‘Darren Nash was my editor on all five novels of the Felix Castor series, over the period from 2005 to 2010. Later, after his move from Orbit to Gollancz, he edited me on two further titles, which were particularly challenging in that they were collaborations with two other writers (my wife and our daughter).
Darren was my first editor at Orbit and was directly involved in acquiring me for the Orbit list, having read my comics work and seen the potential for me to make the switch to prose fiction. With the Castor novels, therefore, his role went far beyond the actual editing of the text. He worked with me throughout the conception, pitching and planning of the novel sequence, helping me to develop the cast, the logical underpinning of the novels’ world and the macro-structures onto which each novel would be pinned.
This was effectively my first experience of writing sequential prose, after many years of working in a very different medium (comic books). The transition could have been a bumpy and traumatic one, but Darren was brilliant as a guide and mentor –particularly when it came to matters of structure and pacing, which play out very differently in a novel than they do in a serialised story. He kept me on track throughout, helping me both to map out the load-bearing parts of the story and to identify scenes and beats that weren’t pulling their weight. I quickly learned to trust his sense of story, his instincts on the placing of a beat or the handling of a character arc across multiple novels.
The best editors are those who get what you’re trying to do in a story and challenge you when you’re not doing it. Also, they inculcate habits that make you better as a writer. Darren exemplified both these traits. Working with him was a pleasure, and an education. Experience both before and since has taught me that this is far from being a given.’

M. R. Carey, bestselling author of The Girl With All the Gifts