Jon Courtenay Grimwood

Reviews to date

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 18:09:17 +0000

Conjures up Venice so vividly you can almost smell it... Impressive, but not nearly so impressive as the way Grimwood draws Tycho, essentially a vampire teenager subject to fierce emotion because he doesn’t even realise yet that he craves blood. He’s a figure both frightening and yet also, at different moments, pitiable and even downright noble... Reinventing the Vampire myth. Never let it be said that Jon Courtenay Grimwood lacks for ambition. Jonathan Wright, SFX

The Crack Angel (with apologies to Doc Savage)

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 19:55:06 +0000

Crack Angel was written for the bsfa Celebration book and now here it is recorded by the mavens at Dark Fiction Magazine and read brilliantly by David Moore. I based on Lester Dent's classic template for writing pulp fiction that sells, right down to using Eloise the monkey (read the template below) and referencing Lester and his Doc Savage alter ego.

Signing at Forbidden Planet London megastore

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 15:22:20 +0000

Thursday 03 February 18:00 - 19:00

London Megastore

179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, WC2H 8JR

Forbidden Planet is pleased to announce a double signing by Jon Courtenay Grimwood and Kate Griffin for their new titles The Fallen Blade and The Neon Court the Forbidden Planet Megastore, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London SE1 0UP on Thursday 3rd February from 6 – 7pm.

'Pounce on this one'!

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 13:32:26 +0000

'Pounce on this one...'

Really happy that the first pre-publication review for The Fallen Blade was a good one. I'm not allowed to quote the whole thing, sadly. So I'm going to cherry pick the two bits that I like the most.

'Alternate-world fantasy from the talented and versatile author of End of the World Blues (2007), wherein Marco Polo's family founded the dynasty that rules Venice... Grimwood adroitly combines a satisfying complexity with visceral detail and bouts of astounding violence, knit together by suitably Machiavellian intrigue. Pounce on this one.'
Kirkus

Let me know if you have a book blog we've missed or review for papers or magazines and want a reading copy and I'll send your message on the publishers!

what tec do writers use?

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 17:48:36 +0000

Shouldn't just send you off to someone else's site but I'm going to. Del Larkin Smith's wordpunk piece on what software and hardware writers use is interesting, not just because it lists my slightly weird collection of laptops and software.

Here it is, UK cover for the Fallen Blade

Fri, 21 May 2010 12:19:52 +0000

Okay, here we go...

The same image but red title type rather than the US silver, different lettering for the author's name, and no glowing eyes or slight suggestion of blood around the mouth of the figure.

Interesting to compare the US cover below with the UK version

The Fallen Blade - cover and catalogue copy

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 16:20:18 +0000

Here it is... The US cover for The Fallen Blade

'In the depths of night, customs officers board a galley in a harbor and overpower its guards. In the hold they find oil and silver, and a naked boy chained to the bulkhead. Stunningly beautiful but half-starved, the boy has no name. The officers break the boy's chains to rescue him, but he escapes.

Impossible, Possible, Plausible - writing alternate history 1

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 22:01:40 +0000

With Stalin being friendly, Zinoviev on leave and the Politburo hedging their bets, Trotsky has to be careful. It’s October 1923 and the scheming, rivalry and machinations to take over from the dying Lenin are at their height. Trotsky is favourite; although he has his enemies, Zinoviev among them.
Trotsky’s mistake is to go duck shooting.

neoAddix

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:50:55 +0000

Written in 1993 at a kitchen table in Tottenham, North London, neoAddix was eventually published by New English Library, part of Hodder, in January 1997. It was the book on which I learnt to write. (Well, began to learn to write.)

Not so much a novel, more an exercise in learning to write

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:47:09 +0000

At some point in the next few weeks I'm going to put together the best version of neoAddix I can on my motley and over-large collection of old steam driven laptops and stick it here as a PDF file and ePub file for download

Writing Rob's obit...

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:18:12 +0000

There are some jobs you just don’t want to be given because you don’t want them to be necessary, ever…

Liking the characters we write

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:00:17 +0000

Last Drink Birds Head

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:08:06 +0000

What Is 'Last Drink Bird Head'?
That’s the catalyst editors Ann and Jeff VanderMeer provided to over 80 writers in creating this unique anthology. The result? Last Drink Bird Head is a blues musician, a performance artist, a type of alcohol, a town in Texas, and even a song sung by girl scouts in Antarctica...

Venice

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:59:45 +0000

random pretty Venice photograph taken with iPhone late at night from the quayside near San Marco. Okay, that's enough excuses as to why the quality is crap. Still tells me what my hero sees though... Bet you can't spot the German assassin. No, he can't either!

Onibaba

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:11:23 +0000

If you go to IMDb and look up Onibaba the trivia will tell you two things.
1) It was refused classification by the English censor in 1965 because of the violence and nudity; but was passed in 1968, when it was approved with an X certificate with cuts.
2) The demon mask used in Onibaba inspired William Friedkin, the Exorcist’s director, to use make-up of a similar design in The Exorcist.

Getting from Z - A

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:49:51 +0000

Sometimes my relationship with science fiction seems like a particularly bloody love affair.
We’ve broken up and got back together so many times I’ve lost count of who got bored with what and went off to do something they shouldn’t.