Readings

That Was Fringe

~ Cheryl

The November BristolCon Fringe meeting seemed to go very well. We had an excellent crowd. Tom Parker and Lucy Housom read very well. I did not mess things up.

What’s more I did manage to get to sleep last night, despite Tom’s story about spiders. Extreme exhaustion has its uses.

Amongst the crowd last night was Lucy’s Bristol-based sister who is an International Woman of Mystery with multiple secret identities. It occurred to me afterwards that with her short dark hair and Lucy’s long fair hair they could totally do Alex and Kara Danvers from Supergirl.

Meanwhile back to work and hoping the rain eases off before this evening.

Fringe Goes Dark

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Well, that was creepy.

Last night’s BristolCon Fringe took a definite turn for the dark. Knowing that she was going to be followed by tentacled horror, Jo Hall chose to read a passage from Spark & Carousel in which the principal villain… well, that would be a spoiler, but it is a pretty nasty thing to do to someone.

Jonathan L Howard read the first two chapters of Carter & Lovecraft. There may have been a serial killer involved. And I might have told the audience to all make sanity rolls after hearing him read. I could not possibly confirm any of this, as I don’t want you to have to make sanity rolls too.

I am still processing the idea that Jonathan is releasing a book during the Rugby World Cup that has a hero with the same name as the All Blacks Fly Half. Synchronicity is dangerous were tentacled horrors are concerned.

Thanks to the additional publicity from the Bristol Festival of Literature we had a rather bigger crowd than usual. Hopefully some of them will come back next month. They should do, because on November 16th we have Lucy Hounsom and Stephanie Burgis, which is going to be spectacular. Details of the forward schedule can be found here.

Fringe Tonight – Joanne Hall & Jonathan L. Howard

~ Cheryl

A reminder for those of you in Bristol. Tonight is the October BristolCon Fringe event, this month with added Bristol Festival of Literature promotion. It should be a great event. We have Jo Hall reading from Spark and Carousel (which I have read and enjoyed) and Jonathan L. Howard launching Carter & Lovecraft (which I am greatly looking forward to). I hope to see some of you there. As usual we’ll be in the Shakespeare Tavern on Prince Street. The readings start at 7:30pm, but some people arrive early to take advantage of the pub’s fine food.

And yes, I know I haven’t done the podcasts from the last Fringe yet. I have been very busy. Sorry.

July BristolCon Fringe – Nick Walters & Ken Shinn

~ Cheryl

I have another set of podcasts from BristolCon Fringe online for your listening delight. These are from our July Horror Special.

First up was Nick Walters who, amongst other things, has written a lot of Doctor Who tie-in novels. We won’t mention the BristolCon Quiz. Nick’s story is from a wonderful anthology called Killer Bees from Outer Space which is devoted to B Movies. It is entirely possible that Nick’s story is the silliest one in the book. Be prepared to scream as you listen to “Blood Slobber of the Scrunge Worms”!!!

I hope that came out OK. Nick is a serial microphone abuser. I think he must have been a vocalist in a heavy metal band at some point.

Our second story was very different. We had been promised pudding, and pudding we got. Cake, to be precise. Ken Shinn’s story started off innocently enough with a celebrity chef in Hollywood, and quickly had everyone in the room feeling itchy. Ken does have a story in Killer Bees from Outer Space, but this is not it. Oh dear me no. Ken’s insects are much nastier.

Finally I got to ask our readers a few questions. Nick revealed his total fascination with snails. I made what turned out to be a remarkably accurate prediction about the new Fantastic Four movie, and a pun so terrible it almost cleared the room. Everyone got nostalgic about B Movies and Jo revealed what is possibly the silliest title for a horror movie ever. We also preview Tom Parker’s appearance at Edinburgh Fringe. The Accidental Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is at C Venue and the first performance is on Sunday. If you are up in Edinburgh, be there.

Next month’s Fringe will be on Monday night (August 17th) and will feature the dynamic duo of Gaie Sebold and David Gullen. I may have to ask them about how they enjoyed Archipelacon.

Today On Ujima – Books, Social Media & Auschwitz

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

My first guest on today’s show was Amy Morse. Like me Amy is part of the organizing committee for this year’s Bristol Festival of Literature. She was on the show to talk about the crowdfunding effort that we have launched to help raise the money necessary for venue hire, printing publicity materials and other incidental costs of putting on the Festival. You can find that campaign (and a video of Amy) at the Fundsurfer website.

