Adrian Tchaikovsky's Amazing Circus of Self-obsessed Rambling.

Well now. From the 29th April to the 4th May Sci Fi London are holding their eighth great big SF convention. It promises to be one hell of an event, with all manner of games, films and discussions from every corner of the hobby. Frankly, look at the programme and you honestly don't need any other reason to come along. The fact that I might be bumbling my way through a couple of panels is neither here nor there. However, for the record, I will be participating in:

"The New Heroic Fantasy" Sunday 11.00am, alongside Joe Abercrombie (Last Argument of Kings) and Stephen Deas (The Adamantine Palace). I'm not entirely sure what counts as New heroic fantasy. Possibly we'll start by defining the Old heroic fantasy: where does it stop and where did it go? Or maybe that's another panel. I assume I count as New heroic fantasy or they wouldn't have asked me to sit on the panel.

Nonetheless, I will on Monday at 2,20pm be sitting on "Building a Fantasy World" with Mark Charan-Newton (Nights of Viljamur)(1) and Liz Williams (Nine Layers of Sky and loads, loads more). Random Writer Shuffling ™ means that myself, Mark and Liz are all published by Tor, so I guess we'll be explaining that the first criterion for creating a really good fantasy world is to get the right publisher. Or maybe not…

There may also be a Coffee Klatch, which apparently is like a normal Klatch but with coffee. I'm unclear on a number of points regarding this, as previously I knew Klatch only as a nation on the Discworld, but apparently it's kind of an informal chat.

Anyway, come along, if you can. All sorts of good things.

On the publication front, anyone who has got hold of this month's SFX will find my "Book Club" review of Titus Groan therein, and next month's Deathray should come with a new Shadows of the Apt short story premiering within. I hereby exhort and adjure all right thinking members of the party to go buy both.

Oh, and there's a rather nice review of Dragonfly Falling up at Speculative Horizons, so James informs me.

(1) Not yet available, (5 June release date) but one of the books I'm keenly looking forward to this year. To give you an idea, though, Mark's blog has some preview material though.