Category Archives: Musings

My Worldcon Schedule

28 Sunday Jul 2019

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Dublin Worldcon Logo showing a stylised harp shaped D with a dragon and a rocket.So, between the 15th and 19th of August, I will be in Dublin for the 77th World Science Fiction Convention (or Worldcon for short). If you are also attending (apparently memberships are now getting in short supply and may not be available on the day so you need to book now if you haven’t already) you will be able to enjoy panels and talks from many wonderful people such as Diane Duane (fantasy writer) and Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell (phyicist credited with discovering Pulsars). You will also be able to attend some panels that have me in them…

Below is my final schedule as it currently stands (changes are always possible even at a late stage but this is unlikely to change now). Some of these will be moderated by me, others will just have me blethering on about stuff.

I am also planning to do some photoshoots (contact me on my photography facebook page to arrange this) and a walk around Dublin with my camera that others are welcome to join the group here to find out more.

 

Dublin 2019 An Irish Worldcon August 15 - 19 Convention Centre Dublin

Franchise characters

Format: Panel
15 Aug 2019, Thursday 14:00 – 14:50, Wicklow Room-2 (CCD)

Marvel characters are often mentioned in other MCU films, reminding us of their shared universe; DC TV shows have annual crossover events. How have these franchises – and others such as Star Trek – taken advantage of their epic canvasses to deepen characterisation? Are the in-universe reputations of some characters used to challenge our understanding of them rather than reinforce it?

How close are we to Frankenstein’s dream?

Format: Panel
15 Aug 2019, Thursday 19:00 – 19:50, Liffey Hall-2 (CCD)

Science has been making remarkable progress in rebuilding bones, growing organs, and transplants. Researchers recently succeeded in restoring a mammal’s brain from cryogenic freezing, leading to speculation about ‘head transplants’. How close does this bring us to the vision of the ‘Modern Prometheus’? What are our current capabilities and ethics behind the science?

Guiding star: discussing the Lodestar Award shortlist

Format: Panel
16 Aug 2019, Friday 12:30 – 13:20, Odeon 4 (Point Square Dublin)

Let’s gush about this year’s amazing list of Lodestar Award finalists! What do we love about these books? Who will win, who else would we have loved to see on the list, and what else are we looking forward to seeing from this fantastic group of authors?

  • The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton
  • Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
  • The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
  • Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
  • The Invasion by Peadar Ó Guilín
  • Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman

Introduction to SFF romance

Format: Panel
16 Aug 2019, Friday 15:00 – 15:50, Wicklow Hall 2B (CCD)

SFF romance is as varied and creative as the speculative genre as a whole but, along with other romantic sub-genres, has often been dismissed and undervalued. From shapeshifting billionaires to far future secret agents, vampire brides to Highland flings, this panel will provide a broad introduction to SFF romance in all its glory as well as providing a range of reading recommendations.

Things that SFF writers often get wrong: logistics

Format: Panel
18 Aug 2019, Sunday 14:00 – 14:50, Wicklow Room-4 (CCD)

That’s not how it really works! Organisational planning and logistics often get overlooked or written wrong – whether it’s the time needed to hunt and cook an animal in the forest, or to develop the cure for a disease. Timing, availability, and coordination of things often get pushed into a grey area where good logistical planning goes to die. What does it take to get these details right? When the details don’t work within the story, how does an author work around them? Our panellists share their own experiences, including what they have got right and wrong along the way.

Ytterbium Eastercon: Monday.

22 Monday Apr 2019

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Monday at Eastercon is always a weird thing. Very much about the take down and only a few items on.

My plan for this day was to attend two interesting items.

One was Aging Societies, a panel with John Scalzi and Caroline Mullen. In this, the three panelists discussed ideas about how society cold deal with the growing elderly population in the future. The solution in Scalzi’s Old Man’s War was obviously discussed as were a few other books that looked at concepts of immortality. I was surprised no one mentioned the Peter F Hamilton books (Mispent Youth  and the Commonwealth Saga) which explore this topic but otherwise it was a very interesting conversation. As a former gerontologist, I had opinions… but I may bother to put them into a blog post on aging later.

 

6C1A8520-Pano.jpgThen I went to a coffee date with Frances Hardinge. Like John Scalzi’s similar event on Sunday, this was a relatively informal chat with the author over coffee or tea and, in this specific case, biscuits.

Because, being a LRPer and it being something clearly built into the DNA of the average live action roleplayer, Frances had managed to overcater on biscuits. This many:

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For 12 people.

