Friday Comic Tease

Cry Fox Issue #3 Colour Panels

Friday Comic....well not tease exactly.

Cry Fox Issue 2 Cover

Now some of you are no doubt saying 'But Ben we've already seen this cover - why no sneak preview?' And the truth is that there wasn't one single dramatic image from Issue 2 that wouldn't be a massive spoiler. So if you want to know what Abigail does next or how Guleed fits into this story you're just going to have to buy it when it comes out on the 13th of December.

Friday Comic Tease

Cry Fox Issue 2 - Full Page

Location, Location, Location

The Hanging Tree

Some of these places are real, some are almost real, some are totally made up.

 HERE

Polish Covers

Look What I Found

Today's Tour Events

 Thursday 28th September

 Lunchtime Signing
Waterstones Nottingham
12:30 - 1:30 PM
1/5 Bridlesmith Gate
Nottingham NG1 2GR

 Q&A and Signing
Heffers Cambridge
6:30 - 8:30 PM
20 Trinity Street
Cambridge CB2 1TY

Today's Tour Events: Manchester and Leeds

Wednesday 27th September

 

 Lunchtime Signing
Waterstones Manchester
12:30 - 1:30 PM
91 Deansgate
Manchester M3 2BW

 Q&A and Signing
Waterstones Leeds
7:00 - 8:30 PM
93-97 Albion Street
Leeds LS1 5JS

Today's Events: Bristol and Birmingham

Lunchtime signing
Waterstones Bristol Galleries
Tuesday 26th September
12:00 - 1:00 PM
11A Union Galleries
Bristol BS1 3XD

Q&A and Signing
Waterstones Birmingham
Tuesday 26th September
6:30 - 8:30 PM
24-26 High Street
Birmingham B4 7SL

Today: Signing at Forbidden Planet

Signing at Forbidden Planet
Monday 25th September
6:00 - 7:00 PM
179 Shaftesbury Avenue
London WC2H 8JR

Detective Stories Issue #4 Out on Wednesday

The Fourth and Final Issue of 

Rivers of London: Detective Stories

Out on Wednesday 13th September

Available only at superior Comic Shops 

and on the interweb.

Random Sunday Quote

There is only one god and his name is Death, and there is only one thing we say to Death: "Not today".

George RR Martin, A Game of Thrones

Friday Comic Tease

Detective Stories #4 - Finished Page without Lettering

Friday Comic Tease

Detectives Stories #4 - Final Colour Plate

Detective Stories Issue 3 - Out Today

Detective Stories #3

Available Today as a Single and an eComic

Random Sunday Quote

From Under Fire (1983)



Marcel Jazy: I like you people, but you are sentimental shits! You fall in love with the poets; the poets fall in love with the Marxists; the Marxists fall in love with themselves. The country falls in love with the rhetoric, and in the end we are stuck with tyrants.

Friday Comic Tease

Detective Stories #3 Colour Panels

 

Friday Comic Tease

Detective Stories #3 - Final Colour

Friday Comic Tease

Detective Story #2 - Completed Inks

The (ever so slightly late) Friday Comic Tease

Detective Stories #2 Finished Page

Friday Comic Tease

Full Panel From Detective Stories 2

Friday Comic Tease

Coloured Panel from Detective Stories #2

Comic Release Day

Out Today

Detective Stories Issue #1

Signing on Saturday

What?

Ben Aaronovitch, Andrew Cartmel and Lee Sullivan will be signing...

Rivers of London: Detective Stories #1

and

Rivers of London: Black Mould the collected edition

plus

Anything else that passes in front of them. 

Where?

At the Forbidden Planet London Megastore

179 Shaftesbury Avenue

London

WC2H 8JR

When?

Saturday 10th of June 2017

13:00 to 14:00

Why?

Because these comics need to be signed and we're willing to step up for that job.

Friday Comic Tease

Completed Inks from Detective Stories Issue #1

Friday Comic Tease

Completed Inks from Detective Stories Issue #1

Friday Comic Tease

Completed Inks from Detective Stories Issue #1

Spontaneous Character Creation

Spontaneous Character Creation

Or why sometimes your characters know more than you do.

