JG at the UK Games Expo this weekend

Just a quick reminder that I'll be at the UK Games Expo in Birmingham this weekend helping to promote Advanced Fighting Fantasy (as well as traditional un-advanced Fighting Fantasy), but I'll also be selling some of my Ulysses Quicksilver Pax Britannia novels at a knock-down price.

So, if you fancy finding out all about the newly revised AFF RPG, drop by the Arion Games stand and, while you're there, why not pick up the PB titles missing from your collection?

I look forward to seeing you on Saturday or Sunday.

PS - If you can't make it up to Birmingham this weekend, I'll also be at the BFS Open Night at the Mug House, Tooley Street in London tonight. So, if you're around, do pop over and say "Hi!"

FantasyCon 2010

I didn't think I was going to be able to make it (what with work commitments and the rest) but it turns out that I am going to be at FantasyCon after all this year. I'm actually going to be there for less than 24 hours but I will be attending the Abaddon-sponsored Metal Karaoke Night at The Salutation Inn on Friday and I'll be hanging out in the vicinity of the Abaddon stand on the Saturday morning (and hopefully not going before The End of the Line book launch).

So if you're going too why not drop by the Abaddon stand and say "Hi!" I might even sign something for you. ;-)

Women in Horror - the debate rages on

Over at the Guardian.co.uk, in the book blog section, there is a piece on the maligning of women in the horror genre. Over the last six months, both the British Fantasy Society and SFX magazine have cause controversy by the lack of inclusion of women when publishing information about the Horror genre.

You can read the Guardian piece, 'The spectre of sexism haunting horror fiction' here.

Abaddon Books at the British Fantasy Society Open Night

I had a very pleasant evening on Friday meeting up with some of the guys and gals (well one guy and one gal, actually) from Rebellion/Abaddon/Solaris Books and attending the British Fantasy Society Open Night at The George on the Strand in London.

Alex Davis was there as well, he of Black Library fame, but purely in a fan capacity rather than with his work hat on.


The disreputable characters in this photo are (from right to left) Scott Andrews (ace Afterblight Chronicles writer and who appears to be having a flash of inspiration in this picture), Jenni Hill (new improved model Solaris desk editor), Michael (Jenni's friend) and Alex Davis (old Solaris and still with the Black Library).

Many interesting and exciting projects were discussed but we will just have to see how many of them come to fruition in the fullness of time. But fingers crossed...!

The British Fantasy Society's review of Evolution Expects

Just stumbled across this... a very pleasing review of my latest Pax Britannia novel Evolution Expects. (Should help spur me on with writing the next chapter of Blood Royal.)


PAX BRITANNIA: EVOLUTION EXPECTS
By Jonathan Green
Published by Abaddon Books, £6.99
Reviewed by Paul W. Smith

The latest in the alternative Earth Pax Britannia series, Evolution Expects takes us into a London where the population is under threat of a startling metamorphosis, a giant robot and masked vigilante, giving Jonathan Green further opportunity to expand on the futuristic vision of Britain the series has built up to date. We’re entering a world where the British Empire is still going strong with Queen Victoria on the throne for 150 years, retaining the rusting remnants of the industrial age alongside technical advancements. This is an Empire that’s increasingly stagnating and Londinium Maximum remains under an almost permanent toxic smog. Heroes and villains lurk amongst its vermin-infested streets.

Evolution Expects reintroduces Ulysses Quicksilver the dandified detective who’s is learning to cope with his newly transplanted ape’s arm, and Thomas Sanctuary, who’s now taken on the role of a masked jet-propelled vigilante dubbed Spring-Heel Jack. Their paths cross as they investigate the mysterious sighting of the Golem from Jewish myth and the shocking transformations that have befallen inmates in the Bedlam asylum, ordinary people that are now more insect than human. However, it becomes a race against time to solve the mystery before Prime Minister Devlin Valentine launches the Jupiter Station as an attempt to increase his popularity by cleaning up the city’s atmosphere. But already they have their hands full with gang warfare in the East End, and the alleged sighting of an old enemy, masterminding his latest scheme for domination.

This is a thoughtfully inventive tale where Jonathan Green relishes mixing Victorian Gothic with Sci-Fi adventure. His Londinium is a city which bears some semblance to our own reality but where scientific progress runs parallel with the over-extended trappings of the Victorian age. Giant robots and flying heroes co-exist alongside the opium gangs of Limehouse and the lunatics of Bedlam. There are nods to H.G. Wells and Conan Doyle, as well as to Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Bryan Talbot’s Luther Arkwright. Liberally sprinkled with dramatic set pieces and colourfully eccentric characters, Evolution Expects proves to be an entertaining read, with its own in-built rewards for readers of the whole Pax Britannia series to date, producing what amounts to an ongoing TV series in book form.

This volume also includes the satisfying short novella "Conqueror Worm". Set in 1797, it features the female secret agent, Cassandra Tyrrell, who rescues Sir George Sackville from highwaymen only to become embroiled in his family’s legend of the deadly Lambton Worm.

The British Fantasy Society's review of Human Nature

A new review of Pax Britannia: Human Nature found its way into my email inbox the other day, from the British Fantasy Society. And very happy I was to receive it too...

PAX BRITANNIA: HUMAN NATURE
By Jonathan Green
Published by Abaddon Books, £6.99
Reviewed by Adam J. Shardlow

Human Nature is rip roaring fun from cover to cover. The second in the Ulysses Quicksilver novels set in the world Magna Britannia, where Britain rules not only the waves but also the world and the stars through its empire and technical know how. Our intrepid hero embarks on a case involving the stealing of the Whitby Mermaid from Cruickshank's Cabinet of Curiosities. Quickly switching the locals from the drinking dens and poverty pits of London's East End to the windswept moors of Yorkshire, this Steampunk novel mixes together Frankenstein and Sherlock Holmes with a soupçon of Jeeves and Wooster a dash of mad German scientist, a pinch of monster hound and the fruit from a beautiful woman to create a heady and yet decadent cocktail. The fop and bounder that is Ulysses is a resourceful and clever character, not too invincible that he becomes boring, riding above the adventure like a dynamic Scarlet Pimpernel whilst his side kick, the dour and yet resourceful man servant Nimrod, acts as the perfect foil. The pace of the novel is break neck, the writing witty and world building well crafted. Included in the novel is an additional Christmas short story, which adds rather than distracts from the main novel.