ain't no cure for the summertime news

Tomorrow is a momentous day for each and every one of us. Well, for me, anyways. For tomorrow is the day my book Invisible Armies - easily the best thing I've published yet, I think - is at long last officially released in the USA. It won't actually hit stores for another two weeks yet, but all the same, shop early (at amazon.com or bn.com), shop often, post reviews on web sites and telephone poles, steal your neighbours' credit cards and shop again.

Meanwhile, I'm giving away my next book for free. Yes, free. You see, last year I wrote a novel about a squirrel. Yes, a squirrel. It's called Beasts of New York, and I'm going to serialize the entire thing online, at beastsofnewyork.com, at a rate of one chapter a day, starting in mid-July. It's an unusual little book - I call it "a children's book for adults" - but I'm very, very fond of it, and I'm putting it online in the hope it might find a wide audience, so do tune in if you can. I'll post a reminder when it launches.

Various other irons are hotting up:

• The German translation of Blood Price, catchily titled Blutpreis, goes on sale this week.
• I'm mostly finished the first draft of the graphic novel called The Executor I'm writing for Vertigo Comics; because of that, I'll be attending this year's edition of the legendary San Diego ComicCon.
• I have an article about the upcoming publishing apocalypse coming in the September issue of The Walrus, which is basically Canada's answer to The New Yorker.
• I just handed in the (hopefully final) rewrite of my fourth book, Night of Knives, a thriller set in Uganda, the Congo and Zimbabwe, slated for UK publication in December of this year.
• Invisible Armies comes out in mass-market paperback in the UK on August 23, and in Canada on September 5th.

Should be a busy next few months - don't touch that dial...