Year Out, Year In

Happy New Zing!

I hope Santa found you all on the right side of the Naughty/Nice event horizon. Any interesting resolutions out there?

All of us here at the haunted Fortress of Abnett had a good time, thanks for asking, but Nik and I are now plunging headlong back into work. I'll blog about what I'm doing in coming days. But yes, Duke Leto, Matthew et al, it does include Pariah.

Today, I mainly wanted to do a quick update of the competition, which is still running... so hurry and enter! More of that in a second. First, matters arising from the last post:

I've tried Tortoise - not bad at all. The Field's working out for me very nicely, as is Autechre, and Trent Reznor's soundtrack to the new Fincher 'Dragon Tattoo' movie. Thanks for all the suggestions for work soundtracks posted, or mailed to the site. Much apprecated. I'm open to others.

azizibnsaud asked if I could show a shot of the plush Inquisitorial rosette. The answer is - of course. That's mine, and Jim's. The pictures are courtesy of Vivian Lee and Triska Tsang, who got in touch after the last post to tell me their names (and submit them for future redshirt use in books). Triska is also, I'm told by Vivian, too shy to tell me she is a big Sinister Dexter fan too. Thank you again, both.

Shadowheim - Jerusalem is set in Pewsey. Very cool. This is actually the very VERY last week of the London run. It's undoubtedly sold out, but I'm so tempted to get a stand-by and see it again, it was that good.

Two pieces of fun I'd like to share that have popped up in the last couple of weeks:

Some fun fan-art.

And this, which is frankly insane/genius.

I'll be at the SFX Weekender early next month, so maybe see you there.

In the meantime, let's run over that competition again. Some good entries so far, but you've got until the end of the month.

What's the prize, Dan? I've said this once, imaginary narrator, but I'll say it again. The prize is my Games Day 2011 goodie bag.

Dan's 2011 Games Day Goodie Bag, as seen prevously.

When you go to Games Day, you get a goodie bag. Well, the prize is mine. The one I was given this year, with my name badge and parking permit and everything else in it. Including my miniatures, a tee-shirt, my (unsullied) digestive biscuits and polo mints! This isn't just A goodie bag, it's MY goodie bag. I will send it to the competition winner to do with as he or she sees fit.

To make it actually, you know, WORTH something, I'll throw in a signed book, and the following:

It might not look like much, but I found it when I was moving offices. It's the actual, original sketched map (with notes on the reverse) made by me, in my fair hand, of Vervunhive. I used this when I was writing Necropolis and the map in the book was based on it. Little bit of awesome Gaunt's Ghosts history for you to own and keep on owning.

How do I win it? HOW DO I WIN IT!?!?

Calm down, imaginary narrator! You can't even enter the competition, because you're... well... imaginary. But other, real people can enter like this: when I sign books, I like to have a stock phrase or two that works for the book in question, like "The Emperor Protects" or "Remember Tanith" for the Gaunt books, or "Repent, heretic" for Inquisitor novels, or "Blood For The Blood God" for Darkblade. My new book Embedded came out from Angry Robot this year. The winner of the comp will be the person who comes up with the best 'signing tag phrase' for use in Embedded.

You've got until the end of January. My decision will be final. Post your entries here on the comments section, AND email them (with your name and postal address) to the website email AS WELL (and that address is: info@danabnett.com). If I don't have an email with a name and address, I won't award the prize, no matter how good the entry. You can submit as many entries as you like. Atomic thinking caps to power, honorary clones.

Can I really not enter? Shhhh, imaginary narrator.