Along the way I talked about the SF&F events that we’ll be having. The BristolCon Fringe event will feature new novels from Jo Hall and Jonathan L Howard. And I’ll be chairing a comics event featuring Mike Carey, Paul Cornell and Cavan Scott.

Amy stayed with me for the second half hour to talk about social media and blogging. Amy is running some courses in Bristol next month, and I figured this was a good opportunity to talk about life online. A great deals of nonsense gets talked in the mainstream media about what goes on online, and while what happens to people like Briannu Wu is indeed terrible, the wailing and gnashing of teeth that follows any (usually thoroughly justified) denunciation of white feminism’s media darlings is quite ridiculous. People need to know how to stay safe online, and much of it revolved around “don’t be an idiot”.

Anyway, you can listen to the first hour of the show here.

Interesting though my conversation with Amy was, I hope she will forgive me for saying that the second hour was spectacular. My guest on the studio was Christina Zaba, a local journalist of Polish extraction. Christina has been heavily involved in Bristol’s Holocaust Memorial Day. As a result of this she has visited Auschwitz. This has led her to discover some family history, and also the stories of two remarkable men. Kazimierz Piechowski was a young man during the war. He escaped from Auschwitz disguised as an SS officer and is still alive (he’s 95). Witold Pilecki was an officer in the Polish resistance who volunteered to get himself arrested so that he could help organize the prisoners and perhaps stage a revolt. He too later escaped from the camp, but was executed by the Russians after the war.

Both Piechowski and Pilecki were also members of the Polish Boy Scouts. The Nazis regarded the Scouts as a paramilitary organization and singled them out for special persecution, which of course led them to becoming a key part of the Resistance. Christina also talked about the Girl Guides who helped smuggle messages, food and tools into the camps.

Christina is writing a book about the Polish Resistance and the part they played in the history of Auschwitz. I’ve already told her that I want her back on the show when it comes out. Gut-wrenching though it can be at times, we do need to keep talking about this history. Auschwitz was both a slave camp run by Nazi businessmen and a giant factory dedicated to murder on an industrial scale. This sort of thing should not be allowed to happen again.

You can listen to the second half of the show here.

Being on air also allowed me to give a mention to various Jamaica-related stories. Tomorrow (August 6th) is Jamaican Independence Day. The past week has seen Jamaica’s first ever Pride. And of course Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings, a novel based on an attempted assassination of Bob Marley, has found its way onto this year’s Booker Prize long list.

Today’s playlist was as follows:

  • I Want Your Love – Chic
  • Thriller – Michael Jackson
  • Computer Blue – Prince
  • Are Friends Electric – Tubeway Army
  • The War Song – Culture Club
  • Redemption Song – Bob Marley
  • No Borders – Jama

Bristol Festival of Literature Fundraiser

~ Cheryl

This year’s Bristol Festival of Literature will take place in October. BristolCon is not part of it this year due to having our date gazumped by FantasyCon and having to move to September. However, there will be a Fringe event during the Festival and that will be rather special as it will feature new books from Joanne Hall and Jonathan L. Howard. There will also be something featuring me, but don’t panic because it will also have Mike Carey, Paul Cornell and Cavan Scott and be about comics.

Why am I telling you all this now? Because we need money. Not a lot, but some of the venues have hire costs and we want to pay for some decent publicity materials so we can get the word out effectively. So there is a fundraiser running on Bristol’s own crowdfunding platform, Fundsurfer. Basically this is an opportunity to buy tickets in advance, and to give us a little love. Please note that both the Fringe and comics events will be free, but there’s lot of other really good stuff happening too. And if you can’t get to Bristol, a quid or two to help us spread the good word would be much appreciated. Thank you.

May Fringe Podcasts

~ Cheryl

Got there at last. The podcasts for the May BristolCon Fringe meeting are finally available online.

First up was Sophie E Tallis who is an excellent illustrator as well as a great writer. If any fantasy writers out there are looking to have maps drawn for their books, I suggest getting in touch with Sophie. Her reading is from her latest novel, White Mountain, which is published by Grimbold, an imprint of Kristell Ink. That makes Sophie a stable mate of our Jo Hall. Sophie was very nervous before the event, but I’m sure you’ll agree that she did a fine job.

Next up was Ben Galley, who is very well known online as a self-publishing guru. Ben’s latest series is a fantasy western, and his reading is from the start of the first book, Bloodrush. One of the incentives to get the podcasts online now is that book 2 in the series, Bloodmoon, is being published on Friday. I figured Ben could do with something to use in the PR campaign.

