Win a signed copy of The Flight of the Eisenstein

After the success of the Fear To Tread competition I ran back in August, I'm giving another go of it; this time I'm offering two lucky people the chance to win signed copies of the new hardcover limited edition of my first Horus Heresy novel The Flight of the Eisenstein over on Twitter.

The limited edition reprints the novel with four new original pieces of artwork, an author's afterword and full colour dust jacket.

The book is available for purchase from Black Library Here, but if you’d like a chance to get a signed copy of your own, here's what you need to do.

1) Follow me - @jmswallow - on Twitter.

2) Tweet this message:

Win a signed copy of The Flight of the Eisenstein; follow @jmswallow & retweet this link http://tinyurl.com/amdxmtb #winfote #HorusHeresy

Everyone who follows me and retweets that message gets their name put in the hat, and two winners will be chosen by random draw. Entries will be accepted from anywhere in the world, one entry per follower.

I'll contact the winners via DM after the announcement, and they will both receive a signed & personalised copy of The Flight of the Eisenstein. Don't forget the hashtag!

The competition starts now and runs through to 10:00pm GMT on Thursday 31st January; the winners will be announced on Friday 1st February. Good luck!

[UPDATE!] The competition is now over; congratualtions to Rob Jones of Wigan and Ventura Sánchez from Spain, who were the winners!

Something Borrowed (2013 Edition)

Christmas may be long gone, but the gift of reading keeps on giving and now is the time for authors to celebrate with some (almost) free money: the Public Lending Right. If you are a resident of the UK or Ireland and you ever need a reason for donating your books to the library - on top of all the obvious ones like promoting reading and supporting this valuable and increasingly undermined public service - this is it.

What is the PLR?

The PLR is a system where authors who've written books that are in public libraries get a little revenue each time somebody borrows their works. It's a way to repay writers who won't be earning a royalty from a sale in a bookstore. The hardworking folks at the PLR office pay a nominal fee based on how borrowed you were - and in the interests of fairness, you can't earn more than around £6000, so the big names don't get to hog all the money.
In the current political climate, both the PLR and the libraries it springs from are under threat, so if you are a writer or a reader, please do your bit to help support both as best you can.

Here's my Top Ten Library Loans of my novels for 2012 (with 2011's position in brackets)
1 (1) Peacemaker
2 (3) The Flight of the Eisenstein
3 (2) Nemesis
4 (-) Hammer & Anvil
5 (6) Red Fury
6 (8) Icarus Effect
7 (-) Cast No Shadow
8 (4) The Blood Angels Omnibus
9 (5) Synthesis
10 (9) Day of the Vipers

My Doctor Who Western Peacemaker continues to remain top of the charts, although my first Horus Heresy novel The Flight of the Eisenstein came in a strong second. As always, my thanks to everyone who supported their local libraries and borrowed my books.

Incoming! [January 2013]

Here's January's 'Coming Soon' update on future projects and events:

Star Trek Week: The Fall is Coming

In a couple of months - March, specifically - my next Star Trek book will be released; Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Stuff of Dreams is an eBook novella centred around the character of Jean-Luc Picard, drawing on story threads from the movie Star Trek Generations and the events of m'colleague David Mack's recent ST:TNG Cold Equations trilogy and focusing on the Enterprise crew's involvement in a plan to change the course of history. I'll be blogging more about this story as the release date closes in.

But beyond that, in the latter part of 2013 I'm pleased to announce that I will also be writing a novel as part of Star Trek: The Fall, a five-part miniseries spanning several Star Trek crews and characters.

The Fall connects to recent events in the Star Trek fiction line, with the rise of a new threat force called the Typhon Pact and political schisms at the heart of the United Federation of Planets.

The official blurb says "The Federation is rocked to its core as the Typhon Pact is suspected of being behind a barbarous act that shatters the fragile peace of the Alpha Quadrant."

I'll be writing book #4 of the series, returning to William Riker and the crew of the U.S.S. Titan, whom I first wrote about back in my 2009 novel Synthesis.

Star Trek: The Fall shakes out like this:
Book #1 is Revelations and Dust by David R. George III, and features characters from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine saga
Book #2 is Una McCormack's The Crimson Shadow, featuring the Star Trek: The Next Generation crew and Garak on Cardassia.
Book #3 is A Ceremony of Losses by David Mack, featuring characters from DS9 and the U.S.S. Aventine.
Book #4 is The Poisoned Chalice by me, concentrating on characters from the Star Trek: Titan series.
Book #5 concludes the miniseries with Dayton Ward's Peaceable Kingdoms, which features the Star Trek: The Next Generation crew.

One thing we're looking to do with The Fall is showcase cross-series storylines, so you can also expect to see characters from different fiction streams teaming up and working together; in addition, some of the novels will be taking place simultaneously in different parts of the galaxy, and we've been working to make sure that the events in each story connect seamlessly to form one coherent narrative. It's an exciting project and I'm enthused about taking part. Revelations and Dust is due out in September and I believe the plan is to release one novel a month through to January next year, so look for The Poisoned Chalice just in time for Christmas...

Star Trek Week: You Are Hearing Me Talk...to the G & T Show

My second bit of bloggage here at Red Flag about my current work on Star Trek projects is another podcast, this time the laid-back lazy Sunday afternoon hang-out that is the G & T Show.

Another fun community podcast, hosted by Nick Minecci, Terilynn Shull and Michael Medeiros, broadcast via livestream on Sundays, the G & T Show focuses on Star Trek fiction in and around the TV shows and movies, with an eye toward spin-off in books and games, especially the Star Trek Online MMO. Conversational and irreverent, the G & T Show always reminds me of hanging out in a convention bar chatting with my fellow nerds and generally just grokking Trek...

G & T Show 76 – James Swallow Live! This week, Nick, Terry, and Mike are joined by the amazing James Swallow for an in depth interview and for our regular rounds of discussion. James touched upon his books, novellas, audio dramas, game scripts, convention experiences, writing, and more. You don’t want to miss this. then, when we get around to this week’s show, we talked about Star Trek: Into Darkness News, an all new Ask Dayton, Listener Mail, a full recap of STLV 2013 Update with some new guests, and Nick and Mike share what they are reading.

Thanks to Nick, Teri and Mike for having me back once again!

Check out the podcast Here, visit the G & T Show site Here or tune in to their Livestream Here every Sunday from 2.00pm GMT.