release in May 2013, which is quite a while off due to various publishing arrangements, but hopefully the US and UK will get it at the same time instead of six months apart. Anyway, you’ll have Pandemonium to keep you warm in 2012, and it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that you’ll get the fourth Ketty Jay book in early 2013. Yes, your maths are right, that would be before Silver comes out, even though I’ll be writing it afterwards. I know, I amaze myself sometimes…