However, she had also been thoughtful enough to supply gluten free jammy dodgers which was a major plus in my mind and meant I could indulge in biscuits…

Discussion covered the range of her books and touched upon possible film adaptations (two of her books have been optioned – Cuckoo Song and The Lie Tree – but this is no guarantee of an actual TV series being produced), her tendency to be both weird and cruel to her characters (and how they went back to her early attempts at writing when she was 6) and the strange things young children ask authors. Overall, a very fun and interesting hour of conversation.

After that, I worked in the green room for a few hours and that was pretty much it for my time at the con other than drinking and socialising and spending the ‘groats’ I had acquired volunteering. These are special Eastercon fake money given to volunteers that can be spent on pretty much anything. The bar accepts them (as apparently does the hotel to pay for room bookings over the event etc.) and the traders at the convention will exchange books. jewellery or cat’s ears for them. I even heard a rumour that some of the surrounding restaurants were also accepting them… I spent mine on some food, some drinks and a book from one of the traders. This year, the groats had been designed by Sidney Padua – one of the guests of honour – and looked amazing. I kept one (despite it being worth £2!) for the cool value alone… I mean, look at this artwork…

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Ytterbium Eastercon: Sunday

22 Monday Apr 2019

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Sunday is, as we all know, a day of rest. Easter Sunday doubly so. Especially when Easter Sunday just happens to be the Sunday after a Saturday at Eastercon.6C1A8489.jpg

I’d originally planned a lie in and a late arrival at the con. However, fate and a chance encounter with one of the Green room staff on Saturday that led to a promise to help out on Sunday morning meant that I was now honour bound, by ancient compact and powerful dark con magic, to an earlier start than I’d had the entire con so far.

Which was fine, only I did one of my usual errors and turned up for my shift a whole hour earlier than I thought it was.

But it was fine and I had an enjoyable morning ticking people off lists and organising drinks for participants in panels and talks.

My next call was a post lunch coffee date with John Scalzi. This was 12 people  in a room talking with John Scalzi with tea and coffee available (though John Seemed happy with Coke Zero). Three minutes before the official start of this event, he told us the story that had to be left off the record about a con a few years ago (and I will hold to that unofficial gagging order but I am totes teasing you with the fact I know something you don’t know… unless you were involved or at this event…) before launching into the event proper. What followed was an hour of questions and discussion with John holding forth on many topics ranging from his work as a consultant for Stargate Universe to his work as a film reviewer, his writing career, his love of fan art on stuff from ‘Sex, Death and Robots’ and his reflections on his post about straight white male being ‘easy mode’ in the game of life. As always, the coffee events are a weird sort of mix of informal ‘hanging out with the author’ combined with a more formal interview event. This one was so popular, they had to organise a second one later in the day.

After this and a short break where I did some more volunteering, I headed to a talk called ‘The Genius of Rosa’ by our old blog buddy, Russel A Smith. This looked at the episide of series 11 of Doctor Who that was set at the time of the (in)famous Rosa Parks bus protest. Russ went into detail on the episode and talked about the history and social context of the episode. The talk was mainly focussed on tackling the opposition to the episode, the negative comments that came (it seemed) simply because it was an episode about a black woman protesting.  Each objection (like ‘the message was too heavy handed’) was answered in the talk.

 

Then there was a panel on Medicine in SF in which a bunch of medical doctors and biomedical scientists looked at concepts of medicine in science fiction and discussed the viablity of the methods. A lot of time was spent on the possibility of ‘AI Doctors’ similar to the Doctor from Voyager and what this may mean in terms of patient care and the risk of litigation (who is to blame if a medical AI makes a mistake?) but there was also time for a bit of discussion aboutpersonalised medicine,  homeopathy and the sort of medical scams that exist now and how these may be worse in the future.

 

The final panel of the day was called ‘History of Representation in Doctor Who’. This panel looked at how well Doctor Who covered issues like race, sexuality, sexism and disablism. The panel looked at examples of this and considered their own first experiences of Doctor Who and how that affected them. Highlights included Fiona Moore discussing how some showrunners were really bad at feminism if they tried to be feminist but actually really good if they didn’t try and Guest of Honour DC pointing out how Barbara (first Doctor Who female companion) was actually a really strong character for her time with a lot of agency. There was also an almost universal fanship for Captain Jack Harkness.

