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Hi all
It’s been an exciting month in a number of different ways for me, which I’ll get into below in a moment.
Reviews
The first thing I want to do is open with a request. Many of you who are subscribed to this newsletter have been able to get your hands on an advanced copy or galley of Ascension, whether through one of my publishers/publicists or through a giveaway of some kind. Many of you have been in touch with me to let me know how much you enjoyed it.
If you haven’t already, I’d really love it if you could write a review. Reviews make such a difference when people search for books online these days — not just the quality of them or the star rating, but actually the quantity. Yes, there’s something about having more reviews (even if they’re not all glowing) that lends a book a certain legitimacy.
So here’s my humble request: if you’ve read the book, please leave a review in a couple of places.
The obvious one is Goodreads.
But if you have an extra minute, it would be wonderfully helpful to copy-paste your review into either Waterstones (if you’re UK based) or Barnes & Noble (if you’re US based). A lot of casual readers will only come across these and not Goodreads. You can literally put the same review, word for word, copied into all these places, so it’s very little extra work! With Waterstones, you need to create a quick account. With B&N, you don’t!
Amazon is the other obvious place, but they won’t accept reviews before the book is out, so hold tight on that front.
Trade Reviews
This has also been the month where the four big trade reviewers have come in. These are the big journals that are more focused towards reviewing books for bookshops and the industry, the big one being Publisher’s Weekly, as well as things like Kirkus, Booklist, and the more library-focused Library Journal.
Fortunately, these have been lovely. Ascension got a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, which I’m led to believe they only give to approximately 2% of books they review. As well as describing it as “Incredible”, “superlative”, and “pitch-perfect” (they use the word ‘superlative’ twice), they say lots of other nice things too. You can read it here.
Some other highlights from the other places you can see below:
"Ascension is a pastiche of august influences. The epistolary structure is borrowed from Dracula. The doomed expedition that drives Harold mad is akin to H. P. Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness. . . .Binge earns his place among these literary lights with an expert story of creeping dread and cosmological horror."—Booklist
"A cross between Journey to the Center of the Earth and Heart of Darkness. . . An entertaining SF thriller."—Kirkus
"Thrilling. . .full of exploration and intriguing thoughts about the true nature of life on Earth. . .An exciting story where the undiscovered wonders of Earth prove as exciting as those out in the galaxy."—Library Journal
It’s just wonderful to receive such praise and hopefully helps to build into some of the hype around the book.
Launch
The other exciting thing coming up is my Edinburgh launch. It’s April 27th at 7pm at Blackwell's new fancy refurbished events space. I'll be hosted by the delightful Katalina Watt -- author, audio director of the award-winning Khōréō Magazine, and literature officer at Creative Scotland -- who will be chatting to me about the book and opening it up for Q&A.
If you can make it, I’d love to have you there. It’s a ticketed event, so you’ll need to buy a ticket beforehand, but if you want you can opt to include a fancy signed hardcover of the book too! The link for sign up is here.
Interviews & Podcasts
I’ve been doing a few interviews and podcasts recently which you’ll be able to listen to soon. Some won’t be out until the release month, such as my interview with the lovely folk at Fantasy Fellowship, but if you can’t wait that long, you can tune in to the SFF author panel I’m doing on March 5! It’s with Utopia State of Mind on Youtube. Details are below and the link is here.
Events
I’ve also got some events coming up, which you can see on the Events page of my website. As well as the launch at Blackwell’s, I’m looking forward to:
I’m so excited for Cymera, Scotland’s wonderful SFF festival right here in Edinburgh. I’ll be there all weekend and be on a panel with some absolutely brilliant authors too. Come say hi if you see me!
I’ll be on a panel at the big MCM Comic-Con in London too — just on the Saturday. I’ll be chatting about SFF in general and a little bit about dystopia too. If you’re there, please come along. I’ll also be signing books at the Forbidden Planet store on Saturday.
Looking Forward
There’s some more exciting things coming up that I can’t tell you about yet (let’s just say it might involve a special edition with gorgeous sprayed edges), but I’m just getting absolutely thrilled that Ascension will soon be out in the world.
Reviews
I want to close with the same request I opened with. Please write me a lovely review. Links are below:
If you’re really keen, there’s absolutely nothing stopping you copy-pasting your review into all three!
Hope you all have an absolutely stunning March.
Nick