Cliff Jones needs a book deal.

Let's just get this out of the way immediately - Cliff Jones' novel needs to be published. If you have it within your power to get it read, printed, bound, boxed, shipped and sold then I think you should get on the case right away.

Cliff has been beavering away for the past few (actually, loads) months on a book, and I have not been able to read his blog as a result, because he has been writing his book and not his blog. I was very sad when he stopped writing his blog, but he did allow me to have a sneaky peek at the first few chapters of Water Runs Slow Through Flat Land (an epic, comic tale of an online news editor who turns freelance and goes to Afghanistan) and I genuinely think it's great.

You can tell I genuinely think it's great because I am writing a blog post about it, and not some tomato I found with the face of Terry Nutkin inside, or the rain, or my sore left foot. Cliff readily admits that it starts off slowly, but I prefer to think of it as a building drumroll, measured pace. I rather hope that the book itself will take off in the same way. And I really want to read the rest of it. Naughty tinker that he is, Cliff is angling to sell the book rather than letting me read it all for free. So someone publish it.