I have not been able to write here for several weeks – July 2015 appears to have vanished, as far as this site is concerned, and already we are halfway through August. The reason amounts to one matter only: I have been absorbed in writing and finishing a new novel, and, since finishing, sitting around feeling lazy. If you have emailed me in the last three months or so and have not received a reply I’m really sorry – please try again, because I know I have been a bit dilatory.
The novel is called The Gradual, and it is with the publishers now. I completed and delivered it on the last day of July, cleverly timing it for the month when everyone in publishing goes away on holiday, or is attending the worldcon in Spokane, Washington. We can be patient.
The Gradual is the first conventionally written novel I have produced since The Extremes in 1998: it is a straightforward narrative told in sequence. It is about time and the perception of the passing of time. There are those who have said they noticed certain recurring images in my recent novels: identical twins, for instance, or stage magic, or invisibility, or the sainted presence of H. G. Wells. Such critics will not find any of them in The Gradual. The narrator is also completely reliable. Hah.
Currently: working on a new collection of short stories for Gollancz. I shall be in Rennes, northern France, during part of October, on the jury at the Court Métrange film festival. Soon after that, at the end of the month, I shall be at Utopiales 2015, in Nantes.