Approved by The Bureau for Fictional Alignment – Mike French’s new illustrated novel gets an unusual video trailer

Writer Mike French, the writer behind the much-praised illustrated novel An Android Awakes has a sequel, Fictional Alignment, out soon – and have just released an unusual video trailer, created by Joshua Hudson.

Fictional Alignment, launching in paperback in April from Alnpete Press with a  cover by Tony Allcock, posits that our culture is generated by machines. It’s ten years after Android Writer PD121928 from An Android Awakes was fed into a sink grinder by its replacement PD121929. The human prostitute Sapphira, believing PD121929 to be PD121928 for all that time, has tried and failed to save PD121929 from being destroyed for selling less than a hundred copies of its novel. Sapphira herself has written the bestselling novel Humans (An Arrangement of Minor Defects) based on the stories PD121928 told her on the night they first met. It has been marketed by Altostratus as the first work of fiction by a human for over a hundred years.

Unhappy, a handful of zealot androids massacre the senate and a new regime is formed fuelled with a passion to eradicate the evil of fiction from android society.

Fictional Alignment - CoverAn Android Awakes, which featured art by Karl Brown (who is is still working on the project), attracted plenty of attention from comic creators on its release, including the late Steve Dillon, Lee Sullivan (who described it as very much in the style of classic 2000AD) and Bryan Talbot (who said of Karl that he was “reminiscent of the great Brett Ewins, keep your eyes on this promising young artist”) so we reckon Fictional Alignment is worth checking out.

Mike French’s debut novel, The Ascent of Isaac Steward, the first book of the Dandelion Trilogy, was published in 2011 and nominated for a Galaxy National Book Award. The rest of the trilogy, Blue Friday and Convergence, were published by Elsewhen Press in 2012 and 2013 respectively.

Tony Allcock has exhibited his dynamic Expressionist figure paintings at numerous galleries including the Centre International d’Art Contemporain, Paris. His artistic heroes are Pablo Picasso, Jack Kirby, Ed Eller, Enke Bilal, and Bruce Pennington. Hugo Pratt, whilst suggesting that he begin a career in comics, described his black and white illustrations as being in the fine British Gothic tradition of William Blake.

He say he’s one of the world experts in Clip Studio Paint: the preferred graphic software of graphic novel artists.

Karl Brown is a comic artist and illustrator. After initially studying in Northern Ireland he moved to England to do a degree in illustration at the University of Bedfordshire. Karl’s inspiration comes from his love of heavy metal music and keen interest in history.

• Fictional Alignment is out in paperback in April from Alnpete Press, but Mike and Tony are launching the novel at SFW9 this weekend in Wales at 4.00pm on Saturday,  in the Owner’s Lounge. Mike and Karl will both at Thought Bubble this year with An Android Awakes and Fictional Alignment

• More information: www.anandroidawakes.com

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