A date for your diaries if you live in or within reasonable striking distance of London. This coming February 16th and 17th, I’ll be Guest of Honour at Imperial College’s PicoCon.
As you’ll see from this link, I am not alone in this – fellow GoHs are:
Peter F. Hamilton - distinguished doyen of British SF who very kindly gave Altered Carbon a booster rocket of a blurb back when I was starting out, sent champagne to me on my first US book tour, and fed me one evening during Eastercon 2005 in the bosom of his own home, while also juggling the – I now appreciate – myriad heavy demands of early fatherhood.
Steph Swainston - one of the finest fantasy stylists to emerge this young century, whose work has been a subtle but pervasive influence on the Land Fit for Heroes novels, who knows – and holds – her whisky better than any man I know, and who lent me a book about seven years ago which I still haven’t returned – sorry Steph, will bring it down.
Kate Griffin/Catherine Webb - whom, uhm, I confess I know nothing at all about, but who is, I’m sure very talented and lovely to talk to.
So look, there’s really no decent excuse not to attend. Right?
See you there!
Looks like fun – I hope I don’t forget about it by the time tickets are on sale. There doesn’t appear to be any sort of RSS feed for the site.
It would be enormously useful if you could let us know when tickets are available, if you happen to get hold of the info!
My respect for Peter Hamilton has just jumped exponentially.
Wish I could be there, but currently there are no contests to enter to win a free trip to the UK. So keep us informed – maybe posting your panels on YouTube???
I’ll be there!
Kate Griffin is an excellent writer who has a highly tactile, intense writing style that can be at once exhilarating and exhausting. Like yourself, she pulls no punches when it comes to dealing with her characters. Perhaps the best thing about her Swift novels is the way in which she brings a magical London to life, a London which is surprisingly believable and wholly charming.
In truth I got a little bored with the Swift series about halfway through the 3rd book. In my (trivial) opinion they could do with being pared down a bit and also I wish that she’d cut Swift some slack every now and then. He ends up spending much of the time limping around from scene to scene, bleeding profusely like a Bollywood hero.
Nonetheless I would insist that the first in the series (‘A Madness of Angels’ is definitely worth a read; and the second too if you get on well with the first.
I’ll leave you with a little something from the Blue Electric Angels, magical beings who live in the telephone lines:
“We be light, we be life, we be fire! We sing electric flame, we rumble underground wind, we dance heaven! Come be we and be free!”
Speaking of U.S. book tours, are you coming to the States anytime soon?
@ damaia and Linda
No plans for a US tour, and the way things are economically in the publishing industry, I don’t see any emerging any time soon – maybe if Land Fit for Heroes suddenly started shifting Terry Brooks-type numbers, but that, likewise, I don’t see happening somehow. So failing an invitation from a US Con, I’m afraid I’m going to be staying firmly this side of the Atlantic for the foreseeable future……
@ Simon – will do
Thanks in favor of sharing such a pleasant idea, piece of writing is fastidious, thats why i have read it fully
Here is my page debs dress
or ‘Yo you’re hot, lets hook up’ than a real message. If you site do not do check the criminal records out then you may have to personally check that out yourself so as to know criminal status of your new date. Network, shortening the distance between people, but not to shorten the distance between the mind and soul.