Writing Thraxas

A poster from 2000 advertising the first three Thraxas books. Rather battered now, from moving house several times. After Orbit had agreed to publish the first book, they asked me to write another two to 'Establish a Presence on the Book Shelves,' I wrote these next two very quickly, much faster than I can manage now. The first Thraxas novel won the World Fantasy Award in 2000. I'm working on the thirteenth book in the series now, it will be available next year.

My Book of Short Stories

Troubled Cities, my book of short stories and samples, will be published on January 12th. Here is the front cover and contents page. Paperback and ebook available to buy/order from Amazon & Apple Books worldwide, and bookshops in the UK & US. Amazon lets you pre-order the ebook, though not the paperback.  Amazon ebook

TikTok

I've been using TikTok, in an ageing author sort of way. I've made three simple videos, for my two Supercute Books, for Lonely Werewolf Girl, and for Suzy Led Zeppelin and Me. Despite my videos being completely overwhelmed and lost in the vast ocean of TikTok, I'm quite pleased at my efforts.

My TikTok videos are here.

Supercute Second Future

 

Royal Literary Fund

I recently received a grant from the Royal Literary Fund. I was very pleased about this. Like many other people, I've been struggling recently. Also, although my writing career has now spanned thirty-five years, it's probably the only time any British literary institution has acknowledged my existence. Major literary events are not clamouring for my participation. So I sort of felt validated by the award. I suppose I shouldn't need to feel validated but I did anyway. The Royal Literary Fund doesn't require you to make any grant they give you public knowledge but I'm mentioning it anyway because I'm grateful to them, and they were nice to deal with. Also, to let any struggling authors known that they're an institution who are worth applying to if you could use some help.

Thraxas Book 12 – Thraxas Meets His Enemies

Thraxas Book 12 – Thraxas Meets His Enemies  – has now been published as a paperback. You can order it from Amazon and also from bookshops in the UK and US. The ebook will be available in about a week.  ISBN  979-8421592259

Amazon UK  ––  Amazon US 

'Sources at the Palace indicate that a very large sum of money in the form of gold bullion has disappeared from the Palace vaults. This was earmarked for the purchase of food and is a terrible loss to a city already on the brink of starvation. The whole affair smacks of corruption at the highest levels. Our revered War Leader Lisutaris, Mistress of the Sky, is of course beyond suspicion but the sad truth is she's surrounded by a coterie of very dubious characters including assassins, degenerate sorcerers, half-Orcish ruffians and several shady figures from the lower depths of Turanian society. Our readers will be amazed to learn that among these figures is Thraxas, about whom the Chronicle has had reason to warn the city before. As the food intended for our starving population disappears to the Simnian, Samsarinan and Niojan encampments, many curious glances will be cast towards the Mistress of the Sky, wondering why her most trusted companions all seem to be characters of the very lowest repute…'

Thraxas Book 12

It's taken me longer than intended to write Thraxas book 12. I think the Covid crisis interfered with and delayed everything I've been doing. Still, I've finished a decent draft and am now revising it. I hope it will be published around March/April 2022.

Suzy, led Zeppelin and Me

 My novel Suzy, led Zeppelin and Me, 2002, reprinted in 2019.

Amazon

'You know Manx, if anyone had said to me when I was at school 'Led Zeppelin are terrible, you should listen to Elvis Presley instead', I would have mocked them. So I'd never try and tell anyone that Led Zeppelin were better than their favourite band of the moment. You can't go around listening to music that your parents liked. Anyway, I like to hear new music myself. But I must admit there have been times when I've been watching some bunch of fumbling indie kids droning on about nothing very much on stage when I'd have been pleased if a huge time warp had opened up and the mighty Led Zeppelin had marched into the auditorium.

'That's what a fucking guitar is meant to sound like,' I'd say, and dare anyone to contradict me.

Simulation Bleed, Collected Serial

Simulation Bleed. My published version of a serial I wrote on my website. Recently corrected of various typos, my arch nemesis.

