My novel Wolfsangel – under the pen name MD Lachlan – comes out on 20 May and has generated some good quotes for its advanced review copy.

Here they are!

Adam Roberts, author of Yellow Blue Tibia and also a Guardian book critic said of the book:

‘A classic. Brilliant stuff. This is not a run of the mill Fantasy text; nor, really, is it even a riff upon those worn-smooth tropes. It is something genuinely strange, eerie, evocative.’

http://punkadiddle.blogspot.com/2009/12/m-d-lachlan-wolfsangel-2010.html

Joe Abercrombie, bestselling fantasy author, writing on his blog, said Wolfsangel
‘manages to evoke the weirdness of the viking mindset to the point where even the normal people feel a lot more alien than most denizens of epic fantasy. It’s savage, dark, strange and unpredictable, which are all good things in my book.’

http://www.joeabercrombie.com/2009/12/wolfsangel.html

Mike Carey – author of the bestselling Lucifer graphic novels and much good stuff besides has provided a quote for the cover, saying

‘A unique take on the werewolf mythos, on the Norse pantheon and on magic itself. An enthralling, mesmerising book.’

British and World fantasy award-winning novelist Graham Joyce said:
“Superior thunderous and full-blooded historical fantasy, broiling and smoking with mystery, beautifully written”

Stephen Deas, author of The Adamantine Palace has said

‘Sent chills down my spine. Dark, bloody and dangerous, you can almost smell the sweat and iron coming off the pages. There are a lot of werewolves coming our way this year, but Wolfsangel could well be the standard by which they will be judged for some years to come’

Black Library author Andy Remic said:

A hardcore fantasy epic, mixing Norse saga with brutal violence, uncompromising action and an original take on the werewolf mythology. The intricate plotting had me hooked from the start, and the book ends on a bang that will leave you desperate for more! Now, where can I buy a Moonsword?

Detective fiction bestseller RJ Ellory said:

‘A spellbinding and unputdownable fusion of historical and fantasy fiction that is sure to enchant devotees of both genres.’

I’m both amazed and incredibly grateful that so many people have taken the time to read this book.

Adam Roberts – the guy who caused a furore last year when he described the Hugo shortlist as unadventurous and conservative, has called the book ‘a classic’.

http://punkadiddle.blogspot.com/2009/12/m-d-lachlan-wolfsangel-2010.html

He says: This is not a run of the mill Fantasy text; nor, really, is it even a riff upon those worn-smooth tropes. It is something genuinely estranging, eerie, evocative.

Joe Abercrombie has been nice about it too:

http://www.joeabercrombie.com/news.htm

And early signs from other early readers are very good too, so I’m tremendously excited by this.

It’s quite an amusing D&D anecdote and shows not all traps have to be written on the DM’s sheet.

http://www.blindpanic.com/humor/vecna.htm

Also note, my new site for my new novel Wolfsangel is up and running.

www.mdlachlan.com

Hop along and check out an extract of the new book. Any comments, good or bad, on site, writing, anything, will be welcome.

Mark

I’m looking forward to it. If I get the time I might even try a game.

I’m on a panel discussing the impact of RPGs on fantasy novels.

I’d love to hear opinions if anyone’s got any.

Mark

I think I’ll just forget about it and write. I’ve worked out the motivations of the major characters in the book and I think I can just trust them to write the story for me, as pretentious as that sounds.

If I make sure each character follows their desire the story should evolve naturally.

Nothing massively original here but I’d love to hear what you think.

Love:

A good monster. Black riders, the Fetch from Wizard of Earthsea, even Mrs Coulter from His Dark Materials (a sort of monster). Grendel from Beowulf’s pretty good, I think too.

A good hero. Does Tyrion Lannister count as a hero? In my book he does. Elric, Corum, Jerry Cornelius, Dorian Hawkmoon, Jonathan Strange, Dorian Grey, Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, Morgan Le Fay from Mists of Avalon. I seem to like heroes who are either posessed or cursed quite a lot too. As a kid, I think this is why Frodo (the ring) and Elric appealed to me so much and why my werewolf in my own fantasy novel Wolfsangel does now.  It’s the loss of control thing, which is why I’ll always be a werewolf rather than a vampire man. Vampires are vulnerable (during the day anyway) but they are all about control, of others and themselves. Werewolves lose it.

