The first thing to note here is that movie censorship still very much happens. Certainly in the UK, the British Board of Film Classification regularly bans films altogether, so it’s not as if we’re suddenly living in Amsterdam, where movies would probably have to break all kinds of real-life laws just to raise an eyebrow. 

However, there is so much less censorship than there used to be in the crazy 1980s, when horror films would fall foul of the censor’s scissors simply for daring to present an exploding head. Hell, in the early ‘80s, some action films would have bloody bullet wounds snipped too.

The second thing to note here is that I loathe censorship and stand opposed to it.

So what exactly do I miss about movie censorship?

The hunt.

That’s exactly what I miss. The thrill of the chase.

By its very nature, movie censorship created more than one version of a movie. As a result, one of these versions suddenly became far more desirable than the other. Horror films that would not otherwise have attracted all that much attention suddenly achieved legendary status when they were banned or trimmed. Many of the flicks that ended up on the UK’s banned video nasties list of the early 1980s were absolutely appalling… and yet after they were pulled from the shelves by the police, they instantly became holy grails for collectors and horror fans alike.

Thirty-five years later, several of these nasties command over £100 in value – even as much as £1,600.

Even though we should obviously have been allowed to watch the unexpurgated version of a movie in the first place, in the exact manner that the writer and director intended, there was an odd excitement when you watched a film and could tell it had been hacked by some zealot. As a general rule, the gory scenes appeared to have been censored by a particularly clumsy chimpanzee. Onscreen, an axe would swing towards the latest victim’s neck and the action would cut abruptly to a shocked onlooker, or blood spraying the walls, or even straight to the next scene.

Of course, sometimes when you finally got your hands on the original version of the film, you’d discover that there was nothing extra to see at all. Either the director had been more restrained than you’d given them credit for, or the editor of the actual film had behaved like a particularly clumsy chimpanzee. But therein lay the thrills – what exactly had hit the cutting room floor? Collectors would flock to film fairs, hungry for under-the-counter copies of films which could not legally be seen in the UK. Dutch tapes, perhaps, whose content would obviously be fully intact, because the Dutch are sensible folk (apart from allowing dope to be sold by canals with no safety rails, obviously.)

Let me give you a solid example of the hunt in action. I first saw the Friday The 13th sequel Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday on the UK rental release, seen here on the left. I loved the film, which seemed pretty darn violent. Then I went on a press trip to America and picked up the ‘Unrated’ US VHS tape, seen here on the right. When I came home and watched the film, my mind was blown. The film was now even bloodier! One notorious scene in particular, involving someone being graphically sliced in half inside a tent, was absolutely ridiculous. In a good way. 

On top of the rush I felt from having sourced this forbidden footage, was the joy of sticking it to The Man. Those dusty old geese at the BBFC didn’t want me to see this stuff, but I DAMN WELL HAD. How’d you like those apples, eh? 

And then, it all went wrong, because with the new millennium came progress. All that pesky liberation of art, plus a revised view on exactly how much mollycoddling the average adult viewer needs. As a result, the hunt was ruined! 

With increasing regularity, even the gutsiest of horror films simply ended up landing on DVD or Blu-ray in an uncut form. Jesus Christ, they even had to try hard to achieve an ‘18’ certificate as opposed to a measly '15'! Of course, there were noble exceptions that still managed to roll up on these shores in a censored state (The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence or A Serbian Film, for instance), but mostly the entire ecosystem that had developed around searching for the uncut versions of films was dying a death.

It used to be a real mission to hunt down an uncut copy of The Toxic Avenger or Zombie Holocaust. And now they're both just on Blu-ray in HMV.

Of course, needless to say, it’s great that we have far less censorship now than we did in the 1980s. 

And yet I really miss the buzz of seeing things I wasn’t supposed to see. 

I miss the legwork of having to physically go places to find banned movies on VHS.

I miss the giddy high when you finally get that forbidden fruit in your hand, then take a big juicy bite.

I miss the hunt for movies that posh 65-year-old men decided might transform me into a raving driller-killer.

Ridiculous, isn’t it? But then, it’s only natural that a ridiculous thing like movie censorship should invite a ridiculous response.

Tell me I'm not alone in this. Does part of you miss movie censorship too? 

My mailing list subscribers received this article direct to their inbox two Sundays ago, as part of my newsletter The Necronoppicon. Join them and get a free book.

You know, sometimes I’m very slow indeed. I've only just realised one of the most important purposes of my YouTube channel.