After this, it was time for dinner and the bar… and spending all the hard earned groats from volunteering…

Ytterbium Eastercon: Saturday

21 Sunday Apr 2019

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Saturday for me was when Eastercon got… busy… there was so much I wanted to see and do today and so much I missed, plus I was busy with a lot of volunteer work too. However, as this mostly involved holding up a card to say when a panel was overunning, it was no great effort and I got to watch the panels too.

First panel of the day was “What is #Ownvoices and why is it important?” This panel 6C1A8357.jpgfeatured the wonderful Russell Smith, a regular on this blog, and a selection of other diverse voices who were there to discuss their own experiences of being seen as ‘other’ in publishing. For example, the tired old excuse of “We already have a book about [insert minoroty issue here], we don’t need another one.” An argument easily countered by “but you have half a dozen books about the experiences of cis het white males…” The panel made it clear why these were issues, whey they shouldn’t need to be an issue and discussed what is now a growing and more vocal group of #Ownvoices. In all, an entertaining panel.

6C1A8382.jpgThis was followed by an interview with Frances Hardinge, another old regular on this blog. As a guest of honour, she had certain obligations, including being interviewed. The interview ably covered the spread of her work and discussed such topics as her thoughts on over researching and the personalities of her main characters. For example, the wonderful quote as tweeted by Farah Mendledesohn on twitter: “My heroines tend to have other things on their mind: like surviving, or revolutions, or not eating people.”

Then we had John Scalzi’s interview, where Emma Newman went into detail about his 6C1A8420.jpgcareer as a writer, the popularity of his blog (Whatever) and why he is the only writer in history who does not seem to have imposter syndrome (diagnosis: he is a Mage…). This interview also covered why he is destined to be eaten by a polar bear (because, as a Mage, if he wishes it, it will happen and he did say if he were to get eaten hy any sort of bear it should be a polar bear as that is the most environmentally friendly option).

There then followed the Hay lecture where Hamied Haroon, of the University of Manchester, talked about medical imaging. My one take home message from that lecture was “Any chance of any jobs in your research group?” because it looked like awesome work I would really liked to have got involved with as a biomedical scientist with an especial interest in the technical aspects of research…

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After this, things got a little dark and sinister… with a panel about conspiracy theories called ‘Paranoid Politics and Fantasy’. This one also featured John Scalzi, who did coin the phrase ‘Trump’s Razor’ to describe the situation where the stupidest possibility is most likely true. Much discussion about various theories and the reasons they exist as well as looking at differences in past and present in terms of conspiracy.

Next we had ‘Romance in Fantasy and SF’ which did explore differences in current romance vs older romance tropes, mostly examining the change in the ethnicity and sexuality of those involved in it.

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Finally, there was ‘Creating Fantasy Biologies’ which ranged through a lot of evolutionary and paleontological theories and tried to work out how these will apply to alien or fantasy species. This was an entertaining panel that was, unfortunately, over crowded due to being in the smallest room.

In all an excellent day if somewhat tiring…

 

 

 

Titans of SF: The Eastercon Fringe event…

18 Thursday Apr 2019

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So, I’m in London for the 2019 Eastercon (the one named after a less pronouncable element… ytterbium…) and, being at a loose end the night before it starts, decided to check out the Titans of SF event at Waterstones in Piccadilly. This event had Emma Newman, Alastair Reynolds and Temi Oh in conversation with Pat Cadigan.

As usual for anything involving Pat Cadigan, this was an amazing event. The self styled ‘recovering American’ used her usual anarchic and rambunctious moderation style to lead a discussion with topics ranging from the little details about space travel to the reasons capitalism stops us doing more in space. Topics which all the participants were vocal on.

Alastair Reynolds got to talk about his space pirates and how his career in ‘space science’ grew out of a desire to go to space. Temi Oh got to discuss her alternate reality debut novel and how, with her story being set in 2012, she ant be caught out when the future tech appears and is different to what she imagined. Finally, Emma Newman discussed her thoughts on capitalism and some of the ideas that went into her Planetfall series.

In all, an entertaining event that felt something like a mini Eastercon on the fringe of the main event….

[Vampire Month] #TheRedcliffeNovels – Heart of the Vampire (A Redcliffe Novel) Book 5 by Catherine Green

14 Thursday Mar 2019

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Some of you may remember Catherine Green from her interview and guest post in a previous Vampire month. Well, she is now onto her 5th Redcliffe novel and here she is to tell us all about it…

A series of Catherine Green novel covers

#TheRedcliffeNovels – Heart of the Vampire (A Redcliffe Novel) Book 5

 It is almost Halloween in Redcliffe, Cornwall, and Jessica Stone is not the woman she Heart of the Vampire a redcliffe novel coverused to be. Her summer was hijacked by werewolves, she fell in love with a vampire, and now she is learning how to be a witch, and what it means to celebrate Samhain with her new coven. Her vampire boyfriend, Jack Mason, is busy at work as a police detective, and his identical twin brother Danny, the werewolf alpha, refuses to let go of the woman he has chosen to protect his pack.

