And in mag news....
Just got an encouraging review of issue 1 in the latest BSFA mag. I'll put my hands up to the bad typo's & spelling cock ups (in particular, apologies to Tony Richards for continually mis-spelling the title of his story - it should have been 'The Lightning Dogs' NOT 'The Lightening Dogs' - I'll fire my proofreader now shall I?)

Everybody go aaaaaaah. Li'l sis is moving out this week to a funky little 1 bed semi just up the road.
Truth is, I'm probably way more excited about it than she is, if only cos I get to have all the fun buying stuff for her new place while she's at work. :->

And back to the lovely H&N...
Contributor & review copies of Issue 2 are going out today (which is nice!) And for all those outstanding submission people I've not contacted, next couple of days, I promise. I've got the fiction contents of issues 4 & 5 locked down, with Issue 6 almost full. When I've notified all the relative people re. what issue and when, there'll be an update on the website (and a handy clickable to let you pre-order the relevent issues!)

I'm still after faction pieces for all forthcoming issues. And not just genre pieces, either. I'd like to see some earth mysteries/folklore/urban magic type pieces Full gl.s re. format & style etc. are at www.bradanpress.co.uk - just hit the 'Submit!' link and you're there.

UK mag news...

The other day I heard a rumour that Legend, run by Trevor 'Roadworks' Denyer was finishing. Today I got confirmation that it's definitely going. Damn, bugger & blast. That & Kimota were my two favourite fantasy mags and now they're both gone.

On the plus side, there's the relatively new mag 3SF being published by Big Engine. I've haven't got my hands on a copy yet, but it sounds impressive. Full colour cover, tons of features, great looking artwork.....

(Course if you really want a good fantasy mag, you've to turn no further than the fabulous Here & Now! Buy it. Love it. Subscribe for more! You know it makes sense.)

Bloggers bloggers everywhere.....

Just trawling through some of my favourite sites this morning and discovered that Ariel of the Alien Online has a blog. (Ok, so he's had it a while, I just hadn't noticed it before.....)

And ever so handily, the Alien Online has a link to the brand spanking new blog of Mark Chadbourn, one of my fave authors. His Age of Misrule trilogy is totally top banana! Great big whalloping books stuffed full of urban fantasy at it's best, with tons of Brit folklore mixed into the nail-biting narrative. (Sorry, do I sound like blurb there?)

Then there's Neil Gaiman, the lord and master of the Sandman, and also the one responsible for getting me into graphic novels/comics in the first place. Although I think I first discovered him via Good Omens when I was in a serious Pratchett phase. His American Gods was great, and I loved Neverwhere (and I'd really like to see some more stories from the Neverwhere universe.)

She had a whisky drink, she had a lager drink......
Helen and her bezzie mate went out to play last night.
Now my favourite and only sister is an expert at the art of alcohol consumption.
At school, she passed her end of year exams under the influence of what her and the gang had smuggled in.
She can drink anyone under the table and has been known to mix a good dozen varieties of alckie in one night .
Champagne with a Russian cola chaser, tia maria coffee interspersed with several red wines.
Half a bottle of voddy, and any number of odd neon coloured drinks.
She's been there, drunk that, and is still able to walk, communicate and wake up bright and early the next morning with no ill effects apparent.

And being a consummate professional, she knows what she can take and knows when to stop.

Her friend, on the other hand, got completely wasted and has spent the whole morning throwing up. Every 30 mins. Regular as wotsit.
Lovely.

Hah! I finally got the The Invisible Kingdom this morning and naturally it's already been gobbled up. Talk about your head fuck. Coincidentally some of the points raised regarding common identity/fic-suits/nature of time, space & the universe! were things I'd been getting my head around earlier in the week.
I love it when that happens. Not just a cracking story but a cool philosophical text to boot.
The art was a bit shite in a few pages towards the end though. Can't work out whether it was intentional or just an unfortunate byproduct of the artists jam that happened when they were doing the series way back.
I'm sure I read somewhere - probably on BARBELiTH - that some of the panels were redrawn from the graph nov. version.

Oh hell. I've succumbed to the blogging monster!
So what news to start off with? Well I guess the main news is that Issue 2 of my lovely lovely mag is out today. Check out www.bradanpress.co.uk for all the deep & dirty details!
Issue 3 is hopefully due out around mid to late Feb, though at current there are minor deviations in the schedule.
By issue 4 we should be back on track with a nice regular publication schedule (and now watch as gremlins pile up to prove me wrong).
I'd love to see some more submissions from the UK as currently we're getting tons of US authors sending stuff and not so many home country authors.
I'd also love to see some more article submissions - opinion pieces, regulars or one offs - guidelines are on the website.

What else?
In non mag news, I'm anxiously waiting to get my greasy mitts on the latest Invisibles graphic novel. It's been on order since the end of December and I've already gone through my graphic novel collection twice in anticipation. I only discovered the Invisibles last summer and it was an immediate addiction. Damn but that's bloody good stuff.
Heh! Guess the wait is punishment for being slow on sending out all those BFS orders I've been sitting on.