I returned from Israel nearly two weeks ago. The period that follows a trip abroad is for me invariably marked by twin evils: firstly, a backlog of stuff to catch up with (in this case, more than 150 emails, plus the need to get my tax accounts done soon), and secondly, a state of lethargy. These two combine with deadly effect. However, here is the news.
It appears The Adjacent has been accepted by Gollancz – Simon Spanton was reassuringly enthusiastic about it, the delivery advance has been paid and the book is scheduled for August next year. Always a relief to get things done and dusted. Writers do have a pathetic wish to be accepted.
Now I seek, through Gollancz, an American publisher for The Adjacent. No edition of The Islanders ever appeared in the USA, although some copies of the British edition were belatedly distributed. I cannot afford that to happen again, if only for financial reasons. As things stand, just about the only book of mine most people in America have heard of is The Prestige – when I was in Israel someone gave me a copy of the Tor paperback edition to sign, and I discovered that it was in its eleventh reprinting. I like people knowing about The Prestige, but I wrote it two decades ago and I’ve written a lot of stuff since.
Speaking of The Prestige, the two stage versions are both moving forward slowly. I wrote a straight dramatic adaptation in 2011, and that is being produced in Britain. Scheduled, I believe, for an opening next year. Meanwhile, a musical stage version is in preparation in Russia. I wrote the ‘book’ for that a couple of years ago. The straight play and the musical are completely different from each other, incidentally – I regard them as separate works. They are also both different from the film. Christopher Nolan’s film changed the ending and omitted several of the best scenes, so there was a lot left to work with. The straight play is a dark take on the main story, while the musical is a more open and entertaining version. Both are to include live magic performed onstage – the play deals with magic as psychological illusion, the musical treats it as entertainment.
Gollancz have just contracted for reprints of four of my older novels: Indoctrinaire, The Space Machine, A Dream of Wessex and The Quiet Woman. All four of these have been out of print for some time, so I’m glad to think they’ll be available again.
Incidentally, the Gollancz paperback editions of The Glamour and The Extremes usually show as unavailable from internet sellers, but they are in fact, as Nielsens’ database confirms, still available in PoD editions through bookshops. Fugue for a Darkening Island, The Dream Archipelago, Inverted World, The Affirmation and The Prestige are all still in paperback, and should be in stock.
Next week, as lethargy finally fades, I will be starting work on my next novel.