Jessica must learn about control, power, and the love that she truly feels for her vampire boyfriend and his brother.

What vampire book genre is the book?

My novel is a contemporary paranormal romance

What are the ‘themes’ of this book?

There is adult content, sexually explicit scenes and scenes of violence

What is the setting of your book series or book?

The Redcliffe Novels series is set in the fictional seaside town of Redcliffe in Cornwall, England.

What’s in store for readers?

We have come a long way since Jessica Stone fell in love with a vampire and discovered the secrets of her supposedly human friends. As #TheRedcliffeNovels series progresses, Jessica learns that relationships are far more complicated when they involve non-human creatures. She must also learn to adjust her moral code if she wants to continue living with the vampire and the werewolf.

My Vampire Boyfriend promo

Excerpt:

“You have to feed, Jack,” I insisted, “And you cannot use me. We tried that before and you almost killed me, remember?”

“You found a way to survive,” my vampire replied gruffly.

I laughed, but it was not amusement that brought such a reaction.

“I survived,” I said, emphasising the word, “because of your brother. Danny saved me. He sacrificed his wolves so that I could claw back some human strength. Maybe that’s what caused this…” I gestured to the empty space on the bed behind me, “thing with Suri.”

“Perhaps,” Jack replied quietly, “But the point is, you survived.”

Words from the Author

I have always been fascinated by the vampire myth and wrote my dissertation on vampires for my university degree. Contrary to popular folklore, I have always viewed vampires as a romantic and misunderstood creature, although I do not doubt their ability to kill and destroy. To me they represent the primitive, dangerous part of ourselves that humans prefer to ignore.

Are you Team Jack or Team Danny? Sign up now and receive your FREE story from #TheRedcliffeNovels series set in Cornwall, England.

Find #TheRedcliffeNovels series in bookshops and online and request them in your local library. For buy links and more details, visit Catherine Green at http://catherinegreenauthor.blogspot.co.uk/ You can find her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as @SpookyMrsGreen.

Buy from Amazon UK;  Buy from Amazon US;  Buy from Smashwords;

Buy from NOOK Books (Barnes & Noble); Buy from Kobo

 

[Vampire Month] Very Nice by Terry Jackman

09 Saturday Mar 2019

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Author Picture of Terry Jackman sitting in a garden chair

Terry Jackman

We open this year’s Vampire month with a piece of flash fiction by Terry Jackman, author of Ashamet and who is currently working on a Vampire novel (which I hope to feature on here when it is finally published).

Very Nice is a quirky little tale with a subtle bite… I hope you enjoy it…

Very Nice

By Terry Jackman

All those winding lanes to drive through these days. Would she ever get used to them? It was almost two o’clock by the time she got home and her feet were killing her. Still, the mirror was the first attraction. Well, what did she think now she had done it? Was it really her? Too short? Too modern? Highlights he had called them and she’d felt obliged to tell him, ‘Very nice, dear.’ And she’d asked for something different, so it wasn’t his fault.

        Then she pulled a silly face at her reflection. Nice. Such a… a safe sounding word. And what she looked like too, her Ernie would have told her.

        Then the hall clock ticked and tutted at her, reminding her that time was precious.

        Upstairs then, to change into a nice, warm woollie and her comfy slippers. Then into the kitchen; unpack all the shopping, measure out the filter coffee, fetch the tray-cloth and the rosebud china. And of course her special pastries. My, they did look tempting, pale yellow fondant squares and chocolate brownies. She knew gentlemen liked chocolate though of course she always took a lemon fondant. You would never know she hadn’t made a single cake till Ernie had passed over. But there, he’d spoiled her. ‘Go on,’ he’d say, and laugh, ‘there’s always more where that one came from.’

        She sighed, then brightened. Wonderful how one adapted, really. Six years now, six lonely years, but she’d managed. It had meant moving out of their little house in town but she liked the cottage, and the nearby village. More importantly she’d kept her strength up. It hadn’t always been easy but it had all worked out wonderfully, hadn’t it?

