Gollancz Autumn Party 2009...

Is there anything better than a quick shop at Forbidden Planet (Alan Mills’ ‘Flesh’ is looking like a great read so far, worth waking up early for!) followed by Gollancz’ annual Autumn Party? Right now I don’t think there is.

Thanks again to Gollancz not only for throwing a great party but also for inviting me along to partake of mini beef burgers (my new favourite food!) as well as getting to meet up with authors and other bloggers. Adam, Liz and Mark were there and I got to meet Ana and James for the first time. I’m in awe of what these guys come out with, on their blogs, so it was great to finally get to meet them in person (I’m hoping I didn’t gush too much, it’s ‘cold light of day’ time...)

On the author front, I spent some time chatting with David Moody and Mark Chadbourn who have both written books that I’ve enjoyed reading fairly recently. If you’re a fan of David Moody’s ‘Hater’ (I am!) then you’ll be pleased to know that the sequel is steadily heading towards a 2010 release. The same can be said for Moody’s ‘Autumn’ series (in the UK at any rate); anything with zombies in it is a guaranteed read for me so I’m looking forward to getting my hands on these (I tried reading the free downloads on my computer but ended up with eyestrain as well as my boss asking me what I was doing...)
If you’re a fan of Mark Chadbourn’s ‘Lord of Silence’ then you might like to know that proposals for more books, in the same setting, are in the offing. If you haven’t read ‘Lord of Silence’ (why not?) and can’t find yourself a copy then you might also like to know that the rights to this book are (hopefully) in the process of being sold so you should see ‘Lord of Silence’ back on the bookshelves soon.
Another author worth keeping an eye open for is M.D. Lachlan (I didn’t get a chance to find out what the ‘M’ and the ‘D’ stood for...) whose book ‘Wolfsangel’ is out early next year. I’m cool with werewolves so long as they don’t follow too many urban fantasy tropes; from what I’ve heard ‘Wolfsangel’ sounds like it will be just my kind of thing.

After having enjoyed ‘Mythago Wood’ and ‘Avilion’, one of the highlights of my evening was getting to meet Robert Holdstockand have a little chat. Finding out what went into these works brought a whole new perspective to them for me; if only I hadn’t fallen prey to an attack of ‘starstruck babble’ at precisely the wrong moment...

I wasn’t able to stay for the whole thing but had a great time while I was there. I’m already looking forward to the next one!