The down time is over, and my site is back — and looking very spiffy indeed! If you haven’t already, do stop by the main site and take a look.
The site was designed and rebuilt by Mr Andy Tran; if you’d like to pay him a visit you can find his site here.
There are some new features and some improved features, so I’m putting a quick tour below.
Current Projects
I know that some people visit the site looking for information about what I’m doing now, and what might be coming up later. At the top of the left sidebar there’s now a little pic showing my current book, and how far I’ve got with writing it.
Beneath that is the project queue, where I’ll list which books I’m planning to write next.
Existing Titles
The only book in my sidebar will, from now on, be my newest publication, as the books coverage has moved elsewhere.
One of my favourite things about the new site is the slider at the top, containing a rotating sequence of my book covers (and, later on, related art). If you click on it, it’ll take you through to my books page which has now been reformatted to look all clear and beautiful. You might note that you can browse by series, and clicking on any book cover will take you to a new page with synopsis and buy links. I’ll be keeping this updated with every title I publish.
Spindrift
I’ve been co-writing for the Spindrift fantasy web comic for a long time now, but it didn’t get much promotion on the old site. Now it has a lovely big pic, with links to the comic if you click on it.
The Draykon world map also gets a pride-of-place picture, so you can check out the full-colour large-size map if you want to.
Comments
I have a new comments system, operated by Disqus. This is more socialified and shareable, and also quite jazzy. You’ll also notice a comments stream in the sidebar.
Contacts
My contacts page has also had a revamp. It’s now bigger, shinier and (I hope) easier to use. Please feel free to use it!
Find Sigwide
There is a Sigwide hiding in multiple places around the site. Spotted him yet? 
Okay, that’s it! I hope you like the new site — let me know what you think below, if you feel like it — and I’ll be back next week with a new topic.
Hi chaps,
My site is getting a makeover! Yes!!
This means it will be having some downtime for a few days while we style and blow-dry its hair, apply make-up and overhaul its wardrobe. This will be starting later today.
It will come back looking ultra fabulous by the end of the week! In the meantime, I’ll be online as usual on Twitter and Facebook.
At last, at long last, I have stumbled upon an area of strong common interest between my home country and my adopted country.
I knew it had to happen eventually.
That area of common interest is the glorious tradition of the BARBECUE.
We aren’t alone in our appreciation of the bbq, I’m sure. What possibly marks us out among the many other countries who enjoy cooking and eating outdoors is our absolute, unshakeable determination to do it, no matter what. We will not let such minor inconveniences as awful weather get in our way. We don’t care that we tend to have about a week of truly fine weather out of every fifty-two. If the sun shines in early April and the temperature goes over ten degrees, quick! GET OUT THE BARBECUE.
There is even such a thing as terrace heaters, which will, at the exorbitant cost of a huge amount of electricity, warm up our patios for us so we can barbecue things even if it’s barely just squeaking over ten degrees. The supermarkets are delighted to help us out with it, gaily stocking tons of meat helpfully labelled BBQ the very moment that April begins. The home-supplies shops put away their Christmas decorations and in January and immediately replace them with barbecue gear, so we’ve got plenty of time (ten or twelve or sixteen miserable weeks…) to make sure we’re prepared. Ah… that lovely, acrid smell of barbecue smoke and petrol. Just perfect.
The truly awful nature of the average barbecue doesn’t deter most of us, either. Never mind if the sausages are black on the outside and raw in the middle; we’re OUTSIDE! Eating! If we shut our eyes for a moment, wrap the jumpers a little closer around our shivering arms and lean our heads back against our padded outdoor chairs, we can almost – almost – pretend that we’re in the south of France. Just for a few seconds.
I’ve quite often heard variations on the following comment:
‘You know what, Draykon would make a great film!’
Ooooh well… let’s face it, chances of that happening are pretty slim. But it’s fun to toy with the idea! Superfun. Fun is good, SO! I have decided to carry this idea through to its oh-so-logical conclusion and make a Draykon dream cast.
WITH fan art, courtesy of the brilliant Elsa Kroese.
Muahaha.
But but, who to choose for my dream cast? I don’t know about you, but the moment I started thinking about it I came up with far too many names for some characters – and not enough for others. So I’d like some input. What are your thoughts on the perfect people to play Llandry, Pensould, Eva, Tren, Devary, Ynara, Aysun and Limbane?
Here’s my list so far. You may notice *ahem* that I have shamelessly plundered the cast lists of Firefly, Castle, Moonlight, Stardust and Galaxy Quest… plus a few other geek favourites.
Llandry Sanfaer:
Molly Quinn (Castle)
Summer Glau (Firefly)
Ruth Wilson (Jane Eyre)
Tren Warvel:
Sean Maher (Firefly)
Ben Barnes (Stardust, Narnia)
Lady Eva Glostrum:
Morena Baccarin (Firefly)
Stana Katic (Castle)
Sophia Myles (Moonlight)
Pensould:
Nathan Fillion (Castle, Firefly)
Matt Smith (Dr Who)
Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception)
Devary Kant:
Nathan Fillion (Castle, Firefly)
Alex O’Loughlin (Moonlight)
Ynara Sanfaer:
Michelle Pfeiffer (Stardust)
Rachel Weisz (The Mummy)
Aysun Sanfaer:
Alan Rickman (Galaxy Quest)
Limbane:
Jim Broadbent (Narnia)
Ian McKellen (The Lord of the Rings)
I’m not suggesting, by the way, that Nathan Fillion should play Pensould and Devary. I just can’t decide (in my hypothetical universe where this would ever be possible) which part he’d be better for.
Anyway, I could go on with this all day, but I won’t. Here’s my list of possibles. What do you think? Got anyone else to suggest? Let me know!
