Well, I've still heard nothing about the Solaris sale, though last time there was an inkling, negotiations with a possible buyer were at quite an advanced stage.
The Monarchies contracts have been signed, so there should be no problem publishing them. (He touches wood here)
What caused all the delays was that Solaris were trying to get hold of e-copies of the typescripts. I personally only possess electronic copies of the last two books; the first three were written on a long defunct Amstrad, and saved on floppies. These had, inevitably, corrupted, so only the paper copies remained. Gollancz had also lost their e-copies, though it took a year of phone calls to make them admit it, so we were at square one.
Eventually Christan said to hell with it, and has started scanning in the books page by page.... No word on covers yet, or a publication date, though I'm still hoping for this year (he grits his teeth in determined optimism).
The Sea Beggars of course are all now up the left. The plan was for me to write the ending to the series in one big book called Storm of the Dead, and then Solaris would publish the whole series as one big omnibus. Everything has gone silent on that front, so I've no idea. It's all up to whoever the new owners of Solaris turn out to be. Square One. Again.
On the plus side, the French have bought the Ten Thousand for quite a bit more than Solaris paid for it, and a Madrid publisher has bought the Monarchies series too, and looking at the covers he has proposed for them my jaw drops with awe. The Monarchies, ironically enough, are still in print in France (where they're on a second edition), and in Germany, the Czech Republic, Israel and Poland. The French covers are excellent, too. Sea Beggars is still in print in all those countries bar Israel. I actually do much better with overseas editions of my books than I ever do in the UK. As for the US; they just don't seem to get my stuff at all. Witness some of the reviews Ten Thousand has garnered on Amazon.com...
So that's pretty much the state of play at the moment. The two new Macht books were basically all agreed, down to numbers and deliveries etc, but the contracts had not physically been signed (I guess I jumped the gun a little giving you that exclusive, Werthead). They were provisionally entitled Corvus and Kings of Morning. They're not dead yet, but they're certainly on life support...
I've still a shot or two in my locker, and am writing a new book right at this moment, for which I've no contract, but what the hell.
It's not fantasy.
