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It’s time to talk about this beautiful piece of art!

It was designed by Emily Courdelle and Steve Panton under the watchful eye of all the incredible minds at Orbit UK.

I love it, and it looks even better on a bookshelf.

All the details are taken from locations in the book (including some that Fetch doesn’t visit till the sequel) but if you ever end up in Sunder City, don’t try and use this map to navigate the streets. The artists have taken some liberties. Hopefully one day I’ll bring out something more practical.

People ask me how much input I had, and the answer is very little. Orbit was kind enough to keep me in the loop but it looked so good that there wasn’t much for me to say. The first versions were much cleaner and I did make the suggestion that we break it down a bit. When we first step into Sunder, the city is already a shadow of its former self. I thought the cover should hint at the fact that this place has seen better days. They added the cracks, and I was happy. Then they went even further by turning some of the areas black-and-white and now it’s just perfection.

One of the joys of looking at the cover is the fact that it isn’t my work. I can admire it and show it off without wading through the complicated feelings related to everything inside. When people open up the book, it’s all excitement, nervousness and vulnerability, but when they admire the cover, I can just admire it with them, honoured that these talented people would dress my words in such a charming outfit.

Well, here we are – months after my last post with a million things to talk about. We have revealed the cover of The Last Smile in Sunder City, advanced copies are out in the world being read and reviewed, Glitch Season 3 is airing, and winter has come and gone.

I’ve been in Melbourne for the last three months, playing the role of Kit Marlowe in the stage adaptation of Shakespeare in Love: a rollicking romp of a play that was having its Australian debut. It was an absolute riot. I was back in my home city with a ridiculously brilliant cast performing a hilarious show to packed houses, and it couldn’t have gone better. It was a chance to sharpen my acting chops (as theatre always does), spend some time at home, work with an incredibly talented cast and crew, wear some tights, and have post-show drinks with as many old friends as possible.

It was also a bit of an experiment. Since this whole writing thing has taken off, I’ve been trying to work out how to balance these two careers. After struggling to find proper writing time while working on film and television, I thought that the theatre schedule would be more conducive to my writing/acting ambitions.

I was very, very wrong.

Without rambling too much (I did write a longer post but it dragged on way too much) there is only so much creative energy I can muster up in a day. Working on one project will drain time and passion from the other. To make sure that I do each job at the level that’s required, I plan to bounce back and forth between them. I’ll lock in big chunks of time to writing, then take a break from the books while I flip over to being an actor again. It’s a constant negotiation of deadlines and job choices but it seems to be the most enjoyable and productive path I’ve found so far.

Anyway, that’s a long way of saying that I’ll be trying to blog more going forward. We’re about five months away from release so there are lots of exciting things to discuss. I hope you all had a lovely winter/summer/whatever depending on where you are in the world.

More soon x

Hello again! Yes, it’s been a long time between posts. In my defense, I’ve been working on all kinds of things that will be coming your way soon.

Some updates:

The Last Smile in Sunder City is now at the copy-editing stage. Soon I’ll be able to share things like release dates, excerpts, and the incredible cover! I just visited London and New York and was able to meet the awesome people at Orbit Books in both cities. I’m in very safe and experienced hands and my luggage is weighed down with all kinds of amazing books written by the other Orbit authors.

On the acting side of things, I filmed the third season of Glitch (check out the first two seasons on Netflix) and another program in Australia called The End which I am really proud to be a part of. I’ll have more to say about that as it gets closer to release.

While I was back in Australia, my brother George and I got the cameras out and filmed a little project of our own called Level Up Lance. The post-production is going to take a while but it will hopefully be one of many things we’ll produce this year.

A short film called Gutterpunks that I wrote and directed is days away from being completed. It’s pretty special. Once we hit up some festivals I’ll make it available online.

But mostly, I’ve been working hard on the next book in the Sunder City series. I’m actually feeling pretty good about it so far. Because The Last Smile isn’t out yet, I still feel like I’m writing in my own little bubble, which I will enjoy while it lasts. I imagine this will all feel different once an audience has something in their hands.

Now, a little ramble…

While traveling, writing, and balancing both careers, I’ve realized that there’s a part of this job I hadn’t quite anticipated, and that’s the emotional effect that writing can have on my day.

A few times this month, I’ve caught myself feeling emotional, not understood why, and then realized that it was linked to whatever I’d been writing about that morning. I would find myself sitting in the same emotional state I’d sent Fetch Phillips into a few hours earlier.

