Skip to content →

WARREN ELLIS LTD Posts

9nov26

Published November 9, 2026 by Warren Ellis

I sat through the Avengers trailer at the cinema on Saturday night. Does anyone know why Robert Downey Jr is doing Werner Herzog’s voice?

If you’re just joining me: this is my digital notebook, which gets added to one or twice a day, usually just once, sometimes not at all.

TODAY:

  • Serpent Mound is a Native American earthwork – I did a bunch of research on these a few years ago for a graphic novella that comes out in 2027 – and I came across this wonderful bit in a new article on it: “Those who built Serpent Mound could not have known that it sits amid an astrobleme, Greek for “star wound”—a five-mile-wide eroded crater left behind by a meteor impact 320 million years ago.”
  • The Eden Book Society: a literary hoax project from Dead Ink Books
  • An asteroid photographed from 37 miles away

Heard from my old friend Mac Rey last night, who’s developing his personal project STRANGE COMBAT. Back in the 60s and 70s, DC used to mash up genres in odd ways, and one of the stickiest was the “supernatural war story.” The Haunted Tank and that sort of thing. If you’re my age, then you found tattered copies of these in charity shops and rummage sales at fairs, and thought, what the fuck even is this thing? But if you were Mac, it got stuck in your head and laid eggs:

Quick happy exchange with Nika Zola Jesus about her launching her own label/house, which I find completely inspirational. And she joined the growing group of people poking me to start my own house, which I’ve been thinking a lot about this year. Self-publishing is hardly new to me, and I have an ebook process partly figured out. I just need the jolt, and it hasn’t come yet.

New Soeur L’Enfer song is dropping later today.

OPERATIONS: I need to get 8pp of script out the door and then pivot to personal projects
STATUS: this first cold of the winter is hanging on. Spent yesterday offline batching meals and fixing the coffee machine. Tonight I need to clean out and reposition the coffee bean roaster. I love roasting coffee: the sound, the aroma, and that golden seam on the bean.


READING:THE ROUSE, China Mieville (UK) (US+)

Nineteen fifteen, Robert King, “Occult Aspects of the Battlefield,” invoked “swirling groups of combatants who had left the body, locked together in an intense emotional stress, fancying they were still engaged in slaughter.” You could be sure the War Office had its copies of that. What’s the word for something that is a nightmare and a dream, a dreaded outcome and an aspiration all in one?


LISTENING: THE WAY APPEARS, India Gailey & Leah Plave

On The Way Appears, cellists India Gailey and Leah Plave offer a collection of uniquely collaborative new music for two celli. From the synchronicity of flocking birds and the fractal symmetry of snowflakes, to the self-organized structures of political movements, the music illustrates emergence…


LAST WATCHED: HAMLET AT ELSINORE was on last night, preceded by a short interview with Steven Berkoff. I enjoy Berkoff, as he is completely mad and never not acting. Berkoff also gave us one of the great televisual moments of 2003. He was so restrained and almost respectful in performing Stilgar in CHILDREN OF DUNE, keeping the volume turned down so he didn’t run over the other actors. And then, finally, he couldn’t take it any more:


DRINK: Fraoch Heather Ale

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Find me at Orbital Operations every Sunday.

Tags: books comics archaeology space music tv
Comments closed

8nov26

Published November 8, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Last night was lusciously misty and just the right kind of cold.

Today’s newsletter is out.

Today I am thinking about connecting this notebook to Substack as a syndication. A lot will depend on whether I can disable comments and whether or not I can be arsed to do it at all.

(Via Pink Beam Press)

STATUS: once I have beaten my coffee machine into making actual fucking coffee, I intend to spend the day in the kitchen cooking and batching meals
READING: THE ROUSE, China Mieville (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: SUNERGY, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Suzanne Ciani
LAST WATCHED: GODZILLA MINUS ZERO

GODZILLA MINUS ZERO is mostly very well done. The last half hour was, for me, a bit of a letdown – there’s an energy drop, the final battle takes less space than expected and there’s a lot more of actors emoting at things off-screen than felt right or effective. But the things that work, really work. The score is excellent, and very much knows when and how to unleash the original GODZILLA signature music. The aerial set piece is extraordinary, and the pace of the thing is generally marvellous – it does not fuck around, and I really appreciated that. It’s a machine gun of a film, moving at a hell of a crackalong. It picks up pieces from GODZILLA MINUS ONE (which I’ve only seen in the monochrome version!) and juggles them around to fine effect, and a few of the themes too. One of which is a gorgeous twist on the protagonist’s past as a kamikaze pilot. 

