Well, I just got back from holiday and I’m cracking back on with the seventh book.  I’m going with the provisional title of “Otto Malpense and the Penguins of Doom”.  You know, looking at it now that might not be such a good idea after all…..

Zero Hour has started to hit the shelves in the UK and I hope that everyone who manages to get their hands on a copy enjoys it.  If you want to let everyone know what you thought of it just click the Fan Forums link over there on the right hand side and join in with the highly condensed insanity that is the HIVE forums.

Finally, as promised, here are some higher resolution copies of the new covers for The Overlord Protocol and Escape Velocity in the US.  Click for full size!

I hope you don’t mind me quoting Hubert J. Farnsworth in honour of the triumphant return of Futurama but I have some good news for HIVE fans on the other side of the water.

http://www.amazon.com/Escape-Velocity-Mark-Walden/dp/1442413670/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1278582581&sr=1-1

For those who can’t access that link, Escape Velocity will finally be released in America on April 19th next year.  The rest of the series so far will be released soon afterwards and when I have exact dates I’ll let you know.

The series is also being re-jacketed in America and if you click the link you can see the new covers for The Overlord Protocol and Escape Velocity.  When I get higher resolution versions of them I’ll put them up here.  Hope you like them, let me know what you think in the comments.

Mark

As some of you guys may know today is a general election in the UK.  I went to the polling booth and was very disappointed to find that there was no GLOVE candidate standing in my constituency.  Fortunately there were plenty of other evil people to choose from…

I’m gearing up for the next book at the moment and so I’m enjoying my last few days of sitting in the garden in the sunshine with Sarah and Meg before I’m sent back to the cupboard under the stairs.  I do promise to try and update more regularly while I’m locked in there but the rats chew at the laptop power cable so it may be difficult

Mark

Hi Guys

Just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and to let you know that I’ve put up a little Christmas present for you all.  It’s a (very) short story that I wrote for Puffin Post magazine a few months ago that details a little bit of HIVE’s lost prehistory.  Hope you all enjoy it!

Taking Wing

Just a quick post to wish all visitors of the blog a merry Christmas and to post some fabulous character art that I’ve been sent by a fan of the books.  She’d like to remain anonymous but if you want to contact her to tell her how brilliant you think these are you can mail her at eve2782@web.de

Check these out!

At last I have been freed from the cupboard under the stairs now that Rogue is finished.   Just the editing to do now!  Let’s hope that there are plenty of spare commas in my editor’s desk drawer……

I’ve also been really busy with a series of school visits all around the UK and Ireland to help promote Dreadnought.  All of the events have been really good fun but it is nice to be home again and now I can get cracking properly on the sixth book.  That’s if I don’t get too distracted by all the preparations for Christmas.

Now the really good news!  It looks like we’ve finally sorted out getting the rest of the series published in America!  I’ll have more details soon but it looks like all the people who’ve had trouble getting hold of the rest of the books on the other side of the water might finally be able to find them in the shops.  I don’t have release dates yet but as soon as I do I’ll let everyone know.

Here you go!  Hope you all like it.

A couple of things to mention that I thought you guys might be interested in.

First off, the lovely people at Bloomsbury have set up a new site for the HIVE series.  It looks great and you can find it at http://www.hivehub.co.uk/

I especially like the Evil Laugh Generator

Bloomsbury and WHSmith are also running a HIVE competition at the moment which you can find at  http://www.bloomsbury.com/hivecomp/

The prizes include an iPod touch, signed copies of the books and even a chance to have some bloke who looks a bit like me come and visit your school.   UK residents only I’m afraid but go along and enter if you fancy a chance of winning any of that stuff.

Rogue is coming along well and I can almost see the possibility of a life outside the cupboard under the stairs in the foreseeable future…

Cheers

Mark