Here are some quick pics from my first school event of 2010, namely six talks with the awesomely enthusiastic pupils of Market Bosworth High School, Leicestershire.

Here I am (above) getting into it. I’ll have you know I had to leave my eyeballs charging all night to get that maniacal gleam.

Here, below, is one of the new star of the show. The book’s not out ’til April – this is my only proof copy! – but by popular demand (a show of hands vote!) I read the opening scene of Crawlers at the end of session three.

Here’s a glimpse of post-talk signing frenzy. HEE HEE HEE!

…And this next pic gives you a pretty good idea of what a kick a terrific school visit like this tends to give me.

A massive THANK YOU to everyone I met and spoke to today. Roll on tomorrow! 😀

With the launch for CRAWLERS closing fast I think it’s time to drop a little hint as to what the book might contain…!

Isn’t this an amazing image? It’s from the Picasa Web Album of an urban explorer called Steve. Here’s what he says about it:

This sewer actually passes very close to or directly underneath the Bank of England building on Threadneedle Street. The Walbrook Stream, which seems to now be carried in this sewer, used to regularly flood the vaults of the Bank. [London Bridge Sewer, London, England, 2007]

Click here for more of Steve’s fabulous shots of London’s sewer tunnels.

Katie WebSphinx and I are hard at work on a special CRAWLERS website, due to go live very soon now. You have been warned. 😉

Meanwhile, here’s a great bit of news I just heard about The Black Tattoo, over at Trapped By Monsters.

Having malingered, gleefully, for the full holiday period, this has been my first week back at the desk – and I’ve just had some brilliant news.

My PLR statement has arrived. PLR stands for Public Lending Right – a count of how many times my books are borrowed from libraries each year. Of course PLR is about money: fyi, each time someone takes home Black Tat or Tim from their local library I get a little over 6p. But to me, it’s more about how many readers I’m reaching. And for someone who’s only been in this ‘published author’ game since 2006, the figures are very encouraging…

The Black Tattoo was borrowed 4,694 times in the last year – that’s just here in the UK. I’m also delighted to say that Tim, Defender of the Earth is hot on its heels, at 3,767 times. Of course, Crawlers won’t have been out for a full year by the time of my next statement (the launch isn’t ’til April). But come next January you can bet I’ll be waiting anxiously to hear just how the youngest of my mutant offspring has been doing in libraries.

Being able to try books out for free at my local library has played a MASSIVE part in making me the reader and writer I am today. So the fact that my own books are in libraries right now, doing (I hope) the same for other people… that gives me an enormous thrill.

A HUGE thank you to librarians everywhere for the amazing jobs you do. And a very Happy New Year to you, reading this.

I’m glad to have got 2009 out of the way, aren’t you? Here’s to 2010, and whatever (else) it brings. 😀

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for one of my absolute favourite monsters, THE KRAKEN.

Reprising the classic look from Ray Harryhausen‘s original film, the Kraken appears for a whole gleeful climactic eighteen seconds in the current trailer(2) for the soon-to-be-released remake of Clash of the Titans.

To my enormous delight, the Kraken was also recently honoured as Badass of the Week by Ben Thompson, on his brilliant website of the same name: click here for a great piece that rounds up some classic Krakenology in fine style.

However: Mr Thompson’s excellent description of his subject as (I quote) “basically a giant-ass emotionless cephalopod who lives solely to eat boats, destroy all life in the ocean, and violently implode warships with his ultra-powerful crush-o-matic appendages of doom“, while wonderful, isn’t, I believe, quite the whole story. There’s a very different side to our titanic tentacular friend, as anyone familiar with the Kraken’s starring role in Tim, Defender of the Earth might already know. 😀

Another mad year draws to a close. I am knackered, but with CRAWLERS poised to launch in April (and plenty more thrilling projects in the pipeline) I’m very, very happy.

Thanks, best wishes and Merry Christmas to anyone reading this. I hope you enjoy your food. ;D

The sinister masterplan continues. SNEE HEE HEE!

Sam

I’d thought I was all finished with school events for 2009 but today I got to do a bonus one, having been invited at shortish notice [via TBM] to talk to Year 8 students at Oxted School, Surrey.

The group were a little quieter than I’ve been used to lately. In fact during my readings from Black Tat, then Tim, and then (on its first school appearance looking like a proper book-!) Crawlers, the students were utterly pin-drop silent. Accustomed to having to work hard to get the attention of more boisterous groups, I was a bit disconcerted at first! But as the session went on hands started to go up and I was asked some fantastic questions. My thanks to everyone there for listening to me so carefully.

…That, in case you’re wondering, is what I was told the unforgettable image on the cover of my new book CRAWLERS was made of. At yesterday’s Random House Children’s Books Christmas Party I got the chance to meet, thank and congratulate the person responsible, namely RHCBUK’s in-house design genius Rhys Willson.

He’s clearly a man who loves his job. ‘If you want to do cuts or wounds,’ he explained with relish, ‘then pork is the way to go, because it looks just like human flesh. As for the squid, I went down the fish-market, saw one I liked, and got the fishmonger to mash it up a bit for me with a mallet.’

😀

Meanwhile, CRAWLERS has now received its first review, by Barry Hutchison, author of the bracingly bloodcurdling and entirely awesome upcoming horror series INVISIBLE FIENDS: hit this link – and imagine how I felt as I read that first paragraph…! ;p

It’s time to reveal the cover of my new book, CRAWLERS, which is due to be published this April 2010

I’m very excited! Hee hee hee!

In other news, by the time you read this the final two slices of my free, nasty story JETHRO’S ACE OF HEARTS will be live at Trapped By Monsters. For those who haven’t already, you can read it from the beginning, here.

Here’s a cropped shot of the shelf where I keep my working editions – the ones that I take with me to my events at schools, libraries, bookshops, festivals, etc. That’s why Black Tat and Tim look a bit battered. But long-term followers of this blog might notice something new on their right. 😉

The advance reader copies – ‘proofs’ – of Crawlers arrived this morning. These are rough, not-quite-finished versions of the book that will be given to booksellers, reviewers and other interested parties in the hope of generating some early buzz before the final version officially launches this April 2010.

To me, after two years of work, they’re something else, too. Now, for the first time, Crawlers is a proper book at last.

My disgusting, betentacled, mutant offspring (but its daddy loves it) is almost ready to slither forth out into the world with its siblings.

Today is a super good day. 😀

Today was my last school event of 2009, as I’m spending the remainder of the year hunkered down with Phase Four of my Sinister Masterplan. But my visit to The Ridgeway School, Swindon, was a great one to finish off with. Everyone I spoke to over my three sessions with groups from Ridgeway’s Year 7 and Year 9 was unfailingly polite, attentive, enthusiastic and awesome.

If you’re from Ridgeway, reading this, a colossal thank you for your warm welcome and excellent questions.