News and Updates

October 20th, 2008

Garry has checked in to explain why he's been quiet of late: he's only been riding a Honda 110cc motorbike across the Australian Outback!

"It was a truly amazing 11 day experience. Most of the ride took place in the Outback where the bush seemed to stretch out forever on all sides, while the sky was immense, with white clouds sometimes 100 miles long. Broken white trees, rocky outcrops and dwarf shrubs hid a few kangaroos and hawks, but little else out there. And very hot. The motorbikes were wonderful machines - robust Honda 110s which the Australian postmen use to get to the Outback sheepstations. The tracks were tough, sometimes with hardbaked horizontal corrugations 3 inches deep which went on for 200kms. Any other machine would have been shaken to bits. The ride was quite gruelling and there's stuff on the tracks called 'bull dust' like red talcum powder which builds into dust bowls and the bike 'aquaplanes' if you don't see it in time. I came off 4 times in all, but only once at speed. Came away with cuts and bruises only, though we lost four riders out of 50 to broken bones. I did wonder what I was doing there once or twice and wished myself back home, especially when I got sick with a stomach bug and had 300 ks of track to go to the end of the day. Most evenings we'd arrive exhausted to put up our one-man tents, eat supper, fix any mechanical problems with the machine, then fall instantly asleep, only to wake to kookaburras and yet another astonishing dawn at 5.30 am and start off again. There were touches of humour. Every mile or so one would pass a creek - 'Johnson's Creek' or 'Swagman's Creek'. When we passed 'Christmas Creek' two thousand ks out in the desert, someone had left it decorated with tinsel. I'm glad I did it. I would not do it again."

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In other news this month, Garry’s short story, Atlantic Crossing, is out now in issue 15 of Postscripts magazine. As it is a special Worldcon issue, there are three formats to choose from, ranging from the standard hardback (in place of the normal paperback) up to the deluxe signed slipcased edition. You can find out more and purchase a copy here.

May 5th, 2008

Garry won the first ever Charles Whiting Award for Literature with his 2007 novel, Rogue Officer. The presentation was made by Charles Whiting’s widow and the Mayor of Stratford on Sunday the 20th April at the Stratford International Festival of Literature.

Rogue Officer is available anywhere good books are sold, priced £18.99.

Fancy Jack Crossman’s adventures continue in June 2008 with The Kiwi Wars, now available to pre-order from Amazon. You can view the cover there too.

Captain ‘Fancy Jack’ Crossman has been sent to New Zealand, where the Maori Wars are in progress. His remit is to map the bush country and to set up a network of spies. During conflict he finds that the Maori are an honourable and formidable enemy. However, nefarious Europeans are at work, enriching themselves as land agents. Jack becomes entangled with one of these agents, the brother of his lifetime burden Private Harry Wynter, and is in danger of being sucked down into a morass of evil affairs. When the final revelation comes, Jack realises just how heinous these crimes are, and he must hunt down and destroy these monstrous elements...

April 14th, 2008

The next big event for Kilworth fans is near. The Hundred-Towered City will be out in less than three weeks in hardcover. Amazon has a good deal on at the moment – they’re offering it at over a third off the cover price. Have you ordered yours yet?

What awaits Jack, Annie and Davey when they are transported back in time to the gothic city of Prague, to search for their missing parents? Trying to avoid capture by the secret police, they find themselves running through dark and dangerous cobbled streets and meet some very shady characters. Where are their parents and who has stolen the key to the time machine? Alchemists, mythical creatures and a man with a hook for a hand hold the answers they're looking for. Will our young heroes be in time to save their parents from eerie Karlstein Castle? And even if they do, how will they return to the present day without the key?

March 17th, 2008

'Fancy Jack' Crossman's seventh outing, Rogue Officer, has been shortlisted for the Charles Whiting award for 'Wartime Adventure Novel'.