Aspiring writers are often advised to write a biographies of their characters and this can be good advice. Especially when you are stuck or just at that noodling stage when the work is just an amorphous stew of ideas and intentions(1). Again, when writing a long work or a linked series a bio can be handy for working out how old they are in comparison to other characters or reminding you what their hair colour, dad’s job etc is supposed to be from book to book.

Sometime characters spontaneously arise as if out of nowhere but there’s always a catalyst or trigger event. The thing is that you’re usually so pleased to see them you don’t make a note of what caused them to be created. In the case of Elsie “Hatbox” Winstanley the trigger was so tangential as to stick in my mind.

It started with Peter’s Mum(2) who didn’t have a name. Well she did have a name, ironically, it was in the bio I did for her while I was writing Moon Over Soho, but Peter, being her son, never referred to her as anything else other than ‘mum’.

This absence of a name caused some stress amongst my readers who complained that it was inherently sexist that such prominent female character had no ‘canon’ name(3). So I decided that at the next opportunity I would I have someone say her name.

The next work on the bench was a Rare of Book of Cunning Device, a short story that I was writing as a charity fundraiser. I decided pretty much to put her name into the mouth of the first character that came along and thus I wrote.

‘So you must be Mamusu’s boy?’ said the Librarian.

Peter is taken aback that someone would use his mum’s African middle name rather than the English name she put first on her passport all those years ago. Now she could have been a Sierra Leonean herself but it was too late because in the space between writing that line and the next…

‘I knew your mum back in Freetown when she was just a wee slip of a girl,’ she said.(4)

…Elsie “Hatbox” Winstanley had created herself in my head. I knew everything important there was to know about her just as I had when my gingery Scottish pathologist introduced himself as Dr Abdul Walid or Beverley Brook turned up in her mother’s front door wearing a T-shirt with WE RUN TINGZ printed on the front.

So sometimes, yeah, you’re writing a bio and carefully crafting characters to reflect the themes of your storytelling and to fit the intricacies of the plot.

And sometimes they spontaneously create themselves and with a two fingered salute they hare off down the manuscript scattering plot points in their path like startled sheep. And yes you will end up having to rewrite chunks of text and abandon your cherished outline.

And it will be totally worth it. I know this is true because one day I sat down and spontaneously wrote the line

‘My name is Peter Grant and I am a proud member of that mighty army for justice known to all right thinking people as the Metropolitan Police.’

Which is why, sometimes, when people ask me where the series is going the only answer I can give is – beats me mate, I just work here.

(1) This is because unlike some authors I’m not dead.
(2) That’s Peter Grant from my book series, none of this is going to make any sense unless you’ve read the books.
(3) Or possibly they wanted to include her in Fanfic, or both – they’re not exclusive.
(4) The intervening description was added later.

The Hanging Tree Number One in Germany

Der Galgen Von Tyburn ist die Nummer eins

Der Spiegel Says so - so nah!

Being number one has caused a certain amount of quiet satisfaction back at DTV's Munich headquarters.

My Friend Andrew has a Book Out.

Out Today

The Run Out Grove

by Andrew Cartmel

His first adventure consisted of the search for a rare record; his second the search for a lost child. Specifically the child of Valerian, lead singer of a great rock band of the 1960s, who hanged herself in mysterious circumstances after the boy’s abduction.

Along the way, the Vinyl Detective finds himself marked for death, at the wrong end of a shotgun, and unknowingly dosed with LSD as a prelude to being burned alive. And then there’s the grave robbing…

 Now personally I just think that Andrew's vinyl detective gets better and better with every book. Why don't you have a look for yourself.

Publishers page here.

Moments Nr 3 auf Englisch

Momente Nr. 3

Englisch von Ben Aaronovitch


Moments are little bits of fiction that don't really rate being called a short story and are unlikely to ever be incorporated into a longer work. Needless to say they still constitute a finished work and I assert my copyright etc.

Tobias Winter - Meckenheim 2012

I’d only been back at Meckenheim for a couple of days when the reports arrived from London. I’d been out in the East, in Radeburg recovering a Case White artefact that the local police had uncovered from a suspected Werewolf cache. Don’t let the name excite you these jobs are always the same. I drive across the country, sign for a sealed package and drive back. I rarely get to spend even a night out on the town because the local boys can’t hustle me out of their jurisdiction fast enough. You’d think the bloody things were radioactive, they’re not you know, early on I ‘borrowed’ a Geiger counter from the forensics lot and started checking them before I put them in the car.

