Amazon’s Omnivoracious blog, written by Jeff VanderMeer, is currently running a piece on Tim Lebbon’s Echo City.

“In Echo City, I set myself a challenge that I didn’t truly appreciate until I was well into the writing process,” says Lebbon. “By then Echo City had grabbed me and whisked me away, and I was feeling my way through its streets and squares, enjoying the process of discovery that any good writing experience entails. These places were not yet familiar to me, other than as shades in my imagination. Writing the book illuminated the shades – giving them shape and form, adding color, and hinting at hidden routes yet to be explored. Because writers are explorers, and in creating Echo City I was required to visit places deeper than I’d anticipated. Every new fantasy world is only as real as the histories it is built upon, but in Echo City those histories were literal, and the building-upon was a very real idea.”

You can read the entire piece here: Echo City: Tim Lebbon

“Chris Golden and I have delivered our script for The Secret Journeys Of Jack London: The Wild to Fox 2000.

“The Jack London series has sold in Germany and France, with more foreign rights interest all the time.

“I’m currently working on a new novel for Orbit in the UK, as well as a couple of screenplays (one a collaboration), a collaborative YA novel, a couple of TV series proposals, some comics ideas, and another novel idea or two. Oh, and there are some short stories screaming to be written, and a novella or two. Never a dull moment, and that’s just how I like it.

“The end of this month marks four years since I left my previous job at Monmouthshire County Council to write full time. It remains the best decision I ever made, and I’ll write a longer post about what those four years brought, and what the next year or two might bring. Exciting things are afoot.”

You can keep up with other Lebbon projects at his website: Tim Lebbon

Cemetery Dance Publications has announced the publication of Four Rode Out, a brand new special edition by Tim Curran, Brian Keene, Tim Lebbon, and Steve Vernon. This signed Limited Edition features cover and interior artwork by Glenn Chadbourne, plus an insightful introduction by Ronald Kelly.

Description: Welcome to the West — as wild as you never imagined.

Four of the toughest and most terrifying authors of horror and hooraw have banded together to create a quartet of wicked weird west novellas.

Brian Keene’s “An Occurrence in Crazy Bear Valley” is a nasty look at a pack of cutthroat outlaws who find they’ve placed their boots into a bear trap of their own devising.

Tim Lebbon’s “Another Hope” is the tale of a town besieged in a valley of unholy and ageless shadow.

Tim Curran’s “Skull-Eater Campaign” will take traders on the trail of a fearsome cannibal band — right to the end of the trail and a little bit further.

Steve Vernon’s “Rueful Regret” will let you know just how far one man will go to avenge a wrong done to him by another.

Greed and guilt, creatures and fiends, spurs and skulls, cold blooded gunplay and hot blooded horror. The west is weirder than you’ve ever dreamed…

You can order directly from Cemetery Dance here: Four Rode Out

books@torontoist is currently running an excellent interview with author Tim Lebbon. Here’s a peek:

“For me, all horror fiction is about death—our dealing with it, fear of it, contemplation of it.” So says Tim Lebbon, horror and dark fantasy writer, and author of The Thief of Broken Toys. Lebbon isn’t afraid to confront the most emotionally and spiritually painful of human experiences. “I’ve written lots of stories about grief and loss, but only experienced true grief four years ago when my mother died,” he says. “Since then I’ve felt I can write about it with a clearer understanding of what it entails, and the complex forms grief can sometimes take. The most powerful stories I’ve written, I think, are about loss.”

Catch the entire interview here: Tim Lebbon

ChiZine Publications’ is running a book contest for Tim Lebbon’s The Thief of Broken Toys. Purchase a copy of the book from Amazon on June 1st, 2010 and you could win a two-year book subscription from ChiZine Publications. That’s every book they publish for the next two years!

All you have to do is purchase a copy of The Thief of Broken Toys on June 1st, 2010 from Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, or Amazon.co.uk, and forward CZP your electronic receipt showing the date of purchase. You will then be entered into a random draw to win a two-year subscription to our trade paperback line (roughly a $450 value!). There will be one subscription available to each of the three Amazon sites.

However, if The Thief of Broken Toys makes it into the top 100 on any of the three Amazon sites, an additional two-year trade paperback subscription will be given away.

And if The Thief of Broken Toys makes it into the top 10 on any of the three Amazon sites, a one-year signed limited edition hardcover subscription to ChiZine Publications will be given away for each site (roughly a $650 value).

The drawing will be held on June 3rd, 2010.

From the May edition of Publishers Weekly: “A father’s inconsolable grief over his son’s untimely death opens a door to a potentially redemptive supernatural experience in this poignant but meandering novella. Since young Toby died in his sleep, Ray has wandered the streets of the little Cornish fishing village of Skentipple in a fog of misery, watching his ex-wife rebuild her life. A chance encounter with an enigmatic old man seems to hold out the prospect of Ray’s own emotional healing—though, as becomes apparent, at a very dear price. Lebbon (Bar None) superbly captures the thoughts and feelings of a man whose misery so unhinges him that an encounter with the uncanny is unavoidable, but too often Ray’s self-pity comes across as artlessly repetitive and padded. An idea that might have made a haunting short story seems underdeveloped at this greater length.”