Garry says, "Also I have been invited as a guest author to speak at the International Festival of Literature at Stratford-on-Avon 17-20th April, 2008. I'll be going of course and doing a talk on the myths of the battlefield."

March 1st, 2008

Garry's excellent teenage fantasy Jigsaw came out as a mass-market paperback in February. Amazon.co.uk are offering a tempting discount.

The last book in the 'Fancy Jack' Crossman series, the eagerly awaited Kiwi Wars, is scheduled for a June release in hardcover from Severn House. 224 pages of historical action based on the Maori wars of the 1860s.

But before that, of course, we have The Hundred-Towered City to look forward to. Garry's next YA fantasy will be out in hardback and paperback, courtesy of ATOM books on the 1st of May.

Meanwhile, Fourtold, a collection of novellas by Michael Stone that features a superb foreword by Garry is now available in hardback from Baysgarth Publications. It will be available on Amazon soon.

February 1st 2008

Garry has finished The Kiwi Wars, which takes Jack Crossman to New Zealand to fight in the Maori Wars. It is scheduled for a mid- to late-2008 release in hardcover from Severn House.

He recently conducted an excellent interview with a French fantasy & sf site you might be interested in reading. You can find it here. http://www.actusf.com/spip/article-5333.html

December 6th 2007

Garry has a new story out, called Alien Embassy. It appears in A Science Fiction Omnibus, edited by the esteemed Brian Aldiss and published by Penguin. Click here for more details.

November 2nd, 2007

Garry's next book, The Hundred-Towered City, will be out in May 2008, published by Atom. You can pre-order and see the gorgeous and atmospheric cover, which will be the same for the hardback as the paperback, at Amazon.

When a stranger from the past arrives in the middle of the night with shocking news, Jack, Annie and Davey are catapulted into the wildest adventure they've ever had. Their parents have been arrested on suspicion of being spies. Not only in a different country but in a different time: Prague, 1903.The children travel back in time and find themselves face to face with danger, mystery and the magic of a strange place. Will they be in time to save their parents who are prisoners in sinister Karlstein Castle? The Hundred-Towered City will take you on a thrilling adventure through time. But will you come back...?

Garry has also written and sold another brilliant short story, this time to The First Humdrumming Book of Horror Stories. It's called Sacrificial Anode and promises to take you to Heaven and back. Seriously. The book can be purchased at Amazon or directly from the publishers, Humdrumming, for £6.99.

September 12th, 2007

The good news is Garry has just sold a collection of short stories to PS Publishing entitled TALES FROM THE FRAGRANT HARBOUR, subtitled, Stories of Hong Kong and the Far East.

It'll consist of two parts:
Once-Told Tales (general fiction stories with no supernatural element)
Twice-Told Tales (sf, fantasy and horror stories)

The bad news is the book is not scheduled for release till 2009. To make the wait even harder to bear, Garry tells us few of the Once-Told Tales have been published.

August 2nd, 2007

With the newly released 'Rogue Officer' garnering favourable notices, Garry reports, "The last Crossman book is under the pen. It's called 'Kiwi Wars' and is about the Maori wars of the 1860s. The Maoris loved fighting almost as much as the British, so it's a pleasure to write."

'Kiwi Wars' will be released by Severn House -- in hardback format -- in 2008.

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In other news this month, Initial Entertainment have renewed the film rights to 'Attica'. No news yet though as to when it will go into production.

July 7th, 2007

The cover to Rogue Officer is now available to view at amazon.co.uk.

June 11th, 2007

Severn House Publishers have a treat in store for fans of historical war fiction -- the seventh book featuring our highborn hero, 'Fancy Jack' Crossman!

The Indian Mutiny has almost run its course. Lieutenant Jack Crossman finds himself plagued by one Captain Deighnton, and the roots of Deighnton's animosity appear to run deep. When Jack is abducted following the Battle of Bareilly, and accused in his absence of desertion, he has to fight to clear his name – only to find Deighnton waiting for yet another, perhaps final, duel . . .

