28th January 2012 / Appearances / Coldest City / Pre-order
Two brief announcements, primarily for UK people:
— Next Saturday I’ll be joining Kieron Gillen and Doug Braithwaite, the geniuses behind Marvel’s JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY (and a host of other stuff, of course) for a signing at Travelling Man Newcastle.
That’s Saturday 4th February from 3-6pm. Do come along and see us if you’re around.
— You can now pre-order Limited Signed Bookplate Editions of THE COLDEST CITY, with new art from Sam and signed by us both. These editions are only available from either Page 45 or Travelling Man, and stocks are very limited, so order quickly. There are direct links to both stores’ pre-order pages at thecoldestcity.com. The Page 45 link also has a very kind and mostly spoiler-free review of the book, if that interests you.
(Yes, Americans, we’re working on making some available for you too. Watch this space.)
— [ADDENDUM] In my haste to post, I forgot to add that I also did an interview last week, with Laurent Jardin of French site Merlanfrit. Laurent has translated much of the DEAD SPACE series into French, so naturally we talked mostly about videogames. It’s a good one, and you can read it here (ou, vous pouvez lire la traduction Français ici).
12th January 2012 / Coldest City / Pre-order
THE COLDEST CITY, a new spy thriller graphic novel by me and artist Sam Hart, is now available for pre-order, to be published in May.
It’s set in West Berlin during the last days of the Cold War, and follows in the footsteps of classic espionage fiction like John Le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Ian Mackintosh’s The Sandbaggers, and Len Deighton’s Harry Palmer novels.
This is a book I’ve wanted to write — and the kind of book I’ve wanted to write — for years, ever since my stint on QUEEN & COUNTRY: DECLASSIFIED gave me the espionage bug (writing, that is — I was already a spy fiction reader, it just hadn’t occurred to me to write any before. Duh).
Here’s the back cover blurb…
As Communism collapses and the Berlin Wall crumbles, an undercover MI6 spy is killed while carrying priceless information — a list containing the name of every spy in Berlin.
But no list is found on his body.
MI6 sends veteran MI6 officer Lorraine Broughton to recover the list. But she walks into a powderkeg of social unrest, counter-espionage, defections gone bad, and secret assassinations…
THE COLDEST CITY is a brand new spy thriller from author Antony Johnston (Wasteland, Queen & Country: Declassified, Daredevil) and artist Sam Hart (Judge Dredd, Excalibur: The Legend of King Arthur) that revitalizes classic espionage fiction and revels in the paranoia and mistrust boiling over at the epicenter of the Cold War.
…which tells you pretty much all you need to know. But if you want more, and to read some sample scenes, there’s also an official website with more information, order codes, loads of artwork, and a preview of the book.
THE COLDEST CITY is the first in a planned series of connected books; I’m writing the second, DEAD OF WINTER, at the moment, and I already have plans for at least one more after that.
If that sounds good to you, please pre-order a copy of THE COLDEST CITY today.
18th December 2009 / Coldest City / Daredevil / Dead Space / Interviews / Wasteland / Wolverine
Quick round-up before the holidays…
(I’ll do a proper year in review post soon, but may not have time before the new year.)
Comic Book Resources interviewed me recently about WASTELAND, DAREDEVIL and THE COLDEST CITY. You can read it here.
WOLVERINE: PRODIGAL SON, which was shortlisted in the Texas Library Association’s Maverick YA reading recommendations, made the final list. See the full thing here.
The lovely and generous Jeff VanderMeer talks about Volume 1 of the WASTELAND Apocalyptic Edition hardback on Amazon today, with an excerpt from his introduction to the book. Read it here.
DEAD SPACE 2 has been officially announced, and a lot of people have asked me if I’m on board once more. Sadly, no, I won’t be writing this game. It hopefully won’t be my last excursion into the Dead Space universe, though…
That’s all I can talk about for now, but as always there’s a whole host of stuff bubbling under right now. Happy holidays, everyone, and remember; Santa cannot be trusted.
9th November 2009 / Coldest City / Musings
Twenty years ago today, the Berlin Wall fell.
Those of us old enough to remember it, especially Europeans, will never forget that historic night. The Cold War had been going on for decades, since long before I was born, and the idea that it would ever end was almost inconceivable.
Even Gorbachev’s initiatives of glasnost and perestroika, while helping thaw East-West relations to a degree, never seemed likely to end the Cold War (much less bring about the end of communist Russia). By 1989, the Cold War had been underway for forty-four years.
Throughout that time, Berlin — and the Berlin Wall itself — grew in significance to become a symbol of the entire East-West geopolitical divide. Unlike the metaphorical Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall was literally a wall, and thus an easy shorthand for political discussion of the times.
When the East Germans finally broke through and celebrated into the night, we all hoped it would usher in a new age of freedom and brotherhood. Sadly, we weren’t so successful at that. Nevertheless, the fall of the Berlin Wall will always be remembered as a testament to the power of public will, and a moment nobody who witnessed it will ever forget.
…All of which is preamble to say that today, I’m officially announcing THE COLDEST CITY, which I’ve so far only mentioned here in passing.
THE COLDEST CITY is a Cold War spy thriller, set in Berlin during the last days before the Wall came down. More John Le Carré than James Bond, it’s a down-to-earth espionage story that revels in the paranoia and mistrust boiling over at the epicentre of the Cold War. Here’s a synopsis:
November 1989. Communism is collapsing, and soon the Berlin Wall will be torn down by both the East and West.
But before that happens there is one last situation for MI6, Britain’s intelligence services, to resolve. Two weeks ago, an undercover MI6 officer was killed in Berlin. He was carrying information from a source in the East — a list that allegedly contains the name of every espionage agent working in Berlin, on all sides.
No list was found on his body.
MI6 sent in Lorraine Broughton, an experienced spy with no pre-existing ties to Berlin, to root out the list. But she walked into a powderkeg of social unrest, counter-espionage, defections gone bad and secret assassinations. Then, on the night the Wall came down, her superior — MI6′s chief officer in Berlin — was shot and killed in the street.
Now Lorraine has returned, to tell her story. And nothing is quite what it seems
Illustrated by Sam Hart (JUDGE DREDD, STARSHIP TROOPERS) and Published in 2010 by Oni Press, THE COLDEST CITY will be a digest-sized hardback that sits very comfortably next to your Le Carré and Deighton novels (insert winking smiley here).
There’ll be a full press release soon, but I wanted to get the news out on this momentous anniversary. So, all shilling aside, let’s take a moment to remember that even the most powerful government can’t deny the will of the people… providing that will is strong enough.
[Addendum: The full press release is now online.]
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