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Get Jack Sparks Half Price! Plus: Other News

20/6/2016

Hello! Step into my blog boudoir and for Christ's sake put down that axe. Here's the latest news on my authorly behaviour.

In five weeks on July 28, the mass-market paperback edition of my Orbit Books novel The Last Days Of Jack Sparks will be unleashed. It's a story about an egotistical celebrity journo who laughs at the Devil and pays the ultimate price.

In addition to the original cover blurb courtesy of the great M.R.Carey, this new edition carries a new quote from the one and only Alan Moore - 'A magnificent millennial nightmare'!

If you simply can't wait to read the book, though, the good news is that the first edition is still available. The C-format paperback can be found here at Amazon UK - and the Kindle version is half price for the next week!

Yes indeed - the Kindle book is usually priced at £5.99, but until Monday the 27th it's a mere £2.99. If you don't believe me and are now shrieking, 'But Jason Arnopp, that's just a DERANGED BARGAIN', then you'll just have to see it with your own two eyes right here.

Rather a lot of good stuff has happened around the book, since I last blogged about Alan Moore phoning me up. There's more surreal stuff in the pipeline too, some of which I can't blab about just yet. But here are some things I can say about Jack Sparks:

I'm interviewed in a double-page SFX feature (see pic above), in the August issue out on Wednesday, June 22. Huge thanks to the mag's Jonathan Wright for the feature, and to photographer Joe Branston, who made the impressive effort of travelling from Bath to Brighton to capture my soul in his evil photo box. You'll never know how many chips we had to feed that seagull, in order to bribe it to fly past at the correct moment.

I'm also interviewed in Sci Fi Now magazine soon! Really enjoyed doing the interview with the splendidly-named Jonathan Hatfull. I'm not sure when that issue is published, but rest assured I'll let you know on Twitter when the time comes.

The Last Days Of Jack Sparks receives a very enthusiastic review indeed, over at top blog Liz Loves Books. Liz declares it to be, 'creepily, stealthily, hilariously, inventively brilliant'. Christ on a bike.

Here's another great blog review, from sci fi author Jamie Sawyer: 'From the get-go, Sparks grabs you, shakes you and won't let go'. Cheers Jamie!

Down under in Sydney, reviewer Verushka at pop.edit.lit declares that Jack Sparks is, 'like nothing you've ever read before'. And thank God, she seems to mean this in a good way.

And here's a remarkable tweet from Jess Radl (@JessRadl), who says, 'I've never been so enthralled by, excited about and resentful of a book in my life (except maybe Stephen King's It). Wow, thanks so much Jess! And here's Dan Chamley (@dansmonsters) tweeting, 'It's like a bastard book child of Stephen King and Lucio Fulci. Just magnificent'. Since King and Fulci are two all-time favourite creators of mine, this is praise indeed, to say the least.

But that's enough quacking about praise (yes, yes, I know, it was already enough about three paragraphs ago). In other news:

I'll be among the guests at next month's Edge Lit fest in Derby, with other festivals to follow this summer.
Author Rob Boffard included Jack Sparks in his wonderful three-minute rap in praise of 64 genre books! Check it, yo.
Orbit US are releasing a special hardback edition of Jack Sparks on September 13!
There's currently a Goodreads giveaway to win a special advance reading copy of the novel. Ends July 10!
Oh, and keep your eye on the Jack Sparks tribute site, which is rolling out new additional content as we shriek and will continue to do so, posting a new segment of the book each week!