My own appearances at the con are:

Friday 6th — 5pm — room 12 — I'll be at the launch party for Newcon Press's Dark Currents anthology, which includes my story "The Fall of Lady Sealight" and a whole lot else by a great many very talented writers.

Saturday 7th — 10am — Royal B&C (1) — panel: Sufficiently advanced magic, with me, Stephen Deas, Juliet E Mckenna, Chris Wooding and Shana Worthen, moderated by Marcus Gipps

Saturday 7th — 9pm — Room 41 — Great big mass author signings, at which I shall be somewhere. Bring your own books or buy them from whoever is there that sells books (Forbidden Planet should hopefully have some).

Monday 9th — 1pm — Royal B&C — Panel: Epic Legends of the Hierarchs, with me, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Sophia McDougall and George RR Martin, moderated by Nic Clarke.

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Other items that grabbed my attention include:

Friday 6th — 1pm — Room 38 — fight demonstration with Jo Playford (2)

- 3pm — Commonwealth (3) — Archery in fantasy TV and film (hopefully with special mention of Hawke the Slayer) with Mike Shevdon

- 6.30pm — Commonwealth — Just a Minute moderated by Paul Cornell, with Pat Cadigan, Donna Scott, Tricia Sullivan and Jo Walton.

Saturday 7th — 4pm — toss up between Fantastic Landscape panel or a talk on Unsolvable Problems in Mathematics. Seriously — that is actually useful research for me, for a story idea I'm kicking about.

- 5pm — Commonwealth — Wild Cards panel, hosted by George RR Martin

Sunday 8th — 11am — toss up between Meet the New King panel, or The Fantasy of William Shakespeare panel (4)

- 2pm — Room 41 — A Fantasy Clarke Award panel, which should be particularly interesting following recent media developments.

- 3pm — Commonwealth — You got your Robot Elf Sex in my SF panel, with Justina Robson and Adam Roberts, among others

- 4.30pm — Royal B&C — Adam Christopher reading

- 5pm — Commonwealth — The Nature of Heroism panel, with GRRM (5) and Joe Abercrombie, among others

- 8pm — Room 38 — The Death of the Author. Either a panel or a thrilling game of Russian Roulette, not sure which.

And basically a whole lot more. I've highlighted all the items I want to see, and basically my schedule is at least 60% highlighter. And need to find time for schmoozing and drinking also. Going to be a good weekend, I hope.

(1) The name of the room, apparently.

(2) May not be in time to make this one, sadly, see how I go. Also — I sincerely hope that "room 38" is not just, y'know, hotel room 38, cos that is likely to run out of space real quick.

(3) Also, hopefully, the name of the room.

(4) Presumably not focusing solely on that one with the three nuns and Will Kempe dressed as the queen.

(5) I can call him that, right?

Quick event update: this weekend I’m guest of honour at Picocon alongside serious SF authors Justina Robson and Tricia Sullivan, and am going to have to make some sort of speech. I have no fricking idea what I’m going to say, a state of affairs that may persist until I stand up in front of people and open my mouth, unless I actually get down to it.

Picocon is run by Imperial College, London, but is open to all. I will be happy to sign stuff, and there are some panels as well.

I have given in and shelved my first Larp event of the season to pitch in at Eastercon, which this year has something of an epic fantasy flavour. I will be on a couple of panels, and maybe signings etc. I have been promised the chance to be in the same room as George R.R. Martin.

Within a week of that there’s Alt Fiction in Leicester, and Fantasycon 2012 looming at some point beyond which, going by the flagship picture on the site, is apparently being held in the sea. Busy year.

I will shortly have a crack at another post on computer games, this time with the spotlight on role-playing (or lack of same), but currently research is, er, taking up all my time.

For now, just a quick update.

The various projects that I previously mentioned I was contributing to are now all up for grabs, being:

Vivisepulture, edited by Andy Remic and Wayne Simmons, from Anarchy, wherein lurks my story "Pipework".

