Hi everyone! My blog has now moved over to my brand new website, which you can find here:

http://www.alexandergordonsmith.com/blog

This will be my last post on this blog, so be sure to follow me over!

Thanks for reading!

My worst fear: a slug dressed like a clown!!

Check out my post about scary things over on Trapped By Monsters!

Hi everyone, I hope you all had a great weekend! I had a pretty cool one! On Friday I met up with the brilliant Sarwat Chadda, author of Devil's Kiss and Dark Goddess. We had a burger and a good old natter about writing. I love the fact that Facebook and blogs and Twitter et al let you communicate with other writers twenty-four hours a day, but nothing beats meeting up face to face the old fashioned way! Sarwat's new series, the Ash Mistry Chronicles, comes out next year and it sounds AWESOME!!! It's going to be huge.

Now that the tour is out of the way I'm throwing myself into a few new projects, and this weekend I started writing not one but two new books. The first is something I haven't tried before, and I don't really want to say anything about it yet because the chances are it won't work! The other one is a book for younger readers that I'm writing alongside Lynsey and Lucy. It's going really well so far, and we should hopefully have the first book finished in a couple of weeks. I'll tell you more about it soon!

The weekend was also spent doing Fear Driven Films things as we're planning a new film project which should be quite interesting. We've got a title, Sola Gratia, and a script, and we've even begun casting for it. I'll fill in more details as they emerge! Anyway, lots of shiny new things!

Have a lovely week!

I didn't win the award, but I got a slice of this awesome cake, so really I'm the winner!!!!

This week I was honoured to be able to attend the wonderful Wandsworth Fabulous Book Award ceremony for the second year in a row! Last year Furnace Lockdown was shortlisted, and came second (after Rachel Ward's Numbers), and this year it was Death Sentence's chance to vie for the coveted award.

It was an absolutely wonderful morning, with pupils from seven local schools taking part – including Ashcroft Academy, my second home in London. Each school did a presentation on their favourite book (or books) from the shortlist, and the highlight of my morning was when the awesome pupils from Graveney did their presentation on Death Sentence. They even acted out the scene where Alex, Zee and Simon make it to the control room and face off with a Blacksuit. It was brilliant! They also held a Furnace quiz, and I won a Mars Bar for getting an answer right (although I kind of felt like I was cheating, since I wrote the books...)!

Some awesome comments about Death Sentence!

After the presentations and some discussion groups the winner was announced. And it wasn't me!! I wasn't even in the top three this year!!! But I managed to ignore my urge to grab the award and run away and settled for a lovely bottle of bubbly and a piece of the awesome Fab Award cake. The winner was Alyxandra Harvey for My Love Lies Bleeding, which is a vampire book. I guess you really can't compete with lovelorn vampires! But she lives in America, and although they are sending her the award I doubt she'll get a bit of cake, so who's the real winner? Me!

Anyway, congratulations Alyxandra, and thanks to Susan and everybody at the award for a wonderful day! Maybe I'll be back next year, and you never know – one of these days I might be the bride instead of the bridesmaid!!

This is a message to everybody who has finished reading Furnace 5 – everybody else, look away!!!

Okay, the epilogue that is promised at the end of Furnace 5 has been written, but it hasn't quite made it online yet. This is one hundred per cent my fault, and I offer a million apologies to those of you who are waiting to find out what happens after the end of the story! The epilogue is now with my publisher, and it should hopefully be available to read sometime next week. I'll keep you posted on how it goes, and let you know as soon as it's online!

I'm really sorry about that!! It's worth the wait!!

My Aberdeenshire B&B... Not!

I'm just back from a whirlwind tour in Scotland to celebrate the launch of Furnace 5 this month. I had a fantastic time! I was back in Aberdeenshire, where I was last year for the Grampian Book Awards. It's absolutely gorgeous up there, with the countryside and the coast and the hills (we don't have hills where I'm from so it's always nice to see them)! A trip up north always feels more like a holiday than a tour!