Judging from the weight and size of the package I’m relatively certain that it was a diary or ledger. If so I was in no doubt that my next task would be to scour through it for names to add to our database. My chief has often complained that our obsession with the Nazi past is holding us back. It’s certainly generated enough paperwork.

‘Sooner or later this national obsession has to pass,’ she said once. ‘We’ve all become far too comfortable playing this role.’

Although she’s never once said what exactly it was holding us back from and I for one was not in a hurry to find out. Like my father I favour a comfortable Germany it’s about the only thing we’ve ever agreed on.

I didn’t ask to join the Department for Complex and Unspecific Matters in fact I made a spirited attempt to blow the interview. When the Chief asked me why I’d joined the Bundeskriminalamt I told her it was because they wouldn’t have me in Cobra 11. That should have been it but instead the Chief smiled her terrifying smile.

‘You’ll do nicely,’ she said.

When we’re not transporting dangerous artefacts or chasing rumours of possessed BMWs, never Mercedes for some reason, we work office hours at the KDA. I like to get in at eight so I get an hour to myself before the Chief and the administration team arrive so I wasn’t best pleased to find an email from the secure communications section that they had a message for me. Protocol dictates that I collect such documents myself so down I went to the basement. I read the first page summery while I was still in the secure communications room. Then I asked the officer in charge to send a message back to London.

‘Can’t you send an email?’ he asked.

‘Not for this,’ I said.

They don’t have chairs in the waiting area of the communications section so I propped up the wall and speed read the bulk of the message while I was waiting for a reply when it came I put both in my secure briefcase and took them upstairs.

The Abteilung KDA was once a much bigger section and as a result we have a large number of empty offices at our end of the second floor. The fact that none of the departments have tried to appropriate them for their own officers should tell you something about how we are regarded by the rest of the Bundeskriminalamt.

I found the Chief in her office standing in front of the window looking out on her unrivalled view of the car park.

‘The Nightingale has taken an apprentice,’ I said.

The Chief is a tall, slender woman with a long pale face and red lips. She favours black skirt suits cut in a very elegant old fashioned style and I’ve heard her described as looking like the CEO of a corporation run by vampires.

I’ve faced a vampire and the only reason I’m able to talk about it now was because I was carrying a flame thrower at the time. So, no, I think she looks like a woman who needs to get out in the sun more.

‘Ah,’ said the Chief. ‘That’s unfortunate. How certain is this?’

‘The Embassy has confirmed it.’

She turned to check that I’d closed the door behind me and that nobody else could see or hear.

‘Shit, shit, shit,’ she said. ‘Why is it always bloody London? I told them we needed someone at the Embassy full time.’ She tapped a long blood red fingernail on her desk for a moment and then glanced back out of the window to see if the rain had stopped.

‘Get my things,’ she said. ‘We’re going for a walk.’

The Chief has a favourite smoking place amongst the trees at far end of the athletics track. She smokes dreadful f6 cigarettes but I’m certain these are an affectation like her Saxon accent - part of her disguise.

‘Details,’ she said as she jammed a cigarette into her long black holder.

I summarised the summery. She interrupted me only once and that was so I could light her cigarette.

‘What do we know about this Peter Grant?’ she asked.

‘African mother, English father, joined the London police two and a half years ago,’ I said. ‘The London Embassy have promised more in the next few days.’

The Chief stubbed her cigarette out on the nearest tree and jammed a fresh one into the holder.

‘We should have had someone in London full time,’ she said.

It had always been the consensus in the Federal Government that the supernatural had been ‘contained’ and the KDA’s job was that of a glorified cleaning service. The Foreign Ministry wasn’t about to allocate a valuable diplomatic position to someone whose job description could best be described as ‘hanging about in case something magical happens.’

Only now it had.

‘Do they have more information on the murder?’ she asked.

‘Four murders now,’ I said. ‘One of the victims was an infant. They’re sure the case is linked to Nightingale breaking the agreement but they don’t know why.’