A cracking story that hits you in the guts. Lord of the Rings up until the mountain (one of those hobbits should have died for full emotional impact, I think), Ged being tracked by the dark side of himself, Stormbringer gobbling up friends and foe alike, dark and ancient forces materialising in the bodies of children (Owl Service), a last stand seige – (Legend), the king seduced by his half sister and fathering the boy who will one day kill him (The Queen of Air and Darkness).

Hate:

Flowery language, unless to a purpose. Court officials would talk to a king like a ‘meet and greet’ person at Las Vegas Excalibur. I prefer everyone else to talk normally.

A lot of the art work. I just don’t like the huge-muscled hero and girl with 2 tons of cleavage sort of thing, nor a lot of the new D&D art work. The stuff I loved was the early edition Lord of the Rings stuff. I guess I like understatement in art work – part of the reason I also loved the raven on Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel.

Stereotypical characters.  The farm boy who doesn’t know his great destiny had its time and place but now has been done. One of the reasons George RR Martin’s so good is that his characters show that he’s actually studied and understood human beings. The rebellious party member who comes good in the end bores me to death too. Buddy bonding of any sort usually leaves me banging my head up the wall. Legolas and Gimli’s love in got on my nerves. Female characters have been awful in a lot of fantasy and it’s unusual to come across convincing women who aren’t either just there to be rescued or, conversely, have to show how feisty they are every ten seconds. No wonder that Mists of Avalon does them best, as the book was written by a woman.

The great race of evil, Dark Lords etc. Again, been  done. Let’s understand the bad guy’s motivation a la Rift War and Game of Thrones.

I’ve tried to be original in my latest book, up to a point. I’ve tried to get great monsters, different sorts of heroes and a cracking plot (nothing original there), while trying to throw in a few twists. I hope I’ve been successful. The clichés are always there in the background ready to grab you if you’re not careful and it’s possible I’ve been mugged by a few and not noticed it. That said, you don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and plenty that is quite unoriginal (Belgariad, Brisingr) is very popular and, even if it’s not for me, it obviously works for a lot of people. Originality in execution is more important than originality of set up. After all, boy meets girl is a story that’s still being told today but it doesn’t stop it being fresh and exciting. Sometimes.

http://bookscreening.com/2009/10/07/the-elfish-gene-by-mark-barrowcliffe/

Do let me know what you think of this. Personally, I think it’s genius.

Werewolf novel is finally, finally finished. It’s nearly killed me. I got the copy edited version back and decided to take a scalpel to the text. Three weeks of micro-editing later, repostioning commas, asking ‘do I use the word “drop” or “fall” here, and it’s done. It’s the most intensive work I’ve ever done on a novel. There’s always the anxiety that you may have over-refined it, cut out some of the things that make it uniquely yours in favour of, say, absolute clarity. Also, you’re never finished this kind of thing. It drives you nuts and you wake screaming ‘if the vikings call a church a ‘temple’, can I then refer to it as a church in the third person?’ It hurts your nut.

Anyway, it’s out in the UK in 2010 under my pen name MD Lachlan. I tweet under that name too so do come and find me there, and I’m on facebook. The book’s called Wolfsangel and is a lot of gruesome, werewolfing, mythology-inspired fun.

Doing an Elfish Gene interview at 11 on Thursday morning on the Tom Dunne show. The book continues to have quite a life over here.

http://newstalk.ie/newstalk/programmes/32/tom-dunne.html

All I can say is that the portrayals of the NHS by some on the US right have nothing to do with reality whatsoever.

My mother broke her hand in a fall here two days ago. An ambulance picked her up within 10 minutes, she was taken to hospital, treated, given pain killers, X rays and a great deal of sympathy and was dispatched home in a cast within two hours.

The next day she was in more pain, went to the doctors without an appointment, waited 10 minutes and was prescribed more painkillers. All for free.

The NHS is, in general, wonderful. And here’s the thing – it provides basic care but, if you’d like a little more, then you can always pay for it. My dad will be seen for his chronically bad knee within 4 weeks. If he wants seeing tomorrow, he can just pay or use his health insurance, exactly as you would in the US. There seems to be this idea that it’s socialised medicine or nothing over here. Not so. I use the NHS for the majority of my care but when I want non essential stuff – cosmetic dentistry, physiotherapy, I pay for it.  When my son had meningitis he was into hospital, on a lumbar puncture and antibiotics within 20 minutes of the doctor noticing his temperature. We stayed for 2 and a half weeks in a hospital private room complete with TV, telephone and spectacular view. Our son was on three times daily doses of antibiotics, in addition to having all his food and nappy changes paid for. It cost us nothing. Not one penny – even the coffee was free.

