Morning. Been a while!


The obligatory BFS section!

Jay and Selina's first Prism has been proofed and should be at the printers now. Quite looking forward to seeing it - especially as I'm now in the position to be as surprised as everyone else about when it lands on the doormat! Word from those that have seen the proofs is that it looks good and has a bit of a comicy feel to it...

Fcon is getting rather interesting - or rather, Fcon and assorted BFS related events for 2008 & 2009. It's all very hush hush at the moment and I'll be skinned alive if I gossip too much about it yet. 'tis quite tickle-some, though... It may entail a slight shifting of next year's Fcon date to a smidge earlier in the year, though. Probs around late June or first week of July before the schools break up - depends what happens about some other things first.

We're doing a Britannia meeting this Saturday to give the hotel bods what for and decide if we can squeeze an art show into Fcon this year, or not. Have got the event schedule pretty much worked out now - solid double streaming with a good lot of workshops and seminars as well as the usual panels. There may be a chance that there's a smaller room we can use if we fancy, it only holds 2o peeps though so we're not sure what we can use it for, unless we try a lot more readings during the day this time.
If you want a space in the dealer room this year, you need to talk to Vicky sharpish as there's limited space and we're almost full up. If you want to pay online for your membership email Vicky or Pat - it's not a facility we can advertise widely on the Fcon site due to various, erm, complications, but it's there if you want it.
Those of you who have booked, confirmation letters will be on the way shortly.

And the raffle has had a complete overhaul. And we're doing a mass signing with the guests and a few other authors on the Friday night as part of the opening festivities (so no quiz this year.)

Ooh, and Mike Carey's coming! He'll be on a comics panel on the Saturday.

And Simon Clark returns with his Write for Life talk, also the utterly fabulous Chaz Brenchley will be doing one as well. We're just working out what the maximum numbers for these will be then we'll sort out if they're going to be ticketed events or not.


The obligatory technological whinge.

I hate broadband. It's official. Especially BT Broadband. Bastards.


Bookie bookie...

Kelley Armstrong's latest one, No Humans Allowed, is fab. Highly recommended.
Joe Abercrombie's Before They Are Hanged is also an excellent read.
Looking forward to the next Locke Lamora one, due 21st June... hurrah!

Have also been on a bit of novelisation jag - 9 Resident Evil ones and 5 Tomb Raider ones. My eyes hurt. Problem with the Resident Evil ones are that the non-movie ones are a bit out of step with the game continuity, and generally with each other - so, for eg. if Zero Hour, written as book #0 of the series, you have the lovingly described account of Rebecca Chambers and the whole crashed train thingybob, then in the next few books where she's gets her cameos in the mansion and in the further between-game adventures, it's written like the mansion was her first experience with the zombies. Logically this suggests that book #0 was written later than than #1 - #5 or #6 but it's still mildly irritating.

The non-movie Tomb Raider ones are between-game adventures now if only someone would do game tie-in novels like they did for Resident Evil, then I'd be a happy bunny as I do love me my Tomb Raider! The comic book TR wasn't bad, the novelisations are better. Although TR: Man of Bronze is a bit blah.


Game fun
Alas, TR:Anniversary isn't going to be out on a platform I've actually got (as I hate playing it on the PC, so it's Xbox or PSone, or not at all...)
TR: Legend's been giving me a bit of hassle though - no matter how many walkthroughs I diligently follow, I still can't get near the gold treasures in Bolivia or Kazahkistan. And don't even talk to me about that bastarding sea monster. Possibly the most irritating end of level bad guy in the world, ever.


Please buy a house
Nope, they've still not sold the Blandford house. Someone please buy it. Or rent it. Or something.


Other fun
Some of the Write Fantastic will be knocking around Uxbridge library next Thursday as part of the Hillingdon litfest - may make it as Hillingdon's near my old turf. It's Jules McKenna, Sarah Ash and Jessica Rydill I believe.

Didn't make it to Alt-Fic after all that, someone decided to take the weekend off (bad boss) so had to work on the Saturday. Apparently it was really good too! Damn it.