Rogue Officer will be a 224 page hardback, priced at £18.99 in the UK.

Amazon.co.uk are offering a small discount on pre-orders. The book is also listed at Amazon.com and Amazon.fr.

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In the Country of Tattooed Men and Other Cyphers and Moby Jack and Other Tall Tales have both been nominated for Best Collection in the British Fantasy Society Awards. The Awards will be presented at the annual FantasyCon in September.

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Garry has turned in a two-page foreword for a collection of novellas by Michael Stone. The collection, called Fourtold, will be available in September from Baysgarth Publications. As well as a paperback edition retailing for "less than a tenner", there will be a limited number of signed hardcopies available for £18 plus postage. For more information, or to pre-order, you can contact the author here.

May 5th, 2007

The waiting is over, Jigsaw is available from your nearest book emporium. If you're not feeling energetic and would prefer to have it delivered, you can order it here. Amazon are offering it with a generous 34% discount too.

Garry has handed ATOM books the finished manuscript for his next YA fantasy adventure. This has been referred to on these pages as Kafka's Motorbike, but the title is back to its original Hundred-Towered City. Expect to see H-TC in print early 2008.

After a long association with the late Maggie Noach, Garry's new agent is the highly respected Caroline Sheldon Literacy Agency.

April 8th, 2007

Only one month to go before the release of Garry's next novel, Jigsaw. Go here to check out the fantastic cover and to pre-order.

And just to whet your appetite:

April 29th: Krantu is a good way off the coast of Sarawak, a Malaysian island. No one lives on Krantu anymore and it'll soon sink into the sea.

May 2nd: This is just like when I went on digs. Dad is up to his eyeballs in work.

June 4th: ...He put the edges of the scrolls near to each other. What happened next made me jump backwards, my heart pounding.

July 5th: I'm not sure what happened. The bright beam of the torch was shining directly into a huge pair of eyes ...Whatever had been caught in my torch beam had crashed through the flimsy wall of the shed and stampeded into the rainforest beyond it.

At first, Max's diary seems like any other entry on a teenager's blog but closer reading reveals an incredible adventure story. As the reader absorbs the strange events that unfold, Max and those around him are drawn deeper and deeper into danger. Surrounded by spies and pirates, Max makes a terrible discovery -- a secret that could change the world for ever...

February 25th, 2007

Garry has written and sold two more short stories. Alles in Ordnung is a science fiction piece that will appear in a forthcoming Daw Books anthology called We Think, Therefore we Are, a collection of stories about robots and artificial intelligence.

Atlantic Crossing is a skewed alternative world story where the science of walking on water has done away with the need for boats. This will appear in a future issue of Postscripts magazine.

We are losing count of the languages Garry's fantasy novel Attica has been translated into. It just sold to Lithuania.

January 20th, 2007

Writing for Locus Online, Claude Lalumiere has chosen Garry's Moby Jack and Other Tall Tales from PS Publishing as his favourite book of 2006!

"Ever since reading Garry Kilworth's collection The Songbirds of Pain in the 1980s, one of my favorite short-story collections ever, I've been a devoted fan of his short fiction. It was with great anticipation that I read the author's first major collection in many years, Moby Jack and Other Tall Tales. I was not disappointed. Kilworth's versatile skill at navigating between genres, his outré imagination, his deft and evocative handling of the exotic, his keen insights into human behavior, his affecting ability to inhabit and communicate an impressive breadth of perspectives across cultural and gender spectrums, and, finally but certainly not least, his deliciously elegant prose, all combine to present a selection of stories whose diversity, originality, and poignancy leave me breathless with awe. Moby Jack and Other Tall Tales stands as my favorite book of 2006."

Read Claude's full review here.

