So it is with great regret I have to inform you that, following a meeting with my editor and various whip-and-sword-wielding figures at Orion made from fire and shadow, we have decided, reluctantly, that we have to move the publication date of The Heroes.

But do not weep a river of tears quite yet, my friends, for the publication date is coming forward.

Yes, indeed, the UK hardcover of The Heroes will now be available on January 20th 2011, and not a moment before. If any among you were minded to pre-order what will undoubtedly be THE fantasy release of that day, you could do so here.

The US hardcover release is still currently scheduled for March 7th, but I’ll let you know if that changes in the light of these developments. Bear in mind that the management take no responsibility for any future disappointing delays in publication dates, as publication is a fickle business, and etc. etc.

Caliph Howl carried a thin paper-wrapped package across the well-tended lawns of the High College. Today was the day of his revenge.

Tattered shadows slid back and forth under a canopy of danson trees. The old stone buildings of Desdae warmed themselves in the sun like ancient mythic things, encrusted with gargoyles and piled with crippling tons of angled slate. Thirty of the buildings belonged to the township. The other eighteen belonged to the college. Two camps with an uneasy truce watched each other across the lake that separated them; collectively known by one name, Desdae: the gray hamlet of higher learning that crouched at the foothills of the mighty Healean Range.

Behind the campus’ thick walls, Caliph knew theory-haunted professors wasted away, frisking books for answers, winnowing grains of truth, pulling secrets like teeth from deep esoteric sockets. This was a quiet war zone where holomorphs and panomancers cast desperately for new ideas, compiling research with frenetic precision.

Desdae might be far away from the mechanized grit of cities like Isca, it might be quiet and sullen, but it wasn’t simple. It had small-town villains and small-town gossip and, he thought, small-town skullduggery as well.

Caliph tugged the library’s massive door and cracked the seal on the tomb-like aromas: dust, buttery wood polish and ancient books.

Caliph scanned for the librarian and slunk smoothly into the aisles.

The Rain Wilds Chronicles was written as a single manuscript, and then divided into two volumes for publication. Dragon Keeper and Dragon Haven are those two books.

My next published book will be a collection of stories featuring shorter works by both Robin Hobb and Megan Lindholm.

The untitled book I am working on now picks up the tale of the Tarman expedition in search of Kelsingra. It’s my work in progress and threatens to be a long book!

I was left wondering how he finds time to write given the range of references and interests he revealed in his conversation, be that politics, pouring over old horror novels by HP Lovecraft or chaotically catching up with modern writers – Nick Mamatas and Helen Oyeyemi were two he mentioned as well worth a look.

However he revealed his next book is already with his editor – ’science fiction, aliens and spaceships, but I don’t want to give too much away’ – and should be out next year, while adding he has a bunch of books in mind that he wants to write in the future.

Could a return to Bas-Lag be among them?

“I’m certainly not bored of Bas-Lag or anything like that and it would be easy for me to go back there,” he said. “But the books I wrote about Bas Lag had an arc to them and matter a lot to me.

“I don’t want to undermine that, so my argument would be it would have to be a story that really needed to be in that setting.

“We can all think of franchises that milked themselves dry too and can end up killing the thing you love by doing that. So I will be staying away for a while yet, although I do have a long term idea in mind,” he added, with just the right air of mystery.