By the way, if you are checking Ben out, do take a look at the graphic novel version of his book, The Written. The artist, Mike Shipley, turned up at Fringe to see Ben, and I think it was the first time the two of them had ever met in person. It’s a really nice-looking book, so well done both.

In the Q&A session I got both Sophie and Ben to talk about the inspirations for their work. Sophie, fairly obviously, talked about Tolkien, but also about Eastern mysticism and the legend of Shamballa. Ben talked about how the Scarlet Star trilogy is steampunk alternate history with fairies. It has trains in it, so I guess I should try Kevin on Bloodrush.

The we got onto a discussion of the pros and cons of being self-published, or published by a small press. There was quite a bit of talk about the problems of getting your books into Waterstones, and why it is so much harder now than it used to be. There was also much love for independent bookstores, as there should be. Sophie managed to earn us an explicit tag for that episode. Of course most of the things that were talked about in the announcements at the end are now over, but there is some interesting news about the Bristol Festival of Literature that isn’t until October. You’ll be hearing more about that in the months to come.

A special guest for the evening was Jo’s dog, Lyra, who was remarkably well behaved, all things considered. Author readings are not really good doggy entertainment.

Last night’s Fringe featured horror fiction from Nick Walters and Ken Shinn. I’m hoping to get those online a little bit more speedily than this lot. Just in case I don’t, those of you living in Edinburgh, or going there for their Fringe, should check out The Accidental Adventures of Sherlock Holmes which features our good friend Tom Parker as Doctor Watson and Jasmine Atkins-Smart as Holmes. (Feòrag – hint, hint)

The August Fringe event will feature Gaie Sebold and David Gullen. If you got to meet Gaie and David at Archipelacon, you won’t want to miss the podcasts of that.

Fringe Tonight

~ Cheryl

For those of you in easy reach of Bristol, there is a BristolCon Fringe event tonight. The guest readers are Ken Shinn & Nick Walters, and they are promising us a night of horror. There will be Tales of Blood & Gore. There will be Blood, Terror, Hideous Death, and apparently Pudding. There may also be a spot of mild peril.

As usual we will be in the back room of the Shakespeare Tavern on Princes Street. The event starts at 7:30pm. I will be there, and I hope to see some of you.

I have almost finished editing the podcasts of the May Fringe. Hopefully they will be online tomorrow.

Having A Word

~ Cheryl

I arrived in Brighton on Thursday afternoon. It was the first warm day I have experienced thus far this year (that is, the first day with sunshine and temperatures over 20C — the English call this a “heat wave”), and I had a very heavy rucksack so I was a bit sweaty after walking from the station to my hotel in Kemptown. I had just enough time to have a shower and change before having to go out for a dinner with Roz Kaveney and one of my fellow presenters from the Trans Studies Now conference, Emma Hutson. Roz was presenting as well, of course, but she was a Keynote Speaker, not a mere academic.

Kudos to Emma for finding a place to eat called The Troll’s Pantry. Actually it was just food being served in a pub called The Hobgoblin, but it was a cool name. I was somewhat disappointed that they didn’t serve spit-roasted dwarf, but I did get to eat a Minotaur. It is essentially an up-market burger joint, so the aforementioned bull-man was actually a beefburger-Cretan fusion thing. The important point is that the people running the place are serious foodies who are very particular about ingredients and it showed.

On the downside, there was no table service and getting served at the bar took a while. Also, it being a pub, there was a lot of background noise which made it hard for me to hear anything. I have old lady ears, and while I am by no means deaf I can’t hear nearly as well as I used to be able to. Yet another reason for avoiding pubs.

Having eaten, the three of us trotted down to the Jubilee Library for a Trans Special evening of Have A Word — Brighton’s LGBT spoken word event. This is run by Ellis Collins. Normally the event is held at his shop, but thanks to a contact at the Library he has been able to schedule two Pride-related events, of which this was the first.

The line-up for the evening was Alice Denny, Maeve Devine and Fox Fisher. I knew that Alice and Fox would be awesome, but I’d not heard Maeve read before. She was absolutely hilarious. Roz and I were in stitches.

Roz was, of course, added to the bill, and treated us to a few of her fine poems, including the one that she wrote to annoy people at the New Statesman when Neil and Amanda were guest-editing it.

