Fantasycon GoH: The Third!

And the third and final guest for Fcon this September is.... Gail Z. Martin!

Young Mr Coleborn quoth "We are delighted to announce that Gail Z Martin is confirmed as our third Guest of Honour. Gail is the author of the Chronicles of the Necromancer series: The Summoner, The Blood King, Dark Haven and Dark Lady’s Chosen (coming in 2010). She discovered her passion for science fiction, fantasy and ghost stories in elementary school. The very first story she ever wrote — at age five — was about a vampire. Her favorite TV shows as a pre-schooler were Dark Shadows and Lost in Space. At age 14, she decided to become a writer, and launched a fanzine when she was in college. Gail enjoys attending science fiction/fantasy conventions, Renaissance fairs and living history sites. She is married and has three children, a Himalayan cat and a golden retriever. And now, visit her website to find out more; and then nip over to YouTube for information on her forthcoming book."

Fantasycon GoH: The Second!

And yet more news hot off the wossname... but a mere hour ago, young Mr Coleborn reported "We are delighted to announce that our second Guest of Honour is Brian Clemens. Born in Surrey in 1931, he is best known as the creative force behind The Avengers, for many of us epitomised by the image of Diana Rigg starring as Mrs Emma Peel. After service in the Army he worked in an advertising agency, during which he wrote a script which attracted the attention of the BBC. And from small beginnings... He later wrote the pilot episode of The Avengers, first shown in 1961. Besides writing for this, he scripted TV shows such as Adam Adamant Lives, The Persuaders, The Professionals and Thriller. A more detailed biography can be found here."

So Brian Clemens joins the fabled likes of Jasper Fforde and Ian Watson at Fantasycon over the weekend of 18th - 20th September 2009 at the ever interesting Britannia Hotel in Nottingham...

And while we're waiting for website problems to be sorted, booking and contact info can be found here. (I hope!)

Fantasycon GoH: the First!

News hot off the wossname. We have just had it confirmed that the one and only JASPER FFORDE is our first official Guest of Honour at Fantasycon this year! Woot!

Blurb direct from the BFS temp website, courtesy of Chair-bod Guy Adams: "Since his first novel -- The Eyre Affair -- was published in 2001 Fforde has consistently blurred genres, producing a wonderful series of reality-bending, funny, complex, literate and very very silly books. His Tuesday Next series follows the adventures of the eponymous heroine and LiteraryDetective as she solves crimes against fiction in an alternative Republic of England. The Nursery Crime series, starring DCI Jack Spratt, have addressed both the murder of Humpty Dumpty (The Big Over Easy, 2005) and porridge-smuggling by bears (The Fourth Bear, 2006). A new series begins this August with his latest novel Shades of Grey."

So just to remind any interested peeps, the Fantasycon essentials are now: Fcon 2009, 18th - 20th September at the Britannia Hotel, St James Street, Nottingham with GoH Jasper FForde and MC Ian Watson. Hurrah!

Now we just need to get the server problems sorted so we can have an actual working website to shout about it properly...

Superheroines

So idly googling random things, as one is wont to do of a Sunday morning, I ran across this quite jaw dropping article on Cinemablend which opines that apparently women don't want to see movies with female superheroes in... who knew?!

From what I can tell, the above eyeroller came about as a response to the saner view of Thera Pitts on Rope of Silicon who quite rightly reckons that, yes, actually there needs to be more Superheroines in the comic book movie genre. And not just eye candy in skimpy costumes with a puerile excuse for something vaguely plotlike either.. ::coughs-catwoman-coughs::