SFX Weekender: Work Hard, Play Hard

Howdy all,

So after a slight break to go home and life a semi-normal life, onto part three of the Solaris SFX Weekender blog post: Work Hard, Play Hard...

(Check our The SFX Weekender, or What the Hell Happened, Mr. Moore? and The SFX Weekender: The Talent for the first two instalments...)

It wasn't all just cosplay, dismantled TARDISes, novelty biscuits, panels, authors and wacky hats, you know. Jenni, Ben and I were there, as were our chums from 2000 AD, and we spent much of the time, as previously mentioned, flat out like a lizard drinking.

Actually, that's a bit of an Australian idiom. We were dead busy.

And when 8pm rolled around, and we'd exhaustedly dragged some food into our mouths (including the most farcical attempt at sorting out a curry on Saturday night you have ever seen, which ended up in us giving up and having crappy burgers from the stand in Pontin's), it was time to start drinking immoderately and meeting some fine people.

Let the games commence!


Books! That's right, we do books. We were there, in fact, selling books. Here are some books we were selling. We brought about twelve boxes with us, and took about four boxes back. Which was good going.


Keith and Pye on the 2000 AD stand. You may be aware that Pye (left) also does a load of our covers for Solaris.


Then drinking! Here's Jenni, some of Pye, a friend of mine called James who pitched in and helped us out for a lot of the weekend, and the hair of a woman from Simon & Schuster we'd met called Emily. Emily, it seems, did not like having her picture taken. Or really wanted to do a Cousin It impression for us.


And it's the next day and we're selling books again. I'm employing a psychological warfare technique based on talking breathlessly at you until you cave in and buy one of my books. We worked out afterwards that once I made eye contact with you and started talking, you had about an 8% chance of leaving without a book. To be fair, in one case I talked at a guy for around twenty minutes until he cracked, but crack he did. They all did, in the end.


2000 AD's Leigh Gallagher sketching for the fans.


And back to the pub! This time with Leigh and Forbidden Planet's Danie Ware. Note my expression of abject terror. Or I was trying for terror, anyway; I was a little the worse for wear by this point.


And here's Pye, Leigh and another woman we met at the event, Celeste from Live Nation.

So there we are. Our labours, our joys, our authors, our panels, weird cosplayers, and some excellent people we were very privileged to meet and take a cup of drink with.

We had an absolutely blinding time (literally; my vision actually grew a little hazy at one point), and are properly looking forward to next year.

Many thanks to our hard-working authors, our friends, and the SFX crew.

Cheers,

David
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The SFX Weekender: The Talent

And it's straight into our second round! (Check out The SFX Weekender, or What the Hell Happened, Mr. Moore? for the first round)

After the fantastic success of last year's event, and some great signing and fan-meeting opportunities for a bunch of our Abaddon authors, we were very pleased to be able to bring some more Solaris talent to the SFX Weekender this time around.

James Lovegrove - sorry, that's New York Times Best Selling Author James Lovegrove - was happy to pop around to promote the recent release of his third Pantheon book, The Age of Odin, and the indomitable Andy Remic held the exclusive world premier launch of his fourth Combat-K book, Cloneworld.

Here are some shots of the chaps hard at work.


Our very own Ben Smith showing off the latest Remic book, Cloneworld, and Rem himself lending a hand at the stall. Sitting behind his books and offering us a little jazz-hands. Not a lot that can't be improved with a little jazz-hands, that's what I always say.


Rem holding up a copy of his seminal new work, and wearing the famous hat - which he apparently stole off Ronan Keating, although I'm sure that's another story altogether - which appears in his utterly remarkable promotional video for the book.


Rem with the lads from the Geek Syndicate sci-fi podcast. I guess they like his work.


Rem comparing hats with Robert Rankin. A hats-off, if you will.


Rem with a handful of his adoring fans.


James gesturing enthusiastically to a fan, and appearing in someone else's photo opportunity. I guess I appear in his photo too. If you see a photo from the opposite angle with me in it, somewhere on the web, let us know.


James signing books.


James appearing on a panel about the future of vampires on TV, with Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Toby Whithouse, Sarah Pinborough and James Moran. James opened with, "I had no idea why I was invited to sit on a panel about vampires, until my publisher reminded me that I'd just written a vampire book."


SFX's Dave Golder moderating the vampire panel.


James looking absorbed in the panel.

Awesome. Coming up, The SFX Weekender: Work Hard, Play Hard...

Cheers,

David
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The SFX Weekender Post (or, "What the hell happened, Mr. Moore?")

