Hang the flags! Bake the cake! The Last Days Of Jack Sparks is now available in the US and Canada as an actual physical hardback book. As I understand it, this is currently the only hardcover edition available anywhere in the world. 

The novel is about an arrogant celebrity journalist who sets out to write a non-fiction book debunking the supernatural, then ends up dead. He may have got himself in trouble when he laughed during the exorcism of a teenage girl, that's all I'm saying...

Barnes & Noble stores are apparently displaying the correct amount of respect for the deceased, and getting right behind this release. So I hear you'll be able to find the book on the front table in most B&N stores. If you see one, I'd very much welcome being shown a snap of it, via the gift of Twitter!

B&N have given the book a great review, calling it "the spiritual successor to Mark Z Danielewski's House Of Leaves", which I take as a huge compliment, being a real House Of Leaves fan.

B&N have also picked Sparks as one of their Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books Of September 2016, alongside Alan Moore's mighty new Jerusalem tome! They also included the book in their feature Eight Speculative Works Narrated By Dead People.

Neither have Amazon US been slouches, exactly, when it comes to Sparks support. They've named it one of SFF's Best Books Of The Month - again alongside Jerusalem!

If you are already a Jack Sparks fan, or become one, I would really appreciate any help you can spare with spreading the word. Trust me, word of mouth makes such a huge difference, especially for a debut novel like this.

Here's a piece I wrote for Invasive/Star Wars: Aftermath author Chuck Wendig, over at his tremendous Terrible Minds site: Certainty In The Social Media Age

I also wrote about The Scariest Part of creating The Last Days Of Jack Sparks, for awesome Dying Is My Business author Nicholas Kaufmann 

And here's a new interview I did about the book over at Paul Semel's site 

Here's the book at Barnes & Noble in hardcover and for Nook, where you can also read a sample.

And here it is at Amazon US and Amazon Canada. Again, you can read a sample on those pages.

​And finally, here it is at Indiebound

Hopefully Jack Sparks is about to find a whole new posthumous Stateside readership. Let's see...

On Monday September 5, I went on Simon Mayo's Drivetime show to talk about The Last Days Of Jack Sparks for the Radio 2 Book Club segment. The Book Club only picks twenty-six books per year, so it was truly amazing when they so wholeheartedly embraced a scary thriller like Sparks. 

Simon and everyone involved with the show couldn't be more welcoming. They immediately smooth over any last-minute nerves you might experience as you enter the studio. Before I had too much time to consider that we were being heard by millions, live on air, Mr Mayo and his right-hand man Matt Williams chatted to me like the consummate pros they are. Can't say I expected to be asked to tell the story about being surrounded by the Pope's armed guards at the Vatican, but it certainly made for a strong ice-breaker.

I'll confess to being momentarily unnerved when Matt related how he read fifty or sixty pages of Sparks before deciding he'd had enough... but then he added how the rest of the team had practically ordered him to carry on! He came to consider Sparks as, "one of the best books we've done on the Book Club this year". Phew and wow and phew again. I'm really glad we addressed the issue of Jack Sparks' likeability, too, because some folk might find the opening chapters infuriating in isolation. Jack's a terribly selfish, blinkered and egotistical individual, but there are reasons why he's that way. There's much more to discover about him and about the book, so hang on in there!

We talked about certainty in the social media age, exactly how scary The Last Days Of Jack Sparks has proven to be for many readers and what I'm doing next. We also heard reviews of the book from volunteers who had been randomly chosen to receive it. Another nervewracking moment...

As I'd hoped, appearing on the Radio 2 Book Club has given Sparks an incredible boost. In the hours that followed my appearance on the show, the novel entered Amazon's Top 100 Books chart (as in, all the books, regardless of genre, fiction or non) at Number 89! How staggering. It also entered the Number One spot in Amazon UK's Movers & Shakers chart, which documents the fastest climbers in any given twenty-four hour period. 

I really can't thank everyone enough for all of this, but nevertheless I have to try.

Thanks so much to Simon Mayo, Matt Williams, producer Joe Haddow and everyone else on the Drivetime show.