When writing this serial I had several topics in mind. Things from my life that I wanted to write about but not in an autobiographical way. Memories, some good, some nagging. Good memories about all the gigs I saw, late 70s and into the 80s, punk and post-punk. And not so good memories about therapy on the NHS, sitting in some uncomfortable classroom with a therapist whom I knew was never going to help me with my agoraphobia.

So I folded these memories all into the story, not making it about myself. I took inspiration for this from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5, in which Vonnegut dealt with his experiences during the firebombing of Dresden by writing about it in a rather oblique manner. Admittedly that was a far weightier topic than my experiences at punk gigs but still, I did take inspiration from that book. And then I added fairies, which does seem to happen in my writing quite a lot.

Paperback and ebook –– Amazon UK – Amazon US

First edition of my first book, Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation, from 1987. This copy's looking very worn now. I wrote it on an old orange Olivetti portable typewriter with a broken carriage return. After typing each full line, I had to manually push the carriage back to the left side of the page. It took me four and a half weeks to write the book and it was never revised much after that. It was the third novel I'd completed but the first one that was any good. I posted it off to a literary agent I picked at random from the Writer's and Artist's yearbook and surprisingly she accepted it right away. However, it took her three and a half years to find a publisher. I never liked the cover very much but I was so pleased to be published I didn't care at the time.

Introduction to my new edition of Simulation Bleed

I wrote Simulation Bleed as a weekly serial on my website. There were three parts made up of 211 short chapters. I always enjoyed writing it. I'm fond of the main characters: Rainith, Mixt and Nakishdan. Rainith the Red is a particularly bad-tempered and anti-social fairy. Mixt and Nakishdan are two people with many problems who'd much rather be left alone to play video games. None of them are suited to working as government agents. But it happens, and they're stuck with it.

Because it's a serial, it is slightly rambling. I couldn't say it was tightly plotted. Several threads are not pursued and some occurrences are not resolved. However, I did resolve the main events, and as the story involved various timelines, I could claim that any sub-plot that wasn't resolved simply disappeared when history was changed.

When I started Simulation Bleed I planned to write about things I knew about. Firstly, early punk gigs in London. I went to a lot of these, and most of the gigs in the serial are based on concerts I was at. I've seen most of the bands whose records are mentioned. The video game that Nakishdan and Mixt play in the book is mostly based on Mass Effect. I played that trilogy a lot, with great enjoyment. As it turned out, there's a lot of therapy in Simulation Bleed as well. That's not what I'd call a favourite topic of mine but I do know quite a lot about it, from experience.

Several elements of the book such as the gaming, and Nakishdan's liking for all things kawaii, did go on to feature more in the next novel I wrote, Supercute Futures. That's fine, I find both topics very interesting. Despite the occasional loose ends, and some small overlap with a later novel, I haven't revised the serial, preferring to publish it as it was originally written. So here it, Simulation Bleed.

www.amazon.co.uk ||| www.amazon.com

Lux and Alby Sign On and Save the Universe

I've just brought my graphic novel back into print. I wrote it in 1991 and the artist was Simon Fraser. It originally appeared as nine comics, published by Richard Hansom at the Acme comics shop in Brixton. In 1999 it emerged as a graphic novel, published by Pater Pavement's Slab-O-Concrete Press. That was a good edition but it's been out of print for a long time. So here it is again. It's set partly in Brixton in South London, where I used to live, and partly in the realms of the protectors of Nirvana.

'When Lux the Poet and Alby Starvation, notably poor South London inhabitants, find themselves sharing a house, tensions arise. Not only that, the fabric of the universe starts to crumble. The arrival of Ruby, with her plans for total domination of the squatting group, leads them into a fantastic (and upsetting) adventure, featuring powerful Goddesses, unhappy plants, sad rocks, a lot of kissing, and a full scale assault on Nirvana. Can Alby rescue his precious comics? Will Lux mange to charm his way to another benefit check? Will the rocks, plants and fairies ever smile again? Find out in Lux and Alby Sign on and Save the Universe.'

