Meeting Guilermo del Toro at Forbidden Planet London

From left to right: Sharon, Gav, Liz (with book) Mark behind Liz, then Ana in white coat, Gordon far behind, then Matt and right infront, MG.

WE GOT TO MEET GUILERMO DEL TORO - HOLY SMOKES, BATMAN!

And then in other news, WE GOT TO MEET HIM.

Ahem.

We turned up to FP in pouring rain. John had to give us directions how to find the queue to the back of the store, which is where the signing would be taking place....huh? It was pouring with rain - it was rubbish. We huddled with around fifteen other people and slowly the rain wore off. First Matt from http://www.teenlibrarian.co.uk/ appeared and we got to chat for ages about cool books and manga. Next to magically appear was Ana from http://www.thebooksmugglers.com/ shortly followed by Gav from nextread.co.uk, Alexander Gordon Smith, author of Furnace and The Inventors http:/to /www.alexandergordonsmith.com/, MG Harris who is the author of The Joshua Files and also Sharon of http://darkfictionreview.wordpress.com/ .

We formed quite the posse, much to the chagrin of everone else in the long queue but to be fair - once things got moving, it happened incredibly quickly and no one could say they waited very long.

I got my manuscript copy of The Strain signed, along with Adam from The Wertzones' proof. Mark got our hardback copy of The Strain signed AND then Guilermo (first name basis, baby!) chose to sign our limited edition cards which we got when we attended the premiere to Pan's Labyrinth all those years ago. Gav got my autograph book signed.

GDT was amazing - sweet, charming, and very personable, shaking every single person's hand and thanking us for turning up. I mean, REALLY? Like it was some form of hardship.

Kaz Mahoney appeared as we were leaving. Then we all strolled down to Wahaca for lunch where we ate ourselves to a standstill, talking signings, books, authors - it was amazing. It was lovely. Not to mention the food which was, as always absolutely scrummy and decidedly well priced.

I am so grateful to have met Alexander Gordon Smith face to face for the first time - we email-chat loads and meeting Gordon face to face was amazing. Funny, erudite and genuinely a cool guy - plus, he wore a Flash Gordon shirt. How cool is that? Plus, he had the chance to hand over a copy of Furnace to GDT. Who accepted it gratefully and with a kind smile.

MG Harris is one of my literary heroes. Or is that heroine? Her books, The Joshua Files are my go-to books to read when I'm feeling a bit blegh. They are crammed full of action and adventure and the pace is just fantastically insane. I am so looking forward to books 3 and 4 you have no idea.

And so, without further ado - some more pictures from today.

Part of the queue outside Forbidden Planet


MG Harris, author of The Joshua Files

Mark and I doing our best not to break out into some kind of chorus line dancing episode which would have been truly embarrassing.

Alexander Gordon Smith - Gordon to all - with a copy of Furnace:Lockdown.

And then, when we left Wahaca, we met with these artfully dressed charity collectors. We gave them money and got to take a photo of them. I admit it, I have no shame.

Thanks to Forbidden Planet, Danie Ware and John (one day I'll learn his name) for arranging this awesome signing. It was a blast.

Meeting Mark Newton

Thursday, 5th June 2009 at Forbidden Planet London

Legging it down to Forbidden Planet after work in time for a signing is always interesting. Last night I became quite intimate with a rather large man's smelly armpit in my face on the underground. I popped several mints and breathed out quite a bit, just to sort of "clean" the air. I think he thought I fancied him a bit, as my grimace may have been mistaken for a smile. I also tried not to think about zombie attacks, werewolf attacks or creature attacks of any sort. Thank you Hellboy, 28 Days Later and Mr. Romero and that other weird underground flick with the murderer in the underground...forget what it's called.

The upshot is I arrived at FP a little late. Mark Newton was doing his signing already. As I came walking around the corner everyone chorused: "There she is!" Am I a mini-celebrity or infamous? You decide...

I met Danie and John of FP, along with Graeme, legendary John Berlyne and two of the hardest working girls in the publishing industry, Chloe and Julie from TorUK, Mark's publishers. We chatted for a bit whilst Mark signed a STACK of books for a very avid fan.

Then it was my turn - I sidled up, introduced myself and immediately handed him something I had set up for Dave Brendon. Witness the coolness.

