I do love a good convention and FantasyCon is one of my favourites. This year, once again, the event was held in Brighton at The Royal Albion hotel. I was lucky enough to be an attendee and I had a pretty spectacular time. Panels and Launches The event organisers always go out of their way to try and accommodate as wide a variety of discussions, launches and readings as they possibly can and this year was no exception. It’s great, you can attend as much or as little as you like. I sat in on panels covering topics on book blogging, apocalyptic fiction and interviews with guest of honour Mark Gatiss and Brent Weeks. Every session was fun, informative and in one memorable moment embarrassing enough that my face was the same colour as my hair. Books Obviously a big part of FantasyCon every year are the books themselves. I came back with 14 titles that I am looking forward to devouring. Here they are (in no particular order) Tomorrow the Killing by Daniel Polansky The Red Knight by KT Davies Zombie Apocalypse! Fightback edited by Stephen Jones Ecko Rising by Danie Ware Coldbrook by Tim Lebbon Seven Princes by John…

Earlier this year Alt.Fiction moved from Derby to Leicester. In its absence, EDGE-Lit has sprung up to fill the void at The Quad.   Preparation   It doesn’t matter the duration of a convention the same rule always applies – preparation is key. When a convention is only a day long I advise focusing your attention on a good breakfast. Our day started at 9am in Jack Rabbits in Derby, check out my friend Vick’s review of Jack Rabbits. Based on the conversations occurring around me at the table I can confirm the following: 1. The bread for the cafe is delivered by pandas? (I can’t confirm this is 100% factually accurate as this delivery occurred while I was looking the other way) 2. I am reliably informed that the bathroom design for the gents is predominantly based on Logan’s Run 3. Anne Hathaway appeals to many people for the same reason, irrespective of gender. Oh, I can also heartily recommend Jack Rabbit’s bacon sandwich as it got the day off to a perfect start.   The Panels (The ones I was at anyway)   Guest of Honour  – Christopher Fowler:  After a reading from next Bryant and May novel, The Invisible Code, Fowler answered some…

I don’t often post anything other than reviews but occasionally I make an exception to that rule. There are a plethora of fantastic genre fiction review blogs and websites out there and one of my personal favourites is Un:Bound. On the 6th December the plucky bunch that run the site, the theme to The A-Team is playing in my head now, are branching out into the realm of online video. Check out the official press release below. This winter, internet TV will finally be Un:Bound Un:Bound Video Editions began with a question ‘Why has no one ever done a vidcast about genre fiction?’. It’s a simple question and the answer to it proved to be as simple for Un:Bound editor Adele Wearing; because she hadn’t put together the team to produce one yet. That’s now changed.  Like George Clooney in one of the good Ocean’s movies, Adele has assembled a team of specialists to bring the best in genre fiction news and reviews to the internet.  They include film maker and technical genius Vincent Holland-Keen, two-fisted editor and Angry Robot wrangler Lee Harris, sleepless genre podcaster Alasdair Stuart and, on his insistence, the dread lord of Ry’leh himself, Cthulhu. With a team…

This weeks post is written by Sam (@SamaelTB). He has kindly provided his thoughts on Myth Understandings. I just want to take an opportunity to thank him. For me the measure of a short story is really whether it’s a story at all. So many feel like prologues to novels or just don’t make sense in isolation. Others seem to feel it’s okay for to skip out on character development or feel the need to hint at a massively complex world that leaves the reader with more questions than it does answers. I bought this collection because Ian Whates (the owner of publisher NewCon Press) told me to. He’s a lovely friendly chap and even asked us what we liked to read before pushing the hard sell! The stories are divided into two themed groups, the first being Myth and the second Understandings. In reality ‘myth’ translates to ‘literary fantasy, fairy tales and stories written in a loose mythical style’ and ‘Understandings’ translates to ‘everything else’. Myth Storm Constantine – Owl Speak I found this story both wonderful and frustrating at the same time. It opens with a myth that informs the shape of the story. The characters are therefore…

Welcome to Zombie Appreciation Month. Throughout October The Eloquent Page will take a look at different interpretations of zombies in modern literature. To begin with I’ve decided to start with a classic theme. I give you The End of the World. Will humanity triumph over the worldwide zombie plague, or will the walking dead inherit the earth? It seems only fair that the first book that I’m looking at is the one that gave me the idea in the first place. There were a number of book launches at this year’s FantasyCon in Nottingham, and this book immediately caught my eye. With a few notable exceptions, I’m not a huge fan of anthologies. As a rule, I prefer to read novels written by one author, but in an effort to broaden my horizons I decided to take a chance. Zombie Apocalypse! chronicles the worldwide spread of ‘The Death’. Starting in London, and then rapidly spreading across the globe the reader is given the opportunity to delve into the lives of those affected. In this case I think having multiple authors was entirely the right decision. There is one world, and one event, but each author has the opportunity to have…

Last weekend Fantasycon 2011 took place at The Royal Albion Hotel in a swelteringly hot Brighton. I was lucky enough to attend with the lovely Mrs Cheesecake. Panels and Signings This year I attended many more readings than I have in the past. By a strange twist of fate, they all took place in the same location. Weirdly, it was a hotel bedroom (yes I thought that was a bit odd too but hey quirky is good. Actually, in hindsight, this may have just been me invading someone else’s stay in the hotel I honestly can’t be sure now). Seriously though, every single reader was exceptional.  Kudos to – Guy Adams, Lou Morgan, Adam Christopher, Tom Pollock, Mike Shevdon, Vincent Holland-Keen, MD Lachlan and James Barclay. All I can say is that there are going to be some great books out next year.   One personal highlight was when Guy Adams proceeded to tell the assembled group at his reading about one poor, deluded reviewer who had read Guy’s novel Restoration (the second book in a series) without reading the first even after expressly being told that this would make understanding the intricate plot tricky. I had to come clean…