And no, I’m not telling you anything else, no matter how much you plead in the comments.  You can give it a go, though, just in case I change my mind…

3rd-5th February – SFX Weekender, Prestatyn, Wales.  It’s been a real laugh the last two years, with a bigger and better venue this time around, and I understand some 4000 attendees expected, which I believe makes it the UKs biggest genre event by some margin.  I’ll be on a couple of panels:

3pm, Friday 3rd: Elf Preservation – without magic and monsters it’s not fantasy, is it?

4pm, Friday 3rd: Signing at the Forbidden Planet stand.

5pm, Friday 3rd: SF&F Just a Minute hosted by Paul Cornell and featuring the comic talents of me, Sarah Pinborough, China Mieville, and Toby Whithouse.  This should be a scream.  Of undiluted frustration and shame.

4pm, Saturday 4th: It’s not a story it’s a map – does fantasy place worldbuilding over character?

6th-9th April – Eastercon, Heathrow.  Looks as if I may be on a couple of panels related to the writing craft, but details as I have them.  I’ll certainly be haunting the bar if nothing else.

26th June – Middlesbrough Literary Festival for a reading and Q&A.

5th-7th October – Swedish Fantasy and Sci-Fi Convention, Stockholm, where I’ll be a guest of honour, would you believe.

2nd-4th November – GenreCon in Sydney, Australia.  This is a new event combining authors and enthusiasts from various genres.  It looks as though I’ll also be touring in Australia as part of this visit, but the exact details are very much up in the air.

More details as I have them….

But fitting firmly into the insightful category is a balanced and (unsurprisingly) finely written assessment of The Heroes from writer Elizabeth Bear, who I met last weekend in Detroit.  She calls me vivid and muscular.  Well, alright, my writing style…

Also fitting into the satisfying arena of respect of ones peers (alright, great superiors) is a mention from the doyen of gritty fantasists, GRRM, in his Hugo Recommendations (I know, I’m not holding my breath), where he calls The Heroes, “an action tour de force”.  OK, I admit, he preferred Patrick Rothfuss.  But those big-beards always stick together.  Maybe I need to get some small-beard fantasy author buddies to take ‘em down, like my old mates Peter Brett and Brent Weeks:

Mind you, they’re both looking a bit on the bushy side.  And why does my head seem so small in that photograph?

Doing a reading alongside Robin Hobb.

Being taught the correct coastguard method of sticking my ass out while shooting by Myke Cole.

Being mistaken for Admiral Akbar by John Scalzi.

Visiting Subterranean Press’s warehouse of awesome books, nerf guns and foam-rubber swords.

I accidentally shot Brent Weeks with an arrow.  Then he tried to kill me with a sword.  Then I tried to kill him with a dagger.  Then, while I plotted on how I would rob Pat Rothfuss’s manservant’s strongbox, he tried to pick my pocket.  Then we kissed.  And the whole thing was never mentioned again.  It all happened in a game of D&D, incidentally…

Meeting a whole load of hugely enthusiastic readers, bloggers and fans.

I even signed a few books.  And licked one.  And sat on panels and haunted the bar with far more articulate authors like Pat Rothfuss, Peter V. Brett, Scott Lynch, Elizabeth Bear, Jay Lake, Michelle Sagara West, Bradley Beaulieu, Douglas Hulick, Saladin Ahmed, Jim Hines, Cat Rambo, Merrie Haskell, Howard A Jones, Tobias Buckell and I daresay others I apologise for overlooking . . . it really was an incredible author attendance, and great to put faces to names that I have long been aware of, admired, envied, and dreamed of destroying.

