If you're in the UK, Waterstones has 25% off for pre-orders of MASSIF! Pre-order with code SUMMER26. Pre-orders are super helpful for a book to have a chance at a good life. www.waterstones.com/book/massif/...

Canadians ahoy! My forthcoming SF novel MASSIF (out September 8) is 25% off for online preorders at Indigo. Please consider pre-ordering, it does make a very big difference to a book's chances for a good life.

And for my earlier novels, there’s also these complete handwritten mss.

Here's an example, for MASSIF, my September 2026 SF novel.

“Strange, galaxy-faring mountain ranges, a loyal renegade spaceship crew, plenty of military action, and a creepy interstellar mystery combine to make a compelling science-fiction epic set in an inventive new universe.” MARKO KLOOS, bestselling author of Frontlines Pre-order at B&N now for discount.

The Lounging Dog. (Snufkin used to curl up on this chair as a puppy, still thinks he fits somehow.)

The sun is shining in Hobart, and I’m at the Island Readers and Writers Festival, with an early release copy of the new edition of NEWT’S EMERALD! The booksellers from Fuller’s and the Hobart Bookshop here at the festival have more!

Great panel yesterday talkin' fantasy literature at Sydney Writers' Festival with @levgrossman.com and @rfkuang.bsky.social, ably moderated by Carody Culver. Thanks everyone for coming along to the event, and the signing afterwards.

Another treasure, not exactly from my childhood, but the same edition (purchased much later) I read from the library when I was nine or ten. I took this to ALA in 2012 and Susan Cooper signed it for me, with a very kind inscription.

I got this Puffin Annual when I was 11 and absolutely loved it. Looking at it recently, I realised there were parts I didn’t remember, like this article about C.S. Lewis by Roger Lancelyn Green. (And I just found a great overview with pics of the whole annual at tygertale.com/2015/01/02/p...

Snufkin Spots the Roast Chicken. (Photo by Edward Nix.)

The Australian cover uses the UK cover art by blacksheep www.blacksheep-uk.com with a different type design, by Sandra Nobes. Here is a pic of the three covers.

Visited Allen & Unwin yesterday to present at the sales conference and hang out with lovely staff, met some fine authors in the green room, and picked up some bound proofs of MASSIF!

Thanks for reading! There are actually six novels and two novellas, and a third novelette called "Seven Bells" is coming, it will be out in September in THE BOOK OF THE DEAD anthology edited by @jonathanstrahan.bsky.social

Book and bell! Tidying my office I found a good door prize for the reading tomorrow at Twisted Fiction, 6pm The Shakespeare Hotel, Surry Hills. The sterling silver bell charm is Belgaer, from a box of “seconds” I found. It is not perfectly cast so probably even more dangerous. See you there!

I lost/misplaced this fountain pen for a few years. It’s good to see it again. I wrote most of SABRIEL, LIRAEL and ABHORSEN with it. Here’s a few ms. pages and the entire SABRIEL handwritten ms. in five notebooks.

It's really great to see Kali Ciesemier's original illustration for the cover of NEWT'S EMERALD back again for the new Australian "Romantasy" edition. Out in June. The new US edition (different cover) is already out. www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/...

I'll be reading in company with some great authors at TWISTED FICTION at the Shakepeare Hotel, Sydney on May 4th.

Ghost preparing to rise from the grave at Waverley cemetery. Looks cheery, at least. Possibly a giant rabbit spirit though …

For US readers: B&N are having a pre-order sale for Rewards and Premium Members, 25% off, and MASSIF is included! Buy here www.barnesandnoble.com/w/massif-gar...

I'm delighted to be appearing at the Sydney Writers' Festival in May, on a panel with R. F. Kuang and Lev Grossman! www.swf.org.au/program/fest...

Amazon sub-category bestseller lists continue to make me shake my head in wonderment. This is for MASSIF, an SF novel with no fractal mathematics or sea adventures. (I should check back on the UK site to see if THE LEFT-HANDED BOOKSELLERS OF LONDON is still on the "London Travel Guides" list 😀

Cover reveal time! An adult science fiction novel tinged with horror, about the crew of a small warship in a relatively near future where humans hitch rides to the stars on sentient star-faring mountain ranges called Massifs. Can be pre-ordered at the usual places, *please* do so. Thank you.

Every now and then when I think I'm not making enough progress on a book, I look back at my list of published books and consider that I've had this same thought with every single one of them. (Even the short or very short ones. Getting them right takes time.)

I wield the slightly damp Tea towel map from The Hobbit The flies flee my wrath

A hard-earned Americano, and a G&T, at the end of the week. In gold-rimmed glasses from Murano.

Lady Truthful rides again! A new edition of NEWT'S EMERALD out from HarperCollins US next month, and Allen & Unwin in Australia in June (different cover). Regency Romantasy FTW. Illustration by Dan Funderburgh, Design by David Curtis www.harpercollins.com/products/new...

Mister Fitz guarding the ready-use Christmas drinks locker, I mean the champagne bowl.

Snufkin is the only dog I’ve ever known to really use pillows. He drags them into place, moves them around, makes himself comfortable …

In Wellington, NZ, for a long weekend. Lucky with the weather (sunny and not very windy) and lucky to find these three hardcovers (I have had the paperbacks for many years) in the Pegasus bookshop.