TIME FOR ADVENTURE

A Brand New Novel Based On The Hit TV Series, Primeval

Continuing the exciting new series of original novels spinning out of the prime time ITV series from Impossible Pictures comes PRIMEVAL: THE LOST ISLAND [Titan Books, 24 October 2008, £6.99].

When strange anomalies in time start to appear, Evolutionary Zoologist Professor Cutter and his team must help track down and capture a multitude of dangerous prehistoric creatures from Earth’s distant past.

Written by Paul Kearney (The Monarchies of God, The Sea Beggars), The Lost Island finds Cutter and his team stranded on a mysterious island amidst the perilous Irish seas, where they must fight to survive as anomalies wink in and out around them, releasing untold dangers into the deadly storm.

A heady mixture of action and adventure, Primeval has captured the imagination of audiences and critics alike. Titan’s first novel, Primeval: Shadow of the Jaguar [£6.99, 9781845766924] was a Bookscan #1 bestseller, while the DVD release of the second series topped TV DVD charts with 35,000 copies sold in its week of release.

As the show continues to be syndicated to networks across the world, these brand new original novels take Professor Cutter and his team to places and situations outside of the show to confront new creatures and face new dangers in the Primeval universe.

With the third series scheduled to air in early 2009, Titan’s thrilling new fiction is the perfect way for fans to keep their appetites whet and immerse themselves in the world of the show.

You folk still waiting to read the darn thing may or may not be interested to know that I’ve been hammering out a new idea for a big fantasy series for Solaris. I don’t really want to revisit the world of Kuf in the near future, and the rights to the Beggars still haven’t reverted, so it’s plough on elsewhere time. I’ve decided to really pull my finger out this time and go a bundle on the fat fantasy ethos, setting the new series in seventeenth century Europe, but an alternate Europe – not like in the Monarchies, but in our own geographical and historical world, though with obvious tweaks and differences – the addition of magic and so on. I’m thinking of basing the main character on Oliver Cromwell, but the series will be about the whole Thirty-years-war era. Still in the preliminary stages, but so far Solaris are very happy with the concept.

I’ve been thinking about my style of writing too. Reading some of the reviews for The Ten thousand, I think perhaps I’ve become a little too lean and mean with my prose, and the focus of the narrative. So I’m thinking of being a little more discursive with the new stuff. I’d be interested in some feedback from you good people out there on that one…
Anyway, as soon as I can let you know more, I will.

This new idea, which in my mind is entitled Fury, is something I’ve been toying with in my head since I finished Ships from the West. I’ve decided to try and write ‘fatter’ as it were, and really pad out the characters, the milieu and all the stuff fat fantasy thrives on. Whether it’ll work out, only time will tell, but one thing’s for sure, if someone tells me one more time my books are too short, I’ll smack them on the nose.

This particular excised chapter comes from an iteration of The Last Colony that I didn’t write (or more accurately, didn’t complete): the second iteration, in which I had planned to write the books in alternating chapters of first person and third person, the first person chapters featuring John Perry, the hero of Old Man’s War, and the third person chapter featuring other characters, particularly General Tarsem Gau, the leader of the Conclave. Eventually, I abandoned the idea for two reasons: it rapidly became clear it would be a structural nightmare, and also because if I wrote it this way, the book would end up in the 180,000 word range — i.e., I’d have written enough for two books, and would only be paid for one. Bad writer, no cookie.

…

And as it turns out, I mined it again for part of Zoe’s Tale. You’ll have to wait to see which part and how, but the fact that I could (and did) goes to show that nothing has to be wasted. This excised chapter itself will never see the light of day as part of a larger story, but little bits and pieces can be moved around and used and recycled. Waste not, want not.

…

The lesson here for writing is that even your “failures” — the stuff that doesn’t work for your book, for whatever reason — can still have value to you as you’re wrestling with your work. This is one reason way, whenever I chop out a significant chunk of text from a book I’m writing, I don’t simply delete it: I cut it and paste it into an “excisions” document that I keep handy. That way I can go back to that material for reference, or to drop a line or an idea into the final version, perhaps in a completely different context, but where it will do some real good. This is what I do, and it’s worked for me so far.