The cover for my second novel, THE EMPEROR OF MARS, kind of snuck its way out into the world last week without telling me. So, it’s time to officially give it its freedom here.

Without further waffle, here it is in its full glory:

The cover art is by Jeremy Holmes, just like for book 1. I think it’s great.

THE EMPEROR OF MARS is out on January 10th, 2017.

You can pre-order it now: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Barnes and Noble | Book Depository (International)

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One of the most awesome things about SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB (in my opinion) is that there is going to be lots of internal art, not just sketches but really nicely created art by the same person who is doing the book cover, Jeremy Holmes.

Jeremy posted a photo of one of the completed art works a couple of days ago, so I’m sharing it here.

This is a picture of the airship / rail terminus in Ophir City.

Tall, closely packed wooden buildings in the old Martian style clustered in unplanned confusion, their turrets, spirals, and spires prickling the air like an enormous, crazy hedgehog.
Clockwork Express tracks swept high over the hills to the west in a glittering bronze arc and plunged down to the city. Pillars every couple of hundred yards held the railway above the ground. In the morning light, the tracks shone like thread in the Martian sky.

– From Secrets of the Dragon Tomb

You really should look at the art close-up (click on the image!) because it’s absolutely gorgeous. And, of course, get the book when it comes out for plenty more. :)

Pre-order now: Indiebound | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | See all stores

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Inspiration, inspiration, inspiration!

You know how it is when you stumble out of bed after only a few hours rest because the kids wouldn’t go to sleep, and you’re busy trying to spoon caffeine directly into your veins, in between getting breakfast for the family, trying not to put milk in the kids’ sandwiches, and wondering why no one seems to have any actual pairs of socks despite you buying new ones only last week, then you’re trying to remember to drive to school, not into a ditch, and then you get back and you’ve got an hour to write before you have get on with other stuff? You know that, right?

Somehow, you’re supposed to insert yourself into a completely new world, full of fully-formed people getting up to all sorts of nonsense and knock out a whole bunch of shiny words. Yeah.

Right then, inspiration is not exactly in great supply. But you’ve got to find it anyway.

That’s where Pinterest comes in. It gives you the chance to pull together a whole bunch of visual cues that I can look at to take me into whatever world I need to be in. Here’s the board I created for SECRETS OF THE DRAGON TOMB and its sequel:

(Click to see it at full size on Pinterest; sorry it doesn’t embed terribly well here).

The moment I look at this, it tells me the mood and tone I want for the books and it puts me in the headspace I need to work on them. Not all the pictures represent any particular character or scene in the books, but they connect me to the books and that’s what I need.

Anyone else use Pinterest for this? Or do you use it to find ideas in the first place? Or for something else entirely? Whichever, if you do, post a link to your boards. I’d love to see them.

Well, it turns out that the queen visited the set of Game of Thrones yesterday, and, in a move that was the greatest disappointment to the internet since Firefly was cancelled, entirely failed to sit on the Iron Throne.

Or so we were told.

I know better. After the cameras and the journalist had gone, and the lights were turned out, she returned to take her rightful seat and stare down at the remains of the rivals who had defied her. How do I know? I sneaked in and took a photo. So, here is incontrovertible evidence:

Some credits:

The photo of the Iron Throne is by Leandro Amato on Flickr.

The skulls: http://elevit-stock.deviantart.com/art/E-S-craneos-308023161

The background: http://elevit-stock.deviantart.com/art/E-S-Serenity-Chapel-145663237

The queen herself materialised through pure, dark will.

Thank you to all.

So, I have been attempting to upgrade my Photoshop skills. In the old days, that simply involved undoing the top of the skull, removing the Photoshop-cortex and replacing it with a newer model, but you know the way that brains are made these days, what with being impossible to upgrade components yourself.

Anyway, I’ve been reduced to actually having to practice to get better. I know, right?

Most of my Photoshop work I do when I’m designing book covers or websites, but that doesn’t always give you the opportunity to practice the things you’re not good at, so I’m starting to do some ‘photomanipulations’ to practice my techniques.

I’m putting them up on deviantART (along with a few of my covers which I’m particularly fond of), which is an awesome place to see other people’s work and to get stock you can use for making images.

Here’s my first attempt:

There’s a larger version available on deviantART, if you enjoy staring at really big things. Like elephants.

I’m not an artist, and I don’t think I ever will be, but a few years ago, I wouldn’t have had a hope of doing something like this.

Here’s the stock I used to make the image.

• The model
• The background
• The street lamp
• The bats (they’re there; they’re just tiny…)

In other news, Steph and I have been together 13 years today, which, wow, is a long time, right? Neither of us could have imagined when we met at Clarion West back in 2001 that we’d end up here with our two lovely, amazing little boys and careers as professional writers. It’s been a fantastic 13 years. Thank you, sweetheart.