Speculation, Fact and Fiction

Goodness me, there was a lot going on... Drove up Friday pm, with Junior Son, which made tedious motorway driving a lot less boring. Arrived in Bradford just in time for a downpour which made spotting signs in unfamiliar roads hard work, plus Emily the Satnav decided to have conniptions on account of something she expected to be a roundabout in fact being a building site. Son got us back on track scanning paper map and street names - phew.

The Midland Hotel is a fine old Victorian railway hotel - with all mod cons. Including a Corby trouser press, which fascinated Son entirely - never having encountered such a beast. That first day we shared a cab to the main con hotel with Neal Williamson, having encountered him in reception. A gent, Neal. Thereafter we used the bus service which was pretty good, allowing for the inevitable timing issues. Certainly the simplest way to solve the issue of the distance between con and overflow hotels that I can see.

The con hotel itself - Cedar Court - was an very good venue and the staff acquitted themselves extremely well in all my interactions with them and I've heard nothing to the contrary elsewhere. Indeed, the whole con seemed to run wonderfully smoothly. Of course, as anyone who's done event organising knows, that absolutely never happens without a great deal of forethought, preparation and hard work at the event, by the organising committee, so huge thanks to them.

Overall the weekend ticked all the boxes. I went to some excellent panels on all sorts of stuff, the Guests of Honour were fascinating to hear and charming to talk to when opportunity arose. And the 'compare and contrast' between John Courtenay Grimwood and Tim Powers' working methods was highly entertaining! David Lloyd explaining - with visuals - his artistic career up to V for Vendetta was utterly fascinating. Conversations in the bars with pals old and new ranged from the silly to the intense and were all thoroughly enjoyable. And yes, I was able to talk a degree of business and spread the world about Irons in the Fire, so that's all to the good.

( specifics on my panels )

And I'm still thinking about one thing in particular. You see, talking about dragons, we touched on the classic, archetypal monsters in current fantasy. Which ones haven't been used lately?

Giants. Think back to all those folk tales that have nourished the fantasy genre. Plenty of giants there. But now? Outside kids books like HPotter or the BFG?

Thoughts, comments etc. invited...