One Dead Hen on the NOT THE BOOKER PRIZE longlist

Hey, Royston Blake is getting some minor recognition. Obviously what he really wants is to win the Nobel Prize for Doormanship, but in the meantime ONE DEAD HEN, his latest outing, has been put on the longlist for the Not The Booker Prize.

In order to reach the shortlist, he needs votes. The book has only just come out, but if you can, please give this book the nod. Shortlists are pretty thin on the ground around here! Voting is a little bit of a pain, but here is what you have to do (bastardised from the Graun's own instructions):

1. Go to this page for One Dead Hen

2. Write a review of no fewer than 150 words in which you try to give a flavour of the book and of its plot and explain why you think the book is important and why others might like it. Then hit submit.

3. Once it has appeared on the page, hit the "link" button that appears in the top right-hand corner of the box containing your review. When the link text appears, "copy" it.

4. Return to this Not the Booker prize page. Go to the comments box at the bottom. Type Vote: Charlie Williams, One Dead Hen into the comments field. After that you type something like: "Here is my review." Highlight that text with my mouse, and hit the button above the comment field that says "link". A prompt box appears asking for a "web address". Paste the copied text in. Hit "post your comment".

5. Get yourself a beer.


This is all a bit academic - the book has only just come out and not that many will have read it. But hey, one can hope. Eye of the tiger! And to whoever nominated me, thanks"

Three Live Reviews

One Dead Hen gets the Nerd of Noir treatment over at Spinetingler:

One Dead Hen is an oil-black comedy, with many of the biggest laughs (and I no-shit laughed audibly many times, in public even, like a fucking keep-your-kids-close creepo) coming from Blake’s misunderstanding or pointed misrepresentation of a given situation. But while the comedy may keep you laughing (even when, say, Blake accidentally smothers someone to death in hopes of seeing if they were just pretending to be unconscious), Williams is also constructing a sly mystery around our hero, and it’s up to the reader’ careful attention to Blake’s context clues (and some insane newspaper articles) to figure out what’s really rotten in Mangel.

Also some great recent reviews at You Would say That, Wouldn't You? and The Paper Tiger's Roar Feed. Mucho grateful to all three of these top bods for taking the trouble. And to you, dear reader, for thinking about checking the book out for yourself. Oh, you weren't, you were just checking the latest riot reports on Sky News.

One Dead Hen Day

ONE DEAD HEN is published today. I must admit, I sometimes wondered if this day would ever happen. But Royston Blake is back, which is cause for celebration, right? Unless you live in Mangel. If you live in Mangel, very little is a cause for celebration - least of all the presence of Blakey.

If you want to find out what Blakey did next - or you feel like supporting something different - you can get it here (UK), and here (US).

To coincide, I did a piece about the book (and Blakey in general) for the Kindle Post blog.

One Dead Hen in the Guardian

Hey, check out p9 of today's Guardian Review for a great, erm, review of One Dead Hen, the new Royston Blake vehicle. Or just read it here.

And while we laugh at the absurdity of the story, Williams does just enough to create the nagging worry that it isn't so unreal after all; that Royston is only as much of a caricature as the sensitive intellectual in the Hampstead novel or Jonathan Franzen's troubled Americans. The hideous town of Mangel, meanwhile, with its casual violence, unmanageable drinking and psychotic conservatism, offers up a vision of Britain that seems all too familiar. Royston may have trouble with words of more than two syllables and antediluvian attitudes to everything, but he produces one of the most challenging social commentaries you are likely to read this year. AmazonEncore has rescued an excellent book.

So Royston Blake gets all the credit yet again. Typical!

Many thanks to Sam Jordison for the review.

Writer waffles about writing

Interview with me over at Iain Rowan's excellent "More News from Nowhere" blog. Check it out if you want to know what I think about writing. Then go check the other interviews with the likes of Ray Banks, Julie Morrigan, Keith Brooke, Paul D Brazill, Gary McMahon and literally shitloads of other top book writing folks. Then go and download Iain's collection, Nowhere to Go, onto your Kindle.

Elsewhere, an article about the Royston Blake books with a Facebook angle on Norway's Stavanger Aftenblad newspaper. If you cannot understand Norwegian, fret not - it just looks really interesting. And the word "fart" is in the title.

