One pleasant thing about visiting Scotland was the sunny weather.  You might imagine that, living in India, the last thing I’d enjoy would be more sun.  While there’s an element of that, the sun in India during summer is too hot to indulge, and in practice you spend your life moving quickly from one air-conditioned building to another rather than hanging about outside.  In Scotland, it was hot enough for proper walking about, but not too hot, if you see what I mean.

Just picked up my mail today, and among many splendid books, I discovered my contributor copy of Dark Faith.  I knew it was a packed anthology, but had no idea it was quite as weighty looking as this – very impressive.  I’m already reading the book on my iPhone, thanks to the fantastic app of the book (which is cheap too), but there’s nothing like paper.  If this one slipped your mind, check this review and have a think about whether you can really be without it on your shelf.  Once read, you can also use it as a handy burglar-clubbing tool in case of emergencies.

I was also pleased to see that while I was away, more advance reviews appeared for Hiram Grange and the Nymphs of Krakow.  Anton Cancre reckons it’s effortlessly entertaining, calling it “snappy, punchy and unafraid to be a bit rough in the sack” over on his Pustule Oozings site, which is not a bad thing to hear.  Kurt Criscione also enjoyed it, declaring it to be the Bruce Willis movie of the series due to the physical pounding Hiram staggers through from the very opening of the book, and demanding that the story doesn’t finish here (we’re working on it, though people have to buy these ones first).  Anthony Monge at the Horror Drive-In also had a good time with the book, and the way it sets up future Hiram tales.

As you’d imagine, it’s a relief to see that early readers are enjoying the book.  I hope it’s enough to make you take a breath, and pre-order it from the publisher.  Pre-orders are a good thing.  The more the publisher gets, the more confident he feels that investing his time and money in my writing was a good thing to have done, and that does only good things for my professional reputation.  This is the case for anthologies too, but on this occasion I’m not one of several authors, many better known than me, that the publisher can use to sell the book.  It’s my name on the cover, nobody else’s, so the book stands or falls on that.  As such, I hope you’ll forgive the barrage of Hiram information and inducements to buy that you’ll get here and elsewhere.  If you’re going to buy the book at all, particularly if you’re in America, please do consider plonking your $7.99 down now, rather than waiting for the post-publication Amazon listing.

To close for the day, although squeezing it in as an ‘and finally’ end-of-news sort of way doesn’t quite do it justice, there’s Iris Wildthyme.  Originally created by Paul Magrs, this drunken transtemportal adventuress moved into several Doctor Who adventures before getting bored and wandering off for more of her own tales.  In her full length audio adventures, she’s voiced by the lovely Katy Manning.  In her print incarnations she’s scribed by numerous fine folk, many of them luminaries from the good Doctor’s tales. She travels through time, space, and the icky bits in between in a double decker bus that’s slightly smaller on the inside than the out.  Her best friend and constant companion is a pompous talking stuffed panda bear, called Panda.

Iris Wildthyme and her universe are, basically, as mad as a box of frogs.  I mention her here because her publisher Obverse Books have announced the line-up of their third Iris short story collection, Iris: Abroad, and it includes my short story ‘The Story Eater’.  It’s due in November as a beautiful little hardback, so watch this space.

Trust me, unless you’ve met Iris and Panda before, this is going to be like nothing you’ve ever read…

Hiram Grange is already broken when his world is turned upside down by the horrifying revelations of a beautiful and dangerous woman. Faced with the possibility that he’s been a pawn in a diabolical game, he seeks the truth in the snows of Krakow. But the truth is guarded by ancient, winged things, and the truth has teeth …

The fifth and final novella in Volume One of the Scandalous Misadventures of Hiram Grange, a loosely linked series of standalone novellas from Shroud Publishing (2010).

“Twisted, shocking and full of pitch-black humor and darkly original twists. One of the best books I’ve read this year.” - Brian Keene, Bram Stoker award winning author of Darkness on the Edge of Town and Dead Sea.