No spoilers, but there is a revenge plot in there that is illustrated beautifully.

There is very clearly going to be a third film, as they set up one big cliffhanger and a few loose threads.  Which, perhaps weirdly, I think is a shame, because it felt to me like a writer and director summoning the last of their energies. The effects budget is larger, and you can tell, but that comes with its own pressure to achieve more, and there’s the sense that effects led the nose of the structure a bit. 

As good as MINUS ONE? Probably not, quite. But for a good two thirds of its runtime it is inventive, high speed, gorgeous and ruthlessly brutal. 


PAPERWORK: Sharpening one of these up later, as I have some visual development to do.

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

Tags: film books
One Comment

7nov26

Published November 7, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Guess what? In the year of our satan 2026 setting up new phones is still massive amounts of bullshit that steals a whole day of your life. Took me a dozen tries to upload a photo to this post because apparently WordPress doesn’t like photos from brand new iPhone 18 Pro’s?

(this is mostly posted to try and figure out the glitch with photo uploads)

STATUS: bleh. Off to see the new Godzilla film tonight if I live that long
READING: THE ROUSE, China Mieville (UK) (US+)
LISTENING:

FROZEN PASSAGES, Poemme, for ’tis the season.

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

Comments closed

6nov26

Published November 6, 2026 by Warren Ellis

New phones arrived, so doubtless I will lose a ton of today to setting them up. But our iPhone 14 Pro’s batteries are shot and the devices themselves are starting to glitch a bit, so it’s time.

For my next trick, I need to back 3000 photos off my current phone….!

STATUS: still sick
READING: THE ROUSE, China Mieville (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: BOOK OF CAROLS, Sarah Davachi
DRINK: Benylin

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

Tags: archaeology
Comments closed

4nov26

Published November 4, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Saturday night, I started to get sick. Not ideal, as on Sunday we had to drive down south to visit the kid and her partner. I was probably not good company for two days, as I got sicker and sicker on the drive down, and talking became very difficult. But it was, as ever, a joy to hang out with them, and we got to take them out for dinner one day and lunch the next.

I am still extremely fucked up, and the chances of my producing work this week are slim to none.

ACCESSIONS:

A care package from Zoharum:

Zoharum Bandcamp. And previous care packages from Zoharum.

New Laura Cannell. I actually missed one of her releases, which I am still irritated by, but it’s also a reminder that being a completist is probably weird and unhealthy.

STATUS: deth
READING: THE ROUSE, China Mieville (UK) (US+)
LAST WATCHED: some weird true crime thing called TWISTED SISTERS about two apparently superhuman Swedish women, the Eriksson sisters – the footage of them being run over and then getting up, one of them punching out a cop and having to be restrained by six people, was quite something
DRINK: whisky, chopped ginger, lemon juice, cinnamon honey, boiling water
PAPERWORK: bought a pile of washi stickers of old astronomical/lunar images to use in the notebooks to mark things up with.

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

Tags: crime
Comments closed

2nov26

Published November 2, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Comments closed

27oct26

Published October 27, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Went to see The Owl Service play at the Fickle Pickle last week and I may have bought quite a lot of CDs from the merch table:

OPERATIONS: Planning to get at least a dozen pages out the door today.
STATUS: Fell back a bit last night, lost too much time to processing stuff on the phone. In my defense, I am in the middle of handling a lot of bank-related stuff, and I lost a lot of time yesterday dealing with banking and ordering new phones. But today needs to be better.
READING: THE ROUSE, China Mieville (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: EA, The Alvaret Ensemble
DRINK: made herself a blood orange Negroni last night with some success. One part each blood orange gin, Campari and vermouth, several dashes orange and cinnamon bitters, blood orange soda to taste
PAPERWORK: started a new notebook last night. Filled the last one in a month.