Amazon UK ---- Amazon US

ISBN 978-1688341715 - You can order it from bookshops too.

 

Suzy, Led Zeppelin and Me

Suzy, Led Zeppelin and Me. My schooldays in Glasgow, and the mighty Led Zeppelin are coming to play. I always liked this book but it had an unfortunate history. Shorty after it was published, the publisher went out of business. The book disappeared almost as soon as it arrived. Soft Skull did do a decent American edition, but the book has been out of print in Britain for a long time. I've now brought it back into print myself. While preparing the book, I read through it with some trepidation, as I always would with any of my old books, wondering how much I'd hate it, and how often I'd be shaking my head muttering 'What was I thinking when I wrote this?' But that didn't happen too often and I still liked it, which was a relief. - https://amzn.to/2Vn3EJ4

Anime, Manga and Supercute Futures

Anything I'm enthusiastic about often ends up influencing my writing. Sometimes that's unintentional. Sometimes it's not. The impact of anime and manga on my new novel Supercute Futures was quite deliberate. I've enjoyed anime and manga for a long time so I thought I'd attempt to write something like that. Or, at least, something that reflected the pleasure I've received from these genres. That's how Supercute Futures came about. I'm not copying anyone else's plot or characters, but I was entering the same sort of universe.

Wondering about my own influences, I made a quick list of anime/manga I've most enjoyed. Off the top of my head that would be something like -

Claymore
Ghost in the Shell
Cowboy Bebop
Psychopass
Shakugan no Shana
Lucky Star
Blame
Bleach
K-On
Fairy Tale
Evangelion

That list misses out a lot of popular favourites, though it's not a list of obscurities. These are well-known titles. I'm far from being an expert on the subject, hunting out hidden gems. How each individual title might have influenced me is difficult to say. The heroines of Supercute Futures, Mox and Mitsu, do have happy childhood memories of playing at Claymore, running around in a garden with big cardboard swords, but there's no swordplay in the scientific world of Supercute. There's a lot of swordplay in Shakugan no Shana and Bleach too but it wasn't an avenue I wanted to explore. (Although in a previous book, Lonely Werewolf Girl, Vex is a Shakugan no Shana fan, and I have eaten melonpan because of that manga.) I suppose Ghost in the Shell was more of a direct influence, with its comprehensive take on cyberpunk. I've enjoyed Ghost in the Shell in all its incarnations - the original films, Stand Alone Complex, 2nd Gig, Arise. Even the Hollywood version was a decent attempt although, being Hollywood, it wasn't as intelligent as the Japanese originals.

I like cyberpunk anime though I haven't found anything to compare to GITS. Psychopass was enjoyable, anyway. I've thought a lot about the gigantic world of Blame, with its net terminal genes, and all the characters who appear briefly, never to be seen again. (What happened to Toha Heavy Industries? And should a man my age buy a Toha Heavy Industries t-shirt?) I've watched Cowboy Bebop many times. I love its populated, terraformed solar system and its a great story with great characters. Fantastic music too, from Yoko Kanno. I don't know if I'm looking forward to the live action version because they might well mess it up, but who knows, maybe they'll surprise me.

Another favourite is Lucky Star, which made me laugh. Though that was a four panel, or 4-koma manga, it translated well into longer anime episodes. Now I'm wondering how I could incorporate that 4-koma format into a novel. And then there's things like K-On. I don't really see that filtering through into my books, though the girls who meet their friends in virtual space in Supercute Futures might carry some echoes of Ho-kago Tea Time. (And I do have a K-On t-shirt) Recently I've watched anime by subscribing to Crunchyroll, and sometimes on Netflix, and I've bought anime and manga over the years because I like to support the artists whose work I've enjoyed, and who've influenced me.
Amazon uk --- Amazon com

Supercute Futures

I have a new book coming out at the end of August, Supercute Futures. It's being published in Britain by Piatkus. Here is the cover, which I like very much. As far as I know, the ebook will be available in the US at the same time, and the paperback shortly afterwards.

