Paul Cornell's Festive Friday Newsletter
For 6th December. New anthology available to pre-order!
Of Shadows, Stars and Sabers
I have a new short story in a new original anthology, Of Shadows, Stars and Sabers, edited by Jendia Gammon and Gareth L. Powell, and I’m alongside a stellar group of authors, including Adrian Tchaikovsky, David Quantick, Stark Holborn and Lizbeth Myles! The book is out on February 11th, and is available for pre-order now!
The Death of Wolverine is Out This Month!
As announced here on ICv2, on 17th December Marvel will be releasing an omnibus edition of the Death of Wolverine storyline, featuring not only the miniseries of that name, but also my entire run on the comic. I’m very pleased that all this material will now be available in one volume.
There are going to be two covers, this regular one from Alex Ross…
And this direct market exclusive version from Joe Quesada.
It’s available to pre-order on Amazon, and at all good bookstores and comic shops.
The Sequel to Hammer House of Podcast is… Telefantasy Time Jump!
Lizbeth Myles and I have just about completed our seven year journey as curators of the Hammer House of Podcast, with our final episode, a Christmas Special in which we’ll be watching all Peter Cushing’s appearances on the Morecambe and Wise Show and talking about the Hammer movies we didn’t cover (thrillers, etc.), coming out on December 20th.
So, on January 13th, we’ll be starting our new podcast, Telefantasy Time Jump. It’s going to be about the history of fantastic television in the UK, going year by year, starting with 1953. (But we’ll be talking in the first episode about all the shows that came out before that date.) Each episode one of us will pick a UK series from that year for us to watch two examples of, and the other one of us will select a show from the rest of the world in that year to talk about on our extra monthly episode for Patreon supporters. (Everyone who’s at the £3/$3 level or above.)
If you’re a current Patron of HHoP, you don’t have to do anything (except set your patronage to the £3/$3 level if you want the extra episode). The HHoP Patreon site will simply turn into the TTJ site and memberships will be carried over. If you get HHoP through a podcast app, you may have to re-subscribe, but we’ll get into that as 2025 approaches.
HHoP will be leaving Twitter/X as soon as the podcast is finished. (I envisage our team of weirdies leaping on an ancient carriage driven by Christopher Lee that gallops off out of there.)
You can now find the new podcast at these links on Instagram (where it’s /telefantasytimejump/) and Bluesky (where it’s TelefantasyTJ.bsky.social).
I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved in our seven year run, and I hope you’ll follow us to our new monthly home!
My Ko-fi and eBay Stores Re-Stocked!
I’ve re-stocked my Ko-fi store, where you can buy my books and comics, signed and personalised, for shipping worldwide.
Similarly, I’ve now re-stocked my ebay store, full of Bronze Age Marvel comics at bargain prices.
Find my Books at Bookshop.Org and Help Out Indie Booksellers!
Bookshop.org is a collective selling tool that sets up a marketplace for all indie bookstores in the UK, functioning exactly like Amazon, except you’re supporting your local bookshop. You can find a selection of my books here, and I get a little cut of the proceeds too if you order from here!
My Linktree
You can now find all my social media links, my website/blog and links to where you can buy my books, in one place here, thanks to Linktree!
The Work of Friends
Lots to get through today!
Firstly, tomorrow (Saturday, December 7th) I’ll be popping along at 1pm to Emma Vieceli’s signing of Breaks at Gosh Comics in London. Emma always draws a crowd, so you may want to get there early. The comic is great, Heartstopper before there was Heartstopper. Should be festive!
Two festive fannish podcast traditions have started again this week: the Radio Free Skaro Fluid Links Advent Calendar (in which the hosts answer one Doctor Who question from a listener every day) and the Tea and Sanctuary Advent Calendar (in which Emma Newman warms us with a bit of cosy chat every day).
My friend the author C.E. Murphy celebrates twenty years in the business with two more books that are fun, smutty romps, OctoBEARfest (yeah) and Partridge in a Bear Tree (yeah). Catie recently shared this graphic of all her work over the years. Quite the accomplishment!
And finally, I have three very worthwhile fundraisers I want to share with you.
Firstly, Doctor Who podcaster and academic Joy Piedmont is running the 2025 United Airlines NYC Half Marathon in support of local community programmes.
Secondly, Bob Reyer, one of the hosts of the Talking Comics podcast is having a very difficult time of it, and his friends, including my friend Sarah Miles, are organising a fundraiser to help him keep his home together until he’s on firmer ground. Bob is the loveliest man, a fellow collector, an older guy who’s full-on anti-toxic and helpful. Do help if you can.
And thirdly (though by no means last, there isn’t an order of importance here), can you imagine what it’s like to be a few days a way from being a first-time parent when your father suddenly dies? That’s what happened in the family of my friend the author Gareth L. Powell (it’s his daughter’s partner). The couple have been left with no way to pay for the funeral expenses and a friend has created this fundraiser to meet the costs. Again, do help if you can.
My Week
At 1pm last Sunday, December 1st, I rushed to the lovely local coffee shop and managed to get two of their famous Festive Sandwiches, starting the festive season off as is traditional in these parts. I’ve been playing Christmas music (still haven’t heard Wham!) and delivering invites to the Vicarage Christmas Party. This evening is the night of the lights getting switched on with the tree in the Market Place and the Festive Market. As always, the local Festival of which I’m a member has wrapped over 400 soft toys ready for the Teddy Tombola, and I’ll be taking a turn helping out on that stall. Then the Festival team will head off for our annual celebration of teamwork, including representing at the Cricket Club Quiz.
Thomas, meanwhile, has settled into a good routine at school, and every morning does his Lego City Advent Calendar, gets some chocolate from the Real Advent Calendar and makes a chunk of an Advent Calendar Jigsaw! The other day he started singing along with me in the car to a song on Radio 1, and that evening he took me aside to tell me, very seriously, how much he’d enjoyed that. Then he told Caroline too. Since we do that, on average, every other day, I’m now wondering if there was something especially good about that moment that I’m missing. (Or perhaps that’s just his way of saying he likes something he and I do?) He’s now naming a different subject every day (instead of what was standard, ‘maths’) when I ask him about what’s going to be good at school, and I think that’s a good sign.
I’m on a deadline over the festive season this year (for that non-fiction book, which is due on January 10th), which is a bit annoying, but I’m on top of it now, and feel I’m doing good work. Indeed, I think I’m uncovering stuff which nobody’s talked about before, which is a great feeling. Constructing narrative just out of facts, though… that’s a skill I’m having to learn along the way.
I hope you’re all having a good festive season, as good as it can be, so far. Merry Christmas to you all! (Or happy holidays in whatever your own tradition is.)
To Be Continued
I will try to take some photos when I’m out and about seeing people next week. And I hope to see you all here again next Friday.
You were missed at the signing today!
Sounds like Thomas is gaining in confidence. That’s all very good.