I hope you all had a pleasant New Year and find yourself in fine fettle today. In Chez King we saw in New Year playing Ivanhoe while the City of Prague laid on a fine fireworks display outside our window and baby William lay asleep in his cot. Now the holidays are over and it’s time to settle down to getting some work done in 2012.

There a few exciting things coming up this year. This month I will be releasing Sky Pirates. This is my Edgar Rice Burroughs inspired, Dying Earth fantasy novel, featuring, you guessed it, sky pirates. In this book former pirate captain Ulrik, sentenced to death in the arena for his crimes, finds his release from the fighting pits engineered by the sinister wizard Valerius who requires his services to hunt down the pirates to whom Ulrik once belonged. What’s not to love about a book featuring huge armoured flying battleships, anime cat-girls and magically augmented gladiators?

In February, it will be time for Mask of the Necromancer, the first sword and sorcery novel featuring Kormak, the hunter of monsters, who first appeared in Guardian of the Dawn. In this short novel, Kormak is tracking down a Necromancer who is, for very nefarious reasons, opening all the tombs in the  haunted kingdom of Forghast and unleashing their undead inhabitants as part of a vile scheme to gain dominion over the Northlands.

July sees the release of Angel of Fire, the first novel in my Macharius trilogy from Black Library. This book follows the trials and tribulations of Leo, Anton and Ivan, three Guardsmen of the Seventh Belial Regiment during the opening campaign of the Macharian Crusade. It shows how they save the life of the great Imperial hero Macharius and eventually find themselves pressed into service as his bodyguards. Giant tank battles, Imperial Assassins, urban combat and a pyromaniac Tzeentch cult all make an appearance in this book.

December should see the release of Sword of Caledor, the second of the Tyrion and Teclis books for Black Library which features among other things a trip to the lands of the Lizardmen, the invasion of Ulthuan and some interesting insights into the depraved mind of Morathi, Hag Queen of Naggaroth. There is also a guest appearance by the Archmage Caledor himself.

These are the projects I can put some sort of release date to. In addition, at some point during the year, I will be releasing the second of the Jack Brodie novels, as this Victorian detective once more gets on the case in the grimy streets of Dickensian London.

I will also be putting out a collection of my sword and sorcery short stories, called, with the startling originality for which I am so justly famed, Tales of Sword and Sorcery. As I’ve mentioned before, I intend to release something every month this year and so far I have mentioned only six projects, one of which (the Brodie book) is only partially written so I shall obviously have to get cracking on other stuff.

In terms of personal appearances, I shall be at Black Library Live, and Gamesday UK (I hope!). There is also the possibility of doing some signings in France at some as yet unspecified date. I hope to make it to the Eastercon in the UK this year as well. And that’s as much of my calendar as I have pencilled in so far.

Addendum: I have just found out there is a possibility I will be at one of the Warhammer World events in June as well.