Through making (hopefully) fun, funny and entertaining videos on my channel every week, I get to reconnect with the things I love. Sometimes our data-addled brains need a reminder of these important things, because we’ve somehow managed to lose sight of them over time.

There will always be a special place in my heart for Doctor Who Target books. These beautiful things played a big part in getting me into Doctor Who AND writing. That’s why it’s been so good to reconnect with them across a couple of YouTube videos. Not to mention laying them all out on my living room floor. If you collect stuff, I highly recommend laying it all out across your living room floor and just taking it all in for a moment. You can then apply the Marie Kondo method if you like (as you can see from the picture above, for instance, I have a few doubles), but it's far from obligatory.

For these latest YouTube videos, I’ve chosen my Top 10 favourite Doctor Who Target book covers, IN ORDER, which was no easy task at all. In fact, I switched the Number One and Two choices at the last minute and re-edited the video.

My Top 10 Target book covers are spread across two videos, each of which is 15 minutes along. If you’d like to start the countdown at either Number 10 or Number Five, then the links are below. Enjoy - and be sure to let me know your own favourites over there in comments.

What’s an example of something that you love but have reconnected with over time? What prompted you to reconnect - and how did you feel when you did? Let's go against the grain and actually get a few comments posted onto a blog in 2019... :D

Part One of My Top 10 Favourite Doctor Who Target book covers (Numbers 10 down to 6)

Part Two of My Top 10 Favourite Doctor Who Target book covers (Number 5 down to 1)

Want the overview? Here's my main channel page, where you can see playlists of my videos on things like horror, VHS and retro video games.

Hello, you incredible creature! A quick post to fill you in on all the latest from me.

I have a new novel due in October. Woohoo! It's called Ghoster, and will be available from October 24, barring any delays, which obviously can happen in publishing. Would certainly be nice to get it out for Halloween. You can check out the current incarnation of the blurb at Amazon UK and indeed Amazon US. Needless to say, if you were to pre-order Ghoster, then this would set you up among the gods in my eyes! If you do this, let me know on Twitter and I will shower you with gratitude.

Incidentally, my mailing list subscribers were the first to receive the news about Ghoster a couple of weeks back, direct to their inbox. So if you're not one of them and don't want to miss out in future, then sign up here and get a free book while you're at it, plus 25% off books in my Payhip store! WHAT A SAVINGS.

I also have a new YouTube channel. Well, to be precise, I started a YouTube channel in 2007, then did very little with the account, apart from the odd video of swans and San Sebastian's Old Town. But now I'm really trying to make use of that opportunity, so I'm posting videos about writing, Jack Sparks, old-school VHS, retro video games and whatever else feels like fun. I'm genuinely enjoying making these videos, which is a good sign for the longevity of the channel. 

Join me over there and hit Subscribe, so that you'll never miss a new upload!

Okay, so now you're basically up to speed. Thanks, love you, bye!

Hello! Here's all my latest news:

NEW BOOK AVAILABLE NOW!
Over the last five years, I've been compiling an ebook collection of 30 of my favourite interview articles I wrote, back when I was a rock journalist. These are mainly from Kerrang!, between 1992 and 2002. I'm really happy with the finished product, titled From The Front Lines Of Rock.

Among the bands included are Metallica, Guns N' Roses, Iron Maiden, Kiss, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Garbage, Faith No More, Eminem, Manic Street Preachers, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pantera, Nine Inch Nails and Green Day. Lots of big names.

I've added an afterword to each article, plus over 200 footnotes throughout the book. God, remind me not to compile a book involving footnotes again any time soon. I'm massively grateful to Phil Lunt, who stepped in to handle the final formatting.

Check it out at Amazon UK, Amazon US, Amazon Canada and any other Kindle store worldwide. Using the Look Inside feature, you can actually read the introduction, plus the first two interviews! LUXURY.

JACK SPARKS HITS THE STAGE IN LONDON!
Here's a wonderful thing: my novel The Last Days Of Jack Sparks is among the novels featured in the latest OFF Book club night, which takes place on Friday October 27 at Waterstones Piccadilly in London. 

One of the scenes from the book will be performed by an incredible acting troupe! Can't wait. And as if that wasn't thrilling enough, they're going to do the same with Sarah Lotz's literally chilling novel The White Road, and Giorgio de Maria's The Twenty Days Of Turin!

Sarah and I will be there on the night, and tickets are still available.  Grab 'em here! 

