Coming soon: I am everywhere...

...But in the next ten days or so perhaps not here a lot. On Thursday, 24th July, Hild will be published in the UK (and fifty other territories: India, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand...). The hardback is available for pre-order from fine bookshops such as Foyles and Word Power, and giant online retailers like Amazon and Waterstones. You can get the ebook now from the online giants in all English-speaking territories (Amazon UK | Apple UK | Apple ANZ | Amazon ANZ | Flipkart | JB Hi-Fi). If none of those take your fancy, take a look at this comprehensive list of where to buy Hild.

I'll be guest-blogging in at least a dozen different places. 

I've already started over at Charlie Stross's Antipope with "Gods and Gender," ostensibly a piece about Thor but really about sex and gender and the sf genre, especially comics. Drop by. The comment thread is very well moderated and the conversation good. Next week I plan to start discussion on a topic very dear to my heart: Who owns sf? That is, who gets to define it? How is that changing?

Some of the articles I've written are starting to appear. See, for example, "To Come Back Increased" in Shiny New Books.

I've been delighted by the response of professional medievalists. See, for example, this long and thoughtful review in Medievally Speaking.

But what I'm currently pleased as punch about are the two blurbs from well-respected historian/author/academic Alex Woolf and the writer and archaeologist Max Adams:

• "Hild is the best fictional attempt to recreate Dark Age Britain that I have ever read." — Alex Woolf

• "I was impressed—as a fellow-writer and a Northumbrian archaeologist. Hild is a great piece of work." — Max Adams

I won't be in the UK until October. That visit will include bookshops, literary festivals, at least one university, and perhaps more. The last I heard the publisher was talking to a company about a special batch of mead... Details to come but, essentially, if you can get to London or to Yorkshire we will have a good time!

Also, with luck, I'll be travelling in the US in November. That's all still TBD, though, so if you want to me to come to your city and/or your bookshop, do please let me know. Right now I've no idea what the paperback publisher, Picador, has in mind, so vote early, vote often, and you never know...