Ladybird books were a part of my childhood, set in a strange and perfect mirror of the suburban world I lived in.  Some people said they were a form of propaganda for children, designed to make them into well-behaved little middle-class drones.  I just liked looking at the pictures.

This book is an excellent example of those fine chidlren's books form an ere now gone forever.

I'm delighted to announce I've sold my short story 'Fade' to  the Catastrophia anthology from PS Publishing

Edited by the multi-talented Allen Ashley, Catastrophia  will be will be "a collection of stories loosely themed around the theme of catastrophes, disasters and post-apocalyptic fiction."  Publication is expected to be summer 2010.

With F&SF going bi-monthly recently, times are clearly hard but I'm pretty  surprised at the way this has been done, assuming that ->this<- is an accurate report.

It feels like the owners were looking for an excuse to pull the plug, particularly as they've gone public before even telling Shawna, which I think is a particularly poor way to treat an employee.

I'm also surprised that considering subscriptions were good and advertising presumably still reasonable they didn't go into hiatus, poll subscribers and go e-zine.  I wouldn't be surprised if someone buys the title and doeas just that.
You can always hope!

I watched this Walt Disney film again last night for the first time in many years, and while the CGI holds up, and Ralph Richardson's wizard is original and has depth, what really struck me was the cleverness of the film's plot.  
For straight S&S fantasy I think it is a great example of how you can use all the tropes of a genre, and then subvert them to keep your story original and surprising.  Dragon, wizard, apprentice, king, princess, blacksmith, evil swordsman and comedy old bloke are all there but they never do what you expect and there are some quite pointed jabs at authority and religion on the way, and some very bleak moments.
An interesting film, a little lacking in tension, and with one absolutely excruciating 'love scene', overall it is still very watchable.  One of Disney's more unusual films.
And for my money it still has -the- best dragon of any film.
Breath in...
Breath OUT.

rock and rolled and a whole load of other stuff too.  2009 (including Christmas 2008) has been a pretty difficult year so far with an ailing father requiring daily care, and my sister loosing her husband in a car crash.
Slowly life is returning to some form of normality, though in terms of caring for dad that will never be as it was and I don't believe he will now ever regain his full health or mobility.
So it goes.  He's 91 at the end of this month and as a WW2 glider pilot, has literally been through the wars, surviving some desperate injuries and living with disability ever since.  Looking after him can be tough at times, but he deserves much consideration.
One side effect of all this is that I simply do not have the time, nor the energy to keep my leather work going (www.tinb.co.uk) and I have decided to mothball that project indefinitely.  I'll still be making a few things for pleasure, and for friends on request, but for the foreseeable future the Traveller in Black business is closed.
Which means that the free time I do have will be devoted to writing.  This year the ambition is to write 5,000 words a week (I tried 1,000 words a day but that is just not possible some days), stay focused, and write, write, write.
Many thanks to Terry Edge for the motivation and inspiration to do this!

New Hampshire Authors Launch Publishing Company.
Rochester, NH -
New Hampshire authors Rick DeCost and Bob Griffin are proud to announce the launch of their publishing company and its online presence. Absent Willow Publishing LLC is an independent book publisher that will provide its readers with high quality stories of horror, fantasy and science fiction. Its online efforts include The Absent Willow Review.

The Absent Willow Review plans to publish fictional stories in the horror, fantasy, and science fiction genre while allowing its readers access to the magazine anywhere in the world. Additionally, the Absent Willow Review will publish paperback anthologies from their collected works.

"We¹re huge fans of the genres we publish," remarked Griffin. "We started this company to find greats works of fiction and to locate the next generation of great writers."

With its online magazine spotlighting new works and its print publications soon to be available through Amazon.com and other retailers, the Company is planning ! to renew interest in short works of fiction. "For new and established authors of short fiction in the horror or fantasy vein, the market is light," DeCost added. "We are hoping to change that." Absent Willow Publishing LLC is located in Rochester,

NH USA MEDIA CONTACT: Rick Decost & Bob Griffin
Absent Willow Publishing LLC
PO Box 66
Rochester, NH 03866

I think this is great news.  Another genre agency can only be a good thing and I take it as a sign of confidence.  Good luck to both Johns.

http://zenoagency.com/

John Parker
  07787 747302
  [email protected]

John Berlyne
  07956 660024
  [email protected]

Utopia Village, 7 Chalcot Road, London NW1 8L
Literary agent John Richard Parker (formerly of MBA) has combined forces with freelance literary consultant and experienced genre critic John Berlyne. Zeno Agency Ltd will specialise in all kinds of fiction -
Literary, Crime and in particular Science Fiction and Fantasy - and also in serious non-fiction works. Zeno aims to bring writers of excellence and originality to the attention of both the industry and the public,
developing their careers to encompass all aspects of the media worldwide. One of the agency's first priorities will be to establish a dedicated and pro-active web-presence showcasing Zeno's literary talent.

