Earlier today (a couple of hours ago, I think), it was revealed that Tim Lebbon’s The Reach of Children won for Best Novella.

Congratulations to Tim are very-well deserved. Especially well-deserved as it was some of the finest writing I read last year, probably only second to Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes (which hadn’t been read before).

ADDED LATER:

For those who wish they had been in Nottingham when the award was announced, here’s the next best thing: VIDEO!

For an odd bit of fun, count the number of very un-hairy male heads involved in Horror Writing. No idea what this means, or which causes which to take place.

The following books and heir contents have received short-list nominations for the 2008 British Fantasy Awards, with winners to be announced at the convention in September of this year in Nottingham, UK.

	Best Anthology: The 2ND Humdrumming Book of Horror Stories, Ian Alexander Martin, Editor
The August Derlith Fantasy Award for Best Novel: Rain Dogs, Gary McMahon
	Best Novella: The Reach of Children, Tim Lebbon
Best Artist: Lee Thompson, cover artist for The Land at the End of the Working Day, by Peter Crowther
	Best Short Fiction: “The Tobacconist’s Concession”, John Travis, appeared in The 2ND Humdrumming Book of Horror Stories Best Short Fiction: “Pinholes in Black Muslin”, Simon Strantzas, appeared in The 2ND Humdrumming Book of Horror Stories

So, get out there! Vote early & vote often via the BFS site: CLICK THIS BIT HERE ! If you are a member of the British Fantasy Society or if you attended FantasyCon ’08 last September, then you are able to cast a vote to determine the winners in each category.

Early this morning, in a scene evoking the announcement of the Oscar® Nomination, the new publishing house Atomic Fez Publishing was announced by its proprietor, Ian Alexander Martin.

As the sky above him filled with flocks of doves and Canada Geese, Mr. Martin publicly confirmed the existence of Atomic Fez, admitting it was “one of the worst-kept secrets in the Small Press Community of late”. No doubt responding to the frequent rumours of his return to the publishing game, he was last heard from following the demise late last year of the UK-based firm Humdrumming, Ltd., which had been under his control since early spring of that year after founding publisher Guy Adams handed him the reins due to his growing number of professional writing commitments.

His new venture, Mr. Martin announced, would be “a Small Press House with Large Press notions of inclusivity.” Pointing out the people are rarely only “readers of only one variety of fiction, and Atomic Fez proposes to make available as many sorts of books as time and the company ledgers permits.” When asked to explain what he was babbling about, he suddenly resembled a sidewalk proselytiser, declaring that he felt that “too often things about books are made QUITE IMPORTANT and VERY SERIOUS INDEED, casting aside anything which might be seen as ‘enjoyable’”, explaining that “the principle driving force behind certain titles being selected is simple: Books Are Fun Again!”

As well as providing books in the traditional format — described by Mr. Martin as “the ‘dead tree’ variety of books using ink, paper, and bits of glue” — Atomic Fez will be also be endeavouring to tap into the latest of modern technology making available all its titles in the ‘electronic book’ format. Explaining this bi-formatted, pincer-movement approach to publishing, he explained that “the concept that either form [of publishing format] is a ‘bad’ way of getting a story into the hands of a reader is anathema to a logical mind. If you hate e-books, we have paper ones for you. If you hate paper ones, we have ‘e-books ‘to tempt you instead. Either way, we want your money. In the future,” he continued, “it is hoped that both forms [of book] can happily exist side-by-side as they have individual strengths for differing sorts of readers. After all, both forms are equally damaged when dropped in a tub full of hot water.”

Sources close to the company — requesting anonymity due to threatened punishment using hi-fidelity recordings of Mrs. Elva Miller and / or Sebastian Cabot — stated that the first title to be released by the Publisher would be a brand-new novel by the noted Welsh writer Rhys Hughes, which would likely be released early in Q3 to coincide with the British Fantasy Society’s FantasyCon 2009 in mid-September. The book’s contents are being edited now, with final text to be established and at the printers by the start of July. While the source was unable to provide an exact price, they did allow that “something reasonable around the twenty-five dollar mark is what we’re looking at.”