This reminded me of my first year at drama school when our improvisation teacher (shout-out to Chrissie Best) took us through a series of lessons that I’ve never forgotten.

We’d drop into a particular emotional state, then force ourselves to come out of it and move on.

Emotions are addictive. It can be really tempting for actors to take their one-stage (or on-screen) lives home with them. Whether it’s joy or anger or grief, once those feelings have hold of us, we don’t want to let them go. But it’s indulgent and it can make us insufferable to be around if we don’t keep it in check. In those classes, we would go to the deepest emotional point possible, then shake it out and try to go back into the real world as decent human beings. (Well, we were drama students, so maybe not that decent).

Learning not to cling to those feelings was an important lesson as a young actor, and it turns out to be just as important as an author. Writers go to some strange, deep, vulnerable places. If you don’t break free of those feelings, they can turn you into a grump or a bundle of tears.

As creators, it’s tempting not to leave our little worlds. Sometimes we fear that if we step too far away from them, they won’t let us back in. But, in my experience, those emotions always return when called and don’t need to be kept on a leash.

That’s how I feel about it anyway. It’s important to suffer for our art while we’re doing the job – take risks, shed tears, scare ourselves, be as honest as we can – but then we wash our hands of it before we sit down at the dinner table.

I’ve really enjoyed hearing from you in the comments and on twitter, so let me know your thoughts on this. Have you ever found yourself too caught up in the emotional world of your work? Or maybe as a reader?

Thanks for hanging out. I’d better get back to Sunder City and push Fetch into the next chapter. I left him in a pretty rough place and he won’t be able to get out of it on his own.

Thanks for hanging out x

Last time I blogged about Sunder City, I said that I’d discuss fantasy next. That’s probably why this has taken so long.

When I was writing about the noir and mystery elements of Sunder City, I knew that Chandler was my main man. He was the spark that ignited Fetch Phillips in my mind, and the touchstone I’d go back to when I got lost in the woods.

When it comes to magic and monsters, things aren’t as easy to explain.

I have no single inspiration for my fantasy universe. Imagined worlds are everywhere now. I’ve been sucking them into my eyeballs and ears through video games, books, tv, film and anime from before I could talk. Apparently, I tried shouting “He-Man” before I could say “Mum” or “Dad”.

With all these references and influences out in the world, it might seem lazy to fill the  Sunder City with creatures we’ve seen so many times before; species that sprang out of Middle-Earth or mythology and refuse to retire, kicking around in cartoons, comics, and D&D.

But I have an explanation.

This world is made for Fetch. We are here for his story, told in his voice. In The Last Smile, you’re only going to get the details he cares to mention. In a lot of ways, Fetch is pretty self-obsessed, so I needed to create a world that would naturally roll off his tongue.

Elves, Dwarves, and Vampires are part of our shared culture. If I’d made up all-new monsters and called them something else, I’d have to ask Fetch to describe each one in detail. Why would he do that? He lives in his world and he assumes that the reader does too. So, if there are Clubbergubbles living downtown, why would he waste time telling you what a Clubbergibble is? It would be like explaining a spoon.

I guess I imagine that every sci-fi or fantasy story set in a different world must get put through some interdimensional translator. You can’t explain every little thing, so it all gets rounded up to the closest name we recognize. Thimthams become trees, Zibbyzoos are horses, and the Hairy-Squatmen of Sunder City look kind of like Dwarves, so let’s call them Dwarves and get on with it.

Another reason to steal a few pop-culture creatures is that this world has gone to shit. Six years ago, the magic disappeared. Every magical species is now suffering from a painful, post-magic hangover. Since you never saw Sunder City before it was broken, I want to start you off with a few familiar signposts. A dead flower doesn’t carry much significance if you don’t know what it looked like in bloom.

Some people like their fantasy dense, other-worldly, and wholly original. I get that. Maybe one day I’ll write a book with a ten-thousand-year war and little notes at the bottom with important dates and the names of long-dead imaginary people.

It just won’t be this one.

Fetch doesn’t care for all that. He just cares about his case. And it’s good for him to have a case. It keeps his mind from this wounded world and the stupid part he played in it all. It stops him from thinking about the things he would change or the man he betrayed or her.

Wait till you meet her.

Alright, let’s try this whole blogging thing.