MCM LONDON APPEARANCES!
Happy to say I'm once again a guest at this month's MCM London mega-event!

​I'll be on panels, and doing signings, alongside fellow authors like Shaun Hutson, Joe Pasquale, RJ Barker, Edward Cox, Jamie Sawyer, Catriona Ward, Ben Aaronovitch and Una McCormack! See the full Author's Corner line-up here, then check out the rest of the site. Needless to say, as always at MCM, there's a hell of a lot going on.

VIRTUAL HORROR FESTIVAL!
Can't make MCM London? Check out Lounge Books' phantasmagorical Horror Lounge online event over Halloween. Actually, check it out even if you can make MCM London, you beautifully compulsive soul. Various authors will be writing and chatting and all kinds of stuff. See the Horror Lounge page here. 

News ends! You may now go about your day.

Following the terrible Grenfell fire tragedy in London, my publisher Orbit Books and I wanted to do our bit to help. So we're taking part in the Authors For Grenfell initiative, in which various authors auction things to raise money for the British Red Cross London Fire Relief Fund. 

The item we're auctioning is a one-off proof copy of The Last Days Of Jack Sparks. Let me explain...

In the months running up to the novel's release in 2016, Orbit created some super-special proofs, designed to go out to early reviewers. These were very cool indeed, featuring added pieces of physical paper, some typed, others handwritten, to compliment the 'found footage' feel of the book. Here's a picture of the incredible Orbit team putting these together by hand.

Only 85 of these super-special proofs were made, and I'll make this particular auction copy a one-off by adding a few extra paper notes to it myself, in 'character' as Jack. Plus, I'll sign and dedicate the book.

You can bid by adding a comment on the Authors For Grenfell auction page for this item, with your bid amount (and the currency if it's not GBP). As is the case with all the other amazing auctions of Authors For Grenfell, this will end at 8pm BST on Tuesday, June 27, 2017. It's valid worldwide, so get over there and sling some cash at that comments section.  Here's the AFG site's FAQ page for more details of the whole set-up.

Here's the Jack Sparks auction page

And here are just a few of the other tremendous auctions:

Claridges tea and book reading with David Walliams

Name a character in a Philip Pullman book

Be an extra in Iain 'The Inbetweeners' Morris' new film

​And here's the full list of auctions.

Just for the sake of absolute clarity: any wonderful bidders should bid over at the Authors For Grenfell page itself.

​Thank you! Blog ends.

Hello Dolly!

I'm at London's massive MCM Comic Con event this weekend on Saturday and Sunday, quacking and signing copies of The Last Days Of Jack Sparks.  Here's the schedule of my two panels. See you there?

​SATURDAY MAY 27
Panel: Scary Stories for Scary Times
The World is a scary place right now and we’re all a little fearful of what’s around the corner, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t still love to be scared!  It’s been proven that in turbulent times the horror genre thrives.  Join scribes Ed Cox (THE RELIC GUILD TRILOGY) Jason Arnopp (THE LAST DAYS OF JACK SPARKS) M.R. Carey (THE BOY ON THE BRIDGE) and Claire North (THE END OF DAY) as they discuss what makes us turn to scary stories for comfort during scary times. 

• Panellists:  Jason Arnopp, M.R. Carey, Claire North, Moderator:  Ed Cox
• Exact Time:  3:15pm – 4:30pm
• Lower Platinum Suite – Author Signing Immediately afterwards – Books available from Forbidden Planet Int.

SUNDAY MAY 28
Panel: Orbit Presents:  Old Vs New
Orbit has been publishing the best genre fiction since time began.  Okay.  That part we made up, but they have been in the game for a very long time.  Forty years to be exact!  And we figured the perfect way to celebrate that milestone would be to team a bunch of veteran Orbit writers against a bunch of rookie Orbit writers and watch the sparks fly!  Join veteran authors M.R. Carey (THE BOY ON THE BRIDGE) Claire North (THE END OF THE DAY) Stephen Aryan (CHAOSMAGE) and Jamie Sawyer (THE LAZARUS TRILOGY) as they go up against young guns Nicholas Eames (KINGS OF THE WYLD) RJ Barker (AGE OF ASSASSINS) Jason Arnopp (THE LAST DAYS OF JACK SPARKS) and Adrian Selby (SNAKEWOOD) in a battle of steely wills and wily wit.  Actually they’ll probably just shout juvenile insults at each other but it should be fun to watch nonetheless. 