Writing Kink Me Honey

My main purpose in writing Kink Me Honey was to write an entertaining book, but I did also have something else in mind. I wanted to avoid two very common cliches, or tropes, that often appear in writings about fetish. One of these being angst, the other coercion.

For annoying kink-related angst and misery, Fifty Shades of Grey is a fine example. What a ridiculous film that was. (I haven't read the book. Maybe that's better.) I was particularly irritated by the two bumbling idiots trying to work out whether they were actually going to indulge in some sort of kinky behaviour or not, as if it were a world-shattering decision no humans could possibly cope with.

Eventually I felt like shouting at the screen. "Look, if you want to do this just do it. If you don't, then do something else. No one is forcing you and no one cares. There are hundreds of nightclubs full of people all cheerfully indulging their fetish interests and they'd laugh at you acting like it's some massive problem no one's ever encountered before. Just fucking get on with it or go and do something else." That would have been quite a lot to shout at the screen, admittedly.

So in Kink Me Honey, there is no angst and misery. Fetish enthusiasts get on with their fetish enthusiasms in between getting on with the rest of their lives, which is what people do.

The second cliche of fetish writing I wanted to avoid was any sort of coercion. 'Oh dear - I've been kidnapped and now something bad will happen.' Actually, I do see why that's fairly common in fetish stories as it does form part of some people's fantasies, though not their real lives. But it's something I completely avoided. In my book nothing happens against anyone's will. No one is kidnapped, imprisoned or otherwise coerced. The characters are all normal people who happen to have kinky sex lives. They meet through their fetish websites, have friendly socials, go clubbing, and get on cheerfully with their kinky activities. That's what Kink Me Honey is about. It has a lot of BDSM in it. Industrial amounts, in fact. Also, it's funny and entertaining. I recommend it. Although as the author, I would say that.

Print  - Amazon US - Amazon UK

Ebook - Amazon US - Amazon UK - iBooks

Thraxas Book Eleven

I haven't been able to devote as much time as I'd have liked to Thraxas this year, as I've been busy with other things. However, I'm now now applying myself to the next book in the series, which will be number eleven. I hope it will be ready for publication early next year. It's time for Thraxas and Makri to get back to Turai, which they will, although it's uncertain what they'll find there.

Thraxas has been doing well since I continued the series and released them all as ebooks, I'm pleased with how it's gone.

Thraxas at Amazon

A brief extract from Kink Me Honey

Here is a brief extract from my new novel, Kink Me Honey.

Print  - Amazon US - Amazon UK

Ebook - Amazon US - Amazon UK - iBooks

****************

Kink Me Honey

Sex Orbit Personal blogs

Title: Spoiling a relationship

Posted by (user profile deleted)

Olivia’s hair had been dark in her profile picture on Sex Orbit, but by the time we met she’d dyed it bright blonde. She kept it like that for a long time. It suited her. She was pretty, and a good artist. She was a music fan to the point of obsession. The first time she visited me at home we both knew I was going to punish her. We’d exchanged messages on the Sex Orbit forum for a few weeks. Though we’d first encountered each other online we soon discovered we had some mutual acquaintances. She was friends with people who ran a small recording studio in Camden and I knew people who were in a band that used the studio and we all encountered each other in the pub sometimes. It’s possible we’d been in the same pub at the same time before meeting online, though I can’t remember ever seeing her there. Anyway, we arranged to meet.

   I had a small room in a shared flat. The other person was out when Olivia visited. I knelt on the small bed in my small room and asked Olivia to pull her trousers down and lie over my knees. Then I pulled her kickers down and spanked her. After a while I undressed her completely and spanked her more. Olivia was aroused by being spanked, but I did soon learn that she wasn’t very confident about her body. She could feel uncomfortable being naked with the lights on. She had a nice body. I don’t know why she was uncomfortable about it, but some people just are.

   Soon after this I moved into a flat on my own and Olivia used to visit me a lot and I spanked her a lot. We got on well. We went out places together, went to gigs, went to clubs, and sat in the pub, talking about music mainly. She sent me nice little notes with drawings in them and kisses at the end, in blue crayon.