John Parker says 'I am very pleased by the feeling of confidence in our venture shown by so many of my clients - writers like Roger Penrose, Iain Sinclair, Ian Mcdonald, Justina Robson and the Jabberwocky Literary Agency are happy to follow me to the new agency. I am also delighted that a number of formidably experienced editors such as Colin Murray
have agreed to work with us as editorial consultants. We believe that getting the right script and presentation is vitally important.'

John Berlyne said: 'This is a fantastic opportunity to work with an agent of John's calibre and reputation and we'll be using his lifetime of business contacts to open doors for our clients. We're out to develop
the Zeno brand so that it means real quality to publishers.'

All the pieces are in place to launch a vibrant new force on the literary scene, and Zeno are looking forward to making their mark.

SFcrowsnest, the UK magazine, has been hijacked by malicious user:

If you are a FaceBook user, please note, the SFcrowsnest.com Magazine FaceBook group has been hijacked. As of yesterday, any messages sent by it are NOT from SFcrowsnest.com staff or myself and should be treated as hostile – e.g. potentially containing or leading to scams, malware, compromised web pages and the like.

Please post news of this on your FaceBook profile and let all of your own FaceBook friends know as a matter of urgency.

Secondly, if you run a blog or zine, please spread news that the SFcrowsnest.com Magazine FaceBook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21093694832  has been hijacked by hostiles and refer them to this warning which is now prominently linked from our own home page and can be found at http://www.SFcrowsnest.com/facebookhijack.php  – I will keep this page updated with developments and any explanation/apology from FaceBook as and when (or if) I get it.

So far only the SFcrowsnest.com Magazine FaceBook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21093694832  has been hijacked, but seeing it was myself that was singled out by FaceBook hackers, I would suggest also treating any messages from my Rule Jackelia FaceBook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=34257537930  and my personal Stephen Hunt FaceBook account at http://www.facebook.com/people/Stephen_Hunt/1321736585  as being fatally compromised, as I’m certainly not in control of these two accounts either anymore.

Original post  by Stephen Hunt

Weee!  I've just received my new copies of Jack Vance's Lyonesse trilogy - Suldrun's Garden, the Green Pearl, and Madouc.
 
Yes, I've had these books for years, but Vance is my favourite fantasist, and a writer I hugely admire (as you may come to grow tired of hearing), but these editions are special as they are paperback reprints of the Vance Integral Edition (VIE) editions.
 
VIE http://www.vanceintegral.com/ was an extraordinary fan project - a 44 book hardback reprint of Vance's entire body of work, including his Ellery Queen stories, with Vance's approval and cooperation, with the intention to restore all the texts to 'definitive' versions, taking into account all manuscripts and reprints etc.  
 
I bought these from http://www.editionandreasirle.com/, a few copies are left if there are ony other fanbosy/girls out there , they're a little expensive but well short of the $150+ per volume the original VIE hardbacks now command.  There were only 600 sets printed, and I didn't find out about it until it was over so have missed my chance.  The sets are now -outrageously- expensive so I'll have to wait for the premium bonds to come in.
 
Highly recommended for all fantasy readers.

Well, I've been a good boy and have been keeping the novel and short story submissions going out the door regularly the past few weeks, as well as writing regularly.  So far the result has been a rejection from Writers of the Future for a short story, and a rather encouraging one from an agent about my Ace Timewaster novel.  It was still a rejection however, and I learned long ago not to consider complimentary rejections as a form of success.

I've also recently decided to revisit my first novel, a more traditional fantasy that did the rounds some years back (Gods, I've just looked, it was 97/98).  At one time I really thought I'd made it with this one when it was shortlisted by the Virgin Worlds imprint.  The imprint folded a few months later and
as it had thoroughly done the rounds by then I decided to put it to one side and move on.  Now i think it would be a good idea to take another look at it, and so have decided to embark on a total rewrite.  I'm intending to rewrite from scratch, 130,000 words as it stands now.