The Final Cut In All-New Digital Awesomeness

Added on 24 January 2013

THE FINAL CUT is the seventh and, for the moment at least, final Barney Thomson novel. It was originally written as the fifth in the series, with an English title of LIMITED EDITION, and then first published in German as DER HERR DER KLINGE.

The title in German is a pun on Der Herr Der Ringe (The Lord of The Rings) and means THE LORD OF THE CUT AND BLOW DRY.

The novel was never published in the UK in its original form, or under the title Limited Edition. When it came to UK publication of the fifth episode in the series, the executive committee of Long Midnight Publishing - an august body of serious men talking about serious things - decided that Limited Edition was just a bit pish, and instead they would publish THE LAST FISH SUPPER (or Die zwölf Geschorenen, which translates as 12 Angry Haircuts), which had come out as number 6 in Germany.

For Book 6 in the UK, the Board and I further eschewed Limited Edition, and released the just-completed THE HAUNTING OF BARNEY THOMSON, a book sadly destined to never be translated into German. Only then, when we had exhausted all other avenues of original Barney Thomson ideas and the mine had been stripped of all useable assets, did we come back to Limited Edition.

I set about giving the book a massive overhaul, re-writing entire strands of plot, putting in all-new jokes, changing names and characters and tying the book more closely to previous entries in the series. After five years and over $71billion worth of work, the board were finally happy, Limited Edition had become THE FINAL CUT, and we were ready to roll.

Now, here's the digital edition.