What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been, edited by Storm Constantine, from Immanion, wherein is my article "Can I Keep Him?" and the story "The Indecipherables" which I've co-written with renowned author Justina Robson.

Horror for the Holidays, edited by Scott David Aniolowski, from Miskatonic River Press, wherein can be found my Lovecraftian opus, "Season of Sacrifice and Resurrection".

Furthermore I have a few dates for the 2012 diary even now:

- I will be at the SFX Weekender on 3–4 February doing I know not what, but I'll be there. The previous two have been fairly phenomenal multi-media events with extremely congenial company, so I'm looking forward to this one.

- I have been asked to guest at this year's Picocon (at, I think, Imperial College, London or thereabouts) on 18th February, at which I will also be doing Stuff.

- I've signed up for Alt Fiction 2012 on 14–15 April — this is not at Derby like the last few, but has migrated to Leicester for the convenience of the denizens thereof, or some such reason.

- I certainly intend to be at Fantasycon 2012, given the fun last time (3)

(1) Leaving aside the New Age types who have rather galloped ahead of the pack in declaring the end of the world, scholarly debate suggests there is no actual evidence that the Mayan calendar portends anything apocalyptic at all (from the wretchedly sparse material available). It seems just as likely that they were all marking their great great… grandchildrens' diaries for a particularly good party (2)

(2) Which in turn suggests that the Mayan culture was built on absurdly extended forward thinking and a careful attention to scheduling, and possibly the Spanish dealt them such a blow just because they failed to call ahead and book their invasion.

(3) Journey back through The Country that Public Transport Forgot notwithstanding.

Hmm. Just as well this isn't twitter. Can't be brief to save my life (1).

Anyway, an update of the last one — so grand Heirs of the Blade tour is now:

Friday 14th October (vis: tomorrow) 6-8pm Reading Waterstones (Oracle one)

Saturday 15th October, 1-2pm, London Forbidden Planet

Possibly Saturday 12th November Leeds Travelling Man — TBC

Saturday 19th November, 12-2pm Oxford Waterstones

Friday 16th December 12-2pm  Leeds Waterstones.

In addition, together with the  review of Heirs of the Blade from LEC Book Reviews, I'm happy to see that Liviu has put a review up at Fantasy Book Critic and still likes the series, so all good there.

(1) Just look at the page counts.

I will also be signing somewhat festively at the Leeds Waterstones 12–2 on Friday the 16th December this year, if you're more north-oriented (3). Oxford signing still being arranged.

Lastly, I see today that LEC Book Reviews has got in with an early and pleasant review of Heirs of the Blade (4).

(1) Don't know if this is because it's a Friday or because of vicious inter-store politics. (2)

(2) Backstage, as it were, in the Broad Street Waterstones in Reading — the bits only the staff get to see — was an experience. Everywhere there were motivational posters with Mr Men on them, exhorting the staff to remember various items of shop policy. It was like a fascist state run by Roger Hargreaves.

(3) which should be an oxymoron.

(4) and not Heirs of the Balde as I constantly mistype.

First of all, Signings and Events for the near and moderate future now include:

This weekend (30th September-1st October) Fantasycon, Royal Albion Hotel, Brighton. Complete programme here and rather like Alt Fiction earlier on, there's plenty of stuff I simply want to be in the audience for. However, as a gentle reminder:

Friday — mass signing of the authors, 8pm, Regency Lounge

Saturday — "Trends in Fantasy Fiction" panel, 10am, Russell Room

Saturday — My reading slot is at 2pm, room 134 of the hotel — please do come to the reading if you can! I can promise prose the like of which nobody has ever heard. Seriously (2).

However, there are some other shenanigans on the horizon, not least of which is:

Forbidden Planet joint signing at the, er, Forbidden Planet bookshop in London, Saturday 15th October where I will be sitting alongside Adam Nevill and Mark Charan Newton. This is 1-2pm, and it's the first time I've actually got a signing slot in those August halls (3). London, baby! (4)

Some other signings also around that date that have yet to be sorted out but it looks likely that I will be in Reading or Oxford on that Friday 14th October, details to follow very shortly. There should also be a Leeds Waterstones date and one at the Leeds Travelling Man also.

