Lovely online SF/Fantasy/Horror magazine Pantechnicon will be running a Department for Extra-Usual Affairs story, Death Knock in their June issue, I'm pleased to say.

June will also see the British Fantasy Society's publication New Horizons launched (to members only), which features the DfEAU story At Midnight, All The Agents.

Now, if the third DfEAU story gets a home in the publication that's looking at it, it could be a Dorothy Culpepper summer!

This is an illustration for my Department for Extra-Usual Affairs short story, AT MIDNIGHT, ALL THE AGENTS, courtesy of artist Ian Simmons, whose work can be found here. The story can be found in the first issue of the British Fantasy Society's brand new magazine NEW HORIZONS, first issue of which is out this June, but only to BFS members.

Some of this has been dripping out but thought I might as well formally announce it, as I've been having chats with Storm Constantine over the weekend and we're now looking at some cover art concepts: Immanion Press, who brought you the critically acclaimed (by my mum) Hinterland, will be publishing ANGELGLASS, hopefully at the back end of this year (for reasons which may become clearer later) or early Spring 2008.

What's it about? We-e-ll... it's a "split screen" novel set in Prague in both the modern day and the 1580s, as well as some interludes in a shining city populated by beings of light who really have no sense of humour.

Keywords in no particular order: anti-globalisation; golem; Kabbalah; terrorism; ad-busting; Doctor John Dee; alchemy; angels; submarines; giants; amnesia; murder; intrigue; magic; double-crosses; landsknechte; defenestration; Tycho Brahe's strap-on (nose); Guiseppe Arcimboldo; Guinness; mass protest; shagging in doorways.

More details as I get 'em.

A bit early, too, but there's talk of a second edition of Hinterland, possibly with a new cover, and a chance to fix those pesky typos. Get your collector's item first editions now while they're in stock!

At the heart of popCULT! is a film that was never made, or made but never released, or never existed at all. A McGuffin. It's called Carry On, You Old Devil, and the main character in the book, Stuart, having been given a tantalising glimpse of its existence, eventually gets to see it. Or something like it. Sort of.

Anyway, if any Carry On fans would like to cast an eye over this for flavour accuracy, I'd be grateful.

( Carry On, You Old Devil )

Less than four hours after posting my last missive I received some news about one of them.

Co-incidence? More than likely.

Nothing firm yet, but it does take one of those projects on considerably, and determines what I will be writing next, certainly in the short term.