Damn me, but there is a lot of good stuff at Eastercon, enough that I would need about three of me working in shifts to see all the panels, talks, readings etc. that caught my eye. (Link to schedule here.)

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?