And then there was me. Given the choice I would not have had my first ever public poetry reading be in front of Roz and Alice, both of whose work is so much better than mine. However, I did want to try out the 50 Voices piece in front of a friendly audience. While I hadn’t managed to memorise it, I did get through it OK, and people were very kind afterwards.

After the event we headed off to the Marlborough, where a lovely person with a mountain of electric blue hair was running a pub quiz. As I had been up since 6:00am I retired early after just one drink.

The hotel was had chosen is Legends, which is on Marine Parade just up the hill into Kemptown from the Sealife Centre. It is the place with the rainbow flags out front. The staff there were lovely. I couldn’t manage to get my email, either on the hotel wifi or tethered, which is potentially an issue. On the other hand, the croissants and pain-au-chocolat fresh out of the oven at breakfast were so good I’m going back there for Trans Pride.

Tomorrow, In Brighton

~ Cheryl

Have A Word


Tomorrow I am off to Brighton, primarily to talk about science fiction at an academic conference. However, I have discovered that there is a spoken word event on at the Jubilee Library tomorrow evening. As you can see, there’s a stellar line-up. And now there will be me too, and hopefully Roz Kaveney as she’ll be in town as well. It will be transtastic. Do come along if you are in town.

Fringe Tonight

~ Cheryl

For those of you in Bristol, the May Fringe event takes place tonight. The readers are Sophie E. Tallis & Ben Galley. I hope to see some of you there.

Those of you not in Bristol are doubtless wondering when the April event will be podcast. Soon, I hope. Remember that it includes a reading by me, so I am being kind to you in delaying it.

March Fringe – Chris Cutting & Paul Cornell

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

I have just uploaded the audio from the March BristolCon Fringe events. I suspect that this will provide our most listened to podcasts yet, by a long chalk.

We start out with Chris Cutting, who does more theatre than prose and always threatens to destroy my recording equipment when we work together. He has the loudest voice I have ever heard. My apologies if the audio is slightly distorted due to having to make it less LOUD. On the other hand, I think I have edited out all of the pauses caused by Chris having the story on his recalcitrant phone. I have to tell you about that because otherwise you won’t understand some of his comments in the Q&A.

Chris’s story isn’t exactly speculative, but it can be described as horrifying, and may have a slight tinge of steampunk to it.

Next up is the very wonderful Paul Cornell, who should need no introduction to the readers of this blog. Excitingly, we have an exclusive extract from his next Shadow Police novel. The book won’t be out until the end of the year, but once you have heard Paul read from it I’m pretty sure you’ll be wanting to read the rest to find out what the heck is going on. The title of the book will be…

No, I’ll let you listen. Paul announces the title during the reading. You are not going to believe whose murder his heroes end up investigating.

Finally there is a Q&A, in which we discuss all sorts of interesting things. Chris has a play to promote, which is all about vampires and social media. There are some terrible puns. We talk about Victorian fiction, including Dracula and Sherlock Holmes. We discuss the possible murderous tendencies of Neil Gaiman and George R.R. Martin. Paul drops another fascinating tit bit about the new book, and talks about a whole lot of exciting new projects he is working on.

Now I just have to work out how to get an advance copy of the book out of Paul, because I for one do not want to wait until December.

Well That Was Fun

~ Cheryl

Last night’s BristolCon Fringe open mic night went very well, I thought. And that’s despite Roz having to rush off early to look after her new puppy and leaving me to host the event.

We note that the new puppy is most definitely not sad, nor rabid. He may be misogynist like Alisa’s puppy. Roz hasn’t had him long enough to find out yet.

Anyway, there were readings. Pete Sutton managed five stories in five minutes; Tom Parker brought a deadly prop; Justin Newland wiped out the whole of Clifton with bubonic plague; Jo Hall went boxing with an alien lizard; and I killed off King James I.

There were many other readings as well. Special mention should go to our latest Polish import, Cord. Firstly he managed to live stream the event over his phone to friends in Poland for part of the evening. And he spent the rest of the time busily translating a story he had written from Polish into English so he could perform it for us. It ended up being one of the best pieces of the night.

Podcasts will follow in due course, but first I need to finish last months…

Fringe Open Mic Tonight

~ Cheryl

BristolCon Fringe is having an open mic event tonight. Everyone is welcome to come along and read, but only for 5 minutes. I’ll be reading a bit from a story I wanted to do for Long Hidden but ended up not submitting because the characters were demanding far more space than the submission requirements allowed.