        Two thirty, already? She was breathless again as well; sure sign she needed to eat. At least the lounge was spotless, thank goodness she’d got up so early. The table sparkled from its morning polish. Not just a squirt from one of those spray things either. That magazine had said that beeswax made a house more friendly, that and the smell of fresh coffee when someone walked in.

        She’d been a bit doubtful about that part. Ernie had detested coffee. “Muck” he’d called it. but she’d got quite fond of it nowadays, and the magazine had been quite right; no one had refused a cup, and once they’d gone that far, well, a piece of cake was nothing, was it?

        Two thirty-five. Had he forgotten? No, there was a van outside and heavens, he was on the path already.

        Along the hall. Straighten the little brass jug that held the cellar keys. A last glance at that too-short hairdo, though perhaps she did look younger. A calming breath, and seize the handle.

        ‘Mrs Booth? I’m here to mend your washer.’

        Oh, oh yes. So young. So big. So juicy. Why, he’d last the whole of winter. Mrs Booth backed in and beamed at him. She did hope he liked chocolate.

New year musings…

01 Tuesday Jan 2019

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As usual, I am late at doing a retrospective of the old year. In fact, I may be more than a year late as I cannot recall if I did one of these last year or not…

Anyway, after being name checked in Russel A Smith’s blog yesterday I have been shamed into doing a new year post of my own…

Eddie the smooth coated fox terrier on a beach with a ball2018 has been a mixed year. I lost two things. One was my full time employment, with redundancy in June. The other, more tragic and personal, was the loss of Eddie, our Smooth Fox Terrier. This last one is still very recent (December) and he will be sorely missed. He has featured both in this blog as ‘Christmas dog’ and also had a small cameo in my first novella publication (Transitions) where he is found eating from an upturned bin during a scene where the hero, Brandon, leaves a love note on Helen’s doorstep. I am sure he would have been the first to tell you that the entire plot of that story was all about him and the bin eating scene was artistically essential for the overall plot of the novel and if you cut it out the whole story collapses.

However, there were also good things in 2018. For one, the loss of employment has allowed more time for writing – both fiction and non-fiction. This has meant that I have now almost completed my second educational resource and will be starting a third later in January. I will be using this blog to announce when these are published so keep an eye out for that. The two current ones are based on the BTEC level 3 Health and Social Care specifications for 2016. The potential future one will be based on the Applied science specification.

I’ve also kicked the fiction writing up a notch. I have been working with a new writing Authors incliding Jacey Bedford and Ruth Long doing a panel at Mancunicon Eastercongroup, courtesy of the wonderful Jacey Bedford who is shown in the photograph from a panel I shared with her at Mancunicon (Eastercon) and that has given me some inspiration and encouragement. I am currently working on two novels. One is a sequel to Gods of the Deep called Gods of the City which will bring us back to the Arcroc and the adventures of Rachel and Everyn. The other currently does not have a name (it was formerly Fortune and Troy but that title no longer works for various reasons and I need a rethink…) but will be set in the Waypoint universe which has already featured in two of the stories in Lurking Miscellany.

Final thing in writing is that I have become a reviewer for the BSFA Review. My reviews have not (at present) made it to the page but are expected to start appearing in the next issue which is due out soon. I have been reading a mix of trad and self published books. Spoiler alert, my review of Lost Gods by fellow Mancunian Micah is largely positive. This has nothing to do with the fact I got to attend the lavish release party…

Purple relief figure in Brick lane, LondonIn photography, I have made massive changes. I attended a course at the London Institute of Photography in August. I spent a few days in London with them doing artistic shoots in Brick Lane and the Barbican centre and a few other places.  I learned a lot there and have been applying what I learned to my work. One of the images I took there is shown here – some of the fascinating graffiti in Brick Lane, London. I also traveled to Cyprus to photograph my sister’s wedding, which was an amazing experience and have found a group of local photographers who have been meeting in a pub in Manchester every Wednesday to experiment with interesting photography ideas. I have set up a facebook page to showcase some of my more recent shoots both from those sessions and others.

I also found out that a good friend of mine has recently qualified as a professional photographer and did a residency abroad which was very successful and which makes me very jealous of her. You can see examples of her work here. She is absolutely amazing and I want her to do well if only so that the wonderful photos she took of me and my wife at a friend’s wedding become collector’s pieces in the future :).

