The weather forecast is just in, and there’s a storm brewing…

And the reason for that is because today is the day that The Storm is published! For those of you that don’t know, The Storm is the sequel to The Fury. And for those of you who want to know a little more about it:

THE STORM

It started with the Fury.

It will end with the Storm.

Cal, Daisy and Brick now know the terrifying secret of the Fury, but the truth has made the world more dangerous than ever. In one direction the human race is still trying to murder them – every single person they meet becomes a bloodthirsty savage. In the other rages a monumental storm, born from a living corpse, a seething mass of darkness that threatens to devour everything.

Cal and the others must venture into the heart of the storm. But in unleashing their new powers they learn that they too pose a terrible threat, and that it is their own fury that could burn a hole in the world.

The concluding book in Alexander Gordon Smith’s cult epic The Fury series, The Storm continues the rollercoaster ride of horror and thrills.

So that’s the good news, and here’s the slightly-less-good-but-potentially-even-better news…

The Storm isn’t actually available as a physical book. It is ONLY PUBLISHED ON KINDLE. Yes, I know Amazon still has a physical book for sale, but please don’t buy it because nothing will arrive, it doesn’t actually exist and probably never will. However, those of you with Kindles can definitely buy it, and I really hope millions of you do!

Here’s the link!

So what’s going on then?!

Good question. The reason The Storm isn’t available as an actual book is because Faber have decided to follow in the shoes of my US publisher, FSG, and release both books in a single-volume mega book which is simply called The Fury. I’m not sure of the actual publication date for this yet, but I think it will be in August sometime. You’ll know when it happens because there will special cranes on standby outside your local book shops lifting the vast books inside one by one. Only kidding, The Director’s Cut (as it has been named) is around 700 pages long, which is still light enough to hold in a single hand. If you warm-up first…

The good thing about this is that I do think it works well as a single volume. It’s a big book but a fast one, and hopefully it flows quite smoothly between the first and second parts. I think it was really meant to be a single book, but at the time of writing we all made the decision to split it. Now, though, we have the option to make it a stunning single volume, and hopefully it works even better this way.

The bad thing about this is that unless you have a Kindle, you won’t be able to read The Storm on its own. Of course, if you do want to read it, then this means buying the whole book, half of which you have already read. I am SO SORRY about this, I know it sounds like we’re taking the mickey a bit, but it’s just the way it worked out. I really hope none of you mind, and I can’t apologise enough for those of you who feel a bit put out that you’re paying for something you’ve already half paid for. Ultimately the decision was out of my hands. For those of you who do hang on, though, the new edition will look something like this:

It uses the US artwork, and looks terrifying!!!!!!

Whichever version you end up reading, I really, really hope you enjoy it. And sorry again for all the confusion.

I’ve been to pretty much every city in the UK to do events, but Manchester was a very notable exception, so I was thrilled to be able to do a mini-tour up there this week! My girlfriend, Lynsey, went to uni in Manchester and she loved the city (although she did tell me that at some point I’d probably be mugged, which was based on her own experience as a student when she was mugged for a pizza, which I kind of pointed out wasn’t exactly a real mugging…), and I was dying to have a good look around.

The best book shop in Manchester!

My events were all outside of the gorgeous city centre, arranged through the absolutely wonderful folk who run the Urmston Bookshop, Peter and Frances. I just want to give a shout-out to them, because their shop is gorgeous. Amazing books, a great atmosphere, friendly faces, and a cafe that serves homemade cake!!! What more could you ever want? Now, I know that all independent bookshops are great places, but this one is amazing, and well worth a trip. Next time you’re browsing Amazon and you’re about to add something to your basket, head up the road and pop in to Urmston Bookshop instead, you won’t regret it!

My first event was on Tuesday, at Chorlton High School. I even got to perform in their theatre! I followed this up with a horror creative writing workshop for some awesome students. Some fantastic stories, and enough to give me nightmares… Well done, guys! It was great fun, and they rewarded me with chocolate!! I think I may make this my new payment system – don’t worry about the money, just fill a bag with sweeties and I’ll be happy!

CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!!!!!

