February 2022 Archives

Russia invades Ukraine; need I say any more?

Well, yes: Vladimir Putin is 69 and rumours last year suggested he'd been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. He's been the Russian Federation's Prime Minister or President for 23 years, and high office combined with executive power tends to drive office-holders completely out of touch with external reality in about a decade.

I'm also going to note that Putin's politics seems to echo a bunch of ethnonationalist tropes from Aleksandr Dugin, a deeply dangerous ideologue who drank the Kool Aid Julius Evola was passing around. (Esoteric fascist neoreactionary philosopher.)

Hates the LGBTQ+, UK news outlet Pink News reports Russia plotting to kill LGBT+ Ukrainians after invasion (according to an unnamed US source, so treat with caution—might be disinformation).

Oh, and both the Russian stock market and BitCoin both fell off a cliff (BtC is down nearly 10% in the past 24 hours). Some "store of value", huh? (Gold is heading for the stratosphere, as usual in time of war ...)

Anyway, over to you for discussion, with one ground rule: do not report on current Ukrainian troop or defensive positions or anything else that might get people killed, otherwise you will get an immediate red card (permaban).

Escape from Yokai Land cover

Escape from Yokai Land comes out on March 1st, just two weeks from now. It's a novella, not a novel—under 100 pages—and it's a US-only release, from Tor.com (although you can order copies for import into the UK). As usual, Transreal Fiction in Edinburgh will be happy to sell you signed hardcovers by mail (or even in person, if you happen to be visiting Edinburgh); allow a week or so after publication date for the import copies to show up and for me to get there and sign them.

So what's it about?

Observant Laundry Files fans will have noticed the total absence of Bob Howard from the events described in The Nightmare Stacks (which is why he re-appeared in The Delirium Brief, sweating bullets and fronting for the organization on the TV news shows). What was he doing in the meantime? Well, it appears he was busy with an overseas liaison job in Japan, and this is that story ...

In the internal chronology, this therefore takes place between Laundry Files books 6 and 7, The Annihilation Score and The Nightmare Stacks, and a long time before the New Management books (which start with Dead Lies Dreaming, 2-3 years later in wall clock time).

As for whether there's going to be a UK edition: the short answer is, not yet. The slightly longer version is, I'm working towards a Laundry Files short story collection, which will have a UK edition, and this will almost inevitably be part of it.

In other writing news: I'm currently working on Season of Skulls, the third New Management book, which is provisionally due out in both the US and UK markets (from Tor.com and Orbit, as usual) in May 2023. And I'm working on A Conventional Boy, another stand-alone Laundry Files novella (this time, about Derek the DM), which will hopefully show up in the aforementioned Laundry Files short story collection (but not before Season of Skulls).

PS: Yes, Escape from Yokai Land was previously titled Escape from Puroland. Trademark concerns prompted a change of title, and the change of title forced a 6 month delay (it takes time to re-schedule and print paper hardcovers with a new title). If you've seen reviews of Escape from Puroland, this is the same novella.

PPS: Puroland is real, Yokai Land is (hopefully) not.

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