Minor update and RS special edition

 Things are moving in the direction of publication for HALCYON YEARS, I'm pleased to report, although I don't yet have a reliable publication date to share. I'd take September with a modicum of salt as I've yet to see any cover art or copy, and not much tends to happen in publishing during the traditionally slow summer months - although I could be wrong! I've completed the proofreading stage, though, which is generally the last point at which I have any real input into the text, and we've selected a voice artist for the audiobook, which is good.

Meanwhile, in the realm of things which are definitely about to happen, I've seen the Gollancz twenty fifth anniversary REVELATION SPACE limited edition and it's a gorgeous thing:

The hardcover book includes six colour illustrations by Richard Anderson as well as two pieces of double-page artwork for the inside cover and endpapers, also by Richard. The cover includes an adaptation of the line drawing of a lighthugger I did many years ago (distinctly weird to see it looking all posh and proper on a book now) and the text includes an introduction I wrote earlier this year, documenting the writing and road to publication of RS. The whole caboodle comes in a lovely black and silver slipcase, which is beautiful in its own right but which I particularly like because it reminds me of a Flaming Lips album:

Yes, I like black/silvery/shiny things. I must have been a magpie in a previous life. The RS special edition is available from July 3rd in the UK.

Also imminent are the two new-ish collections of Revelation Space-universe short stories and novellas, supplanting and expanding on the earlier books GALACTIC NORTH and DIAMOND DOGS, TURQUOISE DAYS:

Volume 1 gathers:

Dilation Sleep

A Spy in Europa

Galactic North

Great Wall of Mars

Glacial

Diamond Dogs

And Volume 2 gathers:

Turquoise Days

Weather

Grafenwalder's Bestiary

Nightingale

Monkey Suit

The Last Log of the Lachrimosa

Night Passage

Open and Shut

Plague Music

I'm seeing pub dates of 17th July for these two books.

In the mean-meanwhile-time, while all this is theoretically going on, I've been getting on with writing the much-mentioned Merlin book. I'll be honest, it's been a much more difficult project than I initially thought - what seemed like a simple-ish exercise in bringing together the existing Merlin stories, with some linking material, has proved to be anything but. I've ended up writing a LOT of new material, so much so that at least a third of the book will be totally new stuff, and of the earlier stories, only THE IRON TACTICIAN has escaped significant redrafting. But, it's getting there. It's been an interesting exercise, going back and collaborating with my much younger self, and seeing what I could and could not live with - mostly the latter. 

And when I've not been working on Merlin, over the last few weeks, I've been re-reading the first three volumes of James White's SECTOR GENERAL series, with a view to writing an introduction to a forthcoming and much-needed omnibus edition, about which there'll doubtless be more to say in the future.

That's it for now, hope the weather is fine wherever you are, and keep sane and safe as best you can.

Al R