“Richard Wright is one of the best kept secrets in horror, which is a crying shame because a guy this good shouldn’t be a secret at all. And best of all, he just keeps getting better. Hiram Grange and the Nymphs of Krakow is a good old fashioned rollicking tale of mysticism and mayhem. The pages turn themselves, it’s that good.” – Steven Savile , the International Bestselling author of Silver, Primeval: Shadow of the Jaguar and Stargate SG-1: The Power Behind the Throne

Coming July 2010.  Pre-order direct from the publisher today.

Here you go, the finished cover.  My name’s on it, and everything.  You may have seen this already elsewhere, but I thought I’d wait a while before posting it myself.  Malcolm McClinton’s work, of course, with design by Danny Evarts.  Talented men.

If you imagine a writing life, you may well be under the impression that the last few weeks before your new book is released might be a joyous, celebratory occasion.  A little more thought, and you’ll appreciate it’s the most nerve-wracking moments of the job.  Gone are the sparks of creativity that put words on the page in dimly lit rooms.  The work is more or less done.  All that’s left is the countdown to D-Day.  Perhaps you are so confident in your own ability that you really can sit back and think “Aha!  I can’t wait!  This will show them!”.  If this is the case, you are possibly also on medication.

The experience for me is one of pacing, and wondering.  All the people who have read it prior to release (publisher, editor, perhaps some friends or family, me) all have a vested interest in finding things about the book to like.  What if those not vested with the same interest, such as you, don’t enjoy it at all?  What if nobody even reads it?  What if I’ve been kidding myself about this writing lark, and should crawl back in my box and spend my time learning how to knit socks or cultivate bonsai trees instead?

So when when two successful, acclaimed, and incredibly busy authors take time out of insane writing schedules to not only read the book and tell me they liked it, but let me tell other people they give it the thumbs up too, it’s not only flattering, it’s the cause of shuddering relief.

“Twisted, shocking and full of pitch-black humor and darkly original twists. One of the best books I’ve read this year.” - Brian Keene, the Bram Stoker winning author of Darkness on the Edge of Town and Dead Sea.

“Richard Wright is one of the best kept secrets in horror, which is a crying shame because a guy this good shouldn’t be a secret at all. And best of all, he just keeps getting better. Hiram Grange and the Nymphs of Krakow is a good old fashioned rollicking tale of mysticism and mayhem. The pages turn themselves, it’s that good.” - Steven Savile, International Bestselling author of Silver, Primeval: Shadow of the Jaguar and Stargate SG-1: The Power Behind the Throne.

Enormous thanks to Brian and Steve for finding the time.  Gentlemen and scholars, both.

Not content with that, this week also brought me the first advance review of the book, from Rebecca Baumann at Dirty Sexy Books.  It says many wonderful, quotable things, such as: “Gritty and sexy balls-to-the-walls adventure.  If you’re a fan of dark urban fantasy like me, then you’ll rejoice upon finding this treasure trove.” Go read the whole thing, why don’t you?

All of which goes some way to turning that exhausting anxiety into a better kind of giddiness, though it be early days yet.  In the end, the only person whose opinion really matters is yours, and I look forward to hearing it.

Pre-orders coming very soon indeed…

And to finish the week off, a final peek at the events of Hiram Grange and the Nymphs of Krakow, courtesy of Malcolm McClinton.  It’s the finale of the book.  A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about how one of Malcolm’s sample images of Hiram, produced as a sort of audition piece to see whether the writer’s thought he was the right artist for the project, directly inspired the conclusion of my novella.  This is not that image.  It’s the second draft.  The first was slightly different, but now Malcolm has modified the image based on the climax of the book it inspired, making it more relevant.  Art inspiring art inspiring art, in a weird but rewarding feedback loop.

That’s it for your McClinton previews, but forgive me, there will be more Hiram witterings to come.

Another peek at art by Malcolm McClinton, from my forthcoming Hiram Grange and the Nymphs of Krakow.  It’s very likely going to be the cover, and I thought you might like a peek before the text goes on.