For the year to come I am making my usual creative resolution but modifying it. Over the last two years I have made it a policy to do at least one creative thing every day, even if only a small thing (literally a word or two on a document counted). It didn’t matter what it was – writing something, taking a photograph or editing a photograph all counted. However, in the latter half of 2018 I modified the rule a little. Now, instead of being able to do photography OR writing tasks I am being strict and saying that I must do writing every day. I am not making a similar rule for photography as I know that it is often erratic when I can get to do that. However, I am sure there will be more of that to come. The writing every day is essential for the writing group anyway. There must be new stuff for them to critique each meeting and that means I have had to up my volume.

Coming up this year are a number of things.

First of all there is the release of Out of this World Alphas due soon. 15th January is the release date you should put in your calendar. FB_IMG_1545486717540.jpgOr you can click the link and pre-order if you prefer and it will be delivered to your e-reader on the release date. I have a story in this anthology set in the Arcroc that stands between Gods of the Deep and Gods of the City.

Secondly, thanks to the aforesaid Russel Smith, I am working on another anthology which will be based in Manchester. I have the vague concept of a story incubating for that which involves druidic magic.

As for conferences etc. I am not able to make Picocon again this year, which is a shame because I really enjoyed my time there last year. However finances are against me there and, besides, I have two other amazing conferences to get to this year. One of these is Eastercon which this year is in London and gives me the chance to catch up with Frances Hardinge again after too long not seeing her. Regular readers will recall many years ago when she appeared on this blog having done a reading for World Book Night at the Fab cafe. I also did a reading then but I am not sure as many noticed. I am looking forward to a good weekend of panels and talking with people who I tend to only see once a year over Easter…

The other main event this year is like Eastercon only bigger… Worldcon is coming to Dublin this year and as that makes it far more accessible than it has ever been I am going to travel there in August. I have also been involved in the brainstorming sessions for this, which seem to involve a bunch of people sending emails with crazy panel ideas and the rest of us either agreeing with them or making them crazier. No spoilers but I am sure any of you who attend will be in for some treats… I am looking forward to my first Worldcon and will be there with a camera in order to take lots of photos of Dublin to bore you all with.

So that is it… plans for the new year as they currently stand. I hope you all have a good new year yourselves and are successful in any and all ventures you attempt.

 

A sadder than usual Christmas Dog.

25 Tuesday Dec 2018

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Those who follow on Facebook will already be aware that Eddie, who gas been the Christmas face of this blog for many years, left us earlier this month.

He was an old dog of nearly 16 years old and so had a very good run and, based on the reaction he got on Facebook, he had a lot of fans out there.

So, this will be the last Christmas Dog post he will feature in.

Merry Christmas everyone and enjoy your day.

Lost Gods book launch: Manchester

21 Saturday Jul 2018

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So… the life of a writer… the glitz, the glamour, the other things beginning with ‘g’ that you get invited to (galas? geography lessons? geodesic domes?). The free prosecco and free coffee. The tasteful music. And somewhere in the middle of that, the book. Micha Yongo does a reading in Manchester's Chapter One books

So, what was the latest glitzy, glamourous gala about? Well, thanks to happening to meet the wonderful Micah Yongo at Eastercon (thanks to R.A Smith who knows people… I am the person who knows people who know people… I’m dead influential like that 🙂 ) I snagged an invite to the very exclusive launch of his new book – Lost Gods.

Well, I say exclusive. Turns out I could have just walked in off the street but hey it’s good to feel elite occasionally. 🙂

6C1A9719-2To celebrate the launch of the book, Micah’s publisher, Angry Robot, had organised a tasteful party at Chapter One books in Manchester. There was indeed prosecco (though I limited myself to the coffee) and a very good audience who had turned out to see Micah do a reading and ask some questions. There was also live music and a chance to buy the book and have Micah sign it. Of course I took that opportunity because the ‘shelf of books signed by authors I have actually met’ is not yet completely full…

Lost Gods is Micah’s debut fantasy novel and tells the story of a young assassin, Neythan, in a fantasy world based on the myths and legends Micah grew up with. This alternative cultural take on fantasy is what has given Lost Gods a strong pre-release buzz and Micah’s strong voice seems set to carry this story through into the sequel he is currently writing. The reading showcases this voice and the question and answer session afterwards gave some intriguing hints as to what was to come as well as delving into the mind of an author who is still shocked he has got this far in convincing someone to publish his book. Afterwards, he was a gracious host, circulating and talking with everyone there. I spent my time not taking photos hobnobbing with Pat Kelleher and enjoying the relaxed but stylish atmosphere of the event.

In all, an entertaining night and I am looking forward to reading the novel…