(Actually, this section might be better called "Your Questions Avoided" because I'm not going to spoil anything here for anyone who hasn't read the first book yet!) Send your questions to:

Q. What does the title The Quantum Prophecy mean?
A. You'll understand what it means when you read the book!

Q. When is the book coming out?
A. In the UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada and South Africa, The Quantum Prophecy is out now!
In the US, the book has just been published by Philomel Books under the title Quantum Prophecy: The Awakening.

Q. Where can I buy the book?
A. You can now buy The Quantum Prophecy from most good bookstores, or from a number of on-line stores such as Amazon.co.uk or HarperCollins' own website.
The US edition of the book is available on Amazon.com.

Q. How did this book come about?
A. It's a long story. By which I mean that the story of the story is a long story: the story itself isn't that long... If you really want to know, click here for all the gory details! (Note: there are no gory details!)

Q. My friend said that he read The Quantum Prophecy a few months before it was published! How is this possible?
A. Sounds to me like your friend read the Uncorrected Proof edition of the book! Publishers sometimes prepare an early edition of a book to send out to reviewers and other people in the publishing industry. These editions aren't supposed to ever reach the general public but sometimes they escape. The uncorrected proof of The Quantum Prophecy features a couple of scenes that I decided were a little too long; they weren't moving the story along, so they got snipped. I also moved a few scenes around here and there, and rewrote a couple of others. Don't worry; nothing important was taken out - the "real" version of the book is the one that appears in the shops with a proper cover!

Q. How do you say Renata's name? Is the first "a" an "ah" sound or and "ay" sound?
A. Renata's name is pronounced "Ren-AH-tah" (well, it is in my head, anyway!)

Q. I haven't read Sakkara yet! Is there anything you can tell us about it?
A. I can tell you that The Quantum Prophecy includes part of one of the key scenes from Sakkara... But that's all you're getting for now! I hate to give out spoilers!

Q. Is Sakkara bigger than The Quantum Prophecy?
A. Yes! Judging by the word counts, Sakkara is a little over 12% longer than The Quantum Prophecy. In terms of page counts, it's about 335 pages (The Quantum Prophecy is 320 pages).

Q. What does the title "Sakkara" mean? Did you just mis-type "Sahara"?
A. Sakkara (sometimes spelled "Saqqara") was part of the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis, from around the year 3,000 BC. One of Sakkara's best-known features is the Step Pyramid, the oldest surviving pyramid in Egypt. In the second New Heroes book, there is a (roughly) pyramidal building. I decided to call it Sakkara because (a) I've always been fascinated by the ancient Eqyptians, and (b) there are very few words in the English language that contain two consecutive Ks - which means that as a title it really stands out.
Here's what my Sakkara looks like...

Q. Can you put the first chapter of Sakkara on-line?
A. I could, but... I won't. Sorry! At the moment, the first book isn't even published in America (it will be published in April 2007), so if I were to put the first chapter of Sakkara on-line now, it would spoil the first book for the American readers.

Q. Why is it called "Absolute Power"? Is that a reference to [XXXXXXXXXXX]?
A. (Note: I've censored part of this question because it contains a spoiler for Sakkara!)
The title refers to more than one thing...

Q. When can we see the cover?
A. It's on-line right now! !!

Q. Is Absolute Power going to be bigger than Sakkara?
A. No, it's about the same size - my editor and I worked very hard to keep the size down. There's an awful lot happening in Absolute Power and I could easily have made the book twice as big as it is, but I'm not a big fan of ponderous novels that are full of intricate descriptions of lamps or curtains. There is a certain famous fantasy novel by a Big Name Author that features page after tedious page of waffle about the hero's clothing; how the cloth was weaved, by whom, when it all happened, the background behind the decisions to use certain types of stitching, all that nonsense. It's not even mildly important to the plot...! Some readers love that sort of thing. I've always hated it!

Q. How many books will there be in the series?
A. Ah... A good question! Right now, there are three books officially planned, but I have top-secret plans for further trilogies in the series. The idea is that each book tells one part of each trilogy, and each trilogy tells a part of the whole great big enormous story... More than that I cannot say!

Q. My friend told me that all of these questions are made-up! Is that true?
A. Well, your question was certainly made-up, but most of the others are genuine!

