News from the North

I am very pleased to announce that HarperCollins Canada, in conjunction with the paperback release of Invisible Armies , has released the entire book online , for free, until June 30th. (I've been pushing for this for quite some time now .) Tell your friends! eta: hey, I think Invisible Armies just got the best book blurb ever, from none other than Bruce Sterling: People who aren't morons and like thriller novels ought to read this. etaa: Shout-outs have also cropped up in The Globe & Mail , Quill & Quire , and - woot! - BoingBoing .

Breakfast at Tiffany's , 1961: Lula Mae Barnes (Audrey Hepburn) survives an abusive home, tweenage homelessness, and marriage at 14 to become a bipolar pathological liar who calls herself "Holly Golightly". She escapes to New York, where she lives off of prostitution, pornography, and organized crime. Paul Varjak (George Peppard), her new neighbour, is a writer-turned-rent-boy. Love blooms when she takes him shoplifting; but she rebuffs Paul in favour of being a rich man's mistress, even after her long-lost brother - the alleged reason for her mercenary greed - dies in an accident. Meanwhile, "Moon River" plays incessantly. "Holly" is eventually arrested, and her sugar daddy rejects her. When she exiles her cat onto the mean streets of New York, Paul realizes just how crazy she is and tries to get away, but at the last minute she changes her mind and ensnares him. It seems clear from the ending that he will never escape. Curiously, this paean to al...

I have an article about a maternity hospital in Haiti in the May issue of The Walrus , and a little essay about writing graphic novels up on the The Guardian 's books blog. I actually sent The Guardian this version first, which if you ask me was far more interesting and appropriate, but it got bounced for failure to comply with their house style rules, alas: Panel One Young Jon – chubby, bespectacled, geeky – stands in front of a rack of comic books, totally engrossed in an issue of The Uncanny X-Men. Batman, Spiderman and Superman stare out at us from the rack behind him. Caption Twenty years ago, this was what comics meant to me: melodramatic tales of implausibly proportioned superheroes. Jon This is awesome! Caption Not that there's anything wrong with that. Panel Two The same layout as Panel One. Present-day Jon – tall, strong, devastatingly handsome – stands in a modern bookstore, in front of a rack labelled "Graphic Novels", reading Louis Riel . Among t...

And for those of you who have been living in a cave - or, if there's anything to the horror-audience stereotype, perhaps those of you not living in caves - my old friend Sarah Langan (we've known each other since our teens, lo these many strange aeons ago) last week won a thoroughly deserved Bram Stoker Award for the best horror novel of 2007, The Missing . While it's technically a sequel to her stunning debut The Keeper , which was a nominee last year - and, frankly, should have won - you really don't need to read Keeper first. But that's a moot point as you should rush out and read both right now.

Well, that was unexpectedly exciting. "International diversions are unusual," said the still-slightly-shaken stewardess over the PA, as we taxied towards Schiphol International. It was something of an understatement. I had heard of airplanes that took off aiming for one country but wound up landing in another - most notably in Gander on 11 Sep 01 - but until today it hadn't ever happened to anyone I knew. I've had a fair number of interesting airborne expeditions. In no particular strict chronological order, they include a Douala-Harare flight that featured an abrupt and unscheduled stopover in Kinshasa, at the height of the Congo's civil war; careening across the Himalaya on a Buddha Air prop plane full of bags of apples, with cotton swabs for earplugs; a six-seater Cessna caught in the swooping up-, down- and side- drafts above the Grand Canyon; my solo skydive from 12,500 feet over Empuriabrava; a thunderstorm landing in the Papua New Guinea highlands; a flig...

At long last I can show to an anxiously awaiting world the covers for a) the Canadian mass-market paperback edition of Invisible Armies , to be published on May 24th of this year: b) the Canadian rereleases of Dark Places and Blood Price , which will be released five weeks earlier, on April 19th: I think it's safe to say that I have now become, in at least one very literal sense of the word, a Big Name Author.

w00t 1 ! My fourth (published) novel, The Night of Knives , aka "the Africa book," is officially On Sale today. The official blurb: Veronica Kelly has come to Africa to start her life over. Still reeling from her divorce, she is grateful when a handsome stranger invites her on an expedition to visit gorillas in Uganda 's wild Impenetrable Forest . But the trip goes desperately wrong when the group of tourists are captured by brutal gunmen, marched into the lawless Congo , and held for ransom. Then one tourist is executed. And then another. Their abduction is only the first move in a deadly strategic game that may consume entire nations... This is a small UK hardcover printing, so you'll probably only be able to find it online at Amazon.co.uk et al and at specialty shops - the big paperback release will be in August. It's also on sale at Amazon.ca . Trade paperbacks should start appearing in the "overseas" markets ( Australia, NZ, South Africa, India, Si...

