How odd.  A copy of Hiram Grange and the Nymphs of Krakow arrived this week, the first I’ve seen.  It’s a brilliant moment in any writer’s life, an exuberant, thrilling moment.  At the same time, it’s dislocating.  For almost two years, this story has been part of me, on the inside, and in my notebook, and on my laptop.  When it suddenly turns up in the mail, glossy, gorgeous, and full of itself, well… it’s my thoughts, made real.  It’s not part of me anymore, it’s its own thing.  Other people can pick it up, read it, and have completely different relationship to it than the one I have.  For the longest time, this story and I have had a deeply intimate and private relationship.  Now, we’ve decided to see other people, and while that can be exciting, it’s a little uncomfortable.  My book now has a life of its own, will meet people I never will, will hopefully please them enormously, and it’s very likely I’ll never even hear about it.  Strange, and exciting.

But don’t feel bad about buying a copy, and spending time with it behind my back*.

Also a pleasure to see the first chapter of Craven Place filling the final pages of the book, the novel you can get for free in instalments if you sign up to the Shroud Digital Edition.  I may have been involved with Hiram for two years, but that pales in comparison with my more than decade long relationship with Craven Place.  Makes me feel dirty just thinking about you reading it.  Go and sign up immediately.

In a complete change of tone from the dark, perverse, pulp styling of Mr Grange, this week I also received the final edits of my Iris Wildthyme story, The Story Eater, which has bold colours, and comedy.  Good edits by good editors are good things – as long as you also know your own mind, they make your story better.  I have to confess to an internal groan when I opened the document up, and saw how many editorial comments were on the manuscript.  I cheered up considerably when I found that half of them were editor Stuart Douglas just highlighting things he really enjoyed.  In fact, copy edits aside (the bits where my typos are gently pointed out to me), the only major change required was to the tone of the ending.  It was a change I didn’t mind making in the least, as it affected how the characters progressed into the future.  These aren’t my characters, after all, and there will be other writers who need them intact for future stories. The whole Iris experience, like Hiram, has been a genuine pleasure.  I have now written dialogue for a tiny, stuffed panda who sounds very much like Noel Coward.  Can’t say fairer than that.

While not writing, editing, or encouraging you to buy stories, I’ve been completely monsooned on in the last few weeks.  We were actually out and about in the monsoon last weekend.  While Kirsty went to get beautified, Eva and I popped out for coffee and book browsing, and the rains swept in while we were out.  I called our driver while under an awning, and in the ten seconds it took us to cross to where he pulled up, we were drenched.  I got Eva into the car, then stepped onto the road to get in the other side.  It was calf deep.  Made me glad to have a big car – driving home was more like boating.  We’ve now had weeks of rain, but it looks different at road level than from our lofty apartment.

It makes us crave a vacation, especially after the unpleasant pitfalls of our Scottish trip.  Around about October, we’ll be heading off to Hong Kong for a couple of days, then to Hong Kong Disneyland for a couple more.  I’ve done Disney before, in Florida, but was too busy being a cynical teenager to enjoy it as it’s designed to be enjoyed.  Going with a six year old with a passion for princesses is different, and I’m really looking forward to it, talking rodents and all.  After that, we need to make a Christmas plan.  Delhi was fine last year, but something else is required for Christmas 2010.  Sri Lanka?  Malaysia?  Back to Thailand?  Decisions, decisions…

* from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, or direct from the publisher.

Okay, so you’ve ordered your copy of Hiram Grange and the Nymphs of Krakow (possibly from Amazon US, or Amazon UK, for example).  You joined Hiram in his Polish nightmare, emerged breathless from the end… and noticed there are a few more pages still awaiting your attention.  Welcome to your Easter Egg – the first chapter of my novel Craven Place.

There’s a long history to this book.  At first, back in 1999, it wasn’t a book at all, but a feature film.  A good friend and director, Mitchell Morgan, was set up to direct his second movie, written by him, when a big chunk of the funding fell through, meaning he had to scrap his plans for that film and find another he could manage with the money he had left, and the locations and cast he had already committed to.  He and I got our heads together over a pint or seven, and I went off for a couple of days of frantic typing.  What emerged was the screenplay for Craven Place, which was then filmed in North Wales over a very frantic seven or eight days.  Alas, financial woes did not stop there, and the film never made it through the post-production process (a shame – I thought the rough cut I saw had a lot of potential).  Still, good times, and while Mitch and his team retained the film rights, I walked away with permission to do whatever I wanted with the story in written form.

Thus I started the novel.  It took a long time to happen, mostly because I got a bit downhearted about the while thing when I realised the film wasn’t going to happen.  In 2008, however, I went back, reread, and liked what was there a lot.  At the start of 2009, I finished it.  Turns out, it’s not quite the novel of the unfinished movie, as it developed a different personality in the writing, but ten year old screenplay is still there in the scenes and structure.

Since sompletion, it’s sat in a drawer.  I’ve never been sure what the market for this locked room murder mystery cum ghost story actually is.  Crime, or horror?  It’s probably that nebulous middle ground known as ‘mystery’, but I like the story a lot.

So, with a little help from Shroud Publishing, I’m giving you the book for free.  In the next month, Shroud are launching a digital edition of their flagship magazine, to be delivered by email to subscribers.  It’s free.  It’s going to feature a lot of exclusive short fiction and columns (including new Hiram Grange tales, I suspect).  It’s also going to serialise the novel of Craven Place.