Further titles are entirely unconfirmed and the nature of their contents isn’t know, but Mr. Martin is ‘planning something’ for World HorrorCon in South England’s Brighton, and information has leaked out regarding works from three more British authors being launched at that event in March 2010; with possibly more titles expected in the autumn of the same year, this time including writers from the Dominion of Canada.

Law Enforcement Organisations did not respond to requests for comment, saying they were “very busy getting organised to deal with the crowds expected to take to the streets with hazardous materials.”

That’s my solution; watch the Police and the Tax-Man miss me; I’m immobile!

Having arrived at the start of June realizing that The British Fantasy Society’s FantasyCon was only a little over four months away, the state of the finances of both myself and the company couldn’t be described as being ‘set on solid ground’, and indeed the great statistical likelihood that things will get worse before they get better, the decision has been arrived at that the United Kingdom will be an I.A.M.-free zone during the coming autumn.

This is not something I’m too happy about, obviously, but given the reality that I have yet to repay a single dollar of the costs of last year’s event-filled trip (my première voyage off the North American continent was destined to be legendary, and I’ve never known how to do anything in half-measures) and as my only employment is through Humdrumming it’s unlikely that I’ll be able to do anything about that in the interim, never mind get my hands on the same amount again in a matter of a dozen weeks, there was no choice but this one to be made. Granted, a way for the company to pay my way over and back could be found, but only at the cost of the authors’ well-deserved fees. This is hardly a solution, however, as the only thing that the firm has in any tangible fashion is the goodwill of the authors whose works we publish. Lose that, and the firm has little — if anything — with which to exist.

Our Table at the 2007 FantasyCon

What is potentially the most disheartening possibility is that this may be the year that Humdrumming is realistically likely to be nominated for, and potentially win, something during the BFS Awards event. Even if we were only to be granted a look in on the nominations list, the opportunities presented during three-day flurry of events to meet authors we’re publishing, as well as ones who might be a part of our stable either soon or in the more distant future, is not one which is properly appreciated until the thing is experienced. You fall into conversation with people you’d not have met otherwise, people whose work is already proudly presented is seen in a new and brighter light as a result of hearing others speak in reverential terms of the writing, perhaps a chance meeting with a Guest of Honour leads to opportunities not even considered possible until then.

Indeed, this year we have a number of wonderful books to launch, and even have a couple of wonderful things to make official announcements of for the first time. We even are to have our own book launch event, something rarely heard of for any publisher, and certainly not for one whose existence is less than five years in age.

Yet, sadly, this is the way things have transpired this year.

Ah well, one makes what decision one can based upon the information available at the time one makes it.

Still… it’s an arse, i’nit?

A brief word about that by the way: the motorcyclist is improving (I keep meaning to get back to the person who told me this but I keep being distracted by things; my bad), so all there is getting better for him. However, I can’t seem to get a solicitor to even reply to an e-mail, fax, or even good old fashioned letter post. So the latest correspondence went to the Canadian High Commission in Canada House on Trafalgar Square. Let’s see what sort of diplomatic service can be done.

Meanwhile, here’s the tale of woe explaining how you do not get from Stratford-upon-Avon to King’s Lynn; unless you are determined to have interesting video to post on your blog when you return.

It’s a bit of a large long file, and runs just under 7½ minutes, so you might want to get a refreshment.

I arrived at the hotel in King’s Lynn after becoming lost in the town and having a nice restaurateur explain how to get all the way back through town to the hotel where I was supposed to meet up with my ride to the dinner. I had possibly the fasted pint of my life and felt none of the usual effects after it.

When I attempted to locate the restaurant the next evening in order to give the man my commerce, I could not locate him. I believe he only existed long enough to help me, and then vanished until someone else needs assistance.

This fall, I will find him and enjoy dinner there. And I will get there from the hotel by taxi.

Oh yes.

And, yes:  I’m still going to write more about the UK trip, but it’s pending the resolution of a rather frustrating situation right now. Once that’s done, I can discuss it, but not until it’s been cleared up; that way I can either rant and rave about the lot of twats at a particular company, or quietly mention that it’s all been difficult but really that’s behind us all now and what a shame it was really…

Watch this space.