The scene is from later in the book, on the streets of Krakow (that’s St. Mary’s Basilica in the background, fact fans).  The lady’s name is Gabrysia Kedra, and whether she’s Hiram’s friend, foe, or something else entirely is in the balance.  Whichever it is, I loved writing her almost as much as I did Hiram himself.  Seeing Malcolm give her a face is exhilarating.

Art by the amazing Malcolm McClinton, from the forthcoming Hiram Grange and the Nymphs of Krakow.  A scene from the book’s opening, as those who read the preview in issue five of Shroud magazine will know…

Good, isn’t it?

Poor Belfast.  If you think the city’s been through the ringer in the last forty years, you haven’t seen what Hiram’s going to do with it when he lands.

Yep, Kevin Lucia’s Hiram Grange and the Chosen One has now been released from Shroud Publishing, and is available from the publisher and Amazon (in the US – I’ll throw some links up when it appears on international sites).  Taking the opportunity to get Hiram out of America for a spell, Kev keeps up the action from the previous book, but spices it a little differently.  Where Rob delivered a techno-supernatural thriller, Chosen One serves up a tentacled extravaganza of old school horror.  Faeries (not your mother’s), damsels, possessions, shadowy figures in white playing manipulative games behind the scenes – and everyone, it seems, wants a piece of Hiram.  Illustrated by Malcolm McClinton, with woodcuts throughout from Danny Evarts.  It’s all here, so roll on up.

Which means, fact fans, that the next book in the series is mine, the series finale.  Coming soon, and all that.  This is probably a good time to point out that we’ve all worked very hard to make sure that each of the books stands alone.  You don’t have to start at book one and work your way through.  Obviously, we hope you do, and there are extra rewards if that’s how you play it, but you should also be able to jump into any book in the series and have yourself a very good time indeed.

And if you haven’t got them yet…

Hiram Grange and the Village of the Damned, by Jake Burrows.  Something wicked walks the streets of the picturesque New Hampshire village of Great Bay–something that has inexplicably risen from the grave to wreak a horrifying vengeance. Only one man can stop it–provided he can stay sober long enough to answer the call!

Grab a copy from the publisher, Horror Mall, Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, and other Amazon sites internationally.

Hiram Grange and the Twelve Little Hitlers, by Scott Christian Carr.  Hitler has escaped. Twelve of them, to be precise, each cloned from the original and hiding in the bizarre American underground. Hiram Grange has been tasked with hunting them down. The only problem: he’s hit rock bottom. His worst binge ever — a mad dance with absinthe, opium and depression…

Grab a copy from the publisher, Horror Mall, Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, and other Amazon sites internationally.

Hiram Grange and the Digital Eucharist, by Robert Davies.  From its global headquarters in Boston, the mysterious Occlusionist Movement is preparing to control the world with its Digital Eucharist, while in the serpentine bowels of the city an ancient demon is unleashed, eager for revenge against the man who imprisoned it years ago – Hiram Grange!

Grab a copy from the publisher, Horror Mall, Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, and other sites internationally.

Top tip of the day – if you go and check out the publisher, you can get three of these for the price of two…

Here’s the third in a brief series of articles about the creation of the Hiram Grange novellas, currently being released by Shroud Publishing, and due to conclude soon with my own ‘Hiram Grange and the Nymphs of Krakow’.  You can find part one here, in which Tim from Shroud Publishing lures five writers to him, and here, in which babies are mercilessly (and metaphorically) slaughtered.

I don’t often talk in any detail about what I’m writing at a given time until I’ve actually written it. An idea is not a story.  Everyone has ideas, and everyone blurts them out, and they never sound as good on the tongue as they did in the blurters head.  A story is crafted over time, honed and sharpened, and if the writer knows his or her stuff, far less disappointing than the muddled notion it grew from.  Nothing makes me lose interest in my own ideas faster than telling somebody about them before the words are pinned and polished on the page.

Of course, with Hiram we had no choice.  We had discussed him endlessly before wandering off to our own novellas, nailing down details, setting limits, pre-exploring the character as fully as we could in order to establish a consistent central figure.  In the end though, we all had to leave the nest, and get down to the solitary business of putting words on pages.

