You may have noticed that we've been a bit quiet recently, for that we can only apologise and offer up the humble excuse that we were gearing up for this year's FantasyCon (because someone had to lead our far more sensible colleagues over at Solaris Books astray).
To that end the last fortnight has consisted of a rigorous training routine that saw Team Abaddon arise at the crack of noon almost every day, to a packed schedule of vocal warm ups (we take our karaoke very seriously, thank you very much), pint carrying practise, disco stretches and panel wit-sharpening exercises.
There were rumours going around the office that Abaddon Dave may also have done some "Editorial-ing" during this period too, but we're not convinced.
But anyway, as the saying goes a picture is worth a thousand poorly written words, and a shakily taken mobile phone picture is about on par, but far less tedious to glance over. So without further ado a brief snap shot of what went down:
FRIDAY:
Team Abaddon arrive and head straight to the bar start to hand out copies of the exclusive Abaddon-zine The Afterblight Chronicle
Karaoke time! Here we have the lovely BFA shortlisted Libby McGugan taking on the challenge.
SATURDAY:
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| L-R Adrian Tchaikovsky, Julie McKenna, David Moore, Fran Terminello, Clifford Beale |
"I am the emergency moderator hologram. Please state the nature of your emergency moderation.":
Abaddon Dave steps in to help moderate the popular Pen VS Sword panel on Saturday morning. Initially we were suspicious that this was a clear ploy to trick people into believing he's a lovely human-being, and not a tyrannical editorial overlord, hell-bent on world domination...
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| Fran Terminiello and Clifford Beale |
...until the action spilled out into the halls, steel-on-steel, and we realised he was just picking up tips...
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| Adrian Tchaikovsky |
...and recruiting allies.
Next up was the Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets launch. Sadly due to the blinding sunshine this is the only picture we have that demonstrates that it was indeed attended by real, actual people and not terrifying dark shadow monsters.
Here you can see the classic British pastime "The Queue" as some of you lovely people wait to allow a few of the contributors to scrawl all over the beautiful, pristine pages of the advanced copies we had available on the day *sob*.
SUNDAY:
After a brilliant Saturday night disco hosted by Marc Gascoigne and Guy Adams (don't worry we're not cruel enough to subject you to photos of us throwing any kind of shapes on the dance floor) we hope you'll excuse us skipping over the morning's activities with just a brief shout out to the fantastic editorial panel, and getting to the main event of the day...
The British Fantasy Awards!
A full list of winners can be found here and we would like to offer our congratulations to all the winners and short-listed nominees. It was an incredible line-up this year and there was some fierce competition on all sides. But, we do of course want to make a special shout out to our colleague Jon Oliver for his win in the Best Anthology Award 2014!
And here he is in (blurry) action collecting it from the wonderful Paul Cornell.
We could rave about the weekend to a length that would rival Alan Moore, so before that happens we will sign off with a huge thanks to chair Lee Harris and the wonderful Team of Red Cloaks who made the weekend possible. Thank you guys and see you next year!
