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A phone call from Danny Baror to confirm that Random House Canada have bought THE SALT ROAD and the (working title) SULTAN'S BOY: which makes me very happy indeed after the great publicity tour I did last year for THE TENTH GIFT there. Kristin and Maya, I'm so looking forward to working with you again.

Meanwhile I delivered the first 3 chapters and the much fuller outline of THE SULTAN'S BOY (otherwise known as the Moulay Ismail book) at the start of the week to Venetia at Viking/Penguin and am pleased and relieved to report that she loves them. So that gives me new heart to speed on, which is just as well since I am rather in love with my central character... though I am sure it is very bad form. I may post the first few pages up on the site soon.

I had lunch today with my children's book publisher, the remarkable Marion Lloyd at Scholastic, who will be publishing MASKMAKER in March, and the new book, THE GOLDSEEKERS, the year after that. (More Moroccan pirates and magic to come in the latter!) It has been so good to sit and talk about books and publishing and life with her and Venetia this week, both so passionate, committed and sane in the face of all the odds in this tough, cut-throat arena which is the modern book industry.

It's been quite a summer at HarperCollins: regime change, more and more and more work; and visits from some of my favourite authors. First came the wonderful Robin Hobb (Megan Lindholm) whom I've been publishing for over 20 years now, to promote her new novel, THE DRAGON KEEPER. Megan is always such a joy to spend time with: she's one of the nicest people I've encountered in my 25 years in the industry, and one of the finest writers too. I thoroughly recommend her return to the Rain Wilds:



Then in September my old friend Kim Stanley Robinson came through London on his way to guesting in Venice at a festival to celebrate Galileo's development of the telescope, coinciding rather beautifully with our publication of the magnificent GALILEO'S DREAM, showcased here in a fine piece by Guardian journalist Alison Flood.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/nov/10/kim-stanley-robinson-science

And finally, yesterday I got to spend some time with the legendary George RR Martin, over in the UK to visit the sets where HBO are filming the pilot episode of A GAME OF THRONES, which could be the finest ever tv fantasy epic. We have his superb anthology tribute to Jack Vance out this month: the signing queues went round and round the block in Belfast, Dublin and London's Forbidden Planet. Oddly, in that strange synchronicity which happens so frequently in my life, George flew out of London for Marrakech this morning, to see the desert and Dothraki scenes being filmed in and around Ouarzazate. The really exciting news, other than the potential HBO series, is that we might get the long-awaited DANCE OF DRAGONS soon. I cannot wait.

It's odd to be packing up to return to Morocco for the winter, but at the same time be planning what on earth I'm going to say in my talk at the Festival of Writing in York when I come back in April 2010 about 'keeping it real: the balance between fact and fantasy in fiction' - truth is, I've always been drawn to the exotic and the bizarre, and no matter how realistic the fiction I'm writing, it always creeps in somehow. Or just happens to me and manages to sneak in that way. Honestly, some of the research I've been doing for the new novel, set in the 1670s and 80s in the court of Sultan Moulay Ismail, the bloodthirsty ruler of Morocco who was a contemporary of Louis XIV, beggars belief.

Here's a sample: 'Among Ismail's particular treasures were his collection of cats. There were 40 of them, each of which came when he called it by name. He always fed them himself, throwing whole quarters of mutton into their cages. But one animal committed the indiscretion of eating a rabbit in the royal rabbit-warren. 'This Crime,' notes a European visitor to the court 'seem'd to deserve an exemplary Punishment. The King accordingly gave orders that an Executioner should take the Cat, that he should drag it along the Streets of Mequinez, with a Rope about its Neck, scourging it severely, and crying with a loud Voice, Thus my Master uses Knavish Cats, and that then he should cut off its Head, which was executed to a Tittle.' I keep telling my cat she has an easy life; but she just gives me that look cats have. You know the one...

Anyway, the Festival site looks terrific and the organisers have attracted a lot of experts in all fields of writing an publishing, so if you're in the region, and are interested in books, or have a novel up your sleeve, it looks like a great event to attend. Have a look, and start planning your travels:

http://www.festivalofwriting.com/wshop.shtml