Thanks so much to the Reading Agency (who do such great work in encouraging people to read - a cause I can most definitely get behind) and to all the amazing UK librarians who helped pick The Last Days Of Jack Sparks for the Radio 2 Book Club.

Thanks so much to everyone who has bought, read and spread the word about Jack Sparks, before and since the Radio 2 Book Club. You are literally helping to ensure I continue to have a career in writing. 

Listen to me being interrogated on Simon Mayo's Drivetime Show here (the Radio 2 Book Club segment begins about one hour and eight minutes in) on BBC iPlayer for the next four weeks

And here's the Radio 2 Book Club page for the book, including a free extract

Here's the paperback at Amazon UK.  And the Kindle edition. And here it is at Waterstones.  And Forbidden Planet.

Here's the Jack Sparks tribute page. And here's the Jack Sparks page on this very site.

Have you already read and enjoyed the book?  Scroll down for some suggestions as to how you can help keep the Radio 2 buzz alive! Thank you!

Sweet galloping Christ! My Orbit Books novel The Last Days Of Jack Sparks has become the latest selection of Simon Mayo’s Radio 2 Book Club.
 
This is a truly wonderful development, which will expose Jack Sparks to millions of potential new readers. And God knows, Jack was a duplicitous scoundrel who badly needed exposing. Thanks so very much to Simon Mayo, Radio 2’s book boffin Joe Haddow, The Reading Agency and all the UK librarians who helped make this possible. Yes, librarians, those awesome keepers of the sacred flame, gave Sparks their nod. This makes me pleased as punch.
 
I’ll be on Simon Mayo’s Drivetime Show on September 5 to chat about the novel, soI’m very much looking forward to that.
 
The Last Days Of Jack Sparks is a supernatural thriller about an arrogant celebrity journalist who sets out to write a non-fiction book debunking the supernatural. When he laughs during an exorcism in Italy, it seems to trigger a chain of increasingly frightening events that lead to his death. V For Vendetta and Watchmen creator Alan Moore has described the book as “a magnificent millennial nightmare”!

Here's the Radio 2 Book Club page for the book, including a free downloadable extract.  And here's the reading groups page where you can win one of 10 copies of the book! 

Hooray!

​I am currently only capable of saying hooray.

Hooray. 

P.S. Further Sparks-related reading:

The day Alan Moore left a voicemail message on my phone

Why and how I cast The Blair Witch Project's directors in The Last Days Of Jack Sparks

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! 
​

Well now! I have no idea how this came to be, but my novel The Last Days Of Jack Sparks has made the longlist of The Guardian's annual Not The Booker prize. 

While the longlist has ninety-nine other books on it, I'm still very much amazed and delighted to find myself on there, alongside the incredible likes of Alan Moore, China Mieville and my Orbit Books stablemate Claire North!

The competition is stiff, to say the very least. I got ninety-nine problems, you might say. But the shortlist will be decided by a public vote that ends at midnight on August 14. And if I win, I get a Guardian mug, which would be nice. So if you feel strongly about Jack Sparks, please do commemorate the poor dead sod by voting for him here!  And/or spread the word. Either of these actions will make me love you even more than I already do for reading this blog.

Cheers! 
​

Hello! My supernatural thriller novel The Last Days Of Jack Sparks concerns an arrogant celebrity journalist who finds himself in trouble with unseen forces, after he laughs during an exorcism in Italy, organised by the Catholic church.
 
So to celebrate the current paperback release, I want to tell you about the day my former journo self got into trouble with seen forces in Rome. Namely, the Pope’s armed forces. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Yes.
 
Life sometimes throws up subtle signals that you’ve acted unwisely. Being surrounded by angry men with machine guns is arguably one such signal.
 
Time-whoosh! It’s 1998 and I’m a rock journalist. Photographer Paul Harries and I are in Rome, to cover the Devil’s own metal band Cradle Of Filth (see current line-up above) for Kerrang! magazine.