So, what went into my own Hiram tale?  Clearly, it was first held to the bible we developed, the backdrop, and the character, though I won’t say much more about those because that’s what the books themselves are for.

On the other hand, now is a great time to bring on board Malcolm McClinton, the series artist.  At some point during the brainstorm, editor Tim Deal threw out some sample images from artists he though might be a good fit for the insane, modern pulp feel we were looking for.  While I can’t place exactly when Malcolm joined the party, I can say for sure that the first images we got from him knocked us sideways.  This character Hiram, this pretend man we made up in our collective heads, suddenly had a face.  In general, I’m avoiding speaking for the team in these little essays, but on this occasion I’ll chance my arm and state that there was an instant feeling that Malcolm nailed it.  I’m still a bit staggered every time I look at one of his images, because that’s Hiram.   That’s what was in my head.  There was a very informal group vote, and a very fast one.  We had our series artist.  That we made the right choice is pretty obvious from the covers so far released.  I think my favourite remains the very first.  Hiram, on that chair, the dead piled up around his feet…

Having said that, everything Malcolm’s done within the series has been both astonishing, and absolutely right. There’s one image in particular, that you won’t have seen yet, that defined the conclusion of Nymphs in a very direct way.  It was one of the samples he produced, before the plots of each book were fully defined, and that’s why Hiram’s very final battle in the series so far is with an honest-to-goodness *spoiler*.  That defining image will be reproduced somewhere in Nymphs, though I don’t yet know whether it’s a cover or an interior.

The second big influence on Nymphs was the city of Krakow.  I’d recently taken my girlfriend, now wife, there for her birthday (a blurry but brilliant affair), and it had screamed at me to use it in a story.  Nymphs was a perfect opportunity, and there are many key locations lifted straight from our break, almost as though the book is some sort of literary photo album.  The flat Hiram exits so hurriedly, the club where he staggers to meet his nemesis, so many of them things Kirsty and I roamed by in our brief weekend.  Even the weather, though the snow wasn’t quite as bad during our brief break.  It’s a city that makes an impression, and I hope I did it a little justice.  Go visit.  It’s splendid.

Other ingredients came and went.  In homage to my favourite modern pulp hero, Indiana Jones, I was determined that my installment of the Grange saga would open with the conclusion of an otherwise unseen adventure, that then plays into the main story.  I accomplished that, taking a snippet written years ago, for an entirely different character (Jackson Greene – anybody remember him?), and finally fleshing it out.  It’s a fun storytelling gimmick, that I think be can really only pulled off with a serial character like Hiram.  It means I can drop you into a story that opens at a hundred miles an hour, and I hope you feel a touch breathless when you read it.

Hiram Grange and the Nymphs of Krakow (it’s not a random title – a little research into Eastern European / Russian mythology gave rise to the perfect beast for Hiram to race to Krakow to face down) has the further distinction of being the only published piece of writing (except for that opening, three hundred word snippet that was then adapted) I’ve ever written long-hand.  You know those self-important guys you see in coffee shops, pen in hand, looking thoughtfully out of the window?  That was me.  I really was that pretentious.  The first draft of the book exists in a moleskin notebook upstairs, written in fits and starts in Costa Coffee and Starbucks outlets across Glasgow.

Finally, there was the music.  When I write, I usually have a piece of music that I put on every time I sit down to a story.  Once you’ve got the right tunes, they’re like a short cut back into the story, a fast way to get into the particular mood of the piece.  Nymphs was written to the Zimmer/Howard soundtrack to The Dark Knight, a movie I can no longer watch without a part of me rejoining Hiram in Krakow.

By January 2009, the first draft was written and I breathed a sigh of relief.  Prematurely, as it turned out.  Editing and rewriting this book has been like nothing else I’ve experienced as a writer.  But that’s for next time.  For now, head over to your local Amazon and tap ‘Hiram Grange’ into the search box…

Somehow, we’ve reached the midway point in the scandalous misadventures of Hiram Grange.  Hiram Grange and the Digital Eucharist, from the pen of Robert Davies, has just been released by Shroud Publishing.  The same team have been involved, meaning interiors from Danny Evarts and Malcolm McClinton, with Malcolm of course providing another glorious cover.