Then Mark signed our copy of Nights of Villjamur and I got his autograph in our tiny autograph book which is starting to aquire that really cool aspect of being well-thumbed and examined by various authors.

We chatted briefly (I spoke real words!) before Danie and John stepped in for a few photo opportunities and also to do a mini interview with Mark.

We retired to a nearby pub and I got a chance to chat to John Berlyne very briefly. I saw him several times at Eastercon earlier this year and I know he was promoting his book he wrote on Tim Powers. I had to confess and tell him about my epicfail at Eastercon when I asked one of the retailers in the Trader's Hall "Who is this Tim Powers?" ... and Tim Powers was standing RIGHT next to me. I kid you not. So once John found this out, he launched into a telling of who Tim is and what his books are about etc. I've resolved to buy in one or two, because I hate NOT knowing an author who has had such an influence on popular culture.

It was a lovely evening. Mark is incredibly funny and I think he and his editor, Julie, can quite easily pair up to do a comedy act. It was so nice to get a chance to chat to Mark the Author as I first got to know him in his role as the "face" of Solaris Books and the Black Library Guy (different to the Comic Book Guy in the Simpsons, Mark's much prettier) so we've only ever spoken "professionally".

Julie and I then legged it down to Charing Cross Station where we each went our way. A little bit high from lime and lemonade and from being around such witty and lovely people, I sat on the train, chatting to Karen, plotting our plan of action for the next few days as we are going to be together - a lot! Loads more signings and cool events coming up with YA authors.

Keep an eye out for a gushing blog post about meeting one of my personal heroes, Guilermo del Toro tomorrow...at Forbidden Planet. I love Forbidden Planet!

Patrick Rothfuss: The Legend

Mark speaking actual words at the legendary Patrick Rothfuss.

As I mentioned in the previous post we got to hang out with some cool people attending the Patrick Rothfuss signing on Thursday evening at Forbidden Planet. Not only was Simon, Jon and Gillian from Gollancz there basking in the afterglow of a well arranged signing, Danie Ware from FP shepherded everyone along and took photos.


Graeme from Graeme's Fantasy Book Reviews was there as well as Adam from Wertzone. We also met an amazing new friend, April from Norfolk. Well, to be honest, she had no choice - she got roped into random discussions about book covers, fan-girling, cats and dogs and of course, Patrick Rothfuss as we stood in the queue with Karen Mahoney - all of us waiting for a few moments of Pat's time.



Mark anguished about what to get Pat to write in our copy of Name of the Wind. Eventually he struck on an idea and once his turn came up, he explained to Pat that he (Mark) is currently penning a zombie tale and would like to know what Kvothe would say if he ever came into contact with one...and you know what, Pat spun that around and came up with an amazing line from his upcoming THIRD NOVEL NOT YET PUBLISHED.



Kaz was up next and I didn't really get a chance to hear what Pat chatted to her about - but I did hear advice about writing and perseverance etc. I was too terrified about the story I wanted to tell him...

Karen chatting to Pat




My turn came up, I grabbed Ana's copy of The Name of the Wind along with a copy of the review she had done. I introduced myself and explained to Pat that Ana was a huge fan of the book and of Pat (of course) and please could he respond in his own words to this comment from Ana which I had received via email on Thursday afternoon:


"I simply said in my review that it was the best book I read since the Book Smugglers' inception. gave it a 10 and wanted to have babies with it."


He did falter. He quirked an eyebrow and burst out laughing. Then he paused. And said: "No, I can't possibly write that because I could be arrested for writing that..." Then he wrote his reply to Ana and well, I'm not going to say what he wrote - she can blog that herself when she gets the book, hopefully tomorrow if Royal Mail plays along.

After chatting to Jon from Gollancz for a few minutes he said we should come along to the Patrick Rothfuss Talk and Reading afterwards, at The Phoenix. And as we are free wheelin' we agreed and dragged a lovely new friend, Zoe along.



The evening went by in a blur of laughs and too much lime and lemonade. Patrick is a natural orator. Okay, that sounds rude, but it isn't. He appeared incredibly at ease chatting to a group of people who would quite easily rumble him for the contents of his backpack, especially when we realised he was carrying some pages of the second book with him...BUT we behaved ourselves and got do a fun, informal rambling Q&A session with him. He is a storyteller - every question he answered was a story. He is incredibly amusing and very down to earth - I mean, this guy is a god of epic proportions when it comes to writing and here he was, telling us about his writing techniques and what a weirdo he is. We lapped it up.