As usual the event will start at 7.30pm in the Shakespeare Tavern on Prince Street. I hope to see a lot of you there.

Podcasts of last month (with Paul Cornell) coming soon, I promise.

Launching Holdfast: Year 1

~ Cheryl

I’m just in from the launch of the Year 1 anthology for Holdfast Magazine. Lucy & Laurel have done a fine job with the book, which is a really beautiful object. I’d support something called Holdfast anyway, because I love the Suzy McKee Charnas novels, but I’m really impressed with what Lucy & Laurel have achieved.

The event took place in the basement of a pub between Tottenham Court Road and University College London. It sounded like there was a disco going on upstairs, but we had a sound system so hopefully everyone could hear. The evening was opened up by Stephanie Saulter who read a poem and a short extract from one of her (R)Evolution novels. Then came Chardine Taylor-Stone who read this letter to Octavia Butler from issue #4. There was me, and then there was Alice Sanders with a slightly updated version of this essay from issue #2 about the idiocy of shark movies.

Because I didn’t want to read just part of an essay, I asked Lucy & Laurel if I could read some flash fiction instead. They said yes, so I read something called “Goldilocks and the One Wolf”, which is sort of mythpunk, with Norse gods and gender-bending. It seemed to go down well.

Stephanie, who had been at last night’s BSFA meeting, introduced me to the work of Suniti Namjoshi. I need to go and buy some of her work.

Now I think sleep is in order. Or possibly reading more of Glorious Angels, because I’m enjoying it very much.

BristolCon Fringe – Emma & Pete Newman

~ Cheryl

Planetfall - Emma Newman

I have another set of BristolCon Fringe podcasts uploaded for you. Both readings are from forthcoming books, so this is an ideal opportunity to try before you buy.

First up we have Pete Newman reading from The Vagrant, forthcoming in the UK from Harper Voyager on April 23rd. Pete will be at Forbidden Planet in London on the 23rd, and in Bristol on the 30th. In the blub on Podbean I described the book as “science-fictional-post-demon-apocalypse” which pretty much sums it up. It certainly sounds very interesting.

Emma’s reading is from Planetfall, which is due out in the USA from Ace/Roc in November. It has an amazing cover (see above), which is even more amazing after you have heard Emma talk about it. I’m really excited about the book too. The chapters that Emma read totally got me hooked. Do I need to rant about the fact that Emma doesn’t have a UK publisher for it? You know the script by now, don’t you: “woman writing science fiction, no one in the UK will buy it”. *sigh*

Finally we have the Q&A, which focuses mainly on the issue of having two writers in the house. Do they kill each other? In fiction, in podcasts, or in real life? Honestly, people, would you marry a writer, knowing how neurotic they are?

I should add that Emma has recently had a recurrence of the health problems that plagued her last year. Further surgery will be required. Thankfully the NHS will cover the costs, but Emma’s earning ability will be seriously curtailed. This might be a very good time to support the Tea & Jeopardy podcast via Patreon. It is a very silly thing, and therefore needs to be continued.

Launching the Nunslinger

~ Cheryl

Today I headed into Bristol for a launch event at Forbidden Planet. It was for Nunsligner by Stark Holborn. Stark is a pen name of a local writer, and Nunslinger is a rather unusual book. To start with it is a Western. Also it is written as a collection of 12 longish short stories, with an overarching story arc. Westerns about nuns are by no means unknown, but Stark thinks this might be the first one in which the nun is actually serious about her faith, as opposed to it being something that gets abandoned very quickly under the pressure of life in the Wild West. I understand that the individual stories were released as ebooks as Stark was writing them. That’s an interesting pressure to put yourself under.

I haven’t had time to read the book yet, but judging from the extract we heard at the launch I am expecting it to be very good. Stark will be reading at BristolCon Fringe in February and as long as the date doesn’t clash with my having to be in Manchester for LGBT History Month I’ll be there and hope to podcast it.

While I was in store I picked up the latest Bryan Talbot graphic novel, Grandville Noel. I read most of it on the train home and finished it quickly thereafter. Bryan is on fine form, and the book contains some interesting information on the history of the Grandville world. Highly recommended.