Yes, more about the trip to England… Now we’re into day three — Huzzah! — and on to Day Four by the end of this, I might add (mostly due to the fact it all blurs together without enough to differentiate betwixt things).

So…

We’re at Monday now, and Steve and Hilary [aka: “The Most Beautiful Woman in the World, according to Steve; and he’s not entirely wrong] have gone off to Italy to visit with her daughter who’s visiting there herself. I’m given the run of the place while they’re gone. Bwahahaahahaha!

The local constabulary has already met me on Saturday afternoon, so they’re wise to me already. Bit of a problem, that.

The Monday passed with me looking for news on the rider of the motorcycle at the Police Station, but they couldn’t tell me anything due to “confidentiality concerns”. I certainly understood, but I hadn’t thought “is he dead?” would be a huge problem to get an answer for. At this point I didn’t even know his name, for Heaven’s sake! I could have asked him on Saturday afternoon, I suppose, but I thought that his lying on the roof of a car at the time signalled something of it being an inopportune moment to bother with paperwork concerns.

I then hied me t’ward some lunch along Ely Street at a place I had spotted the day prior with some claim about the finest Fish & Chips in Her Majesty’s Realm (they didn’t go that far, but it was certainly the best example I could find without any motor-vehicle and a GPS unit). Through the door, and then all the way down a very long hallway, hang a right, pull at the door… pull at the door… pull… at… the door…

Read the notice on the door…

…and discover that Monday is the one day in the week they’re closed. Ah.

So, around the corner to the Gatwick’s back area where the pub is and have a large piece of fish and a pint… Another? Well, why not…?

Just before the visit to Warwickshire’s Finest, I stopped in at a fine book shop near the station and bought many grand volumes, including the first three Michael [Marshall] Smith thrillers, the second two in hard-cover, and a few many others all for something just under £20 if I recall correctly. Granted, they’re still in someone’s storage in England due to the finances all buggered from the accident, but… someday I’ll enjoy reading them!

So I had something to read over my nice pub lunch.

Then off to Twelfth Night, which is reviewed here: iamiam.ca/musing/archives/2007/434/rscs-12th-night

The next day dawned brightly (I really had wonderful weather for much of my stay in the UK — odd for September there), and I showered.

A word, briefly, about the location I am in. It does not lack for a grand history, you see. See above there for that ærial photo, and click to make it big. Steve’s place is marked sort-of generally, as is Shakespeare’s birth-place. Normally, I would be concerned about ‘security issues’ and not be so specific, but you’ll learn in a minute that this place is nigh-on impossible to gain ingress to — or egress from — unless you’re supposed to.

The location at which I slept was something around 80 meters from the place that the Bard of Avon was brought into the world! Did this have any noticeable effect on me? Sadly, no. But the digital broadcast of Doctor Who was a wonderful thing… doubt that’s got anything to do with it, but one takes it where one can. Series 3, “The Master Returns” episode “The Sound of Drums”, by the way.

So the building is maintained by the Shakespeare Memorial Trust, as it’s all a part of the historical centre of town, and who knows how old this place is? Well, Steve does, and he probably told me, but I was probably either jet-lagged, full of absorbed history to the ears, drunk, or all three at that point. “Old” is probably description enough. Tough to remember that, being from an area where it’s rare to have what Jennifer & I have: a house bought by her Father, when it was brand-new: 1954. And they’ve always lived there. No one else has ever lived on this property, in any building. Ever.

So, there’s some context, eh…? Man used to a new-ish house being normal, in a building that’s probably older than the country he’s left for the first time about three days ago.

Let’s return to me now…

oops!

Let’s return to me just after the shower.

I’m happily catching-up on e-mail and talking to our printers about the tour I’ll do in a few days at their plant, and suddenly I hear what I swear is someone coming into the flat.

That can’t be… Steve and Hilary are in Italy. It’s an echo from the street being weird.

Those are feet on the stairs, I’m sure, though…

And those are voices in the hall-way near the kitchen…! Auugh!

I now leap into the hall and defend the place as only I know how: facing the two brigands, I gently enquire “Can I help you?” (being Canadian, and stereo-typically polite).