3rd December, 2006

Just to whet your appetite, here's the synopsis to Garry's next book, Jigsaw:

At first, Max Sanders's diary seems like any other entry on a teenager's blog but closer reading reveals an incredible adventure story... James Sanders is a professor of history who becomes obsessed by the need to recover the long-sundered hide of a fantastical creature, its separate parts strewn in sacred sites and hidden temples throughout the world. James and his two sons are unprepared for the wonders that will unfold once they recover the whole, or for the terrors that await them on a tiny tropical island, soon to be lost to the sea. As the strange events unfold, Max and those around him are drawn deeper and deeper into danger. Surrounded by spies and pirates, Max makes a terrible discovery - a secret that could change the world for ever...

Jigsaw will be out 4th May, 2007.

On a sadder note, Garry tells us: "November 2006 saw the untimely death of my literary agent, Maggie Noach, who has been my friend and guide in the bewildering world of bookselling for 26 years now. I read about her passing in a cyber cafe in Hong Kong and shocked the Chinese youths playing video games with my emotional outburst. I know I shall miss her enormously and still can't believe she's gone, which may be partly due to the fact that I'm temporarily in Australia where everything feels unreal to me. Maggie was tenacious with a book she thought worthy and would not rest until she found it a publisher. I fear I shall not see her equal again."

3rd November 2006

Hey, a date has been set for Garry's next book: May 4th will see Atom publish the teen fantasy Jigsaw. The hardcover is already available to preorder on Amazon UK. Also coming out around that time will be the mass market paperback of Attica. And, as if that wasn't enough, Garry is currently writing Kafka's Motorbike (formerly The Hundred-Towered City), which will be available from Atom in 2008.

Just a quick note to tell you that the recent collection Moby Jack and Other Tall Tales is still available in both its delectable (and very collectable) signed formats at PS Publishing, while In the Country of Tattooed Men and Other Cyphers is still priced at a very generous £9.99 with free postage within the UK from Humdrumming Ltd.

October 3rd, 2006

This month, Garry reports that :-

"Brian Aldiss, on writing the foreword to the In The Country of Tattooed Men and Other Cyphers saw that one of the stories Alien Embassy had not yet appeared anywhere. He was at the time collecting stories for the next Penguin Omnibus of Science Fiction due out next year and recommended the story to Penguin, who subsequently bought it. Thank you, Brian.

"Last month an Australian filmmaker called Simon David Hunter sent me an email saying he had been reading my work since the age of 10 (a double-edged compliment to one who still feels 28) and was interested in making an animated film of my first story Let's Go To Golgotha. It will be a 22 minute version for which he has secured the artist David Russell, conceptual artist for Narnia, Return of the Jedi, Terminator 2, to be the animation director. There will be other sf animations, including one or two of Harlan Ellison's, but Simon did say he was considering Golgotha for the pilot."

6th September 2006

Hot on the heels of Moby Jack and Other Tall Tales (available now from PS Publishing), is a stunning new collection from Humdrumming Ltd.

In the Country of Tattooed Men and Other Cyphers collects over 30 of Garry's short stories -- including two previously unpublished -- and a new foreword from Brian Aldiss. This volume effectively combines a large part of Garry's original collections -- such as In the Country of Tattooed Men, Hogfoot Right and Bird-Hands and In the Hollow of the Deep Sea Wave -- with newer, uncollected works. Incidentally, when Brian Aldiss read this collection, prior to writing the foreword, he snapped up 'Alien Embassy' for a 2007 anthology he is editing.

In the Country of Tattooed Men and Other Cyphers book goes on general sale on the 25th of September, priced at £12.99. However, for a limited time only, orders are being taken at £9.99 with free shipping direct from the Humdrumming website.