• Panellists:  M.R. Carey, Claire North, Stephen Aryan, Jamie Sawyer, Nicholas Eames, RJ Barker, Jason Arnopp, Adrian Selby, Moderator: Moderator: Leila Abu El Hawa
• Panel Duration:  1hr/15mins
• Exact Time:  11:15am – 12:30pm
• Lower Platinum Suite – Author Signing immediately afterwards – Books available from Forbidden Planet Int.

Incredibly, this is not fake news.

Even though I've had a whole year to absorb the shock and the divine majesty of all this, it still feels utterly surreal and amazing.

Yes, Imagine Entertainment, the Hollywood production company founded by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, have optioned my novel The Last Days Of Jack Sparks. I expect you know Imagine's pedigree, but just in case, they've made huge Ron movies like Apollo 13, The Da Vinci Code and Frost/Nixon, as well as the likes of 8 Mile, Katy Perry: Part Of Me and the upcoming film adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower.

I'm writing the first draft of the Sparks screenplay as we speak, and I'm having a real blast. Ron and his great folk at Imagine have been an absolute pleasure to deal with.

As for more details, I promised that my newsletter subscribers would hear those first. So if you'd like to hear how this development deal came about, or what it's like to have a meeting with Ron Howard, sign up to the newsletter and get a free book!

Here are a couple of online articles about the deal:

Screen Daily

Movies.com

I'll also be talking about the deal in the next issue of the mighty Starburst magazine, out April 21. Oh, and the US paperback edition of the book is imminent: April 4 through Orbit Books. Shriek soon!

​Here's The Last Days  Of Jack Sparks at...

Amazon UK | US | Canada

Yesterday, I wrote the final line of my second novel, one year and one day after Orbit Books published The Last Days Of Jack Sparks.

There's still plenty of editing work to do on this book, but the damn thing exists, fifteen months after I started work. This has not been an easy journey, but books very rarely offer anything of the kind.

So!  The book is called Key Man.

Your front door key is not unique.

If a homicidal maniac walked from house to house for long enough, trying the same key in each front door, he might eventually open yours.

Six-year-old Emilee Brink finds this out the hard way, when a hooded figure enters her family's Las Vegas home...

That's the premise. Hope it appeals. Key Man currently has a release date of January 18, 2018 via Orbit Books. If you were to pre-order this thing before it even has a cover, then this would set you up among the gods. The gods! So if godly status appeals, you'll find a handful of links at the end of this post.

This year, I've cut right back on social media, mainly to gain work focus. I'm only on Twitter at the weekend, for instance, and now keep my personal Facebook deactivated as default. Really makes a difference and I'm liking it a lot. But while I'm tweeting and posting less, I plan to really make a go of my free e-newsletter, The Necronoppicon. Hopefully I can send one of those out every few weeks from now on. 

Here's the online version of my most recent edition of The Necronoppicon, which went out last Sunday and told subscribers about Key Man first, as well as recommending Netflix documentaries and going into a little more detail about regaining work focus in the social media age. Like the look of it? Hit Subscribe on that page and join us! Add 'tell arnopp at gmail dot com' to your Contacts list, to be sure of receiving each startling missive!

Subscribers will be the first to hear details from me about the movie version of The Last Days Of Jack Sparks, currently in development. Oh, AND when I write the next Necronoppicon newsletter, I'll randomly pick one subscriber to receive a glossy US hardback edition of The Last Days Of Jack Sparks, personally signed to them. Even though me signing a book sadly halves its resale value. Join us!

Goodbye! Don't forget to triple-lock your door.

KEY MAN PRE-ORDER:

Amazon UK | Amazon US | Amazon Canada 

iBooks US | iBooks US | iBooks Canada

Waterstones (with working title!) | Blackwell's (ditto!)

Well now, that was a weird year. Out in the world at large, so many terrible things happened that made you feel as though reality itself was being warped by some sadistic overlord.

In terms of worldwide events, 2016 was the worst year in living memory. In terms of my career as an author, however, it was the best.

Hello, cognitive dissonance. But if it's all the same to you, I'm going to focus solely on the professional stuff here, as I cast a glance back over 2016. This is, after all, mainly a blog about writing - and there are enough hardcore doomsayers out there across social media, saying all that doom without seemingly giving much thought to the potential mental states of their readership.

