Five Authors; One Event (You Know How This Works!)

FORBIDDEN PLANET and Gollancz Publishing are delighted to be hosting an open-format, multi-author signing. Five authors, one event – at 6pm on Thursday November 26th, Forbidden Planet 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London will be playing host to: -

• David Devereux
• Paul McAuley
• Justina Robson
• Adam Roberts
• Chris Wooding

To promote the release of Justina’s new book CHASING THE DRAGON, Forbidden Planet and Gollancz Publishing have gathered a host of science fiction and fantasy talent into one event – an event to bring writers and fans together and to promote interest in new and different kinds of fiction.

This is a free-form and open signing, bringing the authors out from behind their tables and giving their readers a chance to meet them and talk to them about their work. An array of fantastic books will be on hand to be picked up and signed – including works by every one of the writers present.

And, as usual with these events, there are likely to be more than a few surprise guests...

...and a subsequent visit to the pub!

Wallace & Gromit - Cracking Comics on the iPhone!

This is ten kinds of cheeky (cheesy?) nepotism - but I'm chuffed as fuck to see our own in-house publishers getting ahead of the game. Make yourself a cuppa... and have a read...

Titan Publishing brings Wallace and Gromit to the iPhone - after the BunVac 6000 and the Techno Trousers, it's only fitting they should be pioneers of a whole new Titan technology.

The first batch offers scripts by Dan Abnett (Legion, Nova, The Authority) and Simon Furman (Transformers, Terminator 2 Comic), plus there will more released in the forthcoming weeks.

You can download four Wallace and Gromit stories right now - ‘The W-Files’, ‘Parts & Labour’, ‘Big in Japan’ and ‘Where there’s Muck there’s Brass’ - each one £0.59 ($0.99) and packed with bonus goodies.

And bless Ned Hartley, editor, for this: -
“It’s really exciting to see Wallace and Gromit at the forefront of such a cracking new technology. Although I secretly suspect that Wallace would be more comfortable with the type of apple that comes with cheese.”

It's also quite exciting to see stuff happening right under (all right above) my nose... at Titan Towers itself!

Adventures in Scotland

When you’ve been called mad by Iain Banks, you know you’re in for an interesting holiday.

And after a week of – well, weather – on the Isle of Mull, I’m beginning to think Banksy had the right of it.

Mull is beautiful – glacier-carved rocky severity shrugging its way out of blankets of rich autumnal colour. Cloud lifts in wisps from the mountaintops – they look as through they are on fire – and they layer back into the mist as far as you care to see. You want to call it ‘rugged’, ‘desolate’, ‘bleak’, craggy’ – but no world suits the Isle more than this one: -

It’s WET.

We’ve walked in it and we’ve cycled in it. We’ve got drenched so many times that my abiding holiday memories are not the Martian Red Weed that decorated the grey loch shore, the golden beach at Calgary or the blissed-out religious types on their pilgrimage to Iona… no, it’s playing constant Tetris with endlessly sopping clothes and realising just WHY the Scots love their whisky as much as they do.


It goes with the climate.

One day of blue skies had us leaving the cabin with the sunrise, testing our endurance to the limit with 45 miles around the north of the Island. The beauty was overwhelming; maybe it was sheer physical effort in getting bikes up those hills, but eventually we became completely blasé.

“Heron.” “Yep.” “Waterfall.” “Yep.” “Standing stone.” “Yep.” “Ruined castle.” “Yep.” “Oh look, it’s another fucking great hill.”

We found ourselves in Tobermory at conveniently lunchtime – and went looking for Archie the Inventor… a quest foiled by my smashing both knees as I fell off the pavement (Archie, it seems knew we were coming). A long ride home brought us to our friendly field of radioactive (yes) sheep at sunset, worn down after a long day.


Devin tackled all 3100ft of Ben More – a pleasure I wussed out of due to the hail, gale and bog that awaited me. I tackled the laptop, instead, and watched the lunatic antics of the local chaffinches, auditioning for parts in a certain Hitchcock movie.

A couple of pitch (and I mean) pitch dark treks through the pass to beer and the nearest civilisation didn’t turn up the Headless Horseman… but we did rather feel like we were going for a pint in the Slaughtered Lamb and spent much of the walk discussing how we could off the Wereworf with a couple of mag-lites and a leatherman.

Our local guru Steve, owner of the cabin we stayed in, commented that people had ‘seen us round the island’ – but he also told us that the weather would be good and there was ‘one hill’ coming out of Tobermory… so much for that.


We’ve ended our holiday – and celebrated our new engagement (yes, the diamond ring variety, scary huh?) – with a proto-honeymoon Samhein night in the scariest hotel in Scotland. Bonus points for the king size four-poster and colossal orgy bath… but bleak dark stone and an isolated location are further spooked out by ghastly floral décor, stags heads on the walls and a memory palace of nik-naks creepy enough for a Roald Dahl story.

And why is there a large abandoned building in the hotel’s gardens that’s just full of discarded junk?

It’s all gone a bit Rosemary’s Baby… thank the Gods we’ll be in Glasgow tomorrow…

Raising Hell? Clive Barker!