   Olivia also liked being tied up. I was not that experienced at the time and didn’t attempt anything elaborate, but I tied her wrists behind her back and her ankles together. She liked being like that while she was spanked, and also while we were fucking. She found it easier to have an orgasm if her legs were together. That was a little unusual but not really a problem; she could kneel over the bed with her hands tied behind her back and her legs tied together and I could fuck her from behind. Sometimes I’d fuck her normally, but really she preferred if I fucked her up her arse. She could have orgasms like that, which I suppose isn’t that common. I tried gagging her, but she didn’t like that so I didn’t do it again. After we’d been going out with each other for about two months, I was visiting her own small flat and she asked me to whip her. Not being very experienced, I wasn’t sure about this. I didn’t have a whip, for one thing, but she told me there was a leather dog leash in the kitchen I could use. So I used the leash to whip her bottom. She liked that, though I didn’t do it all that hard. Later in life I’d have done it harder.

   After this visit she gave me a little note, saying she’d liked being whipped and she’d like to suck my beautiful cock and lick my beautiful arse. There were a lot of blue crayon kisses at the end. I might still have that note somewhere though this was many years ago. We went out for about a year and a half. We got on really well. I liked her a lot and we had a great sex life. We should have carried on for longer, but I spoiled the relationship by chasing after another woman. I won’t describe that, it was really quite stupid of me.

   That was some years ago, but we’re still vaguely in touch. She’s married with two children now, and doing well, as far as I know. I regret ruining that relationship.

Kink Me Honey - More

First copies of my new book, Kink Me Honey, contained some annoying typos. That was careless of me. These are fixed now. (Maybe your copy with typos will become valuable one day.) So, new, corrected version of Kink Me Honey now on sale. With less typos. Probably some still slipped through, the damned things are almost impossible to eradicate.

Kink Me Honey, my cheerfully obscene new book, paperback and ebook both available at Amazon and iBooks now. From bookshops in a few weeks. ISBN 978-1535009898.

You can read the first few pages of the ebook at Amazon, or download a sample at the Apple iBooks store.

Print  - Amazon US - Amazon UK

Ebook - Amazon US - Amazon UK - iBooks

Kink Me Honey

My new book, Kink Me Honey -

'The earnest, erotic, dominant, submissive, cheerful, depressed, humorous and occasionally clumsy endeavours of Ark, Gina, Mig, Mistress Tardy, Glam Tilly and an assortment of masters, mistresses, doms, subs and slaves, in the world of kink centred around Sex Orbit, London's most prominent fetish organisation.'

Print and ebook both available at Amazon now. From bookshops in a few weeks. ISBN 978-1535009898.

Print Amazon UK  :  Amazon US

Ebook Amazon UK : Amazon US

Kink Me Honey contains a lot of sex though I wouldn't say it was particularly pornographic by today's standards. (Nonetheless, it's not suitable for your young relative who liked my werewolf books.) Actually, it's wall-to-wall spanking, whipping, strap-ons, bondage and so on. But quite cheerfully done.

From the back cover -

‘I don’t know why you hated his reading so much,’ said Gina. ‘Other people liked it.’
  ‘His stories are full of angst and guilt. Everything connected with kink and fetish seems to lead to misery. But the people in the audience weren’t miserable about their kinky behaviour. They enjoyed it. It’s not fetish that makes them miserable, it’s lack of it.’
  ‘That may be true,’ agreed Gina. ‘Mig and Brandon are always cheerful after she whips him. It’s quite a happy domestic scene, really. Not much angst at all. But that wouldn’t make for a very good story, would it? And some woman flinging herself enthusiastically over your knee for a lengthy spanking is hardly going to enthral the reader either. There’s no drama in that.’
  ‘I suppose not.’
  Gina smiled. ‘And you know Ark, you do have your share of misery and angst. Quite a large share.’
  ‘Yes, of course. But that’s from everything else in life. The actual kink is fine.’