The next morning Peter picked me up and drove me over to the Well Acre Academy, where I did another show for a brilliant audience. Thanks guys! We popped to the book shop for lunch where I got FREE CAKE!!!! Once again, I was a happy man. It’s no wonder I always put on weight when I’m away. We did make up for it with a very healthy lunch before dashing over to the extraordinarily named Blessed Thomas Holford Catholic College for the final show of the day. I often worry about doing my talk (guns, explosions, puking, angels that eat people…) at Catholic schools because the teachers sometimes frown at me, but these guys were awesome! Thank you!

That night I went to dinner with Peter, which was lovely. Usually when I’m away I eat alone, unless I know people in the area. And there’s nothing more tragic than a lonely author sitting on his hotel bed watching telly and stuffing his face with a kebab… So anyone reading this who is organising an event for me, hint hint…

My final show was on Thursday, at the Ashton on Mersey Grammar School. It was another fun event, and more questions than I knew what to do with (I think you lot would have kept asking questions until the end of the month)! I stayed behind for the longest signing of the week, which was nice. It was great to meet you all!

It was a whirlwind trip, but I managed to run around the Imperial War Museum before I had to head home – a fantastic place if you ever have the chance to visit. Then I found the most awesome restaurant on the way to the station. It was a Chinese / Indian / Japanese / BBQ / Italian all-you-can-eat buffet, and I tried pretty much everything! I kind of regretted it on the five-hour train journey home, but in a way it was great because the seat next to mine was the only empty seat for the whole journey…

A huge thanks to all the schools, pupils, teachers and librarians for making me feel so welcome, and to Peter and Frances at the Urmston Bookshop for being awesome. It was great to finally see Manchester, and I’ll be back again soon!

I feel 107,332 years older...

WOO HOO!!! I have finally finished The Fury 2, which is going to be called The Storm. Well, I actually finished it on the last day of May, but I was so exhausted by the end of it that I had to crash for a week. This one was hard work. Seriously hard work. I’m not sure why. It might be the scale of it – there are a number of main characters, and the action spans the entire planet (and beyond, kind of…). It’s a big book, too. Not quite as big as The Fury, but getting there. It’s a beast.

It took a lot out of me, and it made me think about how much of ourselves we give to our writing. We live that story. We’re right there in the blood and the mud alongside those characters. Their experiences, their battles, their heartbreak, it all belongs to us too, we share it with them. It’s no wonder it takes us a while to adjust to being back in the real world. It makes me think of Narnia, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, the way that the characters live a life in Narnia, and grow old together there. Then they step back through the wardrobe and they’re kids again, life has waited for them. And although they look the same as they did all those decades ago, they’re different people, old souls.

Writing is a bit like that (reading too), because you live a whole other life when you write a book, other lives. You leave your body, your world, your life behind when you step into the story, and when you finish it, when you stop typing and finally let yourself come up for air, you’re suddenly back inside your old body, like time was waiting for you to come back. I’ve said before that I don’t remember much of my own life when I’m writing – I certainly couldn’t tell you much about the last couple of months that I’ve been inside The Storm – but I remember everything about the world of the story, every argument, every punch, every tear, every laugh. Those memories are more real than the ones from my actual life. I feel like I was right there for every second of it, so no wonder it’s taking me a while to adjust to being home again!

Anyway, that’s enough of that! Some people have been asking when The Fury comes out in the US, and there’s a complicated answer to that. The Fury is made up of two books, The Fury, and The Storm. In the UK they will be separate books. The Fury came out in April, and The Storm comes out next Spring. However, in the US The Fury and The Storm are going to be compressed into one single book, called The Fury, and it will be coming out next Spring too. So although readers in the UK will be able to read The Fury first, UK and US readers will get The Storm at the same time (although it won’t be called The Storm in the US, just The Fury). So, I hope that cleared things up… I’ll explain the reasons behind this another time!

And what’s next? The Fury is now over, it was always going to be a two-book series. This is the part of writing I love best – planning the next adventure. There are a few options: an adult horror I’ve been chewing on for a while, called Brute, a couple of YA action / horror series I have been thinking about, and a book for younger readers that has been begging me to write it for years now. Or maybe I’ll take a break from the novels to write a screenplay, my sister and I have been working on a couple and it would be good to get them finished. Or maybe I’ll just play video games for a couple of months… I’ll let you know!

Stay Furious!