At gleefully short notice, CLIVE BARKER will be signing his DVD, The Midnight Meat Train at the Forbidden Planet Megastore, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, WC2H 8JR, on Thursday 15th October from 6 – 7pm.

The Hellraiser Himself, Clive’s career began as founder, writer and director of a small theatre group staging such plays as The History of the Devil. Short horror stories written in his spare time came to the public eye as The Books of Blood, the popularity of which enabled him to begin writing and directing horror films. In 1987, of course, came Hellraiser, featuring a character that has become an icon of the genre. Referred to by Barker as ‘the Noel Coward of the lower depths’, we remember him as the master of pleasure and pain: Pinhead. More recently, Clive has moved into writing fantasy fiction, revealing that his flamboyant imagination can encompass light as well it can darkness.

In The Midnight Meat Train, a photographer gets far more than he imagines when he tries to capture the grit and grime of the city. While taking pictures of the subway, he encounters Mahogany (Vinnie Jones), a vicious killer who preys on subway riders. And then the nightmare really begins.

Clive is a long-time friend of Forbidden Planet - it's good to see him back!

You, Robot

We all know Asimov’s three laws of Robotics: -

1. A robot may not injure….

2. A robot must obey…

3. A robot must protect…

It’s probably down to Asimov, then, that so many Angry Robots at Forbidden Planet didn’t result in lawless chaos. Instead, it resulted in big piles of books and posters, a buzz of energy and a lot of giggling - not to mention too many flapjacks sneaked in between interviews.

Fun was had by Mssrs. Harvey and Remic, refusing to obey any orders whatsoever, by new author Mike Shevdon (who gives a mean tour of London’s West End) and by the ever-irrepressible Dan Abnett, signing a steady stream of copies of Triumff for happy fans.

Protecting their Robot interests, Marco and Lee were on hand to discuss the imprint, the arrival of the eReader and the future of publishing in general – while steering well clear of the Wasabi Pringles.

Thanks to Nik Butler aka loudmouthman, we can prove that all Robot laws were upheld. Asimov would be proud.

Angry Robot Books @ Forbidden Planet from nik butler on Vimeo.

An Evening With Kevin Smith (or: The Irony of 'Silent Bob')

Silent Bob likes to chat.

Signing behind the big merch desk at FP London, he’s made slightly uncomfortable by the elevation and the barrier – something he jokes about to the incoming fans. He’s a strong presence, as you might expect – a tireless enthusiasm of energy, humour, sincerity and spectacularly foul language. He’s happy to see every single person that comes through that door.

And they’re happy to see him.


In spite of the three-hour queue, the evening has a very chilled atmosphere. A relaxed, good-humoured crowd warm to him instantly; he greets every one of them with ‘hey, man, how’re you?’ and he means it every time. Everyone gets a joke and a grin – and they know he’s a mate.

The thing about Kevin Smith: he’s still a fanboy. As comics buyer Del commented, it’s only been ten years since Clerks first aired. Kevin Smith may be a culture hero, massively successful – but, rather like an American Simon Pegg, he’s still one of the guys, a fan himself. Signing one lady’s black leather bra (she wasn’t in it) and another guy’s elbow for a later tattoo needle doesn’t phase him – this is his world, and he totally get it.


You’ve got to love a guy who burns the ‘no photos’ rule within five minutes of the event starting – and who seems actually disappointed that the queue’s moving too fast for his people to really stop and chat.

Perhaps most telling was the half-hour he took to tour FP once the event had closed. While his wife bought gifts, he surveyed the store with the professional eye of a comic book retailer – and later told Nick Grimshaw on Radio 1 that he’d loved what he’d seen.

There’s surely no better example of the New Age of Geek than Kevin Smith – still fanboy and retailer, he’s an all-round streetgeek champion, all about the people, and all about the fans.

And isn’t that kind of the point?

The Man Himself: Ray Harryhausen

It's hard to describe what standing in the presence of Ray Harryhausen feels like - he's gentle, funny, sharp and insightful and yet he can still make me feel like I'm twelve years old and in need of a Werther's Original.

In six years at Forbidden Planet, there have been few guests who have reduced me to tongue-tied fangirl - and I'm not ashamed to admit that Ray is one of them.


In 2003, he was the Guest of Honour at the launch of the FP Megastore; a few months later, his was the very first signing I ran. Afterwards, I had the enormous privilege of escorting him home in his cab and listening to him talk - not about the skeleton sequence in Jason, but about how it felt to be in LA during the war, his family, and his horror at the arrival of CGI.

The cabby, also, was unable to find a word.

I've been to his home, been entranced by the pictures, by every little knick-knack that sits beside his kitchen table - a wealth of history and experience that just leaves me overwhelmed.

He's a rock star - mischievous still - and he shows almost no signs of slowing down.

For this reason, welcoming him back to Forbidden Planet is very special. He'll be in the London store on Saturday 24th October at 1pm, signing the softcover of 'An Animated Life'.

I won't bore you, or insult him, with the press release.

You know who he is.