Also, there will be some manner of Alt Fiction offshoot get together on 5th November but that one's still being put together, so if I give you any details I'll… ah, damn. Oh well. Forget I said anything. Probably Derby Quad again, as a venue, given how very supportive Derby is being.

Finally, I have been confirmed for SFX next February, no idea what I'm doing. It's in North Wales.

(The new covers previously posted here were sent on to me bona fide as stuff to put up, but Alan Brooks, the artist, has asked that I take them down as they were unfinished work, not intended for final display, so should have these for you at some later date, but not now).

Finally, one reader of this site, the very diligent Roderick Easton, has produced a Unified Map of the Insect-kinden Lands based on the various maps previously posted up, but frankly that deserves a post of its own to showcase it.

(1) and if you look at the gaps between posts you'll surely agree those times ain't too frequent.

(2) offer lasts until the end of the reading, when your having heard it will invalidate this warranty. Terms and conditions may apply. Art-assisted flight can go up as well as down.

(3) Unless you count the time when I basically invented one without telling FP.

(4) A Friends reference, just to show how up to the minute I am.

For the news, very briefly:

Rebis, one of my all-time favourite publishers, have picked up the rights to the Polish translation of Heirs of the Blade.

And the Barnes and Noble "First in Fantasy" article on Empire in Black and Gold can be found here and very nice it is too.

And I've just written my first stab at the back cover blurb for The Air War despite the fact that nobody at Tor has actually read it, so I could have written anything, you hear me? Anything! It could be complete cobblers, and they'll never know! Muahahahaha. Etcetera. Anyway, I'm told that's for flogging the series around the Frankfurt Book Fair, so crossed fingers for some more translation news soon.

And last, Fantasycon, at the end of this month. I will be:

8pm Friday — signing books along with a large number of other authors.

10am Saturday — Panel — Trends in Fantasy Fiction, Russell Room (1)

2pm Saturday — Reading slot, Room 134 Royal Albion Hotel. Not sure what I'll read, and (assuming I have an actual audience) will probably give people the choice of a short story or a section from the Air War or, conceivably, both if time allows.

(1) I assume it's in a location called the Russell Room. Alternatively, Russell Room will be chairing the panel.

On Saturday 26th:
2:00 pm — Adrian Tchaikovsky — meeting with the author
place: Aula
4:00 pm — Creation of TRULY Original Fantasy World — utopia or a matter of
imagination. Adrian Tchaikovsky
place: Aula

After that there is a 'signing time'.

On Monday,  one more meeting with readers in Wroclaw (at 5.00 pm)

Tomorrow for the Leeds Waterstone alongside Robson, Remic & McMahon, please do come along if you can.

End of the month is Pyrkon over in Wroclaw, Poland. I'm doing a talk. Apparently. This is a bit new, and it will also be kind of through-translated. Not sure how that's gonna turn out. We'll see. Possibly I'll be touring the after-dinner fantasy/entomology circuit before you know it.

On a completely separate note, Adam Gauntlett, whose work graces the story section of this site, has written a very interesting (not to say mind-boggling if you haven't seen the film in question) article over at Escapist concerning Role-playing games, and reactions to them — find it here.

12th March — 11am-1pm signing at Leeds Waterstones in excellent company, vis Justina Robson (last book of her Quantum Gravity series just out!), and Gary McMahon and Andy Remic who write for Angry Robot.

9th April — signing at Oxford Waterstones — time to be confirmed. This is the 5th March event that's been rescheduled.

I am just finishing the first round of edits on Heirs of the Blade (1), which has probably seen more reworking than any previous book. Mind you, I could have said the same about Sea Watch at the time. I suspect it's something endemic to late-series books.

(1) trips off the tongue. You'd never know just how much brainstorming went into getting that title. Original working title was Broken Threads, and we went through dozens of ideas and permutations before we got something everyone was happy with. But 'heirs', plural? you ask? Why yes indeed…