June

It’s coming to the end of June and it is an end in many ways for me. I’m hoping it’ll mark the end of what has been two or three of the busiest months of my life, as I’ve been flirting pretty close to burnout a couple of times, and the beginning of a well-deserved holiday. It turns out releasing a book, moving house, interviewing for and changing jobs, and doing about ten other things in the same couple of months is… inadvisable. Who would’ve thought?

Nonetheless, I am gleefully looking forward to the summer and to new prospects on the horizon. Before we go into some of those, I thought I’d take an opportunity to reflect back on the release of ASCENSION.

I’ve been really pleased with how the book has been received. Goodreads reviews will probably indicate to you that this is somewhat of a marmite book, with some folk really not feeling it and others lauding it as one of the best books they’ve read (!), but honestly I’m very happy with that. It’s always better to be marmite than mayonnaise, in my opinion.

Finding My Readership — The Horror Community

The real experience for me this year has been what I’d call ‘finding my readership’. This is quite a strange and nebulous term I’ve heard quite a few times in the book publishing world and I was never really sure what it meant — that’s just people who like your book, right?

What’s particularly interesting, though, about a cross-genre book like Ascension, which could as easily be marketed as sci-fi, thriller, horror, fantasy/mystery, even literary at points, and has been marketed as all of the above, is that each of those various genres have dedicated and quite varied readerships. Some have taken to the book more than others, but none so quite like the wonderful ‘horror’ community.

This was first brought to my attention by the moment where Stephen King tweeted about it to all his followers in response to a call for ‘five-star horror novels’ — the King himself stating “You gotta read Ascension by Nicholas Binge. Old-school creepy. Think Dan Simmons.” and later going on to describe it as “A wonderful novel” and “Five-star horror”.

This, of course, was enough to blow my mind, but what it really did was open my eyes to the word-of-mouth that was going on in that community. Hugely popular reviewer and ‘Mother of Horror’ Sadie Hartmann recommended it to all her fans in a delightful tweet, and a NY Times bestselling author TJ Klune recommended it specifically as a great horror novel.

Check out his nice words below:

Every now and then, I come across a novel by a new writer that makes me wonder how the hell I managed to get my first book published. ASCENSION by Nicholas Binge was one such book. I've been around the horror block a time or ten in my reading, and ASCENSION still managed to surprise the hell out of me. Weird, tense and even better, interested in what makes people act like they do. Binge is an author to watch and if his subsequent novels are anything close to ASCENSION, I'll be reading every single one. A fantastic achievement that'll make me look at my beloved mountains twice.

Essentially, the horror community were really getting into it and the word of mouth was spreading. While this surprised me in many ways, as I primarily think of my fiction as SF, if not thriller, it actually makes sense on reflection. My writing has always been about playing with form and pushing the boundaries of fiction — exploring the fringes of what you can do with narrative and shifting away from ‘conventional’ storytelling. When I think of recent fiction I’ve loved that does this, it’s mostly horror. Whether we’re talking about Danielewski’s cult classic ‘House of Leaves’ or Samanta Schweblin’s tale of eco-terror 'Fever Dream’, it is horror that looks for ways to push those boundaries. I’m proud to begin to count myself as one of that community.

Publicity & Events

There were some other great moments this month. It was nice to see Ascension pop up on Goodreads’ ‘Most Popular Books of 2023 (so far)’ list, on the FT ‘Best Summer Books of 2023’ list as well as being picked for various book clubs, including the wonderful Aardvark book club in the US.

I’ve been popping around the country signing some books too, mainly in bookshops in both Edinburgh and London, as well as a few others along the way.

I also had the privilege of speaking at the wonderful Cymera Festival here in Edinburgh alongside the SFF legend that is Christopher Priest. The whole weekend was such a wonderful experience (with uncharacteristically gorgeous weather!) and I was able to see some wonderful friends in the writing community, including friends, agents, publishers and marketing folk I’ve known for years and some I met for the first time. Strongly recommended to anyone who loves SFF — it’s a joy of a festival.

I was also at Comic-Con in London and will be attending PesText festival in Budapest later this year, supporting the Hungarian release of Ascension (which came out this last month). Keep an eye on the events tab on my website for more details there.

Which reminds me, two more versions of Ascension have been released this month! Both the Hungarian translation, with the frankly AMAZING cover below:

The Spanish edition has also come out, in paperback, ebook and audiobook. This one was a particularly weird one for me, because while I speak literally no Hungarian whatsoever, and so the translation might as well have been gobbledegook for me, I do speak enough Spanish to appreciate the translation and notice the choices that have been made. It’s a strange experience but a very cool one. Personally, I can’t wait for the French translation, as it’s a language I speak fluently and so I’m fascinated to see all the complexities in the differences and similarities.

Personal News

As well as all this, I start a new job lecturing in Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University next month and (though it’s too early to go into detail about the deals) let’s just say you can definitely be expecting more books from me in the coming years appearing on the book shelves. More on that soon!

Until next time!