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.

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.

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!

Hooray, I'll be at the MCM London Comic Con tomorrow (Saturday Oct 29th) and will be doing Stuff as follows...

12 midday (Silver Theatre): a panel about horror and dark fantasy, alongside Alison Littlewood, Verity Holloway and moderator Leila Abu El Hawa. It's right up my alley and I hope it's right up yours too. (Sorry, that sounded vaguely impolite.)

1pm-2pm: I'll be signing copies of my novel The Last Days Of Jack Sparks, possibly while humming Satanic psalms. If such things exist. WHO KNOWS. You can buy the book at Travelling Man's stall at the event, and doing so sets you up among the GODS.

Maybe see you there! And while I've got you, this happened on Wednesday night...

Yes, as promised/threatened, Timebomb trilogy author Scott K Andrews quizzed me at the British Science Fiction Association's monthly event. Thanks very much to the BSFA for inviting us, and to all who came along - I had a great time, even though evil Andrews ambushed me with questions from my own book about interviewing people! What a swine.

I started the event with a five-minute reading from Jack Sparks, which was nice. 

Courtesy of BSFA genius Chad Dixon, you can see the archived Periscope video of our chat here.

You can also hear the audio recording here. 

One last news snippet: my novelette Auto Rewind has made its Kindle debut.  It's all about the 80s, Doctor Who, nostalgia and nail guns. Bye!

In February 2015, I interviewed the mighty Timebomb author Scott K Andrews at the British Science Fiction Association's monthly gathering. Ohhh, how I quizzed the man about his life, his career and his frankly astonishing collection of ancient Egyptian thigh bones. The whole affair looked very much like Chad Dixon's picture above, except the audience presumably experienced it in full colour.

On October 26, mere days before Halloween, the fiendish Mr Andrews will turn the tables on me for the BSFA, and interrogate me all about my life, career and frankly astonishing collection of ancient Egyptian shin bones. The event is completely free to attend - you do not have to be a BSFA member - and the night's schedule runs like this:

6pm
People gather at The Artillery Arms, 102 Bunhill Row, London EC1Y 8ND. These people can drink some booze, if they like, to steel themselves for what is to come.

7pm
Scott starts grilling me in the upstairs room of the pub. There is no mercy. A reading from Jack Sparks may also be involved.

8pm
Q&A with the audience.

8.15pm
Book raffle, in which you can "win a selection of SF novels for just £1 for 5 tickets", according to the BSFA. I'll be happy to sign copies of my novel The Last Days Of Jack Sparks too, if you like. I may also bring a few copies along to sell if the interest is there (tweet me!)

All in all, I can't think of a better way to welcome the infernal majesty of Halloween 2016 into our lives, can you? Well, can you? Hmmm? I doubt you can, so diarise it.

​See you there!  Here's the BSFA's event page, just in case you think I've made the whole blessed thing up. 

​And if you can't make the event in person, check out Chad Dixon's Twitter feed - he'll hopefully be live-streaming the whole affair!

Hello!  This weekend, I'll be at Fantasycon By The Sea in Scarborough, along with a whole host of genre luminaries including Mike Carey, Joe Hill, Adam Nevill, Elizabeth Bear, Paul Kane, Mark Morris and James Smythe.

I'm looking forward to celebrating the launches of books by Mark Morris (two books, no less), Paul Kane (ditto), Adam Nevill (his new short story collection Some Will Not Sleep - download three free stories here), my Orbit Books stablemate James Bennett and more!

I'll be appearing on a panel on Saturday, alongside Alison Littlewood, Edward Cox, Jaine Fenn and our chair Stan Nicholls. It's called Building A Mystery and will explore how much planning it takes to make a book. Should be fun, so do join us in The Grand's Palm Court Ballroom from 11am to midday.

I'll also be bringing a bunch of exclusive Jack Sparks bookmarks along with me! These precision-engineered beauties are specifically designed to mark any book page you desire. So feel free to say hello and ask me for one. And if you have a copy of my novel The Last Days Of Jack Sparks you'd like signed, feel free to ask for that too. See you in Scarborough!

THIS NEWS JUST IN: on October 26, I'll appear at the British Science Fiction Association's monthly free event in London, being interviewed by the mighty Scott K Andrews. Check out the details here!

Okay, maybe not chainsaw juggling, but the first three are definitely happening this week and weekend at two awesome events.   Apologies - I really wanted to present my picks for the most interesting panels at Nine Worlds that don't involve me. I would also normally endeavour to rave about as many of the other authors at these events as possible, but I frankly haven't had such a manic working week in a while, so I'm afraid time pressures have stabbed all these good intentions to death.  You'll just have to put up with my own imminent schedule. It's all me me me... (*winks to Jack Sparks readers*)

THURSDAY AUG 11: FANTASY AT THE COURT!
6pm-9pm at Goldsboro Books, Cecil Court, London (see pic above)
This annual event celebrates fantasy and science fiction and is an informal gathering for fans of this genre to meet the best fantasy and science fiction authors published today.  Tickets for the event cost £5. Set in the beautiful surroundings of Cecil Court and given the unique history of the location, Goldsboro Books is the perfect place for an evening that is set to be fantastic(al) in every sense.