It turns out that when I had my shower, I got a bit of water on the floor, which quickly disappeared so I didn’t see it on the floor when I got out. It then leaked… somewhere through the floor… into the storeroom of the shop below… which is where they were from. They knew that Steve was away for a few days — he works there, you see, and Steve rents the flat from the store’s owners — so the two people standing before me thought that something had gone amiss in the plumbing or something as they hadn’t heard about me being there while Steve and Hilary were away.

All fine and dandy now, I’ll be more careful in future, hail well and farewell, and they let themselves out.

An hour or so passes.

I am conversing with Guy Adams via MSN’s Messenger thing, and he is advocating that I go to Baguette Barge to get some sort of late-lunch. I claim I don’t have time for that as I’m going to be talking to Jennifer via Skype in awhile, so I’m going to grab something at Subway a few doors away. He is agast that — having finally arrived in the Cradle of of Literature as God Intended [England], I’m going to eat some North American tripe like a subway sandwich…?! I finally give in and say ‘yes, fine, I’ll go to Baguette Barge, leave me be’ and so off I go down the stairs…

And then I’m back to tell Guy I can’t go to Baguette Barge. ‘Why not?’ he reasonably enquires of me. I can’t get the door open, I explain.

“Ha ha ha, how nice to hear the old Goons’ joke”, etc.

“No no, I really can’t get the door open.”

“What…? What do you mean?”

Well, I explain that I really can’t open the dor, nor can I re-lease the lock. One thing leads to another (including me e-mailing him a photo of the lock due to me not making sense of what I’m seeing and what I know makes sense to do but can’t accomplish) and afterwards it turns out that the Yale company’s Night Latch model [see illustration, left] has been double-locked using both the catch on the inside [to the right of that knob] and then the key outside, thereby making it impossible for me to leave the flat. The key has locked the inside switch into place, making it impossible to un-lock the door without standing on the outside using the key. Right now, all we know is that I’m unable to open this door and leave the flat.

Thinking like a New World Man, I do not panic as all residences have two exits in case of fire… right?

“Ah,” says an ancient voice in my mind, “but when was this place built, Boy?

I… um… err… a… a long time ago…?

“Yes… well done. So, how many exits were built?”

Um… ‘however many they damned well felt like building that day’…?

“Yes…!”

So… I then try using the “James Bond Polar Route” [photo, left; click to enlarge] by going out the kitchen onto the patio, then jumping across the gap onto the edge of the roof of the shop next-door, then around the corner of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Library using some scaffolding handily standing there ‘In Case of Trapped Canadian’, down its ladder, along a path, over a wall just past Steve’s shop’s warehouse/parking area, then down a waste-ground space between the two buildings… and arrived at a locked gate with pigeon spikes on the top of it.

Damn.

So, I return via the way I came — resisting the temptation to wave through the windows at the people who are blithely doing research in the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Library oblivious to the Canadian walking to and fro outside, and who is going every so slowly insane — and re-examine the while situation once more calmly.

I see no way out of this, short of hurling myself out a window onto the paving stones of Henley Street some dozen or more feet below.

I reject this as being potentially a cause of the injuries I escaped during the auto-accident on Saturday prior.

I then discuss the photo of the lock with Guy; is there something I’m missing there? Is there some sort of secondary release that will permit me to throw the catch on the inside and release me from this historical cage of a comfortable flat? At this point we didn’t have the faintest idea how the thing wouldn’t permit me to leave, as we forgot about the use of a key activating a sort of secondary securing system that over-rides the inside button/catch/switch/thing. No matter how much I attempted to gently lever the catch into an ‘up’ — or ‘freedom!’ — position, I soon realised it was fruitless and that a call would have to be made to the shop downstairs and ask them to come next door with their keys, thereby letting me once again breathe that sweet air of God’s Own Country [England] whilst standing upon the street like a True Citizen. I wasn’t happy about having to distinguish myself like this again, but I had no other choice.