‘So much for “contained”,’ said the Chief. ‘Do you know what this means?’

I’ve learnt not to interrupt the Chief when she’s in full rhetorical flow.

‘This means,’ she said blowing smoke, ‘that we’ll have to expand our own capabilities to match.’

She looked at me in a way that did not entirely make me feel comfortable.
'Tobias,’ she said.

‘Ma’am?’

‘Have you ever considered learning magic?’

ENDS

Es ist da!

Jetzt erhältlich

Der Galgen von Tyburn

Roman

Der sechste Fall für Peter Grant

In seinem sechsten Fall muss der fabelhafte Peter Grant

- ein verschollenes altes Buch wiederfinden
- einen verdächtigen Todesfall auf einer Party der Reichen und Schönen Londons aufklären
- versuchen, es sich dabei nicht völlig mit Lady Ty zu verderben
- vermeiden, vom Gesichtslosen ins Jenseits befördert zu werden
- sich mit einem ganzen Haufen rauflustiger Amerikaner herumschlagen, die definitiv zu viel ›24‹ gesehen haben.

Kurz: Peter bekommt die einzigartige Gelegenheit, es sich mit alten Freunden zu verderben und sich dabei jede Menge neue Feinde zu machen. Mal vorausgesetzt, er überlebt die kommende Woche.

HIER VERFÜGBAR

Moments Three

Momente Nr. 3

Deutsch von Christine Blum


MOMENTE sind kleine Erzählungs-Schnipsel, die man nicht als Kurzgeschichte bezeichnen kann und die höchstwahrscheinlich auch nie in einem Roman auftauchen werden. Es versteht sich von selbst, dass sie trotzdem ein eigenständiges Werk darstellen und ich das Urheberrecht etc. pp. dafür in Anspruch nehme.


Tobias Winter – Meckenheim 2012

Als die Meldung aus London kam, war ich erst seit zwei Tagen wieder in Meckenheim. Ich war im Osten in Radeburg gewesen, um ein Objekt abzuholen, das im Zusammenhang mit Fall Weiß stand und das die dortige Polizei aus einem mutmaßlichen Werwolf-Versteck geborgen hatte. Lassen Sie sich nicht von dem aufregenden Namen täuschen – so ein Auftrag läuft immer gleich ab. Ich fahre durch die Gegend, nehme ein versiegeltes Päckchen entgegen und fahre wieder zurück. Meistens kann ich mir nicht mal einen netten Abend am Zielort machen, weil die Kollegen vor Ort es echt eilig haben, mich wieder loszuwerden. Man könnte meinen, die Dinger wären radioaktiv. Sind sie aber nicht – ich habe mir anfangs mal bei der Kriminaltechnik einen Geigerzähler "ausgeliehen" und die Päckchen geprüft, bevor ich sie ins Auto legte.

Aus Form und Gewicht der Ware zu schließen, handelte es sich mit ziemlicher Sicherheit um ein Tagebuch oder Rechnungsbuch. Wenn ja, würde meine nächste Aufgabe garantiert darin bestehen, die darin erwähnten Namen in unsere Datenbank einzugeben. Meine Chefin beklagte sich oft, dass die aufwendige Aufarbeitung der Nazivergangenheit uns ausbremste. Eine Menge Papierkram bescherte sie uns jedenfalls.

„Früher oder später müssen wir von dieser Obsession loskommen“, hatte sie einmal gesagt. „Wir machen es uns in der Rolle viel zu gemütlich.“

Übrigens präzisierte sie nie, wobei die Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung uns nun eigentlich ausbremste. Ich für meinen Teil wollte das auch gar nicht so dringend herausfinden. Wie mein Vater mag ich Deutschland ganz gern gemütlich und überschaubar – so ziemlich der einzige Punkt, in dem wir uns je einig waren.

Die Stelle in der Abteilung für komplexe und diffuse Angelegenheiten war nie mein Traumjob gewesen. Tatsächlich hatte ich beim Vorstellungsgespräch noch einen beherzten Versuch gemacht, mich zu disqualifizieren. Als die Chefin mich fragte, warum ich zum Bundeskriminalamt gegangen sei, erklärte ich ihr, weil die bei Cobra 11 mich nicht genommen hätten. Eigentlich hätte da Schluss sein müssen, aber stattdessen hatte die Chefin ihr furchteinflößendes Grinsen aufgesetzt. „Dann sind Sie hier genau richtig“, hatte sie gesagt.

