Steve McHugh

Orbital Drop. Out now on kindle and paperback.

The Song of the Vampire is out now. You should all go buy it so I can keep writing books about a Scottish vampire and his dog. Thanks.

Wonderful time at BristolCon yesterday. Loved seeing everyone, and it was nice to have my daughter get to see me do panels for the first time. Sorry we couldn’t stay long, the weather turned the trains into a nightmare, but we’ll be back next year.

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Taking Harley to Bristolcon for the day. I have 2 panels, and Harley looking forward to the hotel chicken burger (which is lovely to be fair).

I can’t show it yet, but I’ve seen the cover to The Assembly book 5 and it’s awesome. Anyway, book 4 (The Song of the Vampire) is out next week.

I always hoped that we might get a remaster of Jade Empire and the first Dragon Age.

1 week to go until the release of The Song of the Vampire.

Me sitting down to write. My brain: “here are the 5000 things you need to do before you can get any work done.” I swear, I should have figured out about the ADHD a long time ago.

Just realised I hadn't got my pre-order in yet... Quickly fixed! This whole series (and the rest of his back catalog) is awesome. You've got time between now and publication day (Oct 27th) to get up to speed on this series, trust me, they're page turner's 👍

Slow Horses is a masterful show. So glad we’ve got 2 more seasons after this one finishes.

My author copy of The Song of the Vampire has arrived. It’s very pretty. The other photo is the acknowledgements, which I just wanted to share (Barb is my mother-in-law).

So a Russian data centre gets blown up and suddenly so much right wing misinformation stops being spewed online. Putin has been pulling the strings of the far right across the world for years, and people keep making his life easier by falling for it.

Cold Storage is an extraordinarily silly and gory horror about an alien fungus in a storage locker facility in a small American town. It’s very entertaining, and Georgina Campbell and Joe Keery are clearly enjoying themselves. A fun watch.

The Song of the Vampire Out on 27th October. Available to preorder now.

I didn’t really think about book recaps in sequels until it was suggested to me that I put them in my own books. They’re a great idea, take no time to write, and people like them. I’ll be using them from now on.

As an author, I don’t read the reviews of my books on Goodreads. I mean, you can, it’s your life, but I personally value my mental health more than what Dave8826546 thinks of the prose of a book I wrote 15 years ago.

If you use AI to do your book cover, I’m going to assume the book will be AI slop too. Either way, any author using an AI cover is an easy skip for me.

“He likes power, and I feel like this is giving him some sort of power. It’s all about power and control in everything he does…” White supremacists who talk about “protecting women” from migrants are, unsurprisingly, violent misogynists. They do not want women’s safety — they want to control women.

Finished writing a book so it’s time for a good whisky. Glendronach 18 years tonight. I’d take a photo, but I’m watching Colony and can’t be arsed to get the bottle back out. Have a good Saturday!

City of Ghosts is done and off to my publisher. 132,000 words long is a pretty good size. And now to spend the rest of the weekend doing as little as possible.

Writing is hard. Being an author is hard. Seeing books you worked hard on and be passionate about, not sell as well as you’d like, is hard. But getting emails from people telling you how much they love your work, is awesome.

“I love your books, but you need to stop being political.” Firstly, no. Secondly, I think you may have missed the point of the stories I wrote.

The “separate artist from art” argument pops up time and time again, especially when it comes to authors. Personally, your ability to write doesn’t mean much to me if you’re an unbelievable dickhead.

Witcher 3 Remastered is out today. And for anyone who hasn’t played this absolute masterpiece before, I envy you getting to play the Bloody Baron quest for the first time.

I know I’m probably in a minority, but I’d like it if titles of books on Amazon didn’t include things like “with a jaw dropping twist” etc. I find them really cheesy and it makes me less likely to buy the book.

Reacher season 4 was great. Lovely ending too.

Going from editing brain to writing brain is weird. It’s like my brain needs a rolling start to get going.

Please don’t send me AI images of characters I’ve written. I’m literally a part of a legal challenge against AI companies who have been stealing my work (along with 1000s of other authors) to train their slop producing machines. There’s no part of Generative AI that I want to be involved with.

The anti-establishment party of Reform are fronted by a millionaire, staffed full of millionaire ex-Tories, and now bankrolled by billionaires. A lot of rich, powerful people breeding hate and division to make themselves richer and more powerful.

I try to remain mostly professional online, but the more billionaires try to mess around with our democracy, and the more people I see cheering it on, the more I feel the need to tell people that the world would be a better place if their dads had just pulled out.

Apparently men in the “manosphere” are going on a sex strike, which is both the funniest and saddest thing a bunch of virgins have ever done.

T Kingfisher might be America’s best modern horror writer. Her work is constantly incredible.

I don’t need a Switch 2. I don’t need a Switch 2. I don’t need a Switch 2. I don’t need a Switch 2. Damn it, Nintendo.

Some weeks really make you earn a Friday night whisky. This week was one of them.

My whole life I assumed that caffeine didn’t have a huge effect on me. Coffee never made me feel wired or alert, and I never had any issues sleeping after having caffeine. Turns out it’s another ADHD thing I wish I’d known about 30 years ago. Learning I have ADHD at 46 has been quite the weird year

It’s the local Pride today, and several local FB groups have covered it. Some of these groups have been inundated with hate-filled comments aimed at the LGBTQ+ community, proving why the world still needs Pride. On the plus side, I get to block a lot of local dickheads, so every cloud and all that.

When I was writing Assembly book 5, I put in a chapter that was basically just chunks of exposition knowing I would have to change it all when it came to editing. Apparently now is that time, and it feels very unfair that I have to deal with the consequences of my own actions.

Renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America? Seriously? He really is a petty little twat.

New book launch day (sort of). Hellequin Chronicles Interludes collects 3 previously released novellas and 3 short stories into one book.

Coyote vs. Acme is magnificent. Go watch it immediately.

Nothing like having to get the fire brigade out because the mains electricity cable is smouldering. Caught just in time. Not the best morning ever.

As an author who has been accused of using AI (apparently I write too fast to be done by a human), my response is to just ignore anyone suggesting it, as they’re clearly a moron. I’ve never used AI for any part of my writing and never will. Seems reasonable to me.

We need to show rightwing newspapers that actions have consequences. Add your name: goodlawproject.org/s/abb8a1

A big thank you to all the kind words people said about my 1st book, Crimes Against Magic. While after 15 years, I can look at it and see things I would do differently, I’m still incredibly proud of that book and what I’ve accomplished since. Onwards to published book 36.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day was absolutely brilliant. I’ve enjoyed all of the Tom Holland Spider-Man films, and BND is probably the best. I think Sadie Sink is going to be a huge star too.

9000 words written today. Wrote a few chapters that went in a direction I wasn’t expecting, but I think it kind of worked out. We shall see.

The best thing about publicly stating my disdain for generative AI, is all of these tech bros come out of the woodwork to tell me how stupid I am. And I get to block them all. It’s fucking glorious.

All 5 of the urban fantasy series, Riftborn. “A master story teller.”