After waiting for the polite laughter at the other end of the line to subside (and I couldn’t blame them, really; hell, I was laughing at the ridiculous situation myself), they came and let me out of my kennel, and I knew full-well that I would never be able to return to Stratford without causing the story to make the rounds again, but at least now I had something to talk to Jennifer about other that the accident. I go next door and get a subway, cursing the fact that I am now consuming the same food I can get by walking down to the bottom of the hill at home in the Tundra of Canada.

I return to the flat and wait for the top of the pre-arranged hour to speak to my wife, and wait for her to come on-line.

And wait.

I text-chat to Guy and re-assure him that all is well and I am now eating a foot-long Vegetarian [he mis-understands what I mean] on Honey-Oat with a Snapple™ and a foil bag of chips [he mis-understands again]. He shames me.

“By the by, when are you speaking to your delightful wife?” he enquires of me.

Theoretically a half-hour ago at 5:00 pm, I reply, so that I can talk to her at 8:00 am before she goes to work at 9:00.

“You mean ‘talk to her at 9:00 am’, right?”

No no, she’s left the house by about 9:15, so that wouldn’t be long enough to chat.

“But that’s almost an hour ago.”

No, it’s just after 8:00… right…?

“No, I think you’re still subtracting nine hours as though you’re going to talk to me, but you’re not in Spain yet; it’s only eight hours from GMT to your area.”

…ah. That would explain why it’s now 5:45 and she’s still not there.

I check e-mail, to discover that she’s e-mailed me a couple of times to ask what she’s done wrong on her end and I’m not there…? Now she has to go to work, so perhaps we can connect in a few days…?

I beat my head against the desk at the utter futility of my attempts to accomplish things.

Leaving the flat, I walk down the block — dashing quickly past the shop downstairs so that no-one rushes onto the pavement to point and laugh at me, something I expect to have happen at any moment — and enter the co-op where I already today purchased postage and had noted the chocolate and wine selection without doing anything about it. Now is the time to do this, I realize.

I return to the flat with three large bars of Cadbury’s Milk Chocolate, two bottles of French Red Wine, and a six-pack of German Lager.

I don’t think I paid more than £10 for the lot. It’s this transaction than made me realise that this country has been built for me. I profess my love for the land and decide to never leave.

I eat something at the Garrick Pub again for dinner, then return to the flat to drink wine and eat chocolate while watching the above-mentioned episode of Doctor Who via digital broadcast on the large-ish flat-screen and decide that, in fact, the best thing is to never leave this flat and shall have Steve and Hilary adopt me as their Cuban House-Boy.

I sleep, thereby ending “UK Day IV”.

It is good.

Tune in next time; when you’ll hear the Silly Canadian Man ask the pertinent question:

If one’s heading along the M5 to the exit marked ‘Rugby’, isn’t arriving in Birmingham signalling that one’s going the wrong way…?

I am now another convert from the ‘I hate books with dragons on the cover’ camp. Tim Lebbon’s writing is resistant to all but ‘good things important to the story’, and doesn’t rise above the troll and swords genre so much as generally rape it for all that is useful and chuck in the bin anything that’s less than that.

As a result, Mr. Lebbon’s books really aren’t “books with dragons on the cover”, so I suppose I can go on hating the typical Warriors of Gor or Dragonriders of Mystik Valley shite that has no purpose to my mind except providing something for some people to obsess endlessly about.

I sucked the two books up whenever I had the chance (which wasn’t often, but…), and loved the character-driven nature of Mr. Lebbon’s two tales. The details and ‘whys and wherefores’ of the so-called ‘ancient language of magic’, the ancient war, the different origins of tribes, none of that mattered; all that they do is establish the rules of the world so clearly that we get the dynamic of the interchange, and they do so with enough detail that we can fill in the finer details sub-consciously. Totally brilliant.

Of course, he must die for this genius. It simply won’t do, you know; he’s making people like Adams and Morris look bad.

Get both books and find out what I mean.

And get both at the same time. When you finish the first one you’ll want the second one near to hand.

• DUSK: Winner of the British Fantasy Society Award for “Best Novel, 2006″
• DAWN: predicted (by me) to be winner of the 2007 British Fantasy Award for “Best Novel, 2007″

DO IT!