Authorised December 2004

- Bill's Monthly Column -

December started well for me. I attended Fenixcon in Brno as a guest on the 3rd to the 5th and then it was my birthday on the 7th. I got a whole bunch of presents- Arc, Twilight of the Spirits for the PS2, the new Rammstein CD and the Warcraft boardgame. Life is good and soon it will be Xmas. Ex-cell-ent (to be read in a Monty Burns voice).

Fenixcon

The convention was a lot of fun. I met a lot of nice people and ate a lot of good food, and I also got to see a bit of Brno itself which is an interesting town. In particular it was a pleasure to meet Martin Fajkus with whom I have been in correspondence for some years now but have never actually met in the flesh. The panel I did was interesting (for me at least) and I got to talk a lot about why I like violence and horror in fantasy. It actually made me think about what I do, which can only be good! I would also like to thank Radka for translating for me.

What have I been up to?

I’ve been working on some short stories set in a new fantasy world. These are sketches for a novel. Before I wrote Death’s Angels I sat down and wrote 50000 words of background in the style of a role playing game. I ended up using less than half of it, and changing most of that. I am thinking that by making my notes fictional, I can get more of a sense of a living, breathing world. It’s certainly more fun. 

The world is much more of a classical fantasy world than that of Death’s Angels. It’s divided between the humans who are divided into kingdoms very much like in the Middle Ages, and the Old Ones, who are mysterious shapeshifting beings who burn in sunlight, and are poisoned by silver. The Old Ones come in many forms, mostly that of the monsters of legend like trolls and werewolves and manticores. There are also some very nasty orcs- cannibalistic, militarised and apocalyptic. They are Mongol-like nomads who believe the end of the world is coming and it is their duty to fight against the darkness. They keep themselves in trim for this by conquering and enslaving everybody they meet. They breed massive dinosaur-like wyrms for a number of purposes, and keep herds of humans to perform their menial work, and provide food in times of famine. At present I am working on a story about the Undead, and a completely new take on what goes on in Dark Towers. More on this as it happens.

Right that’s it. Back to work for me. Merry Xmas and happy holidays when they come. 

All the best,

Bill

[ Top ]  [ Un-Authorised ]