I didn't get to relax, though, far from it! I did twenty-two shows during the week across Inverurie, Fraserburgh, Ellon, Newburgh, Turriff and Meldrum, speaking to well over a thousand people. I also did a few creative writing sessions for teachers and probationary teachers, which was great fun! By the end of the week I was exhausted but exhilarated, and I'd just like to say a HUGE thanks to everybody in Aberdeenshire – especially the pupils, the teachers, the librarians and Marion, who organised it all for me – for being so friendly and so welcoming and so enthusiastic about reading and writing. Aberdeenshire is fast becoming my second home, and I'm looking forward to coming back next year!

I was really looking forward to staying on in Aberdeen afterwards to spend some time with my Uncle Frank and cousin Allie, but on the Friday I was feeling really, really ill so decided to head straight home (ten hours of puking on the train, fun!). I had to save my strength because on Tuesday I was straight back into the fray with another return trip, this time to the wonderful Ashcroft Academy in Wandsworth. I was there last year for the Fab Book Awards, and it was great to see everybody again and speak to this year's Year 8s. Hi everyone, and thanks for making me feel so welcome again! I'm back in London for the Fab Book Awards next week – Death Sentence has been shortlisted. Keep your fingers crossed for me!!

Until then, though, it's nice to be back at home for a few days, putting my feet up, writing and trying not to get too addicted to Sims 3... :-)

As my Facebook friends will know from my constant whining, I've been horribly ill for the last couple of weeks. What started with the flu fast became an evil attack of tonsillitis, and to top it all off I managed to put my back out too – which meant that I couldn't talk or walk for a few days. I'm still feeling groggier than a drunken, one-legged pirate trying to walk from bow to stern in a storm, but I think I'm slowly on the mend.

Two pieces of good news helped cheer me up this week, though. The first is that I saw a visual for the cover of the Polish Furnace, which I've posted above. Isn't it awesome?! I was absolutely blown away when I saw it. For those of us who don't speak Polish, Otchlan means 'Abyss' and Potrzasku (according to Google Translate) means 'Trapped'. I'm so excited to see the finished book – I'll let you know as soon as I hear a release date!

The second piece of good news is that I saw the first review of Execution (the fifth and final Furnace book, which comes out in a couple of weeks). And it's a great one! A HUGE thanks to John Lloyd and The Bookbag for this review, and all the other Furnace reviews over the last couple of years! :-)

Oh, and there are spoilers here for anyone who hasn't read Death Sentence and Fugitives!


"And so to the end. Alex and his closest friends have escaped the Furnace Penitentiary, that mile-deep hell-hole cum nightmare scientific experiment writ large. He's arisen to find the country in tatters, as the nasty creatures born there are in charge and decimating the population. There is only one thing to do - kill the man responsible. And Alex, eight feet tall, with an obsidian blade for an arm and muscles upon his muscles, will still face his hardest battle yet.

Hi everyone! I've spent the last month working solidly on the book I started in November, and have finally got it finished! It's pretty epic, at 150,000 words, but it's a hell of a story. It still doesn't have an official title, but it's looking more and more like it might be called THE FURY. This may change, though! I signed the contracts for it last week, so I can officially give you a teaser of what the book is about:

Check out my post about writing to music over on Trapped By Monsters!

Happy 2011 everybody! I hope it's a fantastic year for all of you, and that you get everything you could ever desire!

I was planning to blog a roundup of 2010, but the year just went so bloody quickly that I never got the chance. Suffice to say it was an excellent year with some great writing, a new book, wonderful times with friends and family and the beginnings of some very exciting new projects. But out with the old and in with the new, as they say, and my sights are now firmly on the year ahead!

So what are my plans for 2011? Well, one thing that didn't go so well last year was my attempt to write eight books... I wrote two. And a half. Yes, it was a little ambitious and maybe I shouldn't have been quite so tipsy when I announced it. So this year I'm not going to rush to try and finish a certain number of books. Instead I'm going to divide the year up into projects. Twelve of them.

I'm not sure what they all are yet, but I've already begun work on a few. The first is my new YA horror novel, which is so new that it doesn't even have a title yet. The second is probably the screenplay I'm working on for The Inventors. An Inventors film would be SO AMAZING and because there hasn't been much interest I thought I'd just have a go at it myself. There's also a short horror film I'd like to make, and of course the feature film Stagnant, which will hopefully finally begin shooting this year. There are a couple of much smaller projects that I'd like to work on as well, which I'll tell you about if they ever happen! In all, these twelve projects will probably involve more work than the whole eight-books-one-year debacle, but planning it this way makes it seem like less hard work.

