New Kim Newman novel – Model Actress Whatever

Model Actress Whatever is out now …

 

 

Meet the Shade Brigade – the Flattener, Ghost Lantern Girl, Lady Shade II, Pyro Pixie aka the Little Match Girl, Whisk Kid.  Illustration by Paul McCaffrey.

… you’ve met the cloaks, here are the cutthroats …

Left to right, we have Coffin Dodger, Thumpulator, Scary Mary, Sluggo De’ath, William Wax (aka Adam Tussaud), Guy the Gorilla, Irn Bruce, Top Dog, the Mannikin, Major Wood, the Dealer, the Jibbenainosay, the Cartoonist, the Throbbing Brian, Shock Jock, Lady Godawful and the Inner Voice.

Left to right, we have Viper Strike and his mech suit, Hughbert Hound, Blackfist IV, Urban Fox, Great Britannia, Weather Girl, Doctor Robot, Moonlight Flit, the Green Knight, Poltergirl, Plain Jane, Quackanapes and Silly Millie.

… here are two Paul McCaffrey covers for Chrissie’s solo title Chrissie the Model …

Here’s Paul McCaffrey’s take on the Shade of the 1950s, Sergeant Shade- imagine a cross between George Dixon and the Punisher.

This week’s mock-up comic cover from Paul McCaffrey, to tie in with my out-in-May novel Model Actress Whatever, introduces Ghost Lantern Girl … who opened a cupboard and found herself semi-possessed by ghosts who lend her the skills they cultivated in their lives.  A possible drawback – many of them are still angry.

This week’s mock-up comic cover from Paul McCaffrey, to tie in with my out-in-May novel Model Actress Whatever, highlights national heroine Great Britannia. Her granny is Welsh and she gets her vim from eating special Scots oatcakes, though she’s mostly from Hampshire. Her best friend is the Iron Norn, leading mystery maid of Northern Ireland. They have a pet neolithic lion named Manx Cat and are registered for tax purposes in the Channel Islands.

This week’s mock-up comic cover from Paul McCaffrey, to tie in with my out-in-May novel Model Actress Whatever, introduces the current incarnation of the UK’s long-standing national heroes, the Splendid Six.  Meet Quackanapes, Silly Millie, Dr Robot, Urban Fox, the Green Knight and Blackfist IV … and their arch-nemesis, the Dealer.  Team Captain Dr Robot isn’t a doctor and isn’t a robot.

 

My new novel – Model Actress Whatever – is due from Titan Books in May.  I’ve commissioned a series of mock-up comic book covers from ace artist Paul McCaffrey to visualise the world of MAW, and introduce some of the many unusual characters who live there.  This is Poltergirl, the mind-over-matter maid …

Here’s the cover of my new novel – due from Titan Books May 2026.  Design by Natasha MacKenzie.

You can pre-order here.

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Barnes & Noble

Indigo

Books A Million

Waterstones

Bookshop.org

Forbidden Planet

The audio book, read by Olivia Darnley and Finlay Robertson

Model Actress Whatever …

“When Chrissie Chambers (model actress whatever) discovers her soap opera character is about to be killed off, she finally stops dieting and discovers hitherto untapped supernatural abilities. Meanwhile, Chrissie’s aunt – former national heroine Lady Shade – goes missing. Afraid for Jasmine’s safety and itching to costume-up, Chrissie and her ghost-possessed best friend Loulee break into Devil’s Dyke, the asylum where Jasmine works as a therapist with the most dangerous cutthroats (supervillains) in Britain… only to find the inmates have taken over… Chrissie debuts successfully as a cloak (superheroine), but who will become the arch-nemesis of Lady Shade II?

In Chrissie’s timeline, the Beatles didn’t split up and recorded a hallucinodelic album in 1972 – Never Mind (strictly, Never Mind the Beatles) – which literally changed the world. Set in an alternative 2020s London, this hugely entertaining, darkly humorous superhero tale is packed with Newman’s trademark wit, and comes with wickedly sharp edges.”

 

‘John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are mutants.  Evolutionary agents sent by gods, endowed with mysterious powers to create a new human species.’

Timothy Leary

 

‘A Guide is honest, reliable and can be trusted.

A Guide is helpful and uses her time and abilities wisely.

A Guide faces challenges and learns from her experiences.

A Guide is a good friend and sister to all Guides.

A Guide is polite and considerate.

A Guide respects all living things and takes care of the world around her.’

The Guide Law

 

‘Look!  Up in the sky …’

Allen Ducovny and Robert Joffe Maxwell

… and here are some nice things people have said about the novel …

Anarchic, exuberant and endlessly inventive. This may be the best superhero movie I’ve ever read.
-M.R. Carey, internationally bestselling author of Infinity Gate

Kim Newman’s florid fantasies can’t be pitched as a cross between this and that, they’re an explosion of genre TNT in pop-art baubles of verbal delight that fizz on the page.
-Stephen Volk, writer of Ghostwatch and The Good Unknown

Newman’s trademarks are razor-sharp prose, a biting wit and big finishes you never see coming but always feel inevitably perfect – all of which are fully on display in Model Actress Whatever. This is a spectacular, alt-reality superhero story, almost operatic in its scale, and splendidly Newmanesque. Highly recommended.
-Angela A.G.
-Slatter, award-winning author of The Cold House

What if Austin Powers (only filmed by Brits) had a baby with EastEnders (also filmed by Brits), and it grew up to be a (British) version of the Adam West era Batman, driving a Jensen Interceptor? Charles Stross, author of The Laundry Files series

Set in an alternate history Enlightened by a magically mysterious Beatles’ chord, Model Actress Whatever brings Newman’s Diogenes Club series bang up to date and dives deep into the superhero mythos. Fast and furiously funny, exuberantly imaginative and achingly hip, this is Newman at the top of his game.
-Paul McAuley, author of Loss Protocol

Somehow manages to be futuristic and nostalgic at the same time M.A. Bennett, author of No Escape

When it comes to the dazzling creation of a fantasy world which is both like and unlike our own, Kim Newman has no peers. This sardonically funny vision of empty celebrity, and quirky superheroes set in an alternative London has all the untrammelled wordplay and inventiveness of his masterpiece Anno Dracula.
-Barry Forshaw, Financial Times

With Model Actress Whatever, the always transgressive Kim Newman subverts the superhero genre with all the aplomb that he brought to vampires in Anno Dracula.
-Stephen Jones, award-winning editor and writer

The powerline connection between Michael Moorcock and the spangly multiverse lunacy of the present moment, this is an exciting, literary, urgent venture into what happens to super heroes as they cross the Atlantic, and why. Newman transcends pastiche and ends up telling the truth very loudly. Unmissable.
-Paul Cornell, author of the Witches of Lychford series