My fellow people of the West Country rejoice, for your local-yearly-small-yet-growing-one-day-speculative-fiction-event is but a few short weeks away. Yes, on November 6th I shall be Guest-of-Dishonouring at Bristolcon, at the Ramada Hotel, alongside Paul Cornell, and with a cornucopia of other writers including Al Reynolds, Juliet McKenna and John Meaney in attendance. The full schedule is up here, and my part in it looks a little something like this:
11.00 – Question and Answer session with Cheryl Morgan.
13.00 – Signing of anything and everything bearing my name. More than welcome to bring your own.
15.00 – Visualising Fantastical Worlds – panel on … visualising fantastical worlds.
18.00 – Writing Fight Scenes – panel. I must confess to being a little concerned about this one, as John Meaney has already acquired permission from my wife to physically damage me during it (it was surprisingly easy to obtain) and he’s a hardcore martial artist.
Then I dareasy I’ll hang around a while to shoot the proverbial. As said, it’s a small event, but only in its second year, so if you are in the area and fancy it, it’d be great to see some of you come along…
In other news, for those of us who’ve always liked to argue bitterly with other members of your Runequest group about things like who would win in a punch up between Lara Croft and Galadriel, Suvudu.com are running another of their cage matches, in which various fictional figures square off against each other in a tournament style battle to the death, decided by public vote and with the authors responsible occasionally turning up to put their thumb on the scales. They did warriors, this time they’re doing villains. More importantly, this time I’ve got a man in the game. Yes, indeed, everyone’s favourite half-tattooed, half-invulnerable, superhumanly strong, strangely twitching, eight-foot-giant-devil-blood-killing-machine, said to have been dug out of a mountain and resurrected by a witch, the undefeated champion of the King of the Northmen, Fenris the Feared will be taking on an assortment of this galaxy and several others’ most evil in combat to utter annihilation. I’ve never read the Foundation books, so I don’t know much about his first opponent, the Mule, but he don’t sound so tough. Just a kind of small horse, right? Still, after that it looks like Lord Soth, who I seem to remember being able to kill with a word, then someone from a selection of Terminators, Aliens, Professor Moriarty, and the Nothing from the Neverending Story, and if Fenris can somehow put that lot down, in the Semi-Final he faces none other than the great eye himself, Sauron. Man. Tough draw. So get on there and VOTE FEARED. Only with YOUR SUPPORT will he make it through those tricky opening rounds…
There’s also a video interview with me up at Book Spot Central, conducted by Elena Nolan at the Recent New York Comic Con. You’ll have to forgive the ropey sound. It was pretty noisy in there…
17 comments so far
The Mule is a super-mutant, who basically fuckers up the entire Asimovian trilogy with his very birth.
Fenris’ll take him. Hands down.
My money’s on the Feared to take it all (though he has a tough opponent in Eric Cartman…”
I’ve voted, but at the moment it is not looking good for Fenris….
The 6th? Shame.I’m in westbury and (shudders)swindon the week before.Never mind.
Just voted and Fenris has 50.93% of the votes so edging ahead.
Aw hell, if it goes my way, they’ll have Fenris vs Bender in the next round! THEN WHAT WILL I DO.
JOE are you going to be giving us a Write up of how you think the fights will go?
If you and George R R Martin Both do write ups and the Feared faces the Mountain I think my head might explode
Just voted for the big guy. Up to 54.9% now!
I’m hoping to attend and will be bringing along my trusty bannister for you to sign 😛
Just voted Fenris!
Also, I saw you on X-factor the other night, really impressed with your performance 😉
http://xfactor-updates.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Matt-Cardle.jpg
Harvey,
I look more like that Wagner bloke.
Just voted for Fenris and things are looking up!
All I have to say is that you are fucking talented and that I hope you don’t get fat and die prematurely from diabetes or the plague, because the world needs your words like a hooker needs ball sacks.
Aw hell, you talked to me once. I’ll vote twice for Fenris and once for The Mule.
Is Rand Paul in this?
Don’t know who this Mule bloke is, but Lord Soth is NAILS. Good luck Fenris, you’re gonna need it!
Lol @ Harve. I thought the same myself since week one (though i’ve stopped watching it now as it’s boring this year and full of talentless people; they’re using writers like Joe to sing for example).
Don’t discount professor Moriarty so easily. He is into self-organizing nanities now. And he’d just passes rejuvenation it seems:
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/Physics/People/philip.moriarty