Paul Cornell's Friday Newsletter

For 3rd November. So many friends doing cool stuff!

Where to Find Us at Thought Bubble

So this is the last Newsletter before Thought Bubble! Yes, it’s that wonderful time of year when the Thought Bubble festival in Harrogate, with its convention on November 11th-12th is up and running, and they’ve put out their map of where to find all us exhibitors. Myself and Lizbeth Myles will again be running a table full of my recent stuff, including copies of my Secret Invasion novel and Witches of World War 2. And you can find us in the Bubbleboy Hall at table K12. We’re once again neighbours with Rachael Smith, so that’ll be lovely.

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Adventures Across Space and Time: A Doctor Who Reader

This brilliant new book, out on 16th November, edited by Paul Booth, Matt Hills, Joy Piedmont and Tansy Rayner-Roberts, is a collection of Doctor Who critique from many different sources, and it includes a selection from my essay about how the show has never had a canon, and why that’s been enormously helpful to its development. You can order direct from the publisher here.

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Con and On #5

The final issue of my decades-spanning satire about the comics industry, with artist Marika Cresta, is out from Ahoy on November 22nd. You can find it in Previews here.

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My eBay Page

So, I decided that rather than run individual auctions I’d put up all my duplicate comics (and a few Doctor Who items and other random stuff) in one place. It’s a work in progress, lots more stuff still to be added. What do you reckon?

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Witches of Lychford: Night of the Gnomes (Three Episodes to go!)

My new sequel to my bestselling Witches of Lychford rural fantasy series (urban fantasy in the Cotswolds) is in the form of a serial right here on Substack, and lots of episodes are now out there! Indeed, there are only three to go! (And then we start another story.)

On the first four Thursdays of every month, at 5pm BST (or GMT when we get there) paid subscribers will get an episode of the new serial. It’ll run until the end of November, then there’ll be a four-episode Christmas Special, then another new Lychford serial will run until the end of May, 2024. (So those who’ve subscribed for the whole year will get a full year of episodes.)

It’ll be absolutely fine for those who haven’t read the books to start reading with this serial, because we’ll re-introduce the whole concept. (Though you will be spoiled for what’s happened previously.) And paid subscribers can read all the previous episodes too, so you’ll be able to catch up if you join late.

Lychford is a little modern-day market town in the Cotswolds that borders many of the hidden worlds of the supernatural, the lands of the fairy folk, of demons, of a whole array of magical creatures. Protecting it are three very different women. There’s a lot of comedy in this series, mostly about the clash between everyday life and the world of magic, but there’s also some dark heartfelt emotional stuff and some real-world commentary on what life in such a town is like right now (because I live in such a town).

I’ve missed writing about Lizzie, Autumn, new coven member Zoya and their increasingly-large supporting cast of town councillors, pensioners and creatures of the night. I’m also looking forward to the rollercoaster of having to put fingers to keyboard on a regular basis.

To get this Lychford serial, just subscribe to the paid option on this Newsletter. It’s $8/month or $80/year.

And of course you’ll always get the Friday Newsletter and exclusive subscriber content for free. (And I don’t share your email address with anyone.)

If you’d like to catch up on the Lychford series up to now, five novellas have been published by Tor.com. You can find them all here at Bookshop.org and support UK indie bookstores, or here are links to the first one at Amazon US and Amazon UK.

And if you want to see the last story about my three heroines, it’s a Christmas story from a few years back, available for free here on my blog!

I’m looking forward to my adventure into serial fiction.

If you want to read the Prologue to Witches of Lychford: Night of the Gnomes, you can find it here for free.

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Hammer House of Podcast

Hammer House of Podcast, in which myself and Lizbeth Myles watch the Hammer horror movies in UK release order, is out on the 13th of every month, with our October episode being about 1972’s Demons of the Mind. You can get these episodes free wherever you normally get your podcasts, as well as on our site, but if you sign up to our Patreon, for any sum of money from £1/$1, you get an extra episode every month too, on the 27th, in which we watch Patron requested movies and films from other horror studios of the same era.

(What a frustrating mess of a movie.)

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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!

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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!

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The Work of Friends

(Loads this time!) My friend the comicker and novelist Cavan Scott has a new comic out from IDW with artist Nick Brokenshire, Dead Seas, ‘The Poseidon Adventure meets The Haunting of Hill House’, and he’s prepared a video promo for it!

While my friend the prose and audio writer Eddie Robson has a new collection of Doctor Who essays (many of them from the Eaglemoss Collection) out in ebook form, Do Time Lords Get Drunk? Eddie’s one of the best current factual writers about the show.

My friend the novelist Adrian Tchaikovsky has partnered with the legendary game designer James Ohlen to create Chains of Asmodeus, a 286 page sourcebook for the Nine Hells, all proceeds of which go to a children’s medical charity.

While my friend the games writer and geek journalist Bonnie Burton has just appeared on The Movie Crypt podcast, talking Lucasfilm and horror with hosts Adam Green and Joe Lynch.

And talking of games, my friend the editor and games designer Lou Anders has a new Thrones and Bones adventure, Banner of the Bull out now, the website really showing off some of the lovely artwork.

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My Week

The dry stone wall, before you ask, is now once again whole, due to the swift action of two experts, who stood behind it, remaking the jigsaw puzzle, while passers-by stopped to spend the time of day with them as if they were running a shop. It’s been great to see the speed with which all was made well, and the team report that they managed to re-house a family of hedgehogs disturbed by the collapse.

On Tuesday, Thomas and I went out trick or treating, Tom in a magician’s cloak made by Nanny Louise’s wonderful Mum. He was very excited to take his silver bucket around the estates, where many more people than last year had put pumpkins out. We ran into my friend Chris, who’d mistakenly one year signed up for my local fantasy cricket league under the name ‘Christ’ and, with a long beard as he has, was that evening dressed appropriately. (Doubtless he spent that evening turning a lot of undead.) Thomas’ charming autistic moment of the night was when, upon being confronted by some mock ‘Keep Out’ tape around a participating house, he thought that was exactly what we should do. We missed out on some sweets because he wouldn’t ring doorbells, and thus loud knocks had to do, but all in all, he returned home pleased with his haul. When trick or treaters started coming to our door, he said he’d have a go at meeting them, and initially took his own bucket out to offer them sweets from, which I thought was lovely but kind of… rendered the evening into a pointless exchange contest somewhat akin to cryptocurrency? Anyway, he was happy to discover we had a supply of sweets ready, but contented himself with serving only our first customer. After that, I answered the door to many, many more people than last year. This whole holiday seems to have leapt up in popularity this year in the UK.

(I’m told he looks just like me in this photo.) Work-wise I sent off the second issue of my new creator-owned comic that hasn’t been announced yet, and a new draft of a short comics story destined for elsewhere. I also received good news about another creator-owned comic. This being half-term, I’m doing my share of childcare, indeed, when you get this I’ll be looking after Tom all day. We’ve decided to go to his favourite pizza restaurant, then to a park, then to his usual weekly swim. Which means I’ll get back just in time to run over to the cricket club’s quiz and curry evening, taking 30 newly-heated onion bhajis with me. I’d better not have too much beer. Tomorrow I’m off to meet a famous author for lunch, and I need to have my wits about me.

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To Be Continued

This is the last Newsletter before Thought Bubble, so I hope to see a lot of you there. There’ll be no Newsletter next week because I’ll be at that convention, but normal service will be resumed on November 17th.

I hope to see you all again then.