Aiming to drag some local colour into the piece, we head to Vatican City. Funnily enough, there’s been no prior discussion with the Pope’s press office regarding photo shoots and the like. So we are, of course, foolish to think we can simply waltz onto Vatican turf without getting people’s sacrificial goats up.
 
When we arrive at a square on the edge of Vatican City, it’s early evening and freezing cold. The dome of the nearby St Peter’s Basilica is obscured by scaffolding. “They heard we were coming,” smirks Filth drummer Nick, before leaving in a taxi like a big lightweight. Albeit a big lightweight who doesn’t get detained at gunpoint.
 
Cradle Of Filth have been here before. Like many unsuspecting tourists, they were thrown out for not wearing proper shirts. Tonight proves they have learned nothing. The band’s singer Dani is sporting one of their own T-shirts – the one with the clear slogan I LOVE SATAN. Keyboardist Les ‘Lecter’ Smith sports his trademark vicar’s collar. Spoiler alert: Les is not an actual vicar.
 
The square is deserted as we wander about.  While talking nonsense about fictitious past Popes (like “Lucius The Second, The Masturbating Pope,” according to guitarist Stuart), the Filth admit to being interested in Vatican architecture.  Guitarist Rob takes photos of his own.
 
“Rome is confused,” ponders Lecter.  “In the Colosseum, they used to throw Christians to the lions. And here’s this big monument to Christians.”
 
Dani and snapper Harries disappear to do some pictures.  The singer eventually returns at speed.  “You’ve got to see this,” he yells.  “The Vatican Police have taken Paul’s camera and passport away!  They told me to fetch ‘the preacher’!”
 
“Fuck,” groans Lecter, tugging his collar off as we follow Dani between some massive pillars.  “I’m sick of getting arrested wherever we go…”
 
All of a sudden, we’re surrounded by armed guards. Six or seven of them, levelling submachine guns right at us. Even worse, they’re seriously pissed off. Red in the face, they shout at Lecter until he hands over the collar, which is shaken aloft in a self-righteous fist.

Hello! Step into my study, would you? You'll find it cool enough in here, thanks to the enormous electrical fan whirring away. This costly device also makes for a wonderful white noise generator if you happen to have a spot of the ol' tinnitus.

Now, whether you realise it or not, we're heading towards the July 28 UK mass-market paperback release of my novel The Last Days Of Jack Sparks. The March release was a mere soft launch, compared to this one. This new release is the big kahuna. The grande fromage, if you'll pardon my immaculate French. And one of the ways we're celebrating this release, is a blog tour. From August 1, the book will be featured on a whole array of blogs, thanks to the kindness of various blogsters. Here's the full list!

A big thanks to all these wonderful blog supremos! As I understand it, the coverage will mainly be reviews of the book, although there will be the odd Q&A. So, look out for these blogs, perhaps by using the #JackSparks Twitter hashtag, and consider checking out the book that Alan Moore himself has branded "a magnificent millennial nightmare"...

The new mass-market paperback at Amazon UK - note the pre-order price guarantee

The Kindle release at Amazon UK 

And here's a handy list of all the outlets I could gather together on one page, together with various other potentially intriguing Sparks-related links

​Should you need further cajoling, here are Eleven Reasons You Need Jack Sparks In Your Life!

Lastly (I swear), if you've read and enjoyed the book, please know that a review anywhere, even if it's just a single line, makes a world of difference.

Goodbye!

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.

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!

Now I must haul down the blog-shutter and leave you with some ever-so-handy Amazon links...

Good day to you.

The Last Days Of Jack Sparks, half price on Kindle at Amazon UK 

The Last Days Of Jack Sparks in C-format paperback at Amazon UK

Pre-order The Last Days Of Jack Sparks mass-market paperback, out July 28 at Amazon UK

The Last Days Of Jack Sparks on Kindle at Amazon US

Pre-order the hardback edition of Jack Sparks at Amazon US!

​And hey, this may shock you, but other genre books ARE available. Here are some really rather splendid ones at Amazon UK...

