Authorised May 2004

- Bill's Monthly Column -

Eastercon

Hello again. I went off to Eastercon in Blackpool for a few days beside the seaside and to enjoy the fine sunny British weather (not). It was a lot of fun. Blackpool itself has a certain seedy charm, and the Winter Gardens are quite surreal. I kept feeling like I was in the set of a steampunk novel. Ran into a lot of old friends, made some new ones. So for the record and to get the namechecks in it was great to see the old Glasgow crowd again, and catch up with Mike Cobley, Gus McAllister and John McLintock. 

I bought a lot of books some of which I had read as a teenager and have been looking for ever since. I am particularly pleased to have acquired copies of 3 Hearts and 3 Lions by Poul Anderson and Darkness Weaves by Karl Edward Wagner. If you have any interest in heroic fantasy/sword & sorcery and you haven’t read these books, you could do a lot worse than picking them up if you see them. I cannot recommend Wagner’s S&S highly enough. He was a brilliant writer and died tragically young. If you are interested you can pick up hardbacks of his work here. 

I also grabbed a biography of one of my favourite pulp writers Edgar Rice Burroughs. Not only did he create Tarzan and John Carter of Mars, he served in the US 7th Cavalry and worked as a cowboy. He was a man who could obviously walk the walk as well as talk the talk.

I went along to a few panels and listened to Philip Pullman’s GOH speech which convinced me that I really should pick up his books the next time I see them. I also managed to sample the delights of a full English breakfast, a decent curry and a fish supper. What more can a man ask for?

Unfortunately most of the pictures I took of the convention didn’t turn out properly so these are all I have - with thanks to Jmcl63 for taking them. 

Of Muskets and Dragons

Work continues apace on the new book. I finished the first draft and am now working on polishing it before it goes off to my test readers. More on this next month most likely. 

WFRP2

I was a big fan of the original Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay so I thrilled to hear that after only about 18 years we shall see a second edition. Apparently a 40K RPG is on the way as well. Can’t wait. You can find more details here. 

And that’s it for the moment. My brother Colin is visiting from Bermuda this month which may well provide me with an excuse for bombarding you with pictures of Prague next month. We shall see.

All the best

Bill

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