For free.  All you have to do is sign up to the Shroud newsletter, and you get the digital edition of the mag for nothing.  Including the unfolding tale of Craven Place.

Go and sign up, right now.

I’ve no idea what the future of the novel might be beyond this serial adventure, so the most compelling reason to sign up is that you may never get another chance to read it.  The Easter Egg chapter in Nymphs of Krakow could well be the only time any of the story hits paper, which makes the book that little bit more special.

I hope you hand over some cash and buy Hiram Grange and the Nymphs of Krakow.  Call Craven Place a thank you, of sorts.  It’s yours, a spooky mystery featuring Matthew Hopkins (no relation), Tanith Pearce, Nicholas Eldritch, and more.  I hope you enjoy it.

Here’s the fourth and final in a brief series of articles about the creation of the Hiram Grange novellas, released by Shroud Publishing, and now concluded 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. Part two is here, in which babies are mercilessly (and metaphorically) slaughtered. Part three is here, in which some actual writing happened.

So, the first draft was written. Hiram had officially fought beasts of the air, travelled to Krakow, hunted and been hunted by Kedra, and been brutally punished by nymphs and little gods alike. I’d ended the series, turning everything that had gone before on its head, as per the grand plan. At the inception stage, we discussed at length whether the Hiram series should be static, replaying the central conceit over and again in a whacked out monster-of-the week way, or whether we wanted an evolving story. All decided that as long as each separate book could still be read and enjoyed ‘out of sequence’ then the latter was a far more interesting way to go. Jake, Scott, Rob, and Kevin all worked hard to plant the seeds of the climax in their own books, slowly shaping and reshaping Hiram’s world towards it, always paying it forward to the next book, and I basically snatched up all the good stuff they put in there to develop the climax.

So, mission accomplished then.

Erm.  Not really, actually.

Stories don’t stop at first drafts. Not mine, and not those previous Hiram books. As we all tweaked and edited our stories, little details changed, small things that wouldn’t make a difference to anything except a series character. I’m talking, of course, about continuity. If Jake changed a detail in Village of the Damned, which Scott spotted and expanded on, then by the time Rob got to it he could potentially be forced to rewrite whole chunks of his book to iron out contradictions that had never previously existed. If halfway through Nymphs I realised that the novella only worked if the personality and motivation of a supporting character changed entirely, all four of the previous authors had to rethink and rewrite their own use of that character. It had the potential to be like the British trying to haggle in an Delhi market – a confusing, frustrating, sweaty, aggravating chore for all involved.

It didn’t turn out that way, because Shroud Publishing has on board the services of Danny Evarts, a man so skilled at spotting typos, quirks of style and grammar, and continuity errors that, should I ever meet him, I’m going to be very disappointed if he isn’t cybernetically enhanced, a sort of six million dollar editor. He’s also adept at pointing out that problems aren’t necessarily problems at all.  When I suddenly realised, after it had been published, that Rob’s book had developed a two year gap smack in the middle of it, meaning things I thought had happened a couple of months before Krakow actually took place much longer ago, it was Danny who caught my towel before I threw it in, and sensibly pointed out that it made no difference at all to anything I’d written.  I looked again, and sure enough, he was right. The man has read and re-read my book so many times, he knows it better than me.  He’s also brought an extra design flair to the books, with his brilliant black and white woodblock illustrations.  You’ll find scattered throughout each one, at chapter and section breaks, adding real spice to to the main course of Malcolm McClinton’s full page illustrations.

After two years then, the book was finished.  Brian Keene read an advance copy, and called it “Twisted, shocking and full of pitch-black humor and darkly original twists. One of the best books I’ve read this year.” Actually, his email started This is fucking EXCELLENT! (Of course, we can’t use F-bombs in a blurb), and he was of course quite right.  Steven Savile also took some time out to say “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.” I’m very grateful to both of them, as they’re really much too busy to take time out for this sort of thing, but did anyway.

The first reviews came in.  Rebecca at Dirty Sexy Books said “It was a wicked good ride through some dark, twisted avenues with a demented savior… a 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.”  Anton over at Pustule Oozings said “In a realm of already murky morality, Wright has dumped Hiram into a fog shrouded mire where once-pure intentions are taking on a sinister tinge. He has done a marvelous job of ramping up the consequences here and it makes for a riveting read.”  There are more, over on the book page of my website.

Finally, just the other day, Shroud’s owner, the marvelous Tim Deal, posted this picture, the proof copy of the book, back from the printer.

It’s taken five writers, two editors, a possibly slightly demented publisher to get to this stage, but the first volume of the Scandalous Misadventures of Hiram Grange, made up of five crazed tomes of pulp insanity, is complete.  It exists, where it didn’t used to, and that’s one of the most satisfying things about being a writer.  You can actually buy it.  I really hope you do so.  Putting it together has been a blast for me, a thrilling and surprising ride, but that’s only half the point.  I want you to take that ride too.  Pull out your credit card, and head over to either the publisher, or Amazon, and jump aboard.

We’re all there, rubbing our hands and looking forward to seeing the look on your face when you climb back off at the end…

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

Order from the following stores:

Shroud Publishing

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

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…