Here is the table of contents: Truman Capote's Trilby: the Facts / In the Country of Tattooed Men / Surfing, Spanish Style / Island With The Stink of Ghosts / Alien Embassy / Triptych: The Black Wedding, Murderers Walk, Hogfoot Right and Bird hands / The Stray / Filming the Making of the film of the making of Fitzcarraldo / The Men's Room / The Green Man Tennis Club / Feral Moon / Dop*elgan*er / Murders In The White Garden / The River Sailor's Wife / 1948 / Fossil / Usurper / Networks / The Thunder of The Captains / Hobblythick Lane / Giant / Beyond Byzantium / Spiral Sands / On the Watchtower at Plataea / The Glory of the Seas / The Wall / Memories of the Flying Ball Bike Shop / X-Calibre / The Human's Child / Phoenix Man / Bronze Casket for a Mummified Shrew-Mouse / Blood Orange

3rd August 2006

Good news for fans of historical war novels: Severn House have commissioned books seven and eight in the ongoing Crossman series. The first of these will be called Single-shot Pistol, which will complete 'Fancy Jack' Crossman's adventures in India. The second book, as yet untitled, will transport Jack to another troubled hotspot. Both books will be released in hardcover format.

Single-shot Pistol is scheduled for release early 2008.

3rd July 2006

At the end of June, as a past winner (The Electric Kid in 1995) Garry was invited to the 20th Anniversary of the Lancashire Children's Book Award. At dinner he sat next to Robin Jarvis, the author of the popular Deptford Mice, Wyrd Museum and Whitby Witches books. Garry said of Robin: "His novels are quite dark but he was a sunny sort of bloke and I think we got on well." Also present were Tim Bowler (author of River Boy) and Anthony Horowitz, whose Alex Cord books have just hit the big screen.

There were several speeches by dignitaries, Garry reports, and yet more interesting ones by the kids who judge the award.

5th June 2006

The splendid cover to the forthcoming Moby Jack and Other Tall Tales is available to view at PS Publishing. The painting is The Tower of Babel by the 16th Century Flemish artist Abel Grimmer. Garry selected it himself.
The book should be out June/July and can be preordered directly from the publishers, with payment accepted by personal cheque, credit cards or even Paypal. Postage is a generous £2 in the UK or $5 for Airmail overseas.

Attica continues to spread its dusty timbers around the world. Recent translations are Greek, Turkish and Thai. That makes a total of nine translations since it's UK release in March!

4th May 2006

Garry has a new short story out, called 12 Men Born of Woman. It is in issue six of the highly regarded 'Postscripts' magazine, edited by Peter Crowther and published by PS Publishing. It is also worth noting that PS Publishing still have copies available--in soft and hardcover format--of issue 3, which contains Garry's story Murders in the White Garden.

3rd April 2006

Moby Jack And Other Tall Tales, the collection of short stories from PS Publishing, is scheduled for release June 2006. The collection features an introduction, entitled Around the World in Eighty Books, Travels with G. D. Kilworth esq. by Robert Holdstock. The stories are as follows: The Sculptor; Black Drongo; Bonsai Tiger; Attack of the Charlie Chaplins; Cherub; The Council of Beasts; The Frog Chauffeur; Hamelin, Nebraska; Hunter's Hall; Something's Wrong with the Sofa; Exploding Sparrows ; Death of the Mocking Man; Wayang Kulit; Inside the Walled City ; My Lady Lygia; Oracle Bones; Paper Moon; Store Wars; The Megowl; The Silver Collar; and, of course, Moby Jack.

"The Sculptor showcases Garry Kilworth's deftness at evoking settings of weird exoticism and at anchoring such exoticism with tactile immediacy. A strange tale - as are all the best of Kilworth's stories - rich with invention and thick with succulent atmosphere"
-- Claude Lalumiere

Moby Jack And Other Tall Tales will be available in two hardcover formats, including the deluxe slipcased edition, limited to 200 copies. Visit PS Publishing for full details or pre-order from Amazon.

Also on the short story front, Garry's curious cat tale The Stray will appear in the adult horror anthology, Badass Horror. Published by Dybbuk Press, this too is available to pre-order at Amazon.

13th March 2006

Personal appearances:

Garry will be visiting two schools in St. Albans on 20th March to talk to the students, returning in June for a talk with the adults.

