I have been ridiculously busy of late so I am very behind on writing about things. I’m making a start on catching up. The first thing you need to know about is that the latest BristolCon Fringe event was a big success.

Most of the credit for that should, of course, go to our two readers, Adrian Tchaikovsky and Emma Newman. They are both very high profile and we got the expected crowd as a result.

Adrian began proceedings with a reading from his novel, Dogs of War. This is a story of bioengineered animal soldiers, led by Rex who is trying hard to be a Good Dog but gets sent on a covert mission without Master (the humans want plausible deniability) and has to lead the troop himself. One of the other characters in the troop is a swarm of bees. As you can imagine, it is very weird, but also highly amusing.

Emma read from her newly released novel, Before Mars, which is set in the Planetfall universe and takes place at roughly the same time as After Atlas. It takes place in a small base on Mars, and among other things it addresses themes of post-natal depression and paranoia. Ever cheerful, our Em. It also discusses how you deal with an AI that is potentially hostile to you but runs everything on the base where you live. I have just finshed reading it and, as usual, it is very good.

People have been asking me about the podcasts. We have made recordings, but I don’t have the time to edit them. I will upload them as and when someone else has the time to do the work.