Overall I was treated wonderfully well by the convention and by the guys from Subterranean Press, I had a blast.  Incidentally, Justin of Staffer’s Musings stood up for three hours in order to record the authorial D&D game, so an edited version may appear at some point, on the off chance that some of the readers of this blog can think of nothing more entertaining to do with their limited time on earth than watch some other folks roll dice…

EDIT: You can catch Myke Cole’s account of DMing the all-star authorial D&D game over here.  Brent Weeks gives his account of the playing experience over there.  It was quite the nostalgic laugh.  Unlikely as it may be, I look forward to the day that daring thief Darque Shadeaux enters the fray once more.  Or at least hides behind it at a safe distance…

Brent Weeks – Cleric

Scott Lynch – Gnome Illusionist

Elizabeth Bear – Ranger

Jim Hines – Fighter

Peter Brett – Monk

Pat Rothfuss – Wizard

Joe Abercrombie – Thief

And being Dungeon Mastered by Myke Cole and Saladin Ahmed.

How cool is that?  Alright, so it’s not exactly cool as most of the world’s population would define the term.  But I still reckon it’s pretty cool, if you know what I mean.  I’ve even broken my dice out of cold storage.  The feel of those cool plastic edges in my palm, like an old warrior unearthing his old broadsword from his war-chest, preparing to enter battle one last time against insurmountable odds …  Well, alright, not much like that at all.

See you next week.

Anyway, Uncharted really does exude personality, and captures that devil-may-care, Indiana Jones light adventure vibe better than anything else going.  A lot of that is in the beautiful animation of the lead character and the way he interacts with apparently unimportant parts of his surroundings just as you run past, the offhand quips and panicky noises he makes during combat, it all creates a magnificent sense of involvement with the world.  And the character work, acting, cut-scenes are pretty much industry leaders to my mind.  You get some truly stunning set pieces, fleeing through a burning chateau as it collapses around you, or through an ocean liner as it capsizes, poseidon adventure styley, camera swooping cinematically to cover the desperate action.  I found myself frequently chortling with delight.  Possibly even more so than when organising my inventory on Skyrim…

A nobler crusade is being undertaken by fellow fantasist NK Jemisin over on her blog.  She has observed that awards for best editor are often concentrated among a relatively limited group and has taken up arms in the cause of her editor, Devi Pillai, of Orbit.  What do you know, Devi just happens to be my US Editor as well, and if that’s not certification of her excellent taste I don’t know what is.  I think votes for Devi would be an excellent thing.  Go forth, my flying monkeys!  Go!

Lastly but not leastly, David Gemmell awards come round again.  I have said in the past that I very much like the idea of this award – something that focuses on the epic/heroic end of the spectrum – but wish that it had a juried element, a little bit more of a focus on quality than popularity, maybe, though I daresay that would mean the end of my chances.  Still, it is what it is, and I’d like to see people involved, at least, so why not go forth and vote!

Oh look, The Heroes is on the list, I had no idea…

Due to peculiarities of the way rights were divided, Best Served Cold was actually my first book to be recorded as an audiobook, and it was done in the US, read by Michael Page.  The Heroes was wrapped into that deal.  It wasn’t until some time after that we got round to doing audiobooks of The First Law trilogy, this time in the UK, read by Stephen Pacey.  I actually went along to some of the recording, expecting to be somewhat embarrassed, and was very, very impressed by what he brought to it.  I’ve heard plenty of criticism of the books in my time, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything but praise for Pacey’s reading.  He is good, versatile, and very well suited to the task.  So for some time I’ve been keen to get him to read Best Served Cold and The Heroes in the same style that we might present a consistent feel across all my books and lo!  Let lovers of high quality audiobooks rejoice, for it has come to pass:

Best Served Cold is available now on Audible.co.uk.  A Pacey-narrated The Heroes will, I understand, be following in due course, more information as I receive it.  Now, hating to crush the dreams of those across the pond, but this version won’t be available in the US, where the audiobooks on offer will continue to be the Page versions, at least for the foreseeable future.  I know it’s always a source of frustration when something freely available in one territory isn’t in another, but that’s just how the rights cookie crumbles in this case.

Usually at conventions I’m lucky to find a single panel to which I might contribute, but the board this year is jam-packed with the epically fantastic.  My own preliminary schedule:

7pm, Friday Salon E     I, Suck  -  Jim Hines   Patrick Rothfuss  John Scalzi  Scott Lynch  Joe Abercrombie