[Rob B]

Great news Neal, congratulations! Hardcover, Trade Paper?

[nealasher]

I don't know that yet. But you can win copies of my books here: http://www.panmacmillan.com/sablekeech/

[Hobbit]

And just to add to the list: Africa Zero is being published by Wildside Press in paperback in September 2006.

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0809556642.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

This is a reprint from originally being published in 2001. Don't think there's any changes otherwise, Neal?

Hobbit

[nealasher]

The only thing that's different about it is the new cover design, which is rather good don't you think?

[Hobbit]

Yes; it's an eyecatching cover, I think. Do you know who the artist is, Neal?

Hobbit

[nealasher]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_7mGFJ7t-eaU/SSVABYaP88I/AAAAAAAAAXU/3sLz0py6JhY/s320/ShadowScorp1.jpg
I've been having fun trying to convert a pdf sent to me by Macmillan into a jpg so I could put a picture of this cover up here. Nice free program downloaded to do it, only for some unfathomable reason it will convert the whole dust jacket except for the title on the front and spine. Another program accessed online (sends the picture to you by email) just converted half the cover, the back half, which is no use at all. I've ended up just copying this from amazon. The hardcover of Shadow of the Scorpion (http://amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1597801399/nealasher)should be published on April 3rd.

Raised to adulthood during the end of the war between the human Polity and the vicious arthropoid race, the Prador, Ian Cormac is haunted by childhood memories of a sinister scorpion-shaped war drone and the burden of losses he doesn't remember. In the years following the war, he signs up with Earth Central Security, and is sent out to help either restore or simply maintain order on worlds devastated by Prador bombardment. There he discovers that though the old enemy remains as murderous as ever, it is not anywhere near as perfidious or dangerous as some of his fellow humans, some of them closer to him than he would like. Amidst the ruins left by wartime genocides, he discovers in himself a cold capacity for violence, learns some horrible truths about his own past and, set upon a course of vengeance, tries merely to stay alive.

[Rob B]

Hi Neal! A review copy of Shadow of the Scorpion just arrived via the fine folks at NightShade. I'll let you know when I review it!

Rob

[nealasher]

I look forward to that. Cheers!

[Crusader]

Neal's latest, The Departure, was released on Monday. It's a definite must for all Asher fans and kicks off the new Owner trilogy. I posted a review of The Departure (http://worldsinink.blogspot.com/2011/07/review-departure.html) on my blog for those interested.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TUDMOZTj270/ThmjkHI3J5I/AAAAAAAAAJA/OEc7lOK5NQ8/s1600/the-departure.jpg

Visible in the night sky the Argus Station, its twin smelting plants like glowing eyes, looks down on nightmare Earth. From Argus the Committee keep an oppressive control: citizens are watched by cams systems and political officers, it's a world inhabited by shepherds, reader guns, razor birds and the brutal Inspectorate with its white tiled cells and pain inducers.

Soon the Committee will have the power to edit human minds, but not yet, twelve billion human being need to die before Earth can be stabilized, but by turning large portions of Earth into concentration camps this is achievable, especially when the Argus satellite laser network comes fully online...

This is the world Alan Saul wakes to in his crate on the conveyor to the Calais incinerator. How he got there he does not know, but he does remember the pain and the face of his interrogator. Informed by Janus, through the hardware implanted in his skull, about the world as it is now Saul is determined to destroy it, just as soon as he has found out who he was, and killed his interrogator...

[nealasher]

Thank you kindly.