Well, I just got back an I wish I never leave now (where'd you go?) Who dat martian arrival at the airport? (where'd you go?) How many local dollars for a local anaesthetic? (where'd you go?) The johnny on the corner was very sympathetic (where'd you go?) I went to the place where every white face Is an invitation to robbery An sitting here in my safe European Canadian home I don't wanna go back there again Wasn't I lucky n' wouldn't it be loverly? (where'd you go?) Send us all cards, have a laying in on sunday (where'd you go?) I was there for two weeks, so how come I never tell (where'd you go?) That natty dread drinks at the Sheraton hotel? (where'd you go?) I went to the place where every white face Is an invitation to robbery An sitting here in my safe European Canadian home I don't wanna go back there again Now they got the sun, an they got the palm trees They got the weed, an they got the taxis Whoa, the harder they come, n...

Notes from my visit to San Quentin State Prison last month: Take the 101 North across the Golden Gate Bridge, follow the signs for the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge onto Sir Francis Drake Blvd, keep going until you reach the LAST MARIN COUNTY EXIT sign, bear right, and you'll find yourself in the tiny, quaint little hamlet of San Quentin, a few dozen houses and a post office in search of a village, entirely dwarfed by its most famous residence. I drove through the open VISITOR PARKING gates, and readied myself in my rental car. I'd already dressed appropriately: no denim, no blue or orange, no open-toed shoes, nothing "provocative", and above all, no cell phones or recording devices. Carrying only wallet and car keys, I walked back up to the main gate, where the guard on duty was opening and checking the trunks of all of the many cars filing out of the grounds. We congregated near the entrance - "we" being myself and a group of Corrections students from Pittsbu...

So my online poll regarding the setting of my next book was only supposed to run through September. And we do in fact have a clear winner, aided, no doubt, by its recent run of publicity: the troubled nation of Myanmar. However - it is - um - well - let's just say, in light of recent and current events, it's an open question whether travel to Myanmar will be wise or even possible anytime soon, so I'm going to monitor developments and in the meantime, I'll keep the poll open to collect votes for a backup destination. In other news, Beasts of New York is a mere 20 days away from completion, and I'm soon going to to post a fan's German translation of the first part. And speaking of Deutschland, I seem to have sold the German audio rights to my first two books. Ah, sweet, sweet euros.

My favourite Google-translated bits from a bunch of German reviews of Blood Price . There are clearly still a few bugs in the system: -- A Menschenschmuggler is found fast, but that does not want money, but Pauls of programming skills. Paul is carried forward to Albania and programs him a Website [...] The Cover is black-red. On the title page above titles and name of the author stand in large type characters. Among them are the picture of an enormous building and the outlines of humans, who burn both. This thriller from the view of the unemployed person of programmer and inspired of baking packman Paul is written. Its unemployment rests heavily on it and its relationship with the Bosnierin Talena into a deep crisis led. When the two decide to help Talenas sister it must pull itself on its own tuft from the sump and take responsibility. It goes through scarcely 500 sides an unbelievable development within that. It remains reliable nevertheless and a outstanding identity figure. The cir...

The Guardian 's Books Blog today published a brief essay of mine about free online publishing. Sweet. They've long been my favourite UK newspaper. And they're even paying me, to my surprise, which makes this an official byline.

Guess what? It's time for a contest. And a vote. Yes, we're gettin' all celebratory and democratic around here. But first - you'll hopefully be pleased to learn that my fourth thriller, Night of Knives (aka "the Africa book") has been completed and copyedited, and is now officially in the Publishing Pipeline, set for official UK hardcover release on December 13th, just in time for Christmas. (If you're feeling very precocious indeed you can even advance-order a copy from Amazon.co.uk) Now that Book Four is in the can, the inevitable question is, of course: what and where next? Good question. And guess what? It's up to you to answer it. You see, starting today, and continuing through the end of September, I'm holding an online vote/contest to determine the country in which my next novel will be set, and by extension, where I'll be travelling (and travel-blogging) next. What's more, five lucky winners will receive signed copies of Invisible...

