I am proud and somewhat relieved to have delivered the complete manuscript for World’s Collider to Nightscape Press. In the end it took an extraordinary amount of effort, and not just on my part. Pity Steven Savile who had agreed to write the final story. Steven was given a detailed brief explaining how to wrap up all the various plot threads, but given the time crunch towards the end I was still tinkering with the storyline while the final story was being written. Steven was ready to kill me, but luckily he broke his arm just in time and was unable to carry out the execution.

So he quickly hired his good friend, Steve Lockley, to kill me on his behalf. Steve misunderstood the request and helped him finish his story instead.

Lucky escape there I feel. So in a roundabout way I’ve just announced that Steve Lockley has been added to the lineup for World’s Collider, and we’re both delighted to have him and grateful to him for stepping in and helping out at short notice. The result is spectacular, but then it’s hard for me to judge given that I’ve had my head buried deep inside the internal cavities of this anthology for so long I’m not even sure which way is up any more.

Anyway, it’s done, it’s finished, and now Nightscape will read it, spot all the mistakes I added and the totally incompetent attempts on my part to ruin excellent stories with my own turgid modifications, and they’ll tell me to get my act together and sort it out before they release it on an unsuspecting public.

When they do, you could win a copy of the paperback via Goodreads! I encourage you to enter the competition even if you plan to buy an ebook copy. The cover is gorgeous, and I have a suspicion this is going to be a very handsome volume when it’s printed. Each copy comes with a free pair of scissors so you can snip off the corner with my name on it.

It’s coming soon, first half of July if all goes well. It’ll be here before you know it, and I can’t wait to hold a copy. A lot of people have put a lot of work into this and I hope the result will be well received. If it’s not, Steven Savile may end up killing me after all…