Wotcher all,

So what the hell happened? I clearly said, "we'll be blogging and tweeting all weekend from the Weekender," when what in fact happened was, "not a sausage until more than a week later."

Well, I'm sorry. Mea culpa. I really, really am. I properly meant to do it - I had a camera, a laptop, a mobile phone which records video and the codecs to adapt it to the web, all that shiz - and totally boned it. And you deserve better than that.

Yes, you. This is you and me talking now. I know a couple hundred other people read this, but it's you I'm talking to. I'm personally, truly, sorry to you. I didn't mean to disappoint anyone, but it's really you I regret affecting.

We're good, right? We're still tight? Please don't let this come between us.

What happened, basically, was three-fold. First, I forgot to bring a power extension for our stall. We were in the middle of the traders' hall, in a great position, but we didn't have a power point, and I couldn't find a lead for love or money. Then I cranked out my laptop anyway, and Pontin's had decided that this year they were charging for internet; and I'd left my wallet back in the chalet. Of course, when I went and got my wallet, the laptop had run out of power. Third, and most significantly, we were absolutely manic. Selling books hand over fist, running around and arranging events, generally getting our network on, so even when I could have sorted out the power/network issues, we were too busy to do anything about it. Lessons for the future. Next year, we hope to do better.

Anyway, you're getting your con report now. We do have loads of pictures, and I'm going to share them with you.


This was one of the first sights of the weekend. I bet you thought the TARDIS travels through some kind of time/space continuum shenanigans? You'd be well wrong. Apparently, it gets taken apart, flatpacked, and forklifted everywhere it goes. I like to imagine the guy operating the forklift was the Doctor.


Some of the SFX crew turned up in Steampunk costumes. Nice bit of kit.


Jenni's ninjabread men. Awesome.


2000 AD's Leigh Gallagher loves him some stilt-walkers. Something to do with their bums being at head-height.


Lee Harris, of our friendly rivals at Angry Robot, at his stall.


Very hush-hush, this. Jenni's apparently been picked as the Doctor's new companion...


...and, as any good companion should, has immediately fallen in with space-villains, and needs rescuing. Er. I guess Imperial troopers in a Doctor Who story isn't canon.


Gettin' my karaoke on. Do a little dance. Make a little love. Get down tonight.


More trooper action. These guys didn't want to buy our books.


Alice and the Mad Hatter, I guess? Only on stilts. The stilt-walkers were happy to ram pretty near any concept on some stilts. I guess everything's better that way.

More coming up, in The SFX Weekender: The Talent and SFX Weekender: Work Hard, Play Hard...

David
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We're off to the SFX Weekender!

Hey yo,

So we're all heading to the SFX Weekender shortly, which is pretty sexy.

We're looking forward to seeing some of you, to selling some of you books, to socialising and networking, and of course to being bought drinks by captivated, adoring readers and/or people keen to try and pitch us their books.

Okay, that may not be realistic, but it should be a fun weekend nonetheless. Properly looking forward to the karaoke, for one thing.

Anyway, just to remind you of a few events to keep an eye peeled out for:

- Andy Remic, heroic auteur, master swordsman and sexual commando, will be launching his latest Combat-K book, Cloneworld, in the bar at 3pm on Friday. Keep in mind you'll be able to pick up signed copies (and photo ops with Andy and - he assures us - with Andy's hat) a full month before the book's high-street release date. Be there or be... waiting for a bit longer for an ass-kicking new action SF book.

- New York Times Best Selling author James Lovegrove will be on the main stage at 12.30, where he will be attending a panel called "TV With Bite: How would you pitch a vampire TV show that does something different?" which sounds like it'll be a blast.

- And without even having a chance to draw breath, we're then whisking New York Times Best Selling author James Lovegrove to the bar at 13.15 to meet fans, sign books, have a drink and chat about his latest addition to the Pantheon series, The Age of Odin, as well as upcoming projects like this summer's vampire/cop-drama Redlaw and his recently announced fourth Pantheon book The Age of Aztech.

And, of course, Jenni and I - and Ben, for some of the time - will be running the stall, and freely available for chats and stuff, and we shall be vlogging, blogging and tweeting as much as we can. All in all, a bit of alright.

Look forward to seeing you there!

David

Second Podcast is up now!

Hi all,

The second Abaddon & Solaris Books Pocast is now up! Point your iTunes to this link, or search "Abaddon" (or "Solaris") in the "Search Store" box at the top-right corner of iTunes, to check it out. Or if you're a good boy/girl and subscribed to our feed last time, just run iTunes and it should find and upload the new episode automatically.