Another thing I'll be doing more of this year is blogging! I've got a US blog tour starting on the 5th January and lasting all month, and I'll be sure to link to all my posts from here. It's going to be ace!

Anyway, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas break, and here's to a brilliant 2011!

Christmas is almost upon us – just 19 days to go until the jolly old fat bloke squeezes down our chimneys and deposits sweet little droppings beneath the tree. I can't wait! It's my favourite time of year! I've already got a Christmas tree (actually I got two this year, one for the front of the house and one for the back) and everywhere you go there are sparkling lights, cosy greetings and merry music.

Well, almost everywhere you go... Because this year, to celebrate Christmas, the Chainsaw Gang (the group of bloodthirsty YA horror writers to which I proudly belong) have decided to shun colourful baubles and fluffy red stockings and celebrate with our very own version of The 12 Days of Christmas. Rest assured there are no pipers piping, maids a milking or turtle doves in this version (not unless you count the pie that Sarwat cooked for us all to eat whilst we were writing it), just plenty of... You'll have to wait and see!

Starting today, and running for the next 12 days (duh!) we'll reveal our masterpiece on some of our favourite blogs, along with our answers to a whole bunch of questions the bloggers posed to us (if you want to know which of us has really seen a ghost then check it out)! The schedule, and first line, can be found on the wonderful My Favourite Books blog, along with instructions for the next stop!

Enjoy, and have a very bloody Christmas!!

There was a package waiting for me outside my door this morning, and when I opened it I found myself face to face with just about the best looking book I've ever seen in my life!! The hardback US version of Furnace 2: Solitary, is absolutely stunning, and I'm so thrilled to finally see it. It's only six weeks now until it's released in the States, but I wanted to give you a sneak preview of what it looked like!


I've also had another couple of reviews in for Solitary, which I've pasted below. Right, I'm off to sit and drool over the book for a few more hours!


Thanks to everyone at FSG for making this so AWESOME!!!


The first review if from the School Library Journal:
Alex Sawyer, 14, is in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. He tried to escape the horrors of the underground prison known as Furnace in Lockdown (Farrar, 2009), and now he must battle the nightmare that is solitary confinement. The cells open from the top through a sort of manhole cover, and they are more like coffins standing on end than cells. Alex must fight the monsters and mutants that are his captors and tormentors, including the dreaded wheezers that have gas masks sewn to what should be their faces and the vicious rat and doglike creatures that spoiled their escape attempt. Alex’s friend Donavan was thought to be dead, but as it turns out is part of the horrors going on in the infirmary. There are several disturbing episodes when Alex is alone with his thoughts in his cell, and his fatalism or depression leads him to contemplate suicide. The rest of this story is fast paced and packed with nail-biting scenarios, and the gross-out factor is high in many sections. Alex is coaxed into a leadership role by some of the creatures and his friend Zee, who occupies an adjoining cell, and through their attempt at another escape, discovers what is really happening to inmates in the infirmary. This is a dark story with a dark ending, but the gritty action and compelling characters will have reluctant readers enthralled.
Jake Pettit, Thompson Valley High School, Loveland, CO

And the second is from Booklist:

In a sequel to Lockdown (2009) that is just as breathlessly paced and soaked with blood, mucus, and less savory substances, teen jailbird Alex’s escape from the futuristic underground prison and experimental lab called Furnace leads first to recapture and then to a second flight that involves frantic chases through dark caverns and tunnels, face-to-face encounters with flesh chewing human-rat hybrids, and visits to a gruesome “Infirmary,” in which prisoners are modified into hideous monsters. Readers who relish lurid imagery and melodramatic prose will continue to be riveted and left eager for the next disgust-o-rama episode.

John Peters

"Disgust-o-rama" I love it!

Brilliant Changeling author Steve Feasey has reviewed my books and given me the infamous Chainsaw Gang interrogation over on his blog! Check it out!

Steve Feasey's Blog!