I’m still a while away from putting The Last Smile in Sunder City (my debut novel, very exciting) into your hands, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun along the way. There will be release dates, interviews, art, appearances, and all kinds of announcements. Perhaps I’ll be able to share some interesting insights into the publishing process (something I know next-to-nothing about right now). But first of all, let me give you a better idea of what this book is, and where it came from.

The Last Smile takes a bright, expansive fantasy world and smears it onto the dirty streets of a classic detective story.

Obviously, this is not the first time that those two styles have come together. The iconic, hard-boiled detective walked out of the pages of pulp fiction long ago, taking his trenchcoat, smokes, and fedora, and found himself mixed up in every other genre imaginable. He’s sidled up to superheroes, crossed the galaxy and even belted out a few show tunes along the way.

And yes, he has already met his share of elves, dwarves, and dragons. Whether it’s Discworld or Dresden, the noir hero has been playing with magic for decades.

So, will the adventures of Fetch Phillips be suitably different to these previously established worlds? I bloody hope so! But it’s nice to start somewhere familiar. To wake up in a place that feels comfortable, surrounded by people we have affection for… because that makes it all the more interesting when we burn it all down.

I have to be careful what I say about the book before you have a chance to read it. As much as I can, I want Fetch and the world to speak for itself.

So, let’s talk about inspiration, beginning with the work of Raymond Chandler.

When I was about thirteen, my dad recorded The Big Sleep off the telly, onto VHS, and told me that I might find it interesting. Watching Bogart and Bacall being witty as hell in black and white, kicked off a bit of an obsession. I ate film noir for a few years, following Bogie’s career in particular. Then Dad handed me the book.

Phillip Marlowe had me from page one. The voice, the characters, and the infinitely quotable “Chandlerisms.” Farewell My Lovely, The Long Goodbye, Lady in the Lake, I read them all, and I go back often.

Now, if you haven’t read any Chandler, and you’re here because you were a fan of Black Sails, then I have a treat. Toby Stephens (my dear Captain Flint) played Phillip Marlowe in a series of dramatizations for BBC Radio 4. They are abridged but thoroughly engrossing versions of all the books. It’s a great way to be introduced to Chandler’s work while getting a good dose of Toby Stephens being brilliant. I bought it on iTunes, but you can listen to it in other ways depending on where you are in the world.

Raymond Chandler’s work has been referenced or ripped-off, countless times, in every medium, to varying degrees of success. I took some pretty big handfuls of inspiration myself when I was first creating Fetch Phillips. But often, the derivative works miss the mark.

They take the fedoras and the trenchcoats and the femme fatales. There are smiling mobsters and stolen dirty pictures and rich guys who drink too much. The hero is a cynical smart-ass with a dark past and a strong jaw, but there’s usually something missing. The romance.

Marlowe is a bit of a softy. Though Chandler himself says that a “love interest almost always weakens a mystery story,” Marlowe is a romantic. That’s why he does what he does and why, sometimes, he’s so good at it. A good detective story should be a study of humanity, like any other worthwhile work of art.

There is no point saying any more about this because Chandler said it best himself, in his essay “The Simple Art of Murder.”

If you haven’t read any Chandler, or Dashiell Hammett or James M. Cain, and you were wondering what my book might be like, I hope this gives you an idea of the story I wanted to write.

Take it away Ray…

Pretty great right? I won’t say that Fetch Phillips quite lives up to this description. Maybe in time. I believe it’s somewhere in his blood. But Sunder City is a long way from Los Angeles, and Fetch’s monsters have a bit more bite than Marlowe’s…

…but let’s leave that for next time.

x

Yes, I wrote a novel. It’s called The Last Smile in Sunder City, and the legends at Orbit Books are bringing it out into the world.

The Last Smile is the first adventure of Fetch Phillips: Man for Hire. Fetch fought on the wrong side of history, and his actions helped to drain the world of magic. Now he works on the streets of Sunder City, taking what odd jobs he can while trying to help those whose lives he ruined.

His first case is to find a missing teacher. Professor Rye is a four-hundred-year-old vampire with a heart of gold in a husk of a body. Most vamps have already crumbled into dust, but Fetch is happy to go looking for some dirt with pointed teeth if it gets him his drinking money. Then, when a young siren disappears, Fetch finds out that this dark world still hides some monsters and he’d better clean up his act before they come into the light.

In the lead up to the release, I’ll be filling this blog with updates, previews, and excited ramblings. I’ll answer some questions. Share some stories. Hopefully, you’ll find it interesting.

Thanks for stopping by.