Wenn wir nicht gerade gefährliche Artefakte herumkutschieren oder Gerüchten um besessene BMWs nachgehen (erstaunlicherweise sind es nie Mercedes), sitzen wir in Meckenheim im Büro. Ich komme gern schon um acht, damit ich eine Stunde für mich habe, bevor die Chefin und die Kollegen von der Verwaltung eintrudeln, deshalb war ich nicht gerade begeistert, als ich die Mail von der Zentralen Stelle für Kommunikationssicherheit las, es liege eine Nachricht für mich vor. Laut Vorschrift muss ich solche Dokumente persönlich abholen, also stieg ich runter in den Keller und las noch in der ZeK die Zusammenfassung der ersten Seite. Dann bat ich den diensthabenden Beamten, eine Antwort nach London zu senden.

„Können Sie denen nicht einfach selber mailen?“, wollte er wissen.
„Nicht in dieser Angelegenheit.“

Im Wartebereich der ZeK gibt es keine Stühle, also lehnte ich mich an die Wand und überflog den größten Teil des Dokuments, während ich auf Antwort wartete. Als sie kam, legte ich beides in meinen Sicherheitsaktenkoffer und nahm ihn mit nach oben.

Die Abteilung KDA war früher mal viel größer gewesen, daher gibt es auf unserem Flur im zweiten Stock eine Menge leer stehender Büros. Dass nie eine andere Abteilung versucht hatte, sie sich einzuverleiben, kann Ihnen einiges darüber sagen, welchen Ruf wir beim Rest des BKA haben.
Die Chefin stand am Fenster ihres Büros und genoss die unvergleichliche Aussicht über den Parkplatz.

„Nightingale hat einen Lehrling“, sagte ich.

Die Direktorin der Abteilung für komplexe und diffuse Angelegenheiten ist groß und schlank, mit einem langen, blassen Gesicht und roten Lippen. Am liebsten trägt sie elegante, altmodisch geschnittene schwarze Damenkostüme. Einige Kollegen sagen, sie sehe aus wie die Vorstandsvorsitzende eine Vampirkonzerns.

Ich bin schon mal einem Vampir begegnet, und hätte ich damals keinen Flammenwerfer dabei gehabt, könnte ich das jetzt nicht erzählen. Also – nein. Ich finde, sie sieht aus wie eine Frau, der ein bisschen mehr Sonne gut täte.

„Oh“, sagte sie. „Ungut. Wie gesichert ist es?“

„Die Botschaft hat’s bestätigt.“

Sie drehte sich um, um sich zu vergewissern, dass ich die Tür hinter mir geschlossen hatte und niemand uns belauschen konnte. „Scheiße, Scheiße, Scheiße“, sagte sie. „Warum immer London? Ich hab schon tausendmal angemahnt, dass wir dort eigentlich ständig jemanden in der Botschaft brauchen.“ Sie tippte ein paarmal mit dem langen, blutroten Fingernagel auf ihren Schreibtisch, dann warf sie wieder einen Blick zum Fenster, um zu sehen, ob der Regen aufgehört hatte.

„Nehmen Sie alles mit“, sagte sie. „Wir machen einen Spaziergang.“

Die Chefin hat eine Lieblings-Raucherecke unter den Bäumen am Ende der Hundert-Meter-Bahn. Sie raucht diese scheußlichen f6-Zigaretten, aber ich bin mir sicher, das ist nur Fassade, genau wie ihr sächsischer Akzent. Gehört alles zum Image.

„Details?“, sagte sie, während sie eine Zigarette in ihren langen schwarzen Halter steckte.
Ich fasste die Zusammenfassung zusammen. Sie unterbrach mich nur einmal – damit ich ihr die Zigarette anzündete.

„Was wissen wir über diesen Peter Grant?“, fragte sie, als ich fertig war.

