Monstrous Missions - The Terrible Lizards are unleashed!

This arrived in the post today.

This is my third Doctor Who publication and my first novel, or chapter book if you prefer, featuring the Eleventh Doctor (as portrayed by Matt Smith), Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill).

It's been some time in the making (for one reason or another) and it's great to see it in print at long last. It wasn't an easy task, writing the book, but I had a great time putting words into the Doctor's mouth and putting the Ponds through the wringer.

Monstrous Missions, which collects my story Terrible Lizards along with Gary Russell's Horror of the Space Snakes, is officially released on Thursday 2 February but you can buy it from Amazon now. Here's the blurb from the back of the book.

In TERRIBLE LIZARDS, the Doctor and his companions join a group of explorers on a Victorian tramp steamer in the Florida Everglades. The explorers are searching for the Fountain of Youth, but neither they nor the treasure they seek are quite what they seem!

And in HORROR OF THE SPACE SNAKES, people are mysteriously disappearing on Moonbase Laika. They return with strange bite marks and no idea where they have been. Can the Doctor get to the bottom of what's going on?

Monstrous Missions is one of six such 2-in-1 titles, the others are:

Book 1 - Heart of Stone/Death Riders

Book 2 - The Good, the Bad and the Alien/System Wipe

Book 3 - Alien Adventures

Book 4 - Sightseeing in Space

Book 6 - Step Back in Time

Friday the 13th... Unlucky for some

Yes, I know it's not Friday the 13th today, but last Friday (which was the 13th) the shortlists for The Kitschies 2011 were announced*.

Pax Britannia: Anno Frankenstein was put forward for consideration by my publishers but it wasn't to be this time, although fellow steampunk author** Lavie Tidhar did make the shortlist for Best Novel - the coveted Red Tentacle - for Osama: A Novel.

The winners of the Red Tentacle, the Golden Tentacle (for best newcomer) and Inky Tentacle (for best cover artist) will be announced on Friday 3 February at the SFX Weekender***.

However, all is not lost as far as Anno Frankenstein is concerned! Oh no!

You see the Tor.com 2011 Readers’ Choice Awards are now taking votes, until until 11:59 PM Friday, 20 January.

Notice the word 'Readers' in the title? That's right, it means that you the book buying (and presumably reading) public get to choose. Basically it's a popularity contest but one that Anno Frankenstein, with the right backing, might just have a shot at.

So whaddya say? Simply click this link and in the comments section after the blog post about the awards, type the title of the novel (Anno Frankenstein), the author's name (Jonathan Green), and if you want to the name of the publisher (Abaddon Books) as well.

And it's not just Anno Frankenstein that's eligible. In the Best Short Fiction category, I have a couple of stories published by Black Library that were both published last year, the 40K story But Dust in the Wind and the Warhammer tale Sir Dagobert's Last Battle.

So, what are you waiting for? If you vote for me I'll be eternally grateful. ;-)

* Provoking no end of Internet interest such as here, here and on the Guardian website here.

** He'll hate me for saying that.

*** Good luck, Lavie!

2012 - The Year of the Gamebook?

The Tin Man over at Tin Man Games, believes that 2012 might well be the year of the Gamebook. Here's why.

Vote for Temple of the Spider God

Thanks to everyone who nominated Temple of the Spider God for the 2011 Best App Ever Awards. Thanks to your sterling efforts, my first digital gamebook has been shortlisted in the Best Dice Game category.

So now it's up to you to go and vote! You can do so very simply by following this link or clicking on the button in the right-hand side bar. So over to you again...