It’s a Newtonian principle, I’m sure. For every instance of good luck there’s an equal and opposite instance of bad.

Here’s the state of play with regard to The Age Of Ra. Publication is but a fortnight away, and two glowing write-ups have already appeared. There’s one in Publisher’s Weekly; you have to scroll down a bit, but it’s there, and it’s starred, no less. Then there’s this one at Fantasy Book Critic, a real humdinger from a chap called Liviu Suciu.

The bummer about all this, the negative to the positive, the yang to the yin, the Torchwood to the New Who, is the fact that Solaris itself is in a state of limbo. The imprint, as I’m sure you’re aware, is in the process of being sold, and a buyer is lined up and raring to go (I know who it is but I’m not at liberty to say). Everything was meant to be done and dusted at least two months ago, and would be sorted by now had various agents and lawyers not got involved and caused endless delays with their finagling and nitpicking and general agenty lawyerness. As a result, the fine fellows at Solaris — George, Christian and Mark — have all headed off for employment elsewhere and the imprint is, while still nominally under their control, more or less rudderless. Meaning Ra isn’t getting the promotional push it would otherwise have got. Curse those agents and lawyers. F***ing w***ers. And that’s swearing.

But the book is getting out there, and more reviews will be forthcoming, I’m sure of it.

I very much enjoyed the signing at Forbidden Planet last week. Lots of people came to see Mark Chadbourn, and why wouldn’t they? He’s very handsome and a fine author to boot. But a few came to see me as well, and Mark and I signed plenty of copies for mail order and stock, and then we found ourselves at a pub on Charing Cross Road in the cheery company of Chris Wooding and Gillian Redfearn from Gollancz, not to mention a random European actor whom Gillian adopted (because he looked “lonely”, apparently) and also FP’s lovely Danie Ware, who’d organised the whole signing shebang, for which, Danie, many thanks. I got home late and weary, but it was worth it.

And then there’s this, the cover for the third volume in the 5 Lords Of Pain series. Another beauty. You’ll notice that the numbering, there on the first two, has been dropped. The numbers will now appear on the spines of the finished books.

Last but not least… I’ve had an offer from a proper, honest-to-gosh Hollywood production company, Shoreline Entertainment, to take out an option on the film rights for the Clouded World series. No contract has been signed yet, so I’m probably pre-empting things and tempting fate horribly by mentioning it here, but things are looking good and fingers are firmly crossed.