Scott K Andrews' new Time Bomb novel Second Lives

Laura Lam's new novel False Hearts

The paperback of Jenny Colgan's Resistance Is Futile

The paperback of Chuck Wendig's Zer0es

​Pre-order Paul Tremblay's latest, Disappearance At Devil's Rock

​Joe Hill's new epic, The Fireman!

M.R.Carey's latest novel Fellside!

​Claire North's latest novel The Sudden Appearance Of Hope!
​

The call went to voicemail last week, while I was in the shower.

When I returned to my desk, I saw the call had come from my friend John Higgs' mobile. Nothing strange about that, I thought to myself, while pressing play on the voicemail.

That’s when the unmistakable tones of Alan Moore filled my ear and the room went as hot and hazy as Arizona.

“Jason, I thought Jack Sparks was an excellent book,” said the man behind Watchmen, V For Vendetta, From Hell and The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The final twists were absolutely amazing.” He went on to say some other ludicrously nice things, but they would spoiler you, so I’ll draw a veil.

Incredibly, when I finished playing this voicemail back, I did not wake up. Seriously, I didn't. Not even after the twenty-seventh play. While this was very much the stuff of dreams, it had actually bloody happened, in reality and everything.

I had known that John Higgs, who is a friend of Alan Moore, had placed a copy of my Orbit Books novel The Last Days Of Jack Sparks into the great man’s hands at some point last year, motivated by the belief that Alan would appreciate a modern take on horror. But who knew if Alan would ever read it, let alone even vaguely enjoy it? Far as I was concerned, I’d have genuinely been happy if the book had ended its days propping up a wonky table in the Moore residence.

I sat down for a while. Then stood up and paced around. Finally I mustered the courage to phone John back. After picking up, he handed me over to Alan (apparently my tinny voice was heard squeaking out of the phone at this point, going, “Oh fuck!”), who said ludicrously nice things all over again, but this time directly into my brain in real time. All I could really do was try to balance my insane level of gratitude against the need to stay relatively cool while talking to Alan Moore. That, and try to ensure that I listened a lot more than I spoke.

I definitely jabbered about how I’d been recently been watching and enjoying Show Pieces, his and Mitch Jenkins’ collection of linked short films. That aside, I’ve no idea what I said. Hopefully I really did just listen. But what a very lovely man.

Before leaving John's company that day, Alan hand-wrote the following blurb quote about The Last Days Of Jack Sparks...

‘Classic supernatural horror that takes a frenetic and self-obsessed modern world in its confident stride. The Last Days Of Jack Sparks gives us ingenious and funny diabolism, repurposed for the 21st Century. A magnificent millennial nightmare.’

Wow.

Wowww.

I still haven’t got my head around this. No, not at all. It really is the cherry on the cake after such kind words on the book from the mighty likes of M.R. Carey, Sarah Lotz, Chuck Wendig, Christopher Brookmyre, David Schneider, Lisa Jewell, Paul Tremblay, Andy Nyman, Rick O'Shea, Ken Bruen and Andrew O’Neill.

Also, let's be clear: this blurb means that if you don’t enjoy The Last Days Of Jack Sparks, you might as well be calling Alan Moore a liar.

Yes, I’m pretty sure that’s what it means. Ahem.

Partly because writing is really really tough, my writing confidence had blipped, the day before Alan Moore’s voicemail arrived. Happens to us all from time to time. And sometimes the universe seems to know exactly you need and sets about delivering it to you in a bizarre and surreal manner.

I now have possession of Alan Moore’s actual handwritten quote on Sparks. It’s going up on the wall above my desk, to remind me never to doubt myself again. Not unduly, anyway. Regular flashes of self doubt are absolutely essential, in a Can I Do This Better? or Have I Taken A Wrong Narrative Turn? or Would Crystal Meth Reaaaally Help Me Hit This Deadline? kind of way. When self doubt gets out of control, though, that’s when you run the risk of paralysis. And we simply can't have that. Like sharks, we must swim or die.

So. That’s put a spring in my step for the rest of the millennium. If you haven’t read The Last Days Of Jack Sparks and would like to become an early adopter, here’s my handy Jack Sparks page listing various worldwide outlets. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off for a lie down with a cold flannel on my head.