Crayon Dragon

Some lovely to start your Sunday...

Short Story Saturday: Stories of the Smoke

Since it's release in April, Stories of the Smoke has garnered a great deal of interest and some great reviews.

Disinformed chose my story Necropolis as one of their favourites saying this about the story: "A captivating and somewhat disturbing story."


Dreampunk.Me also liked the story, along with the rest of the anthology: "Stories of the Smoke truly is a literary feast–a fantastic sampler of cutting-edge storytelling, yes, but also a solid work that is both a unified vision of London and a swirling, kaleidoscopic voyage through and across a multiverse of Londons. Fans of Dickens, science-fiction and fantasy, London and/or all of the above might be the target audience, but even people who only fit into one or none of these categories might find themselves equally impressed by the scope and breadth of what brilliant modern-day fantasy such as this can say not only about one specific city or time in the past or present but about us, today and tomorrow."


Interestingly, Anne Perry (one of the editors of Stories of the Smoke) wrote about some of the most memorably Dickensian locations to be found in London today. Her list included Covent Garden and Seven Dials, which feature prominently in Necropolis.

Gamebook Friday: Blood of the Zombies

Another of the illustrations from Ian Livingstone's forthcoming Blood of the Zombies has been published on FightingFantasy.com. And here it is...

Attack Dogs by Kevin Crossley

Ian is also offering fans the chance to get their name in the book. If you Tweet your name with the hash-tag #BloodoftheZombies to @ian_livingstone by 1 June , it could be you!

Steampunk Thursday: The Ulysses Quicksilver Omnibus

I found this great review of The Ulysses Quicksilver Omnibus on Amazon Canada.

Quicksilver Strikes Gold


Picked up a copy of The Quicksilver Omnibus from a bookstore in Toronto. All I have to say is WOW. The world Green has created is breathtaking, his hero Ulysses Quicksilver is part Sherlock Holmes, with a dash of James Bond thrown in for good measure,and all the fictional characters from the Victorian past are mentioned or play a big part in the plots. I was never really all that interested in Steampunk. Night of the Morlocks proved to be a huge disappointment. So I was rather wary of picking up this volume. I am glad I did. Once again Abaddon Books has outdone themselves, when it comes to finding books to publish under their banner... 

May the Adventures of Ulysses Quicksilver never end. 

LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!

You can pick up your own copy of The Ulysses Quicksilver Omnibus here.

12 for '12 - Progress Report

Okay, so back at the start of the year I set out my 12 New Year's resolutions for 2012. I thought it was timely to let you know how I'm getting on. (Timely? You'll see why in a moment.) So here are my 12 resolutions again, with a status update for each one attached.

1) Read more books

Too early to really comment on this one. It's taken me ages to read a couple of books and then I've whizzed through others the same length. (This may say more about the pressures I've been under than the quality of the writing, although it was Dan Abnett's The Silent Stars Go By and Terry Pratchett's Snuff that I whizzed through.)

2) Buy fewer books

I've managed that. Far fewer visits to bookshops and far fewer packages arriving through the post from Amazon. Now I just need to stick to my guns.

3) Complete 12 projects

Now this is the interesting one. I wanted to complete 12 writing projects this year, whether they be novels, magazine articles or whatever, and on Tuesday I handed in number 12. That's right, I'm not even half way through the year and I've already finished 12 projects (although I've not written any complete novels yet).

For those of you who are interested, those 12 jobs consist of, 5 short stories, 3 children's books (for an up and coming brand), 2 magazine articles, 1 novella, and 1 gamebook app.

The challenge is now going to be if I can complete another 12 jobs before year's end. Already on the slate are 3 short stories, 2 novellas, 3 gamebooks (some of them apps), and various synopses and proposals to be written for various other things.

4) Write another gamebook App

Done. More news on that soon (I hope).

5) Get another Hammer & Bolter commission

Kind of done... I just need to write it now.

6) Get a comics commission

I've made no progress with this one at all.

7) Work up a new YA project

Certain people have shown an interest in me doing this and others have suggested it's something I should try, but again it's not something I've done anymore about just at the moment.

8) Reach 100 followers on this blog

Tick. Done. I'm actually up to 103 now. And keep 'em coming.

9) Try to get an agent

I've not even attempted to do anything about this yet. (Which is kind of connected to number 7).

10, 11 & 12) Use social media less (Facebook, Blogger and Twitter)

Hmm... I'm certainly planning my blogs more in advance, but I still frequent Facebook far too much. (And what is it with Facebook and cats?)

Twitter's an interesting one though. Strangely, I Tweet most often when I'm working. As my friend Lavie Tidhar says, it's just enough of a distraction when you're in the zone, giving you something to dip in and out of when you're slogging away at a chapter. Interestingly, if Lavie's Tweeting you also know he's working.

Lavie Tidhar - clearly not Tweeting

So there you go. That's how things stand at the moment. Three resolutions definitely completed/achieved, and another couple well on the way. Maybe it's time to review the rest.

Until next time... Oh, and enjoy Steampunk Thursday later on today. ;-)

Warhammer Wednesday: Review Round-up

Here's a round-up of various reviews of my contributions to the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universes...

Sir Dagobert's Last Battle
"Jonathan Green's Bretonnian story was particularly impressive, exploring the fanatacism and exploitative nature of faith in the Old World in a very entertaining fashion."

The Dead and the Damned
"Now it is true this book has the feel of several short stories put together, but I felt they were nicely woven together, and played off each other well. It gives you a feel for the numerous adventures a band of sell swords would find themselves in. The characters actually had a way of growing on you... I really did like the adventures the band of mercenaries found themselves in, and I am looking forward to Jonathan Green's next book about this stalwart band."

Magestorm
"This was the first BL book that I read and it blew my mind, easily one of the best. Although old and possibly outdated it is easily one of my fave five and one that should be read!"

And Another Thought for the Day

"In the Good Old Days, Mister Moorcock could write about 45-50,000 words of what was then called "science fantasy" (Hawkmoon, Corum etc) and then have them published as a novel. In the Good Old Sixties, Dick novels ran 180-240 pages in paperback, and were among the best stuff produced in the field in half a century. Now of course ... 80-120,000 words minimum. If you can't be good, be BIG." 

~ Christopher Fowler, writer and novelist