Fantasycon
Well, that was an excellent weekend. Never having been to a con before, I wasn't sure what to expect, and was afraid there may have been a lot of sitting (or worse, standing) around waiting for the sessions with Neil Gaiman and Clive Barker. That was not the case.
Really long.
The traffic gods did not smile on us on the way up, so we just about made it to the welcome speech. I did get in to the first panel discussion, "UK vs the US", featuring Ramsey Campbell, Neil Gaiman, Raymond E Feist and Juliet E McKenna (what is it about high fantasy writers and middle initials?). This was very interesting, and funny. The next session was an interview with Ramsey Campbell, who by that time had had a bit to drink. He was thoroughly entertaining.
Horrible admission: I've never read any of Ramsey's stuff, despite lots of authors I like recommending him every chance they get. It had also slipped my attention that he's heavily influenced by Lovecraft. I picked up a collection of his short stories in the vendors' room, which he happily signed for me this morning.
I was exhausted so did my pumpkin routine, but Jason stayed for the late night horror stories readings (including some from Ramsey), which he assures me was very entertaining.
The pumpkin routine turned out to be counter-productive as I had a visit from the insomnia fairy and had pretty damn close to no sleep, so Saturday was unbelievably hard work, but full of really good surprises. As I wasn't up to standing or moving much, I sat through some panels I wouldn't otherwise have bothered with, and every single one of them was entertaining and informative.
We made it for most of the panel on children's fantasy, followed by an interview with Raymond E Feist. I'd been quite impressed by him at the panel on Friday night. He's another author I've heard of but never read. Then again, high fantasy isn't really my thing. He was very impressive though, and I resolved to at least check out his material (there's almost as much as of Ramsey's). It turns out we got a copy of one of his books in our conference goody bags. I'm practically certain it's the one he said you shouldn't start with, but it should give me a good idea as to whether I want to check out any others.
Then we had "scriptwriting improvisation", except that the panel never got around to that, but sat around for an hour bitching about how they'd been screwed over by the film world. From a non-scriptwriter's point of view, this was probably more entertaining. The highlight was Clive Barker's rant about when he can feel Death entering the room and a project dying on the spot. The example he used involved someone insisting on singing butterflies - you had to be there, but it was hilarious.
At some point I got myself a copy of the collection in which naturalbornkaos has a story and got him to sign it.
There was a short break for lunch. I didn't feel like leaving the hotel, and their buffet was a bit expensive but really good and I got to eat some healthy food. And a big piece of pie.
Next up was the Neil Gaiman interview, which was unsurprisingly fab.
The next session was independent vs. mainstream editing, which I only stuck around for because I was too tired to move, but was glad I did. Basically the indie and the mainstream editors all played nice and agreed on everything & the guy from the big publishing house made like they really do believe in genre fiction, but what was interesting was that the main thing they agree on is how much they are all being screwed over by the booksellers. Very educational.
The interview with Clive Barker (what I'd come for, and it looked like everybody else too judging by how packed out the auditorium was) was fantastic. I passed on an opportunity to be introduced to him - I was in the state of beyond brain deadness where I'd probably just say really stupid & embarrassing things, and of all the people in the world I'd rather didn't think I'm a moron, Clive Barker is near the top of the list.
The only difficult choice we had to make was between catching a reading of Clive Barker's play, "Frankenstein in Love", and a panel on "Crime in Fantasyland" (as a reader of both genres I wanted to know what they had to say) and lots of signings. We opted for the play, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's pretty much what you'd expect from a play that Clive Barker wrote. There were indeed beating hearts pulled from people's chests. Unfortunately I was at the point of overtired where I started to shake a lot.
Went out for dinner, and did the pumpkin thing again as I did not feel any better after a good meal. I was really disappointed with myself at the time, but reading how much stuff I'd done already on Saturday, I'm not surprised. Didn't sleep well, but got some sleep.
There was only one thing I wanted to do today: the panel on the changing face of horror. First thing of the day at 10:00 a.m. I was most intrigued by an Irish writer called John Connolly who writes crime fiction with supernatural elements. I looked him up on Amazon when I got home, and discovered that I have heard of his books (just hadn't made the connection) and thought I'd like to read them anyway.
Had one last go round the vendors' room and headed out.
As we all know, I'm compulsive about buying books. I don't want to know how much I spent on books this weekend, but in addition to being a room with loads of books on sale, the enthusiasm everybody had for genre fiction was truly contagious. I'll probably wibble about my discoveries at length sooner or later. I even got to thinking about writing again, and had a more difficult time coming to terms with re-joining the outside world than I do after Whitby.
