Michael Moorcock Signing & The Gollancz Halloween Party.

“Daddy smells of booze...”

These were the words that greeted me as I finally made it home from a night that started off with my getting books signed by Michael Moorcock and ended with the Gollancz Halloween Party. What can I say? I only had the one glass of red wine, I still have no idea how it managed to keep filling itself up when I wasn’t looking...

I’d been looking forward to meeting Michael Moorcock for ages; ask my wife how much I’ve been going on about it. He’s a massive figure in the genre and a writer who has given me hours of quality reading. I can also say now that he is a lovely man to spend a few minutes with, despite my being tongue tied at the prospect of meeting him. The Forbidden Planet staff wanted to keep the queue moving quickly, quite understandable really, but Michael seemed keen to lessen that whole ‘conveyor belt’ feeling and was happy to chat with everyone. I should also thank Mrs Moorcock for specifically requesting that the signing be held downstairs so that we didn’t all have to queue out in the cold, much appreciated!

With the signing done it was time to make my way over the Gollancz party in Holborn, only a short ten minute walk from Forbidden Planet... unless you’re me that is. Despite not having started the evening’s drinking I still managed to take at least two wrong turns on the way and have water thrown at me by some random person halfway up a tower block. Cheers mate, it wasn’t like I was cold enough already...

The Gollancz Party put the gloss back on things though, it always does. Thanks again to Jon Weir for putting on another excellent evening and thanks to Stephen Deas for dressing up as Ming the Merciless... or was Ming the Merciless doing his Stephen Deas impersonation? I’m not sure now... (no photo I’m afraid, I was too busy being awestruck). I did, however, get a photo of Mark De Jager (of My Favourite Books fame) proving that less is so much more with perhaps the scariest costume of the evening...

Still makes me shiver...  There were a lot of great costumes on display last night, I was a big fan of the zombies from Tor UK and Julie Crisp took time out from brain eating to let me know that next year’s ‘Heaven’s Shadow’ isn’t going to be the standard ‘alien invasion’ plot that I thought it sounded like. Glad to hear it, I’m looking forward to it a little bit more now :o) I was also pleased to hear that Ari Marmell’s ‘Conqueror’s Shadow’ (and its sequel) will be published over here, by Gollancz, next year. I had a lot of fun with this book (under its Del Rey guise) and it’s definitely one to look out for.

I had a great time catching up with friends who I hadn’t seen since last year as well as meeting friends for the first time in real life (I’m looking at Amanda and Mark here). Thank you for all indulging me and letting me drunkenly show off pictures of Hope (the real reason why there aren't more pictures of the party itself), I might even bring her along next year...

As always, the hangover was small price to pay for a great evening. Looking forward to next year already!