„Afrikanische Mutter, englischer Vater. Ist seit zweieinhalb Jahren bei der Londoner Polizei. Die Botschaft will mir schnellstmöglich mehr Infos schicken.“

Die Chefin drückte die Zigarette an einem Baum aus und steckte sich eine neue in den Halter. „Wir hätten wirklich jemanden in London gebraucht.“

In der Bundesregierung herrschte der allgemeine Konsens, dass das Übernatürliche vollständig unter Kontrolle war und die KDA nicht mehr als ein besserer Reinigungsdienst. Das Außenministerium hätte daher niemals eine wertvolle diplomatische Stelle bewilligt, deren Beschreibung im Grunde lautete: "Da sein, falls mal was Magisches passiert."

Nur war es jetzt passiert.

„Weiß man Genaueres über den Mord?“, fragte sie.

„Vier Morde inzwischen. Eines der Opfer war ein Kleinkind. Sie sind sich wohl ziemlich sicher, dass der Fall etwas damit zu tun hat, dass Nightingale gegen die Abmachung verstoßen hat, aber man weiß noch nicht genau, wie.“

„So viel zu ‚unter Kontrolle‘“, sagte sie. „Wissen Sie, was das bedeutet?“

Wenn die Chefin im Redefluss ist, sollte man sie nicht unterbrechen, so viel weiß ich inzwischen.
„Das heißt“, sagte sie in einer Wolke aus Zigarettenrauch, „wir müssen unsere eigenen Kapazitäten entsprechend erweitern.“ Mit einem Blick, bei dem mir etwas unbehaglich zumute wurde, sah sie mich an. „Herr Winter.“

„Ja?“

„Haben Sie schon mal daran gedacht, zaubern zu lernen?“

ENDE

Ab Freitag

Der Galgen von Tyburn

Roman

Der sechste Fall für Peter Grant

DER GALGEN VON TYBURN

- jetzt in allen guten Buchhandlungen 

(und vielleicht auch ein paar bösen).

Research Failures Type 1

Research Failure Type 1

NOT DOING ANY BLOODY RESEARCH IN THE FIRST PLACE

I don't mean to single out this particular comic production team for ridicule but this turned up on my Twitter timeline and it is soooo bad that I just had to make fun of it. But for a serious purpose.

Both these scenes are set somewhere in the UK...

Now I write comics so I know about deadlines, I marvel daily at an artist's ability to get that much good ink on paper(1) within the time allotted. I always try and source pictures of things and places to speed the process along.

Even ten years ago this could be a laborious task but now I found the following in less than 30 seconds.

30 Seconds. Now it's quite possible that the people who created this comic don't give a shit about research. That's fine in which case they wont mind being used as an illustration.

(1) Although these days it's more likely to be pixels on.....um.....whatever

A Rare Book Of Cunning Device

Out Today

27th April 2017

A RARE BOOK OF CUNNING DEVICE

I wrote this as an audible short story to raise money for Cityread the library charity which I'm involved with. It won't be available in other formats for ages so if you want to know what happens in it you're just going to have listen to the mellifluous tones of Kobna Holdbrook-Smith.

Audible have promised me a link to where you can get it which I'll post as soon as I have it.

A Sunday Quote

"....no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based."

Lord Vetinari in Going Postal by Sir Terry Pratchett

The Furthest Station - UK Release

Coming September 21st

From Gollancz Books

Hardback

Audio (in all the usual ways)

eBook (and all the usual formats)

Opening Paragraph(1)

Jaget said he’d been watching this documentary on TV about the way people learn to track animals.

‘Not white people, right?’ he said. ‘Like people that grow up in the bush.’

In this case !Xun people from Southern Africa, only Jaget couldn’t do the click sound until I taught him. I can only do it because I once harboured romantic dreams of emigrating to South Africa and had got someone to teach me. Since I hadn’t practised in ten years it probably meant we were both doing it wrong. We got some from funny looks from our fellow passengers – possibly because we were both in full uniform. 

(1) Yes yes I know strictly speaking not a paragraph ok? Do you want to read this or not?

The Furthest Station - Subterranean Press

Coming June 2017 from Subterranean Press

The Furthest Station

A Rivers of London Novella

Available in a classy limited edition

and

An even more classy and limited edition

See here for details

Friday Comic Tease

Completed Inks from Black Mould Issue 5