Cameron Johnston's Blog

I'm going to be on the radio later this month! So that's a first for me.  

Come and listen to me on BBC Radio Scotland, Wednesday 29th October between 3:30 and 4pm, talking to the excellent pair of Anna Welander and Len Pennie.

 First Mage On The Moon is coming!

The cover for my next novel First Mage On The Moon has been revealed on reactormag.com and now you all get to see what I've been working on for the last while.

Mages? Building magical rockets to reach space? What fun! If you, as an all-round awesome person would like to pre-order it, you can do so at the landing page Here.

Formerly a Unity skymage trained to make aerial supply runs in the great war between the Unity and the Ranneas Empire, she must now use a rickety old wheelchair after a devastating skyship crash. To pay off crushing medical debt, Ella works gruelling shifts making magical weapons for the research and design workshop, thinking of better days.

A late night double shift means Ella witnesses an arcane experiment by engineer Jackan Grissom go awry. The device morphs into a crude rocket blasting straight for the moon, ultimately falling into the spell-ravaged No Man’s Land between the feuding nations. But that accident inspires hope: if they could make a device to reach the moon – the home of the gods – then perhaps they could go there and directly ask the gods to intervene and stop the war.

Imbued with new dreams and knowledge, the two begin crafting a device to take them to the moon. But as more people become involved in their blasphemous plot, will they be able to keep it under wraps? Or will discovery of their heresy lead them to the gallows?

The Cymera festival in Edinburgh is always a highlight of the year! So many fabulous authors ribbing shoulders 

This year, I will be on The Good Fight panel with the amazing Sebastien de Castell on Sunday June 8th, 2025.

I am Delighted to see that I've had work included on the British Science Fiction Association awards longlist.

Novel: The Last Shield published by Angry Robot BooksCollection: Gallus, with my short story Gods of the Deepwood includedShort Story: Birth of a Demonologist, published in Grimdark Magazine #37

As part of the British Fantasy Society's fundraising auction for Save The Children, the mighty Allen Stroud put up an item that I ended up winning the bid for - a musical composition! 
 After some discussion, he went off and composed a special theme for my novel, The Last Shield. 
 Wrap your ears around this!

It is here! The Last Shield is finally available to buy at all your usual fine book emporiums!I'm am beyond excited for you all to meet Briar, and have a blast with my book. Amazon US
Amazon UK
Barnes and Noble
Waterstones
Angry Robot Books

It has finally arrived!The audiobook version of The Last Shield is now up on Audible for preorder:Audible.com

Audible.co.uk

AHHHHHHHHHH My author copies of The Last Shield have arrived here in Glasgow from Angry Robot Books.What lovely, shiny title text and gilded name!And also author copies of my jaw-dropping special edition from The Broken Binding!

COVER REVEAL: New GSFWC anthology launching at Worldcon in Glasgow this August, feating one of mine: Gods of the Deepwood

Periodically the GWSFC produces a publication to showcase our range and wonder. In the last few years we’ve had Thirty Years of Rain for our thirtieth anniversary and Flotation Device to raise money during the pandemic and many others previously including, for the first Glasgow Worldcon in 1995, Shipbuilding.

Well, this year there is another Glasgow Worldcon and we have decided to produce a new anthology for that. It is called Gallus.

Gallus is a Scots word meaning bold, daring or high-spirited, and often used to describe the people of Glasgow. We feel this equally describes the members of the GSFWC and their writing and we hope you will read our anthology and agree with us.

Gallus contains 25 stories by current members, a snapshot of what the Circle and Glasgow speculative writing is producing in the space year 2024. There are writers who’ve been members for years and have published novels and collections and won awards. There are writers not long joined for whom this is their first publication. There are stories of myths and dragons, of cats and modified humans, of huge journeys through space and short walks to a river, of witches and demons and lost seas.

What better way to present this collection than inside a cover created by our own Jenni Coutts, winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Artist in 2022, as well as the writer of one of the stories inside. Isn’t this just brilliant?

I guess the news is finally out - The Broken Binding are doing a special edition of my forthcoming THE LAST SHIELD What a gorgeous tome she is!