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a whole new world…
I’m not new to the concept of Cosplay and multi-media conventions. Last year I attended MCM Expo in London, along with Rob Curley and Stephen Downey, because our comic Jennifer Wilde was nominated for an Eagle Award. It’s one of the biggest cons of this type in the UK, and they got about 60,000+ people through the door. I thoroughly enjoyed the event, even if it was overwhelming at times due to the sheer volume of people attending. And at 2D Comic Book Festival in Derry there’s been an increasing Cosplay presence over the past three years. ArcadeCon is the first convention of this type I’ve attended in the Republic…
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British Fantasy Awards 2012 – nominees
The short-lists have been announced for the 2012 British Fantasy Awards: Novel 11.22.63 by Stephen King (Scribner) Among Others by Jo Walton (Tor Books) Cyber Circus by Kim Lakin-Smith (NewCon Press) A Dance with Dragons by George R R Martin (Bantam) The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie (Gollancz) The Ritual by Adam Nevill (Pan) There will be two awards in the best Novel category: The August Derleth Award for best horror novel and The Robert Holdstock Award for best fantasy novel. Novella ‘Alice through the plastic sheet’ by Robert Shearman (A Book of Horrors, Jo Fletcher Books) ‘Ghosts with Teeth’ by Peter Crowther (A Book of Horrors, Jo Fletcher Books) ‘Gorel…
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arts festival parade 2011
The annual Macnas parade during the Galway Arts Festival is always an event. Macnas is a street theatre company which has garnared an international reputation for its colourful and inventive parades. This year it did not disappoint with an extravaganza called This Fierce Beauty. One of the things I like about the parade is the typical relaxed Galway attitude, which means there are no barriers or cordons. People line the streets and are encouraged to keep back to a respectable distance by the stewards and the police, but without too much hassle. It started off with an intense red flare and smoke, and was followed by fabulous creatures propelled by…
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Octocon 2010
This weekend I’ll be a guest at the 2010 Octocon convention in the Camden Court Hotel, Dublin. The Guest of Honour is George R.R. Martin, best known as the author of the A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy novels. The first novel in the series, Game of Thrones, is currently being filmed in Northern Ireland as a HBO mini-series. Its tone has been described as ‘Sopranos with Swords’, and since HBO rarely does anything badly, this could be the fantasy television series of a generation. It’s a considerable coup for an Irish convention to have such an established author as a guest, and I hope there will be a…
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generic thinking
As I’ve noted before, I have difficulties reading and writing fantasy fiction for a variety of reasons. Yet, there are a couple of stories brewing in my head that insist on the genre. So be it. In a quest for inspiration on how to write good fantasy I turned to the master: Fritz Leiber. Luckily, I was able to snag the two volumes of collected Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser tales, so I’m currently embroiled in adventures across the dangerous smog-drenched streets of Lankhmar. Leiber, along with his peer, Robert E. Howard, trailblazed the modern notion of heroic fantasy. These chaps were churning out tales of adventurers abroad in strange…
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why I think writing good fantasy is a difficult task
It’s been a long time since I’ve picked up any fantasy novel without a modicum of suspicion. Actually, let me be specific: I’m referring to what could be termed “high” fantasy in particular. This is because the genre seems particularly influenced by the formulaic. It’s a kind of inertia: the prose is tugged towards the verbose, the plots towards hackneyed yarns, and the characters inevitably wander into the graveyard of the stereotypes. Watch out youngster, the zombie of “youth who is unaware of his special lineage” is shambling towards you! Jeepers girlie, you were nearly impaled by the shade of the “sword-wielding bimbo who is also a magician, and smart”.…
