Colin Harvey – author

…here.

And said winners are the BSFA Awards, by the way. Just so you know before you click on the link!

Here‘s the fourth and last Blog post.

Cheers

More about Eastercon here.

The reason that you’re only reading about Saturday at Eastercon on the following Tuesday is that unlike last year at Heathrow, there was no free wi-fi either in the con or my hotel.  So with much grumbling I decided that rather than pay £12 for 24 hours –most of which would be wasted– I would just book one hour, although at £6.50 it doesn’t half concentrate the mind.

However, having queued to get a log-on ID, I found that to add insult to injury, I couldn’t log on. The hotel had obviously had this problem before as they hadn’t charged me -telling me to check the access first– but when I went back to reception, a mile-long queue had spontaneously generated, so with dark mutterings, I abandoned the blog for the weekend. I’d already wasted enough time, and I had a meeting scheduled with my publisher.

 After lunch I met up with Sharon and our friend Rob and spend an afternoon in the bar, just easing back.

 Then it was time for the BSFA awards. Kim Newman and Paul McAuley gave another brilliant performance as Masters of Ceremonies, including an imaginary interview between David Frost and Sir Arthur C. Clarke in 1969, with Clarke giving some wildly inaccurate predictions of how the world would look in 1999 and 2009.

Then the long-awaited Doctor Who special: only a middling episode, but still the best thing on TV all week.

And it was one of the best curries I’ve had in ages, eaten in good company. From a fairly crappy start, the day had turned out really well.

To someone used to near constant internet presence it feels like the same thing. The blog that follows was originally to be posted Saturday, and why it wasn’t will come in the one that was intended for Sunday….

Friday

Finally, time for the panel on YA fiction that as always generated a fair degree of impassioned opinion from the audience – including the interesting idea that Wicked is all about Woodrow Wilson’s segregation of Washington DC in 1913. Hmm. Not sure I buy this, but an interesting idea.

Then time for a quick visit to an SF-nal variant of Dragon’s Den, in which six aspiring authors pitch their first page and synopsis to a panel of agents and publishers. It was interesting that what I considered to be only the second or even third best entry was unanimous winner among the judges: Which just goes to show why I’m not a publisher or an agent.

And so -to quote Mr Pepys– to bed.

Today I had the great pleasure of signing a contract for two novels with Angry Robot Books, the new division of HarperCollins.

Winter Song will be published in October 2009 in the UK, and at an as yet unspecified date in the US and electronically. It’s the story of an ordinary man -that is, ordinary by thirtieth-century standards- who is ambushed in a remote star-system and crash-lands on a ‘lost’ colony. He has to get home past alien wildlife and unfriendly colonists, unaware that the planet holds a huge secret.

Damage Time is scheduled for May 2010 publication, and is set in a near-future New York, where memories can be copied and sold for entertainment. But there’s a darker trade which leads to a policeman being framed for murder, and when that fails to put him off, he’s attacked and stripped of his memories.

It’s a huge step up for me, and I’m really looking forward to it.

I’m still in shock from the news that Killers has been nominated for the British Fantasy Award.

OK, so it may only be one nomination, which is all that’s needed to get it onto the long list, but the fact remains that someone likes it enough to nominate it. For a small press outfit publishing an anthology edited by a relatively new author this is a huge plus. Not just for the publicity, but also for the sense of vindication.  The real honour goes to the writers who made the book, of course.

It doesn’t matter if I don’t win, or get onto the final ballot. It’s a cliche, but being nominated really is an honour.

Wales 15, Ireland 17.

I’ll be in Dublin next Friday. I have a feeling that after 61 years of waiting for a second ever Grand Slam, the place will still be rocking.

I’m happy for Mary Robinette Kowal, whose marvellous ‘Evil Robot Monkey’ is now on the Hugo ballot for Best Short Story, and deservedly so, and Aliette de Bodard, nominated for the John W. Campbell award for Best New Writer. Equally deserving.

But sad for my friend Ted Kosmatka, who wrote the wonderful ‘Divining Light’ and ‘The Art of Alchemy’ and hasn’t seen either of them get the appreciation that they deserve, and James Moran, whose ‘The Fires of Pompeii’ is IMHO the best ever Doctor Who episode.

Oh well, I’m sure that their reward will come in time.