It was a very long, very busy, but very good weekend at World Fantasycon, held at the Doubletree by Hilton Metropole (or some other arrangement of those words) in Brighton. Credit as always to the team who organised it and made everything run, and to everyone who took part in the panelling, talks, book launches, and so on.
It would be long and probably fairly boring if I recounted all the panels I went to over the four days, so let’s just say that despite the somewhat stuffy rules imposed by the World Fantasy Committee (no cosplay, no disco, apparently no panels about writing craft because the convention is for authors not fans and authors should already know how to write – which we basically all ignored once we were on the panels in question – and even no plushies on sale in the Dealer’s Hall), it was a huge amount of fun. I should point out that World Fantasycon is a different event to the British Fantasycon, it’s just that it was in Britain this year, and they take place at about the same time of year, so the two were merged. I did two panels, one on Satirical Fantasy where we discussed why satire and fantasy complement each other so well (and praised Terry Pratchett, amongst others), and the other was Dungeons and Disorderly, the annual nonsense run (in the loosest possible sense of the word) by David Moore from Rebellion/Solaris, and on which this year I was joined by Kit Power, Tiffani Angus, Stephen McGowan, and Trip Galey from Bona Books, as we tried to find out why Tolkien elves were all being turned into Santa’s elves.
Speaking of Bona Books – earlier this year I was very honoured to be approached by them to contribute a short story to their forthcoming anthology Wrath Month. However, after some discussions we have mutually decided that the story I wrote (which I’d already been intending to write for the anthology when I heard about it, before they invited me) wasn’t quite suitable for the tone they were going for, and so it will no longer be featured. It’s a shame, but such is life: not every creative is suitable for every project, much though we wish we were.
And speaking of projects – sort of – I have two events coming up at the end of this month. First, I’m appearing with Anna Stephens and Gareth L Powell at midday at Redditch Library on Saturday 22nd November for Worlds of Sci-Fi & Fantasy: entry is free, but you’re encouraged to reserve a space.
And then on Friday 28th November at 6.30pm at Waterstones Nottingham I will be in conversation with Francesca May and Mark A. Latham as we discuss their new releases, This Vicious Hunger and The Last Vigilant. Tickets for this one start at £5 if you’re a Waterstones+ card holder.
Hope to see you at one of them (or both, if you live somewhere equidistant between Nottingham and Redditch and are especially bored, or fanatical about books, I guess)!