That was a great level of care and, more than that, a great level of humanity. All I had to worry about was his health, not paying the bills.

I’d advise any American to leap at the chance to put healthcare like this into their country.

Now will be able to attend to blog better.

Just had a nice review on this site.

http://geek-orthodox.blogspot.com/

Now that is a good name for a blog.

Going for interview for some creative writing teaching work tomorrow and have been reading up on poetry.

I think I may have to give some a go. Oh yes.

More in next days.

Returned to a world of spam so sorry if I accidentally deleted anyone’s message – 2000 odd comments, and couldn’t bring myself to check each one.

Can now say a bit more about my novel. It’s called Wolfsangel and it’s set in the early Viking period. It is, as I’ve said before, about a werewolf.

It’s being published by Gollancz under a pen name – MD Lachlan. The reason for the pen name is that I’m known for romantic comedy in the UK, so we don’t want readers being confused.

My original book jumped between WWII and the Viking Age but we decided it worked better as a series, going through history up until the present than it did hopping about in a single obok. Hence, I rewrote it. This was quite a challenge, as the Viking material was only 20,000 words of the original. Now it’s 140,000.

Have done 3 drafts – first  – no self-editing as I go, just write it to get it down,

second – trim and shape, rewrite plot elements, spice up or remove boring bits, drop characters who are uninteresting or over-complicate plot. This takes exactly as long as writing the first draft did, in my experience – about 3 months. I always think this is going to be a 2 week job and it’s always much longer.

3 Fine tuning – I go through looking at each sentence, making sure

a It makes sense

b It’s active

c It’s the best it can be.

I am having a week’s holiday now, and another week doing other things, before going on to draft 4. This is the scary bit – I come to it with ‘cold eyes’. This is the point at which I decide if it works or not. It’s often the ‘oh God!’ moment, when you ask ‘why doesn’t the hero just Fed Ex the ring to Mount Doom?’  or some other such question which blows your plot to tatters. I don’t think that will happen with Wolfsangel because, unusually for me, I plotted the novel out after draft 1. That is, I did a synopsis. This is very useful at this stage (not before you begin) because it really shows up any problems.

Anyway, it’s just sold rights in Germany, which is very pleasing as it’s a very good deal. Fingers crossed on rest of world.

I’ll stick the first chapter up here when it’s published – Summer 2010. Hope it doesn’t clash with the Thor film, though I don’t think that will be a problem. I’m just hoping to avoid one of those terrifying coincidences writers suffer sometimes – ‘Oh dear, the plot’s exactly the same as mine.’ It’s easy to get paranoid at such points but I do believe in zeitgeist and, if I can pick up on it, others can too.

Here’s a bit about Wolfsangel from the Fantasy Book Critic blog:

In news, Gollancz are delighted to announce that they have acquired world rights for the first three novels in an exciting and innovative historical fantasy series that recounts the trials and triumphs of an eternal werewolf living through the ages of human history. The first book is entitled “Wolfsangel” and is slated for publication in the Summer of 2010.

The deal was negotiated by Judith Murray at Greene and Heaton on behalf of her author M.D. Lachlan.

Simon Spanton said: “As soon as I started reading Wolfsangel I knew that Judith had sent me something special. A tale that combines the Vikings, Norse Mythology, the myth of the werewolf and a narrative that spans centuries was always going to be ambitious. That Wolfsangel realized that ambition while also giving you vivid and believable characters, that it was as good in its evocation of atmosphere as it was in its depiction of action marked it out as something very special indeed. I’m delighted to welcome M.D. to Gollancz and look forward to making his series a long-lasting success both here in our markets and in translation.”

NOTE: This news has me excited for a couple of reasons. One, Gollancz always does a great job of discovering new talent and Lachlan sounds like he will continue that tradition. And two, I think the market could use a great werewolf epic

Just read a great book I’d recommend to anyone – Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. Explains exactly how medical hoaxes like Homeopathy work and how they manage to deceive so many people. It also explains the dodgy practices of drug companies, nutritionists and the press. It’s funny, informative and will have you asking questions such as ‘exactly what made me believe fish oil boosts child IQ? Why didn’t I know there has never been a single study that says raising your anti-oxidant levels is good for you? Who told me those things?’

Anyway, more post soon, I hope.