Tim Lebbon – horror and dark fantasy author

My new Hellboy novel THE FIRE WOLVES is available now.  You can get it from your local bookstore, or online from the usual dealers.  It’s a fun, fiery Hellboy romp set in Italy, centering around a possibly cataclysmic eruption of Mt Vesuvius … and the things that came out of the volcano 2000 years ago …

I received my first copy of Hellboy: The Fire Wolves today from the very excellent Rob Simpson at Dark Horse.  It is a Beautiful Object (see cover), and when it’s available for sale in a few days I’ll do a more lengthly blog post.

For now, I’m chuffed that my name’s appeared on a second Hellboy novel … and this one from Dark Horse itself.

Somtimes – in fact, often - I love my job.

Two years ago today was my first day working as a full-time writer.  Leaving work to write for a living was a big decision, but definitely one of the best I’ve ever made, and through the downs as well as the ups I haven’t regretted it for a moment.  It seems a lot longer than two years ago that I last left Monmouthshire County Council’s dodgy old building (it’s effectively falling down), and looking at the amount I’ve written since then, perhaps there has been a time-warp thingy going on somewhere.  Here’s a rough list:

• 30 Days of Night
• Fallen
• Mind the Gap (with Christopher Golden)
• The Map of Moments (with Christopher Golden) – forthcoming
• The Secret Journeys of Jack London: Book One (with Christopher Golden) – forthcoming
• Hellboy: The Fire Wolves - forthcoming
• The Island - forthcoming
• The Toxic City: London Eye
• A Whisper of Southern Lights
• The Reach of Children

As well as those novels and novellas I’ve done several short stories, two screenplays (The Everlasting and The Dregs), and plenty of other stuff.  It does make me wonder how the hell I wrote so much when I was working, but the fact that I’m still working just as hard after two years is great.  I’ve still got plenty of work on … and a big THANKS is due to you discerning readers who continue to buy my books!

And on it goes …!  I wrote a novelette this weekend for a US market (sending it to the editor for consideration today), brainstormed a new screenplay with a good friend of mine, and this week it’s back to the Yukon to finish off book one of the Jack London series.

Many more announcements coming soon, including a new short story option.  So please do keep popping by, and in another year I hope the above list will be much, much longer.

The very excellent Fantasy Book Critic has posted the second part of his ‘Coming in 2009′ list … it makes for interesting reading, and it weighs heavy on the wallet.  Featured in there is my forthcoming novel The Island from Bantam Spectra, as well as many, many novels with slinky, hard-looking women on the cover, who you just know are going to turn out to be vampires or werewolves.

Hey, that gives me an idea for a book …

In other news, my new Hellboy novel Hellboy: The Fire Wolves has been delivered to Dark Horse.  This one’s out early next year, and I’ll soon be posting further details in a ‘Forthcoming Books’ page I’m working on.

Tomorrow I’ll be posting details about how you can order The Reach of Children direct from me … just got to check out postage rates.

…soon.

Folks, I’m having nasty computer problems right now- sitting at my sister’s place right now as my brother in law sorts it.  That’s why you haven’t heard from me in a while, but NORMAL SERVICE WILL BE RESUMED soon.

Meantime, news is building up, so expect messages soon concerning:

The recent Motorhead gig and beer drinking session in Cardiff (with strippers)

A very exciting new sale for my novella WHITE

A great new review and interview in one of Britain’s premier science fiction magazines

News about the new Hellboy novel

A new short story optioned

And much, much more. Watch this space!

I thought I’d post an update on forthcoming book releases.  Where these are available for pre-order, I’ve posted an Amazon link, but ordering from your local bookstore is always good.

So here we go:

Bar None - sometimes soon, from Night Shade Books - my first original horror novel in over 18 months

The Map of Moments – January 2009 – with Christopher Golden, the second Novel of the Hidden Cities, from Bantam Spectra

Hellboy: The Fire Wolves – Dark Horse April 2009 – my second Hellboy novel, this time for the excellent Dark Horse

The Island - April 2009 – fourth novel in the award-winning Noreela series, from Bantam Spectra

You’ll also see Mind the Gap and Fallen released in mass market paperback format early next year, both by Bantam Spectra.

And as well as this, a limited edition of Mind the Gap from Cemetery Dance, and another book from them at some point. And there are other projects I can’t announce just yet, and a couple of announcement that are pending.

I’m also working on a crime novel. Oh yes.

More exciting announcements soon!

Here’s the first of two brand new covers I’ll be posting over the next couple of days.  And what a scorcher it is too.

There’ll be a full Library page for this new novel over the weekend, with ordering details, etc.  But for now, behold its loveliness.

“That is one big worm.” Hellboy had always wanted to take a trip to Rio, but not to fight dragons.

“Weird how people get used to things,” Amelia Francis said. She was a lecturer in Mythology in History at the local university, and a BPRD advisor in South America. She had met Hellboy at the airport less than two hours ago. Now they were standing beside the road staring up at the dragon that perched on the outstretched left arm of Christ the Redeemer. “Ask most people now, and they’ll shake their heads and smile and say it’s a joke.”

“Even though that thing turned half of Copacabana beach into a sheet of glass?”

“People can’t believe, so they choose not to.” Read the rest of this entry »

Published Dark Horse, April 2009

Availability:

USA -Trade Paperback

• Amazon
• B&N
• Powells
• Borders
• Dark Horse

UK – Trade Paperback

• Amazon

Hellboy is called to Amalfi, Italy, by Franca, a young member of the Esposito family. She fears that a dark curse on her family is about to claim her cousin as its next victim. Hellboy makes his way to their large home, and he encounters a flaming demon – a fire wolf – which he successfully fights off. Hellboy and Franca make their way to Pompeii, where Franca remembers seeing an image of the fire wolf whilst on an archaeological dig. Hellboy unearths the shriveled corpse of a demon hunter who was buried during the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius, and it tells him of the fire-demon that escaped the grip of the volcano leading to that devastating eruption. Attacked again by the fire wolf, Hellboy and Franca have to make their way back to Amalfi to confront Adamo Esposito, the family elder. But already the volcano is rumbling again, and an eruption even more devastating than that historical catastrophe looks very, very close!

Published: Pocket Books, 2006

Availability:

• Mass market Pb, UK: 1416507833
• Makk market Pb, USA: 1416507833

Hellboy, a blood-red, cloven-hoofed demon raised by the United States government, is a top field agent for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.

He questions the unknown – then beats it into submission. Read the rest of this entry »