Q. How did you create the character images in the Features page?
A. I designed the characters a couple of years ago by scribbling on sheets of paper until I came up with costume designs that I felt suited the characters. I used a great program called Poser (which allows you to create realistic characters and put them into all sorts of poses). The costumes were added by wrapping a "skin" around the characters (the "skin" being an image created in a paint program). For the extra bits, such as Titan's cape and Paragon's armour, I made 3D models and added them to Poser.
Update: On the Features page I've added a link to the male and female character outlines I used when designing the characters. (Thanks to Chuer Zhang for inspiring me to put the images on-line!)

Q. Mike, I have a great idea for a story! Why don't you write it and we'll split the money?
A. Certainly! But let's split the money fairly: Coming up with an idea is .0001% of the work, so you'll get .0001% of the money. This means that if the book makes $10,000 your share will be one cent.

Q. I thought I might have super-powers so I jumped off the shed to see if I could fly and broke my leg! This is your fault! What are you going to do about it?
A. Em... Laugh? If super-powers really existed (which they don't) then jumping off the shed is a pretty dumb way to find out whether you have any! What if your power was invisibility? You'd be lying there on the ground in front of the shed, with a broken leg, and no one would be able to find you to take you to a hospital. And even if they somehow managed to track you down - by following the screams, maybe - how would the doctors operate if they couldn't see you? So... Please don't start believing that super-powers are real just because you've read about them in a book! The book is fiction!

Q. If you live in Ireland, how could you be an "Associate Professor of English, New Mexico Highlands University"?
A. I'm not! There are other Michael Carrolls out there, but some on-line bookstores don't seem to realise that there could be more than one writer with the same name!

Q. What's with all those eight-digit numbers that appear on the news page and your weblog?
A. They're dates! Because the world-wide web is international, it doesn't make sense to use the American date format (month/day/year) or the European format (day/month/year). Both of those formats are daft, anyway: after all, we always use hours, minutes and seconds in that order... So my dates are formatted as year/month/day, with the most significant unit first (I've been doing this for years but it hasn't caught on yet - maybe if you start doing it too...).

Q. Hey! I've just checked the Features page and some of the wallpaper images are missing! What happened to them?
A. Ah! I removed the full-length group image of the older heroes, and the older heroes' individual images, because those heroes only appear in the prologue of The Quantum Prophecy, which is set ten years before the main story! So, the book isn't really about them: it's about Renata, Danny and Colin! Also, the Features page was looking a little cluttered so taking them out saves space on the screen! You might also have noticed that the excellent sketch of the New Heroes by John Higgins is gone, too... This is purely because the characters don't look like they do on the cover of the book, and a few readers said they found it confusing! So for the sake of clarity I decided it was best to remove it (for now!).

Q. I've written a short story using your characters from The Quantum Prophecy! Can I send it to you?
A. Please don't! While I don't mind someone using my characters in their stories (as long as those stories aren't published anywhere for profit), it would be better for all of us if I didn't read them: after all, your story might contain something I'm planning to put into one of the future books, and we don't want to get into one of those "you stole my idea!" arguments. If you do send me stories featuring any of my characters (or stories set in the world of the New Heroes) I won't read them. Sorry!

Q. Okay, then... I've written a completely original story instead. If I send it to you will you read it and let me know what you think of it?
A. Well, I could, but you have to be aware of several very important things... First, I don't have a lot of spare time (I work an average of twelve hours a day) so it could be a while before I got around to reading your story. Second, I would be compelled to be absolutely honest about your story! That means that if I thought your story was no good, I'd say so! If I thought it was the worst story I'd ever read, I'd tell you that, too. A writer has to be prepared to have his or her work torn apart!

Q. Um... Well, can you give me some tips on writing a good story, then?
A. Try to be original. Create your own characters and situations. A good trick is to pick a character who is the exact opposite to what you might expect: instead of making the hero of your space-opera a plucky, daring young space cadet who has a darned good reason for fighting the forces of evil, make him someone who is dragged into the fight reluctantly... There's a reason why almost everyone prefers Han Solo to Luke Skywalker! Of course, since Star Wars there have been an awful lot of Han Solo-type characters, so you need to go in a different direction, one that you're pretty sure hasn't been done before.

Remember, an idea is not a story: you need to flesh it out, give your tale a beginning, a middle and an end. Back in the days when I was editing fiction magazines I received an awful lot of short stories that ended with the hero starting off on a quest. Characters should drive the story forward, and the plot should drive the characters. If your heroes win, it should not be without a price. If your heroes make plans, it's not much fun for the reader if those plans work out perfectly; plans should fail!