Autumn 2011. Gollancz has now reissued almost my complete works as ebooks through their SF Gateway at www.sfgateway.com. That´s apart from my Warhammer 40K novels. Otherwise everything is there, not only books previously published by Gollancz but also previously by Headline, Grafton, PS Publishying, Golden Gryphon, Mark Ziesing, NewCon Press.
Four of the novels (Alien Embassy, The Gardens of Delight, Queenmagic, Kingmagic, and Whores of Babylon) are in revised editions along with specially written Afterwords as republished in POD form by Storm Constantine´s Immanion Press. Huge thanks to Storm for making the electronic texts available to Gollancz! Likewise, for the corrected UK edition of my Mockymen which Storm republished as POD.
A small mountain of titles are now in eprint, including such as Meat, The Power, The Beloved of My Beloved (with Roberto), Orgasmachine, The Book of Ian Watson, all of my story collections, the whole caboodle in fact except for my 40K books, those children of the Emperor guarded by Games Workshop but all in print-print, including the once-banned Space Marine as a POD from GW´s website.
Hallelujah!
On 29th September I was at the very jolly and increasingly jolly warm party at a mansion in Knightsbridge to launch SF Gateway. (Giant fans had to be wheeled in; er, of the ventilator sort.) I had an epiphany when I spied none other than Ursula le Guin in the crowd. Chris Fowler, lounging on a sofa, agreed with me that the woman was indeed UKLG. But the woman proved not to be Ursula. She declared that she was in actuality… Ursula´s British agent! What a remarkable convergence between author and agent who had evidently metamorphosed to conform with her client, as I proceeded to explain. No, I did not blame heat-stroke nor the wine to excuse me for misidentification. Instead I praised the lady’s clothing, of pastel silk like stained glass. “This,” she said, “is from Bornholm where I spend every summer because I adore it there.” Into my mind immediately flashed the memory of when I was 12 or 13 and subscribed to the British Geographical Magazine, one issue of which contained a feature entitled “Bornholm: Jewel of the Baltic”. Drawing upon the relevant neuron, unused since that tender age, I sketched the map of the Danish island in the air. “Yes, that’s it!” she exclaimed. She became intrigued and delighted by these coincidences. I could see in my mind a 50-year old colour photo of the cows and grass of the island. Inspired, I proceeded to drink more white wine. Spanish, using the very decent Viognier grape – I´d asked a waiter to let me study the label, which unfortunately led to his sommelier’s serving towel unwrapping its folds and falling to the floor…