Blakey on Tour - Aside #6 and final

I have purged Blakey on Tour from this blog. Sorry if you were planning on going back to it (for whatever strange reason). Fact is, I have been working it into a novel offline, which is nearing the end now, so I don't want people discovering the first draft on here. Actually I don't care, but it seems neater this way. Hmm... maybe deleting it all wasn't such a good idea? Fuck it - done now. I'll let you know how the novel goes. If I can only find it...

Meantimes, ONE DEAD HEN publication date is drawing near. You can pre-order it here and here, "like" it here (go on), and read about it here and here. Any way you look at it, Blakey is on his way back.

One Dead Hen

The new Royston Blake book, ONE DEAD HEN, comes out on August 9th. I have set up a Facebook page to get things going, so if you are a fan of Royston Blake (or just want to support an author) and you are on Facebook, please "like" it. I will be presenting a random "liker" of the page with a free ARC of the book EVERY DAY between now and the 9th. Am I making it worth your while or what? So get liking. And then get reading.

King for a day

Today marks the re-publication of King of the Road, third in the so-called Mangel Trilogy which is set to become a tetralogy (or let's just say "series"). It comes out from AmazonEncore in the UK/US and I guess worldwide, having previously been done by Serpent's Tail in the UK. In many ways this is my favourite book, and I think it finally has a cover to do it justice.

You can pick it up for £2.49/$3.99 on Kindle and £8.09/$7.99 paperback. Give it a go. If you haven't read the previous two, don't worry - it stands alone. As does Royston Blake. Here is a blurb, followed by a couple of juicy quotes:

Released after a long stretch at Parpham Mental Hospital, Royston Blake finds that the world has moved on. Even in Mangel. Gone are most of his old haunts, including Hoppers. In its place: a huge shopping mall, servicing the town's every consumer need. But not everyone is happy seeing the old ways swept aside, and the "Old Guard" - a mysterious opposition group well known on the letters page of the local paper - sets about recruiting Blake as its agent of retribution. Meanwhile Blake just wants to settle down with Sal, get to know the son he has never met, and do the right thing.

"I can hear the politically correct mustering for duty, sharpening their swords and measuring lengths of rope for Charlie Williams's cheeky neck. They may have a point, for his hero Royston Blake is a psychotic whirlwind whose reason is as fragile and chaotic as his body is strong - but, hell, this is gloriously funny stuff and so original that other writers must be gnashing their teeth in jealousy"
The Guardian

"Blackly funny and bone-jarringly violent... Williams' latest offering comes across like a heady literary mix between Straw Dogs and Pulp Fiction"
Dublin Evening Herald

Blakey on Tour - aside #5

8 things about "Blakey on Tour", the ongoing story on my blog:

1. Sorry I have not been updating it


2. I am still writing it


3. In fact I am writing it so much that it is going to be another novel (but with a different title)


4. I have had to go back and put things in, which is why I can't do it on the blog any more


5. Also some of the material doesn't feel right on my blog, if you get my drift


6. A huge thanks to anyone who read it up to this point. The fact that people were following it is what got it going. I owe you one. Writing a chapter and then immediately posting it up and seeing hits on it was a strange and exhilerating thing


7. If this book never sees light of day, I'll try to track down every last person who followed it and get the manuscript to them, should they wish to read it


8. Royston Blake lives on!
   

Dancing with himself

I interviewed myself for Nigel Bird's blog, Sea Minor. Check it out here. I've done a few of these self-interrogation things and I'm not sure they're healthy. I think I am going slightly insaner with each one. What makes you think that, Charlie? I dunno, just seems like... hey, pack that in!

You could wait for a lifetime...

...to spend your days in the sun-shee-yine.

Oh, hi there. Say, did you know that I am guest blogging today over at David Belbin's blog, talking about Booze and Burn / Fags and Lager, the second installment in the ongoing story of Royston Blake? You can also hear "Cigarettes and Alcohol" there, a song which I chose for the occasion. Is that a leftfield choice or what? Many thanks to David.

Erm, did I mention that Booze and Burn is going cheap on Kindle? £1.99/$2.99. Oh, I did, didn't I? I guess I've done it again.

Blakey on Tour - aside #4

I am still cracking on with this, just holding it back a bit as we get into the nitty gritty territory. Thanks for reading this far, those who have. There will be more soon. Come rain, high water or shit storm, Blakey's Tour will continue