The Gollancz Party 2010

On Thursday I attended the Gollancz Party in London for the fourth time. This event has shot up in size from a relatively small, Gollancz-focused event to a much bigger general SFF get-together with lots of SFF authors, bloggers and editors from multiple publishers attending and talking about books past, present and future.

Also in attendance were these three scoundrels:

Oddly, that's how James's eyes come out after red eye-reduction is activated. Chilling.

Yes, that's James 'Speculative Horizons' Long, Gavin 'Veteran' Smith and Mark 'Walker of Worlds' Chitty, with Gavin doing the steampunk thing. Too many others to mention were in attendance, but it was good to meet Amanda for the first time and to catch up with (new dad) Graeme and a number of authors and publishers. Special mention for Stephen Deas's mighty Ming the Merciless costume, images of which have not appeared yet on the Internet, sadly. Team Macmillan also deserve a mention for all turning up as zombies, and Sophia McDougall rocked a pirate look complete with realistic crow accessory.

And yes, I asked about the Rothfuss/Lynch situation (Rothlynch? Lynfuss?), at which point the Gollancz rep screamed in frustration and dived headlong into the Thames. Or, more likely, replied that Rothfuss appears to be on track for early-ish 2011, Lynch is looking a bit later in the year and (as a bonus) that Morgan has been rolled back until later in the year. I also got a tidbit from Ian McDonald that his next book will be 'madder than the last one', which is saying something.

All in all, a good time was had by all.