My debut 'solo' novel The Last Days Of Jack Sparks clawed its way out through Orbit Books' rib cage in March. It's the story of an arrogant celebrity journalist who sets out to debunk the supernatural and ends up dead. So Orbit and I thought it only right and respectful to throw a wake for Jack at Orbit Towers in Central London. You can see snippets of my heartfelt eulogy in the video below...

So that was surreal. I also interviewed one of my own fictional characters from the book, Alistair Sparks, in a two-part audio interview (hear them both here), which was even more surreal. 

Even before the novel was released, the support was amazing. I mean, seriously. The mighty Christopher Brookmyre, Robin Ince, Andy Nyman, MR Carey, Jenny Colgan, David Schneider, Sarah Lotz, RTE 2FM's Rick O'Shea, Radio 1's Daniel P Carter, John Higgs, Cat Vincent, Andrew O'Neill, Rob Boffard, Rebecca Levene, Lisa Jewell, Chuck Wendig, Paul Tremblay, Amazon UK and the iBooks store were among the very first to get behind Sparks, which was incredible. And then, two months after the book's release, I received a voicemail message from Alan Moore (Alan Moore!), who also gave me and Orbit some blurbage including the tremendous phrase 'A magnificent millennial nightmare'. I'm still coming to terms with all this, along with other unexpected events like the book being chosen for Simon Mayo's Radio 2 Book Club (thank you librarians, thank you The Reading Agency!) and being nominated for The Guardian's Not The Booker Prize and a Goodreads 2016 Award.

So many other celebs, authors, bloggers and journalists were incredibly kind and generous to this novel, but I won't list them here for fear of missing people - and well, for fear of this post just becoming one big list. Thank you all. It's honestly been astonishing. One of the very best things about this year, though, has been complete strangers popping up on Twitter and Facebook to tell me how much they liked the book. That's still happening on a regular basis now, which gives me hope that Sparks ​will retain some appeal in 2017. Orbit's US paperback also emerges in April, which will hopefully inject further reanimation fluid into the old devil dog.

I'd also like to thank the sci fi and fantasy community, authors and readers alike, for making me feel so very welcome during my first public appearances as an author, at Edgelit, Nine Worlds, Fantasy At The Court, Fantasycon, the monthly British Science Fiction Association event and the MCM London Comic Con. I gave my first book readings at some of these, which was a new and scary experience. Here I am quacking away on an Edgelit panel alongside the extraordinary Sarah Pinborough (whose new novel Behind Her Eyes is going to blow a million wigs clean off when it emerges January 17!)

That mention of Lady P's novel has reminded me how pitiful my own reading efforts were this year. I don't think I even reached double figures, which is terrible. My only excuse is that publicising Sparks and writing Book Two soaked up way more time than I'd imagined. I will do better in 2017. Right now, I'm reading Sarah Lotz's The White Road, due May 2017. Super-creepy! Loving it.

If you bought The Last Days Of Jack Sparks, ​reviewed it, helped spread the word and/or helped make me feel like I was a proper author at the year's various events, then you have a special place in my black, mutated heart. Releasing your debut (solo) novel to the world, while hoping to lay the foundations for a long term career, that's a frightening business, but each of you made it less so. Thank you.

I'll leave you with news of a major Jack Sparks development, which I should be able to announce properly in January. There's now a folder in my Dropbox called Jack Sparks The Movie. The head-spinning events that led to that folder's creation were very much another reason for all my cognitive dissonance in 2016, let me tell you.

Wow! You made it through this thick swamp of self congratulation. Have a fackin' medal.

​2017 will see a reduced social media presence from me, so I'd be delighted if you signed up to my mailing list, to which I plan to send e-missives more regularly from now on. Happy New Year!

Hello to your face!

My novel The Last Days Of Jack Sparks has somehow made the semi finals of the Goodreads Choice Awards 2016. Which is astonishing, since this puts it alongside ludicrously stiff competition from books by the top drawer likes of Joe Hill, MR Carey and Paul Tremblay!

It would be amazing for Jack Sparks to reach the finals. So if you're willing to help, and genuinely believe the novel to be the most deserving in this year's Horror category, you can change my life with a couple of clicks! 

CLICK ONE: Straight to the Goodreads Horror voting page

CLICK TWO: Click on the voting button for the novel of your choice!

I believe you have to be a Goodreads member to vote. The deadline is just over 24 hours away at the time of blogging.

If you can indeed help, either by voting, or spreading the word, then you are literally a saint in my eyes. A glittering golden giant of a saint. And that's all there is to it. FAREWELL FOR NOW, you awe-inspiring beauty.