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

Tags: notebooks music food library
Comments closed

morning computer horrisonant

Published October 27, 2026 by Warren Ellis

the horrisonant forest

THE ROUSE, China Mieville (UK) (US+)

Mieville has always had an eccentric vocabulary. I had to look this one up.

Borrowed from Latin horrisonus.

Adjective

horrisonant (comparative more horrisonant, superlative most horrisonant)

  1. Having an unpleasant sound.

Amusing title and cover.

Jonathan Knight’s “Exhale” series:

Doomscrolling alternatives:


There is, of course, a lot of this stuff going around. Robin F Williams:

What a weird set of compulsions and anxieties we created for ourselves. The horrisonant bell of the supernatural glass. The reminder to exhale.

morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.

Press the floating Subscribe button to have these notes sent to you.

My free weekly newsletter is at https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/

Tags: art
Comments closed

26oct26

Published October 26, 2026 by Warren Ellis

It’s a touch damp out there today.

It’s Monday.

everybody’s getting back on X The Everything App. And by “everybody” I mean:

Nope.

Hannah Hauxwell (1926-2018) lived alone and maintained a farm “in almost unendurable conditions of farmers in the High Pennines in winter,” notes a film producer. Upon the deaths of her immediate family, then 35-year old Hannah took over management of the farm and made it her life dwelling in solitude.Hannah came to media attention in 1972 when a random hiker told a researcher about Hannah. She was the subject of successive television documentaries chronicling her solitary life in the Northshire wilds: “Too Long A Winter” (1972), “A Winter Too Many,” (1989), “Innocent Abroad” (1992),

New issue of The Modernist magazine. First thing learned: those generic one-piece plastic chairs you see everywhere have a name. They are Monobloc.

OPERATIONS: This week is Beast Mode. Got a script out the door yesterday, need to get at least half of one out today. My to-do list takes up a whole index card, vertically. And I have to get next Sunday’s newsletter started, as I’m on the road this coming weekend.
STATUS: Frantically trying to get my focus back! Last night I made roasted cabbage with black truffle sea salt as a side, and it was surprisingly successful. I now have a freezer compartment filled with chopped fruit. Already blew a bunch of time talking to the bank and dealing with accounts and I still need to call the phone company. See, this is why Brandon Sanderson has a team of a hundred people. Being a one-man-band for thirty-odd years is fucking exhausting.
READING: THE ROUSE, China Mieville (UK) (US+) and aforementioned magazine.
LISTENING: SOAKED, Philip Jeck + Jacob Kirkegaard

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

Tags: magazines
Comments closed

25oct26

Published October 25, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Clocks went back and I didn’t notice. But mancub did. So I got beaten until I climbed out of bed to feed the little bastard.

MONDAY is the last day you can talk to your local comic shop to order GHOST DRIVE STATION.

Nobody orders for the shelf any more unless it’s a big DC or Marvel book. Your chances of seeing a copy on a shelf are slim to none. And comics shops need a signal that someone is going to buy something ahead of its publication date. If they don’t get that signal? They just won’t order any.
The order code/UPC is: 70985304934000111.
If you want a copy, you will need to email, text or message your local comics shop or drop in on them.
If you don’t? You won’t see a copy.

ACCESSIONS:

It was very well reviewed, appears to be pleasantly short, and suggested to be fresh. And 99p on Kindle, currently.

FLAT EARTH, Anika Jade Levy (UK) (US+)

OPERATIONS: Beast mode. I have a frankly terrifying number of words to get out of the door this week, because I have some travel coming up.
STATUS: Also trying to get ahold of my email – turns out my spam filter went mad at some point. If you’re waiting on an email from me, please nudge me. Pinch of cinnamon in morning espresso.
READING: THE ROUSE, China Mieville (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: TELYN RAWN, Rhodri Davies

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

Tags: work
Comments closed