It would depend on the guests and the timing, but I would definitely consider going back next year. Especially if I'm trying to sell The Great Canadian Ghost Story.
Really long.
The traffic gods did not smile on us on the way up, so we just about made it to the welcome speech. I did get in to the first panel discussion, "UK vs the US", featuring Ramsey Campbell, Neil Gaiman, Raymond E Feist and Juliet E McKenna (what is it about high fantasy writers and middle initials?). This was very interesting, and funny. The next session was an interview with Ramsey Campbell, who by that time had had a bit to drink. He was thoroughly entertaining.
Horrible admission: I've never read any of Ramsey's stuff, despite lots of authors I like recommending him every chance they get. It had also slipped my attention that he's heavily influenced by Lovecraft. I picked up a collection of his short stories in the vendors' room, which he happily signed for me this morning.
I was exhausted so did my pumpkin routine, but Jason stayed for the late night horror stories readings (including some from Ramsey), which he assures me was very entertaining.
The pumpkin routine turned out to be counter-productive as I had a visit from the insomnia fairy and had pretty damn close to no sleep, so Saturday was unbelievably hard work, but full of really good surprises. As I wasn't up to standing or moving much, I sat through some panels I wouldn't otherwise have bothered with, and every single one of them was entertaining and informative.
We made it for most of the panel on children's fantasy, followed by an interview with Raymond E Feist. I'd been quite impressed by him at the panel on Friday night. He's another author I've heard of but never read. Then again, high fantasy isn't really my thing. He was very impressive though, and I resolved to at least check out his material (there's almost as much as of Ramsey's). It turns out we got a copy of one of his books in our conference goody bags. I'm practically certain it's the one he said you shouldn't start with, but it should give me a good idea as to whether I want to check out any others.
Then we had "scriptwriting improvisation", except that the panel never got around to that, but sat around for an hour bitching about how they'd been screwed over by the film world. From a non-scriptwriter's point of view, this was probably more entertaining. The highlight was Clive Barker's rant about when he can feel Death entering the room and a project dying on the spot. The example he used involved someone insisting on singing butterflies - you had to be there, but it was hilarious.
At some point I got myself a copy of the collection in which naturalbornkaos has a story and got him to sign it.
There was a short break for lunch. I didn't feel like leaving the hotel, and their buffet was a bit expensive but really good and I got to eat some healthy food. And a big piece of pie.
Next up was the Neil Gaiman interview, which was unsurprisingly fab.
The next session was independent vs. mainstream editing, which I only stuck around for because I was too tired to move, but was glad I did. Basically the indie and the mainstream editors all played nice and agreed on everything & the guy from the big publishing house made like they really do believe in genre fiction, but what was interesting was that the main thing they agree on is how much they are all being screwed over by the booksellers. Very educational.
The interview with Clive Barker (what I'd come for, and it looked like everybody else too judging by how packed out the auditorium was) was fantastic. I passed on an opportunity to be introduced to him - I was in the state of beyond brain deadness where I'd probably just say really stupid & embarrassing things, and of all the people in the world I'd rather didn't think I'm a moron, Clive Barker is near the top of the list.
The only difficult choice we had to make was between catching a reading of Clive Barker's play, "Frankenstein in Love", and a panel on "Crime in Fantasyland" (as a reader of both genres I wanted to know what they had to say) and lots of signings. We opted for the play, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's pretty much what you'd expect from a play that Clive Barker wrote. There were indeed beating hearts pulled from people's chests. Unfortunately I was at the point of overtired where I started to shake a lot.
Went out for dinner, and did the pumpkin thing again as I did not feel any better after a good meal. I was really disappointed with myself at the time, but reading how much stuff I'd done already on Saturday, I'm not surprised. Didn't sleep well, but got some sleep.
There was only one thing I wanted to do today: the panel on the changing face of horror. First thing of the day at 10:00 a.m. I was most intrigued by an Irish writer called John Connolly who writes crime fiction with supernatural elements. I looked him up on Amazon when I got home, and discovered that I have heard of his books (just hadn't made the connection) and thought I'd like to read them anyway.
Had one last go round the vendors' room and headed out.
As we all know, I'm compulsive about buying books. I don't want to know how much I spent on books this weekend, but in addition to being a room with loads of books on sale, the enthusiasm everybody had for genre fiction was truly contagious. I'll probably wibble about my discoveries at length sooner or later. I even got to thinking about writing again, and had a more difficult time coming to terms with re-joining the outside world than I do after Whitby.
It would depend on the guests and the timing, but I would definitely consider going back next year. Especially if I'm trying to sell The Great Canadian Ghost Story.