And when we didn't think it could get better, it did. He did a reading of one of his poems. Yes, you saw that correctly - a poem. Not just a skilled novelist but a gorram poetry writer too. We hates / loves him! The poem was light and incredibly funny and a little rude - like Patrick. Next he read us one of the pieces from the column he wrote when he was at Uni. Equally funny but incredibly erudite. Words are indeed his power. There was a small recess, a bit of a break to buy more booze and a chance to accost him with a handmade sign for Ana.



After the break it got even better - he read a few pages from his second upcoming novel and OMG - it is a hook and claw critter of goodness and I think we could quite happily have barred the Phoenix and made him read us all of it.


We left just after ten, filled up on encouragement, stories, too much lime and lemonade and feeling like we had a chance to spend an amazing evening with a new friend. It was very cool - one of the best events I've attended this year. Everyone had a blast and seemed genuinely reluctant to leave - but then you don't ever want to at the end of a really good evening.


Thanks to Danie and John at Forbidden Planet and to Jon, Gillian and Simon at Gollancz for arranging this. We loved it and we can't wait for Pat's next book - but you know, we understand perfection times time, so we'll not complain too much!

Saturday Ketchup

Thursday night Mark and I and our friend Kaz Mahoney pulled outselves together to go and meet the legend that is Raymond E Feist at Forbidden Planet in London.

It was amazing - he is a lovely erudite gentleman with a lovely speaking voice and a keen sense of humour - he shushed us a few times after we got our various books signed by him - we were standing chatting to the lovely Danie Ware from FP - BUT he did it with good humour and told several funny stories. There were many fans, some of whom clearly met him in the past.

Here's a pic of him signing a nice chaps proof copies.





He also posed with Mark but I shook too much to take a decent photo - so although you could tell it was Mark and it was Mr. Raymond E Feist, they all look a bit blurry. So, apologies for that!

This week has also been a very busy week at work. The only thing that kept me going insane was knowing I had parcels waiting for me at our neighbour, Ray. Our postie knows the drill and drops all our parcels with him. Cool, isn't it? In return we make sure the postie is supplied with wine and chocolate during the year - this keeps him happy lugging all those parcels around. And his wife thinks he's very thoughtful...


Anyway, here's a pic of a selection of the books we received this past week.

An exceedingly choice selection of books. I've already started on two of them. *beams*

I have two very hearty recommendations on books I've recently read - one review I can't post as yet as it is not yet published for a few looooong weeks yet but trust me when I say this, it's going to be big and it is going to rock your socks, especially if you are a fan of young adult urban fantasy.

The book is called Devil's Kiss by Sarwat Chadda. I'm not saying a single thing more except for: make a note, pre-order it and read it. Or, stick around till closer the time, in May, when it's released and I'll be running an interview and a competition to win copies of it. Made a note in your diary.

Secondly, lie, cheat, buy or steal yourself a copy of the newest Felix Castor novel, Thicker than Water by Mike Carey. It is mindblowing. A non-stop actioner in which Fix comes up against a big bad, that makes even his demon-mate Juliette think twice. The review should be up early next week.

Today I got myself wiped out by the mother of all migraines. I've had several of them now, quite badly, these past few weeks. Having said that, today has also been an incredibly productive day writing-wise. I popped enough pills to fell an elephant and by midday I could actually make sense of what was going on around me. I had a burning need to write. And I did. 2000 words, people! My little piece of WIP which I am studiously working on, grew by 2k. I am very proud. I even re-read some of it and it all makes sense! I then went back upstairs to recharge and slept till five. If you were wondering where Mark was, well, he took himself off to the misty beaches of Kent looong before sunrise today and went fishing. He came home at around three with some lovely little pieces of fish. I'd show you the pics but I'm not all that into showing dead things on the blog.

So, watch out for a few upcoming reviews in the next few days. A lot of young adult stuff, a bit of fantasy (okay, maybe a lot) and some fab literary stuff too. Oh, and comps.