Dead Man Running: Announcement

I have good news and bad news. Which would you like first?

The bad news? Okay. I don’t know why I bothered asking – no-one ever says they want the good news first. You can’t enjoy the good news if you know there’s bad news coming.

The bad news is that the release of Dead Man Running has been postponed, so you’ll have to wait until 2012 to find out what happens to Agent Six.

The good news is a fact about the book that I’ve been itching to reveal for months. Before I tell you about it, you need to work out what kind of person you are. Some people hate knowing anything at all about a novel’s plot before they read it. I count myself as part of this group – I don’t read blurbs. I even try and avoid titles, to protect against spoilers. (Thanks a bunch, The Invisible Man.)

If you share this quirk, you probably shouldn’t read on, because the good news has a spoiler from page 18.

The good news is, the new Agent Six book has zombies in it. So trust me, it’ll be worth the wait. (I thought about calling the book Agent Six vs. Zombies, but I wanted at least some of my readers to be surprised when the first corpse sits up.)

A few of my readers are going to be worried that this will detract from the seriousness of the series. To those readers, I say: Trust me. I’m not turning the book into a cheesy schlock-horror flick. But since Agent Six is coming back from the dead, I figure that it’s only fair that his enemies – in their hundreds – are given the same chance.

Others will criticise me for jumping on the zombie bandwagon so late. On the contrary, as someone who’s had recurring nightmares about the living dead since playing Resident Evil 2 in 1998, it feels like I’ve been on the bandwagon for a very long time. But rest assured - I’m not writing about zombies because they happen to be in vogue at the moment. I’m writing about them because the idea of people returning from the grave, their personalities scrubbed away, their only remaining instincts being to shuffle and groan, is genuinely terrifying. 

I sincerely apologise for the delayed release date. I know I’ll get hate-mail. It’s related to publishers and agents and booksellers and e-books and world rights and other complicated book-industry stuff that I barely understand. But don’t worry, the book is coming – and when it arrives, it’s going to eat your brains. (Start barricading your windows.)

MITIFOTIT: (Most Interesting Thing I Found On The Internet Today)

I love it when people over-think things. Few people do it better than Your Brain On Coffee:

The world of Harry Potter is a strange place. I know it’s meant to be wondrous and magical and all that, but behind the glamour you really have to wonder what the ultimate goal of their education was. At school the children learn to transform objects; perform telekinesis; open locks; fight dark wizards; and play some stupid sport where two guys chase a golden testicle around and try to convince the other players that they actually matter. Who designed that education curriculum, and what were they trying to achieve?

 Duh… potato?

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