Coming Soon in That London: Nigerian Fantasy, Arabic SF

~ Cheryl

Geoff Ryman has alerted me to an event featuring top Nigerian fantasy writer, Okey Ndibe. It is taking place on Saturday at Book & Kitchen. Details are as follows:

Saturday 1st November, 2014
4.00 pm
at BOOK AND KITCHEN
31 All Saints Road
London W11
near Ladbroke Grove tube, parallel to Portobello Road

Mr Ndibe was editor under Chinua Achebe of the Journal African Commentary. He is a regularly published essayist and journalist. He co-edited Writers, Writing on Conflicts and Wars in Africa (Adonis Abbey, 2009). His first novel, Arrows Of Rain is a powerful story of injustice in an fictitious African society, the role of storytellers and journalists and much else besides. Foreign Gods Inc. is similalry multi-layered novel about Nigeria, its religions, and its relationship to itself and the West.

Looking slightly further ahead, I have email from Yasmin Khan about the forthcoming event on Arabic SF at the Science Musuem. The speakers will include top journalist, Samira Ahmed and Saudi author, Yasser Bahjat, whom you all should know, plus three names who are new to me. Hassan Abdulrazzak is an Iraqi novelist and biologist who is turning his hand to SF; Ehsan Masood is a science journalist who has worked for New Scientist and Nature; and Larissa Sansour is a Palestinian filmmaker. Further details here.

Karen Joy Fowler & Cats

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

This past weekend the Cheltenham Festival of Literature had a panel featuring the finalists for the Booker Prize. As you should know, Karen Joy Fowler is one of those writers, and on her way to Cheltenham she stopped off to do a reading for Toppings in Bath. She has, after all, written The Jane Austen Book Club, and had not visited Bath before. A visit was clearly overdue. Obviously I had to go along and show support.

I’m not going to say much more about We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. There’s a review here if you are interested. What I want to talk about (and those of you who have read the book will know why this is relevant) is animal behavior.

The thing that struck me most about Karen’s talk was when she got onto the subject of animal communities. Some animals, for example most cats (lions being the obvious exception) are fairly solitary. Other animals like to gather in groups. Humans are an example of the latter. We like forming tribes, and we are very protective of fellow tribe members. But there is a corollary, in that we are also very hostile to anyone we see as not part of the tribe.

Politicians understand this; right wing populists such as Nigel Farage build their careers on it. The more they can make people think that life is a constant battle of “us” against “them”, the better they do in the polls. For Farage, and Rupert Murdoch, life is a constant effort to shrink and homogenize the group of people that is regarded as “us”.

What Karen said in her talk is that it is the duty of Art to constantly try to grow the group of people that is regarded as “us”, until it encompasses the whole species, and even beyond. She thinks that it is the duty of Art to encourage empathy for our fellow beings. That’s a project I am happy to get behind.

With this sort of thing in mind, once the signing was over I had a chat with Karen about the recent BBC Horizon series on cat behavior, because some of it is also very relevant. In particular, in the second program, they noted how cat personality is very plastic. The period between around 2 and 8 weeks old is crucial for kittens. If, during that time, you give them constant contact with humans, then they will grow up to behave like domestic cats. If, on the other hand, they are kept away from people, they will grow up to behave like ferals. Where they were born, and the lives of their parents, is not relevant.

That’s a classic example of nurture over nature. But of course it isn’t the only aspect of cat personality. Hunting, it appears, is instinctive. Cats will display hunting behavior, regardless of how domesticated they are. They won’t necessarily kill if they are not hungry, but they will hunt. Some are better at it than others. Here’s the scary bit.

The program put cameras on a couple of the best hunters to see how they did it. One of the cats was caught imitating bird calls. Not song, obviously, as cats don’t have the vocal skills, but they can apparently mimic cawing and clucking noises. Cats are smart. I guess it is just as well that they don’t mimic human speech.

Peter Hamilton in Bath

~ Cheryl

Yesterday evening Peter Hamilton did a launch event for his latest book, The Abyss Beyond Dreams. It isn’t quite as thick as my hardcover copy of A Dance With Dragons, but it is fairly hefty. Also it is only half the story.

Peter and his publicist, Sam Eades, are working very hard on this tour. They were in Swindon at lunchtime, and at Forbidden Planet in Bristol in the afternoon, before going on to Bath in the evening. Let no one tell you that book tours are easy.

Having done a short reading, Peter talked a bit about his approach to SF, and why he writes. Having done the Dystopias panel last weekend, I was interested to hear him say that he doesn’t like them, and can only write SF because he believes that the human race does have a long term future. I suspect that’s true of most space opera writers — it was certainly true of Banks.