Thanks Steve!

Two great reviews for Solitary have just come in. The first is from the Voice of Youth Advocates:

Alex Sawyer has been sent to Furnace Penitentiary, a place where teenagers are sent to disappear. Alex and his friends have seen many horrors—the wheezers with their black suits and gas masks, the monstrous dogs that chase them through the corridors of Furnace, and the infirmary where the inmates are turned into creatures that are far from human. Alex wants out, and in a bad way. He and his compatriots have managed to blast their way even deeper into the confines of Furnace, but a way out still eludes them. Alex and Zee have now been sent to solitary, a place where most prisoners lose their minds. In the small confines of his cell, Alex begins to hallucinate, seeing the ghostly image of his friend Donovan who was captured by the warden. Donavan tells Alex to snap out of it, and thankfully he does, recapturing what little sanity he has left to formulate a plan. Will the plan work? There’s no way of knowing, since everything in Furnace has a way of going horribly wrong.

            Once again, Smith has created a thrill ride that will leave the audience wanting more. Smith’s prose is fast paced, witty, and sometimes downright terrifying. Some of the images he creates could manifest into a nightmare or two. Teens who are looking for a great thriller/horror story will definitely want to pick up these novels. Look for the third installment in this series to debut in June of 2011.—Jonatha Bayse.

And the next, slightly less positive review, is from Kirkus:

After being swept away in an underground river moments after escaping from Furnace Penitentiary, Alex is quickly recaptured by the cruel blacksuit guards and placed in an isolation cell. Though confined, he clings to hope through tapped communiqués with his fellow failed escapee Zee, hallucinatory appearances from his friend Donovan and strange visits from a mysterious creature named Simon. Adrenaline-fueled action infuses the narrative as it did in Lockdown(2009), keeping the pages turning. Alex's forays into self-reflection are less convincing; in Smith's effort to create an antihero, he has given Alex too many flaws to generate much sympathy. Donovan's dialogue is an especially transparent device to create emotional growth. The twisted monsters that patrol the prison are still satisfyingly brutal, however, even though readers now know to expect them lurking around dark corners. While the revelations and ending are not surprising, the author knows what keeps his readers locked to the page and delivers it soundly. (Thriller. YA)

Donovan's dialogue wasn't an attempt to create emotional growth at all, it was Alex's (subconscious) way of staying sane and staying alive, but never mind!

Awesome reviews, though, thanks everyone!

It gives me great pleasure today to host the second stop in our gore-soaked Chainsaw Gang tour!

"The figure’s body was bathed in firelight, the rocking chair horribly still. Its head was bald, the skin ripped away in strips and in places Lazarus, horrified and scared beyond anything he’d ever experienced in his life before, could see the milky glow of bone. Its ears were gone, nothing more than stumps that looked like melted candles. The face was a mass of tears and cuts, slicing across it this way and that, the nose severed in half. The mouth had no lips; just great, bloody wounds where they looked like they had been torn off. Its teeth reflected the fire."

Prepare for bloodshed, screams, spattered brains and the nostril-burning stench of gasoline... The Chainsaw Gang tour has begun! It begins today on the blog of our gang leader Sarwat Chadda, who is interviewing fellow death merchant Sarah Silverwood.  Tomorrow I'll be interviewing Lord of the Damned David Gatward, and over the next couple of weeks the rest of the gang will be introducing each other. It's going to be bloody brilliant...

Not only will you get to know some of the best up and coming writers in the genres of horror and dark fantasy, you will also stand a chance of winning signed copies of the latest books by every single Chainsaw author! That's a lot of books.


Here’s how the competition works:

Part Four of my horror-writing workshop is now live over on the Trapped By Monsters site!

Have fun!

http://www.trappedbymonsters.com/2010/10/write-your-own-scary-stories-part-four/

A fantastic review of Lockdown can be found on the awesome Book Zone for Boys site. Thanks Darren!!!

http://bookzone4boys.blogspot.com/2010/09/review-escape-from-furnace-lockdown-by.html

A great review for Fugitives has just appeared on the Bookbag website. Thanks John! :-)

http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php?title=Furnace:_Fugitives_by_Alexander_Gordon_Smith