Well I arrived back from FantasyCon ... eventually. Whilst standing next to Gary Greenwood's broken down car somewhere between Ross on Wye and home, nuts slowly freezing off, AA man struggling in a vain attempt to get said dead car re-started, I spied a sticker on the vehicle's rear window and mused for some time upon fate. Buy a car from 'Bob's Bangers', and you're inviting fate to fuck you over.
But even that little adventure did not detract from a great convention ... in fact it was a little exciting!
FantasyCon was back in a hotel for the first time in three years, and the convention goers revelled in it. The hotel staff, however, did not. Obviously not warned about the legendary drinking capabilities of a gang of writers, service was slower than dead, although the staff did tend to present a brave face and do their best.
It's always great to meet old friends and make new ones, and from the weekend's alcoholic haze it is perhaps best to simply pick out a few random moments rather than try to offer a coherent whole. Coherent? Pah!
Like Mark Morris's shirt, toward which we were all mysteriously drawn like moths to a naked flame. Or Graham Joyce's constant and insistent lapdance denial. Prize for most effective and amusing swearing goes, once again, to Paul Meloy, who can make the word 'cunt' sound like pure poetry. Blackmail opportunity of the Convention was presented by a famous celebrity's 'my first wank' story, while Tim Love's unbelievable luck in the raffle meant he was lucky to get out of there alive. Sometime during the weekend England won the rugby world cup, apparantly, to a resounding bout of apathy from most of those present. And also sometime during the weekend, someone stole hours from my life and a ton from my wallet and replaced them with a headache, a weakened physique and many, many happy memories of one of the best cons I've been to for ages.
And now, to bed. Sober.
Check out the News page for some exciting film news!
And now I'm off to FantasyCon ....
I'm delighted to announce that FODDER, the novella I wrote with Brian Keene, has been optioned by Chesapeake Films in the USA! It's a World War One story featuring a character loosely based on William Hope Hodgson. Brian and I are obviously thrilled, and we look forward to seeing this progress in the near future.
Chesapeake Films is a production company owned and operated by John Schaech and Richard Chizmar. The two have worked with Tom Hanks, Gwyneth Paltrow, Harvey Keitel, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Frank Darabont, and Ray Bradbury.
The excellent John Pelan is editing a massive anthology for Cemetery Dance entitled The Century's Best Horror. It will consist of two volumes (split into even years and odd years) containing the best horror story from each year, starting from 1901 and finishing up 2000.
And I'm utterly honoured to announce that the story for 2000 will be my own Stoker-winning Reconstructing Amy! I've known for a while now, but I've only just had to go-ahead to announce this ... and it's been driving me mad! I don't know the full line-up yet, but I'm sure it's going to be a killer anthology. Hell, it's the Best of the Century!
Watch this space for some exciting film news very soon ...
....coming very, very soon! Watch this space!
A friend once told me that 'Life is easy'. Her words exactly. 'Life ... is ... easy.'
Bollocks.
***
Next weekend I'm going to Stafford for the British Fantasy Convention. I'm looking forward to it a HUGE amount ... two days of catching up with old friends, drinking, chatting, making contacts, watching panels (and heckling as much as possible), buying books, drinking, eating now and then but, mostly, drinking. Watching the sun come up whilst still pissed in the hotel bar is quite a disturbing, panicky experience, but it's also one that no Con would be complete without. Trying to smother a hangover with greasy fry-up food, ditto.
What I love most about these dos is that you can take up on a conversation where you left off three years ago, and it all feels so natural! Perhaps because you were drunk then and drunk now, so every utterance is so nonsensical as to mean completely nothing at all. Easy to see the import of nonsense when one is drunk.
Two days without worries, stresses and concerns. Time to put the kids to bed? Oh, hang on, they're 200 miles away!!! Still pushed on that novel deadline? Fuck it, I'll have another Theakston's Old Peculiar.
Yes. I'm looking forward to the weekend. Because for two days my mate will be right: life will, indeed, be easy.
Last night I had something akin to a religious experience. And my wife was nowhere to be seen!
The crowd was made up of baldies, grey-haired folks and a few youngsters - in their twenties - who'd gone along with their dads. The band was grizzled and worn-looking. The music ...
Sublime. Triumphant. Beautiful.
Thin Lizzy blew my world apart last night, and I'm still reeling. See, I've always been a huge, huge Lizzy fan, even though Lynott died when I was about seventeen and I never managed to see them in concert. Their music has always resonated with me, a perfect blend of powerhouse guitar work, sensitive and thoughtful lyrics and Lynott's soulful voice making them probably my favourite band of all time. They made some dud records, sure, but most bands do. The difference is when lizzy did good, they did VERY good.
So, did I enjoy the gig?
I came.
The support band Stiff Kittens were very good, extremely professional and tight, but we were all there to see Lizzy. And when John Sykes and Scott Gorham appeared on stage, slung their guitars and burst into opener Jailbreak, there wasn't a face in the place not smiling. This was nostalgia, but not tacky. It was ... fucking brilliant. Don't believe a Word, Waiting for an Alibi, Coldsweat, The Sun Goes Down (and yes, that's where I got the title for my first Night Shade collection), Cowboy Song, Massacre, Suicide, Bad Reputation, Are You Ready ... and then two encores, closing with Emerald and Black Rose.
I haven't enjoyed a gig that much in years. And as those classic songs tumbled over each other, I realised that even though the sun went down on Lynott almost two decades ago, he's still the God of rock and roll.
That's what I'm like. Or a kid on Christmas Eve. 'Cos on Saturday, I'm going to see my most favouritest favourite band ever: THIN LIZZY. Minus Lynott, yes, but Scott Gorham, John Sykes ... I can't wait.
I've seen a lot of bands in concert - Metallica, Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Fields of the Nephilim, The Scorpions, Ozzy, Anthrax, Saxon, Def Leppard, Megadeth, Slayer, Guns N Rose ...... dozens more. But I haven't been looking forward to a gig this much in ... well, ever.
Sunday, I'll be back with the verdict.
It is. Honest! Just ask Iain Banks.
One of my very favourite writers - in both his incarnations - Banks has written some of the most striking fiction of the past twenty years. From The Wasp Factory to The Crow Road, Consider Phlebus to Feersum Endjinn, he's one of those writers that makes me wonder just why I bother. His style is effortlessly brilliant, his plotting assured and striking. Reason enough to hate him, but my hatred goes deeper ... I once saw him interviewed, and he was very casual about turning out a novel per year. To paraphrase: "I drive around Scotland for the bulk of the year, visiting friends, drinking whiskey, then when the nights start to draw in I think 'Oh well, better write another novel.''
Talented git.
And then today, browsing a local bookshop, I saw a brand new hardcover by Iain Banks, called Raw Spirit. Not knowing he'd had a new novel published I picked it up for a browse. It's not a novel. It's something else.
Banks has been commissioned to travel around Scotland, meeting all sorts of interesting people, drinking single malt whiskey in the search for the perfect dram. In fact, that's the book's sub-heading: 'The Search for the Perfect Dram'. Expenses paid.
Hate him yet?
And yes, damn right, I'll be buying and reading this book.
It's a hard life being a writer.
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