I'm delighted to have joined a great list of authors who will appear at this wonderfully fun event! See you there, I hope.

SATURDAY AUG 13: NINE WORLDS CON!

FORBIDDEN PLANET SIGNING TABLE
11.30am-12.15pm
I'll be signing at the Forbidden Planet table. Hooray! Please be advised, however, that my autograph automatically halves the resale value of any given copy of The Last Days Of Jack Sparks. BONUS EXCITEMENT: everyone who gets me to deface their copy of Jack Sparks will get a limited edition Jack Sparks bookmark!  (While the number of bookmarks in my inside jacket pocket lasts!)

GENRE FUN-TIME ROOM 101
5pm-6pm (Epernay)
Come one! Come all! See our passionate panelists voraciously compete to declare their choice of the Most Hated Cliche Of All Time - the biggest laugh sees the panelists' pet peeve or authorial nightmare consigned to the dark, dank, despicable, dire depths of Room 101! (All cliches will be fished out and washed off and given a good hug after, we don’t hold with cruelty to innocent plot devices)
Matt Blakstad, Jason Arnopp, Ed Cox, Bex Levene, Stark Holborn, Anne Perry (mod)

NEW VOICES
10.15pm-11.15pm (Bordeaux)
Join us for a set of fun and fast-paced readings from the very best new writers.
Mark De Jager, Rose Biggin, Jason Arnopp, Maria Lewis 
See here for my blog about a recent Jack Sparks reading I did, at Edge Lit.

SUNDAY AUG 14: NINE WORLDS CON!

TRICKING THE READER
11.15am-12.15pm (Bordeaux)
Autolycus. Locke Lamora. The Magicians of The Prestige. Wade Wilson. Unreliable narrators are everywhere in genre fiction and the one question we always ask is why? What’s the appeal of listening to stories narrated by liars? What’s the difference between authorial mischief and shaggy dog stories? Why do we love the twist in the tale?
Jason Arnopp, Mark de Jager, James Smythe, Genevieve Cogman (mod) Emma Trevayne
 
WELCOME TO CREEPYPASTATOWN, POPULATION: YOU
1.30pm-2.30pm (Chalon)
The internet is festering with tales of the grim and gory as it is but these days it’s feasting on creepypasta like it’s apocalypse o’clock. With these little home-grown mushrooms of fiction festering in the darker corners of the internet, creating monsters like Slenderman that have broken out into the wider, brighter world, how has that affected the horror genre? Is this the future, or a new facet of one of the oldest kinds of story?
Jason Arnopp, Catriona Ward, Angela Slatter, Tom Fletcher, Andrew Griffin (Mod)

Other panels, signings and events are available!  A whole galaxy of them, in fact.  Nine Worlds looks pretty amazing this year.  Check out the full schedule.

It's not too late (at the time of writing) to help place The Last Days Of Jack Sparks on the shortlist of The Guardian's Not The Booker Prize!  All it takes is posting a comment.  Do it for Satan! 
​

Hey, look at these brand new Jack Sparks bookmarks! I will definitely bring some of these to Edge-Lit 2016, the Derby genre event at which I'm appearing this Saturday alongside a whole constellation of star writers like Sarah Pinborough, Paul Cornell, Edward Cox, Alistair Reynolds, Emma Newman, Conrad Williams, Johnny Mains and many more. If you're at the event, stride up to me and pledge allegiance to Satan (or just say hello) and I'll hand one of these bookmarks right over. If you want one, that is, obviously.

At Edge-Lit, I'll be doing my first ever public book reading, from The Last Days Of Jack Sparks. I'm very happy to be doing this as part of Super Relaxed Fantasy Club, the monthly event founded by authors Jen Williams and Den Patrick - and am very grateful indeed to Jen and Den for the invite, especially given the fast uptake of SRFC's author slots these days.

I'm also on a couple of Edge-Lit panels as follows (full schedule here):

10am-11am Horror, Thriller, Chiller... What's The Difference Really? Jason Arnopp, VH Leslie (chair), Johnny Mains, Marie O'Regan, Sarah Pinborough. Sponsored by Crowded Quarantine Publications

4pm-5pm The Truth About Writing: What's It Really Like To Be a Professional Writer? Nina Allan, Jason Arnopp, M John Harrison, Marie O'Regan (chair), Ali Shaw Sponsored by Fox Spirit Books

Looking forward to all that. See you there?

And while I have you: the paperback release of The Last Days Of Jack Sparks is out on July 28 in the UK, with cover quotes from M.R.Carey and Alan Moore! The Kindle version is also still half price at £2.99, at the time of writing.

In the States and Canada, there's a hardback edition set for September 13! I've seen the dust jacket design and it looks tremendous. And if you're in those parts of the world and simply can't wait, stop hyperventilating: I have you covered right now with the Kindle edition. Because that's simply the kinda guy I am. Goodbye.