Alex Janaway's Blog

I went to see Mad Max this weekend - my goodness, what a great movie. Old school in it's crafting, with careful and well-judged use of CGI to enhance but never replace. And it got me thinking, there is now so much good stuff our there from a Sci-fi/Fantasy perspective, what is the next TV series/adaptation going to be? I'm talking specifically about what is the next GOT/Battlestar? I hear that that they are adapting Terry Brook's Shannara books for telly - so we have a direct Lord of the Rings comparator but on a TV budget. Can they pull it off? It really does need to look like GOT/LOTR to make it work. If they can, then perhaps we expect something like Sanderson's Mistborn (of which I am reading the second book and loving) or even Erikson's Malazan books? I really enjoyed the short-lived Legend of the Seeker series, even if there were massive budget constraints, but I never got a sense of true, convincing, world building. Hopefully HBO has shown you can deliver quality, adult fare in spite of restrictions of scale/budget. Personally, I'd want to see Cook's Black Company books being adapted. And of course need I suggest 'The Bloody Nine' needs some screen time?

Thoughts?

I am very pleased to announce that End of Empire is now available for purchase - a start of a new fantasy trilogy. This is something that had been ticking over in the background for a while - I really wanted to do something a little different with the fantasy tropes that I had grown up with (and still massively engage with) - and I hit upon the idea of humankind being the enemy. From that it became something not unlike Swan Song or The Stand - not that I am comparing myself to the amazing authors of those books! -in as much as it became a survivors story, set after an essentially apocalyptic event. So expect all the creatures you know and love - elves and dwarves etc, but just accept the fact that they really don't like us very much...

And also I know I need to apologise - I kinda left The Coming of Night's sequel hanging...I'm on it! But as it was I had the first draft of End of Empire one written when The Coming of Night was released and I thought what the hell - I can manage two series at once! But just to make it even more complicated, I then had an idea for a completely different story - a rescue mission - channeling Escape from New York. And before you know it I had that written, and, even though it didn't start out that way, it turned into a chance to return to the first character I ever had in print - so this story, Metropolis, became the sequel to my first novel - Redoubt. Look out for it coming your way in July.