Afternoon all!

Just got back from my trip up to the Edinburgh festival and then Seven Stories in Newcastle.  All three events that I did were really good fun and I’d just like to say a big thanks to everyone who was involved with organising them.

On another note, as some of you may have already found out, copies of Dreadnought have started to appear in the wild.  Some have shipped a bit early from Amazon and there are even some in bookshops around the UK.  So if you do pick up a copy drop me a line or post on the forum and let me know what you thought!

And finally, the more observant browsers of Amazon may have noticed we’ve settled on a title for book five.  It’s going to be called “Rogue”.  Hope you like it…..

Mark

No, that’s not a Portal reference, it’s just me letting everyone who visits the site know that I am, in fact, still alive.  I’m working really hard on HIVE book five at the moment and while there are occasional forays into the outside world to top up on biscuits and coffee I’ve not had very much time to update the site.  I am still regularly checking in on the forums though, just to make sure that the expected level of harmless lunacy is being maintained and I’m happy to report that so far everything is still satisfyingly deranged.

Right then, back to the cupboard under the stairs……

Just a quick post to let everyone know that I’m once again hooked up to the digital IV of the Internet.  We had a great holiday and I’m feeling recharged and ready for the big push on book five.  All I need now is coffee and biscuits…..

We’ve also come back to traditional British summer time weather which is currently taking the form of a persistent light drizzle.  I miss the sunshine ><

I’ll be trawling through my mail and the new posts on the forum over the next couple of days so if you’re waiting for a reply from me on something you should hear from me soon.  I’ve also just finished checking the final proofs of Dreadnought and I’m really looking forward to seeing what everyone thinks of it come September.

Right, coffee…..

Just a quick post to let you know that I’m going to be “Away From Internet” for the next week or so.  When I come back I’m planning to do an update on all this cool HIVE art that’s been popping up on the forums so if you find any more post a link to it and I’ll try to include it in the update.

See You Soon!

Mark

Just finished the copy edit on Dreadnought which once again highlighted my tempestuous relationship with punctuation. I’m a fan of the “throw lots of them in some are bound to end up in the right place” technique when it comes to commas and I pity Helen and Isabel who have had to go through trying to make sense of my shotgun approach to punctuation.

I’ve had a few people mail me over the past couple of weeks asking about the publication date for Escape Velocity in America and Canada. We’re still trying to find a publisher for the third (and fourth) books on the other side of the pond and as soon as I hear anything I’ll make a post on here to let everyone know what’s happening. In the meantime do please feel free to bombard your favourite American publishers with suggestion that they ought to pick the books up

Anyway, back to book five……

Mark

Had a great time yesterday at the event at the Rose Theatre in Kingston. It was good fun to meet up again with my arch-nemesis Andy Briggs, author of the briliant Hero.com and Villain.net books, and continue our ongoing debate on who are better, heroes or villains. It was too close to call yesterday with equal numbers of supporters for both sides in the audience but rest assured that when next we meet I am confident that the forces of villainy will be victorious. We were followed on stage by the inimitable John Hegley who had everyone in stitches with his animal poems.  I can’t help but agree with him on the whole superiority of people who wear glasses thing…..

So a big thank you to everyone who was involved with setting up the event.  I had a great time and it was great to talk to so many enthusiastic readers.

Just thought I’d make a quick post to give everyone a sneak preview of the cover for Dreadnought.  I’ve just finished the first edit on the book which for those of you that don’t know is where my editor Ele tries to gently remind me that traditionally books include things like punctuation…..and the occasional word spelled correctly…

Dreadnought is going to mark the start of a plan to publish the new books every six months rather than annually.  It means a bit more work for me but it will mean that you won’t have quite so long to wait between installments.

So now it’s time to crack on with the fifth HIVE book.  I’ve asked my daughter Meg for some advice on the title.  So far we’ve narrowed it down to either HIVE: The Rainbow Unicorn or HIVE: Sparkle Princesses.  I do appreciate her help but I can’t help but wonder if the new direction she wants to take the series in is really going to appeal to people…..

Howdy!

As you may or may not be aware this blog has just undergone a bit of an overhaul. Hope you like the new look and I’d like to say a big thank you to Bobs (Greybeard the Stupid Pirate) for all of his invaluable help and advice. There are now also forums which are linked over there on the right. There’s more to come but in the meantime if you have stumbled across the site for some reason then do feel free to leave a message on the board or a comment on one of the posts. Natter more next week.

Book four is done.  It’s called Dreadnought and will be coming out in September.  This is the start of a whole new adventure for Otto and the gang and has them facing off against a deadly new opponent and a plot that could be, quite literally, earth shattering.  I’ve just seen the new cover design  that Bloomsbury have put together and it looks great.

I’ve just finished a series of events for World Book Day with Joseph Delaney who wrote the other half of the flip book that we did for the one pound book promotion.  I had a great time and I’d like to say thanks to all the people who came along to the events in London and Liverpool, hope you all enjoyed yourselves!  I’d also like to say a big thank you to all the people behind the scenes who worked so hard to put the events together.

You should start to see some of the promised changes to the site soon, along with….wait for it…..forums!  Which hopefully should make it slightly easier for me to keep in touch with everyone.  Hope to see you there!

I’m hard at work on HIVE book four at the moment.  Not too much to do now but I think it’s always the final sections that are the hardest.  I’ve also recently completed the story that I’ve written for World Book Day.  It’s called Interception Point and it will be one half of one of the one pound books.  The other half of the book will be something by the fabulous Joseph Delaney so it should make for a great value read.  I’ll be updating this blog more regularly once book four is finished so hopefully it should become a better place for people to come and find info about what I’m working on and the future of HIVE.  See you then.

Mark