I have an article in this month's CrimeSpree magazine. The article isn't online, but I'm sure the good folks of CrimeSpree are OK with me posting it here: Everything Is Extraordinary a brief history of the travel thriller It's a big scary world out there. Just imagine. Imagine yourself walking off a 747 and emerging from an airport into one of the developing world's megalopolises, Mumbai or Cairo or Sao Paulo, each bigger by far than New York. Imagine a seething maelstrom of chaos, noise, smoke and smog; potholed streets clogged by teeming crowds, the ragged masses of poor people living on rooftops, in cemeteries, in alleys in the shadow of five-star hotels. Imagine the nonstop assault on all of your senses, including your senses of decorum, personal space, disgust, and wonder; the mixed smells of diesel and open fires and rotting filth and street-corner spice markets; the splashes of bright colour – gleaming motorcycles, women's dresses, a pyramid of some myst...

Hey, whaddaya know - I'm on the front page of cbc.ca with my 10 Tips for Travel to Exotic Countries . Even got a nice email from Medecins sans Frontieres thanking me for the plug. Meanwhile, Beasts of New York got Whatevered . I may be going to San Diego's in/famous ComicCon this weekend. Then again I may not be. Oh, the suspense.

But this blog isn't all about me. No, really, it isn't. Take this post, for instance. I have a few friends with books coming out in the next few months, and I want to tell you all about them: Cathy Wong , who is a naturopathic doctor, nutritionist, and About.com's Alternative Medicine guide, just published her first book, The Inside-Out Diet . If you're like me, you're suspicious of all diet/health-food books, but I can assure you from personal experience, Cathy's terrific, knowledgeable and thoughtful, she champions health and loves food at the same time. Go buy it. Jo Walton's Farthing comes out in paperback, in August, and its sequel Ha'Penny in early October. These books should really need no introduction - I've lost count of how many awards Farthing has been nominated for. And rightfully so. It's brilliant. And terrifying. And oh so relevant despite being sit in an alternate-history 1949. Go buy them. Speaking of sequels, Sarah Langan...

This - according to Google Translator - is a review of The Blood Price , which was just published in Germany (and in German): Well investigated travel thriller with Action Jon Evans second book with his hero Paul Wood is exactly the same dragging along like its Erstling “deadly path”. Paul was there still as a baking packman in Nepal on the way, he describes this time the Bosnia drawn by the civil war, drives with us to Albania, into the Karibik and to COUNT down on the famous artist celebration “Burning one” into Arizona. Evans urgently describes the situation in ex Yugoslavia and the tensions, which are still present under the ethnical groups there. Even if sometimes the action hooks somewhat, one marks to it that he argues much with his topics (usually even locally) and authentically reported on it. Naturally there is also this book a actionreichen Showdown to hope in which Paul and its friends the thing into the hand rather takes, instead of for the police. Who does not know thus i...

OK - I have gone ahead and launched the online serialization of my "children's book for adults" Beasts of New York . I'll be posting a chapter a day for the next 2-3 months, until the whole book is online. It's a fun read, I promise.

My fine UK publishers, Hodder & Stoughton , have given the official thumbs-up to my fourth novel, The Night of Knives , aka "the Africa book." And there was much rejoicing. What's more, I just handed in a draft of my graphic novel The Executor to my editor at Vertigo Comics . And now that I'm done writin' I can start readin' again. (Curiously, I don't read much while I'm writing.) Just finished Kirino's Out , which is brilliant but bleak. Yesterday I purchased from Amazon, in no particular order: A Few Short Notes About Tropical Butterflies by John Murray, The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross, Air by Geoff Ryman, Carnival by Elizabeth Bear, The Devil of Nanking by Mo Hayder, House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski, and Links by Nuruddin Farah. And I want to finally read I Am Legend by Richard Matheson before the movie comes out, but Amazon had no cheap paperback version available, so I'll check local bookstores. Oh, and I have an in...

So Invisible Armies was reviewed by Kirkus Reviews about six weeks ago. I figured the absence of a congratulatory note from my publisher meant it was a negative review (Kirkus is famous for being cranky), and anyways it would pop up on the bn.com page soon enough anyway. Well, said review has resolutely failed to appear, so today I went hunting around for a free online source for Kirkus Reviews, because I wasn't about to pay them forty bucks to read one (presumably negative) review. O fellow writers, please note, to my and perhaps your amazement, such a source actually does exist: NoveList . (Just ues their search form.) Anyway, to my further amazement, it's actually quite a nice review: Cyber-spacey thriller about good-guy hackers vs. bad-guy hackers, the fate of the planet hanging on every click ... Evans is clearly at home among the exuberant, idiosyncratic Cyberniks, and — occasional dollops of melodrama aside — he makes their world fresh and entertaining . (I'm not go...