The editors and staff at Abaddon Books and Solaris Books continue to deliver the "very best, most hard-hitting and innovative"* of podcasting entertainment in this second, thrilling instalment.

The Abaddon & Solaris Books Podcast #2: Juliet McKenna and the SFX Weekender (okay, it's a functional title; it does what it says on the tin) is introduced by junior editor Jenni Hill, who's trying to overcome her fear of the microphone, so everybody be really nice about her. Jon Oliver interviews Juliet McKenna, author of Solaris's The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution books, sharing thoughts on coming up with fantasy names, writing and the future of fantasy fiction, and Juliet gives us a reading from the second Lescari book, Blood in the Water. Finally, Jon and David talk about the SFX Weekender, and we hear David's interviews with daleks, authors, and a couple of special guests.

Seriously, you can't get this stuff anywhere else. Barack Obama's considering starting a war with the UK, just so he can justify sending the CIA in to kidnap us. That's how cool we are.

Please listen to it, and once again, we'd love feedback. We got some great feedback last time, and have tried to make completely different mistakes this time.

Cheers,

David


*my mum again.

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Podcast Coming Up!

Hi all,

The Abaddon & Solaris Books Podcast second instalment, "Juliet McKenna and the SFX Weekender: From Lescar to Camber Sands," is underoing final editing now, and should be up tomorrow afternoon.

Featured is an interview with Juliet McKenna and a reading from her book, Blood in the Water, and a convention report from Editor-in-Chief Jon Oliver and the roguishly charming David Moore on their recent jaunt to the SFX Weekender at Pontins Camber Sands, including interviews with some of Abaddon Books' authors, with a dalek, and some pretty exciting surprises.

Keep an eye out on the blog. Should be a good one.

David

SFX Weekender: Tenth Post

(Ninth post right here on the Abaddon Blog).

So here's Jon in the bar this morning giving a reading and presentation on his new book, Twilight of Kerberos: The Call of Kerberos. Yep. I just included the words "morning," "bar," and "presentation" in the same sentence. I really can't reconcile any two of those in my mind, much less all three.

I guess that's just how we roll, here at the SFX Weekender. Represent.

Actually, not sure if he's presenting on his book or giving cooking instructions. Or very subtly trying to signal someone across the room without the audience seeing.

And here again.

Now I'm getting a kind of "What the Hell am I doing here?" vibe.

Karaoke and dancin' next.

Awww yeah.

More about that, and a final wrap, at the eleventh post here.

SFX Weekender: Eighth Post

Part seven is here.

Well, I joined some kind of gang. They seem like pretty tight guys; didn't like stairs for some reason. But I'm part of the outfit, now. Sounds like we hang out, get drunk, and then kill doctors.

For some reason.

Part Nine here.

SFX Weekender: Sixth Post

Fifth post is here.

So check this out. One of the organisers is talking to a Jedi Knight. There's Lord Vader in the background; there's the stormtroopers. Everyone's acting cool, keeping it natural, but the tension's clear.

Someone's gonna start some shit, yo.

(Saturday morning starts with the seventh post, here.)

SFX Weekender: Fourth Post

Third post is here.

So, yeah, I'm wandering the halls looking for interesting people to photograph, and I run into our gametesters (QA guys).

Classy mofos, aren't they?

Head over here for the fifth live update post.

SFX Weekender: Second Post

What's that, you say? Surely this can't be the second post? We haven't had the first post yet!

There you'd be wrong, gentle reader. As I'm here for both Abaddon and Solaris, I'm posting to both blogs. Go here to read the first post, over on the Abaddon Blog.

So we've been here for a few hours, watching the geeks sail blissfully by, looking at the crazy and inspired costumes, generally getting our voyeur on.

Over at the 2000AD stall, they're obviously organised and efficient, and very much on top of things.

Below is a picture of the Solaris and Abaddon stall.

We're all over that shit like Mussolini on the train networks. I'm telling you.

Head here for the Third Post.

SFXWeekender Tomorrow!

We're heading off to SFXWeekender tomorrow!

This time tomorrow I'll be driving a huge rental van somewhere along the M25, shouting at other drivers, The Bloodhound Gang blaring out of the stereo.

Then this time Friday I'll be nobbing with the stars of science-fiction and fantasy, getting on down and generally having a good time.

If you're coming, make sure and drop by the 2000AD/Abaddon/Solaris stand and say "hi." We'll be chuffed to chat.

I'll try and sling Twitter (@SolarisBooks) and blog posts up periodically over the weekend.

Cheers,

David