After the crushing conclusion of Hiram Grange and the Twelve Little Hitlers, Hiram has little time to pull himself back together before he’s investigating the mysterious Occlusionist Movement.  Old enemies return, seemingly from the grave, as the Movement prepares to unleash its Digital Eucharist, and in doing so enslave the world.

It’s an action-packed romp, this one, a very different flavour to Little Hitlers, and that’s part of what I love about this series.  Same character, same world, but different outlooks.  There’s a lot jammed into the Grange books, and the different styles brought in by the different authors in each adventure add to the intrigue of the whole.  It’s like reading a series such Doctor Who, which follows consistent characters through tales penned by several creators.  If people love Hiram, they’re still going to have a favourite book or author among them.  Some will love Jake’s sometimes laugh-out-loud comic darkness, others will find Scott’s disturbed and surreal emotional landscape most appealing, and still others will be be drawn in by Rob’s explosive, genre-fusing adventure.  Kevin Lucia and I aren’t even in the mix yet, but already Hiram readers have had a hell of a varied ride.

Get yourself a copy of Hiram Grange and the Digital Eucharist from Shroud Publishing, or from Amazon.com (Amazon haven’t yet updated the content, but will happily sell you the book).  As it starts appearing on other Amazon sites, such as Canada and the UK. I’ll let you know.

And if you haven’t got them yet…

Hiram Grange and the Village of the Damned, by Jake Burrows.  Something wicked walks the streets of the picturesque New Hampshire village of Great Bay–something that has inexplicably risen from the grave to wreak a horrifying vengeance. Only one man can stop it–provided he can stay sober long enough to answer the call!

Grab a copy from the publisher, Horror Mall, Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, and other Amazon sites internationally.

Hiram Grange and the Twelve Little Hitlers, by Scott Christian Carr.  Hitler has escaped. Twelve of them, to be precise, each cloned from the original and hiding in the bizarre American underground. Hiram Grange has been tasked with hunting them down. The only problem: he’s hit rock bottom. His worst binge ever — a mad dance with absinthe, opium and depression…

Grab a copy from the publisher, Horror Mall, Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, and other Amazon sites internationally.

Some crazy fool has put it in my head that I should perhaps venture over to the 2011 World Horror Convention in Austin, Texas, this time next year.  It’s a hell of a way to go, but I’m tempted, expense be damned.  I thought if I mentioned it here, you might be of a mind to talk me out of it.  What do you think?

I woke up the other morning, rolled over in bed, and checked my email (on my iPhone, docked next to me in an alarm clock widget).  I was pleased, and a bit surprised, to find that one of the two pitches I made when I got back from Thailand in January has been commissioned.  Nothing has been publicly announced yet, so far be it for me to jump the gun, but it’s a piece for an anthology, and is left-field of my usual fictional territory.  I’ll let you know more when I can, but it’s going to be fun…

That means that 2010 should see four books published with my work between the covers.  With the slight mid-season break in the Hiram series, it looks like the first could well be the super-anthology from Apex Books, Dark Faith, which contains among others my new short story ‘Sandboys’.  Check out the link, the contributors, and the Publisher’s Weekly review at the bottom of the page.  It’s due on May 1st, and if you order from that page (ie, direct from the publisher), you’ll also get an exclusive, limited run promotional chapbook of extra stories, called Dark Faith: Last Rites.  The gorgeous cover art for the additional volume can be seen at the bottom of the page, after the reviews and blurbs.

Shortly after that should see Hiram Grange and the Nymphs of Krakow, which I’ve been banging on about for months, for good reason.  Have you read the first two books in the series yet?  Enjoying them?  If not, go search them out on Amazon.  Hiram’s waiting…

Over the summer sometime, I’m also expecting to see Withersin 3: Turpentine, Iodine, and Arsenic, which features my short story ‘Hermanesha’, and will ship with three variant covers (you get to choose which one when you order).

And around about November, mystery anthology project should be ready to go, just in time for Christmas.  Not a bad year, and it’s only April, so there’s time to add to the list.