Book news:

Attica, published in the UK on the 9th March, has been further translated for readers in Romania, Korea and the Czech Republic.

The critically acclaimed Navigator Kings trilogy, consisting of The Roof of Voyaging, The Princely Flower and Land-of-Mists, are due for release in France any day now. In hardcover from 'Editions Mnemos' and paperback from 'J'Ai Lu'.

11th February 2006

Personal appearances:

Garry will be in Ottaker's Bookshop in Windsor on the 13th March to talk to 200 schoolchildren about Attica.

Attica, released in the UK on the 2nd March, has now sold into three translations! German, Portuguese and Polish. Garry will attend the Warsaw launch in June.

Forthcoming:

The juvenile fantasy novel Jigsaw has been delivered to Atom Books. It's set on an island off Borneo and involves the reconstruction of a mythical creature out of pieces of hide recovered from ancient artefacts such as a Zulu shield, a Siberian yurt, animal-skin manuscripts, a sword sheath and a Pawnee drum.

Garry has also been commissioned by Atom Books to write a new novel entitled The Hundred-Towered City, a time-travel story set mostly in 19th Century Prague and involves, among other characters, the Golem and Franz Kafka.

8th January 2006

Attica, will be published by Atom in March 2006. The book is already garnering keen interest, with the film rights being snapped up by Initial Entertainment, the people responsible for such films as THE AVIATOR and THE GANGS OF NEW YORK. Garry is currently writing a follow-up called Jigsaw.

Moby Jack and Other Tall Tales, the collection of short stories from PS Publishing, will be out May 2006. This highly collectable volume, available in three different formats, will contain more than 30 of Garry's diverse stories, as well as an introduction by friend and onetime collaborator Robert Holdstock.

17th December 2005

On Tuesday, December 20, Garry's commisioned story Gifts will be broadcast on the digital radio station BBC Radio 7. The first airing will be 11.30, followed by a second airing at 18.30. The show will also be repeated the following day at 12.30. All times are GMT.

If you do not have access to digital radio, you can stream Radio 7 by going here and clicking on the "listen live" button.

22nd August 2005

Initial Entertainment (Gangs of New York and The Aviator) has purchased the film rights to Attica, a juvenile novel to be published by Atom Books in January 2006.

The BBC has commissioned a short story for radio (along with four other short stories from other authors) to be broadcast at Christmas 2005 - the story is entitled Gifts.

18th June 2005

Corgi have recently published Garry's latest juvenile novel The Silver Claw which features a Venice of the 1700s and a hero otter by the name of Udolphus Beck, an 'unraveller' of plots, puzzles and secrets. There are evil elements in the novel who are plotting the destruction of the ruling council of the city and it is Udolphus's job to uncover the conspirators, thereby thwarting their aims.'

Next January Atom Books will be publishing Attica a novel in which three children set out to cross a continent formed formed in the attic in their own house.

In the same month PS Publishing will be producing a limited edition collection of short stories entitled Moby Jack and Other Tall Tales - all the stories in this volume have previously been published in varies magazines and anthologies, but are brought together under one jacket in a nice neat package.

Short stories have appeared in Don't Turn Out The Light, an anthology by PS Publishing edited by Stephen Jones featuring Garry's story Phoenix Man and Postscripts Magazine edited by Peter Crowther features the story Murders in the White Garden.

Atom Books have commissioned a novel to follow Attica whose working title is Jigsaw. Garry says, 'If I call it a fantasy novel people will expect a certain type of book. (I've done that before and have disappointed readers who have definite expections of the word 'fantasy'). The novel contains adventure and is fantastical in nature, with myth and legend entwining the plot. If you like those ingredients and you do not go to the pages expecting a cosy familiar type of novel which might be under the generic heading of 'Fantasy' in the bookshops, you may find yourselves in a world you both know yet fail to recognise. This is true of most of the 'fantasy' I write, including the forthcoming Attica. I don't do 'same' - I do 'different'.