October 2025 – Everything Is Better With Dragons

Despatches from World Fantasy Con 2025: day 2 Friday 31st October 2025

Today I was on my first panel, The Way We’re Wired, about neurodivergence in fantasy. The moderator was David Green, and the other two panellists were Janet Forbes from World Anvil and indie writer Roxan Burley.

I was supported by a few people I know, and my friend Sian, deputy chair of the BFS, took a picture for me to commemorate my first panel.

Before this panel, I attended another panel, Mapping in Fantasy. The moderator was Adrian M Gibson and the panellists were Alicia Wanstall-Burke, James Logan, and Joy Sanchez-Taylor.

Joy Sanchez-Taylor is an academic from CUNY, James Logan is trad published, and Alicia Wanstall-Burke is indie published.

I have James Logan’s book The Silverblood Promise and I’ve bought all three of Alicia’s books based on the description of the maps. I really want one of Joy Sanchez-Taylor’s books, but academic books are expensive.

I made extensive notes on the conversation, so this is a bit of a summary.

The panel discussed their relationships to maps, expressing childhood memories of travelling with paper maps and learning to read them. For Alicia, maps also help her to write as they allow her to visualise a space and the way it effects the story. They discussed how the choices made on the presentation of a map can tell the reader something about the world. Joy Sanchez-Taylor especially emphasized the way reorientating the world can express and explore new ways of thinking.

The panel went on to discuss whether or not a fantasy needs a map. James Logan expressed that although he has maps of his world they aren’t included in his books because he likes to keep things malleable, so that he can move cities around if he needs to, giving him more options for the future. Alicia Wanstall-Burke brought up the question of who owns the map? A map might be a symbol of power or it might be a tool to navigate a territory and be subject to change as the land changes. James Logan, from his perspective as an editor in a major publishing house, expressed that it can be expensive to commission an artist and a cartographer, so changing the map for the next book in a series is not going to happen. Joy Sanchez-Taylor mentioned the importance of maps for visual learners and discussed the pressure on authors to have a defined map, but that they can have known and unknown areas so that the story world can expand.

Next, the discussion moved on to how the layout of the world affects the story. Alicia Wanstall-Burke discussed how the world can provide barriers to technology, information, and culture, and when cultures separated by the physical barriers meet, there can be conflict, and that can drive the story. James Logan likes to keep the world fresh for himself and for readers, so he sets each story in a different city, providing a sense of scale. They went on to discuss the way maps change perspective and the commissioning process.

I also attended the ‘Here be Dragons in Fantasy Fiction’ panel, (moderator: Charlotte Bond; panellists: Aliette de Bodard, Michael R Miller, Andrew Knighton). It was fun listening to other people who love dragons as much as I do, and I’ve got two of Aliette de Bodard’s books in my Amazon basket now, because Dragons and their murder husbands…

I attended Stewart Hotston’s book launch, and got myself a signed copy of Project Hanuman.

In the evening I attended the Disability in SFF panel, moderated by Annie Summerlee, with panellists Lizzie Alderdice, Susie Williamson, Katie Bruce and Kit Whitfield. I know Katie Bruce and Kit Whitfield and wanted to support them, as well as being interested in what they had to say. The panel was streamed and is on the member’s area of the WFC 2025 website if you didn’t get to see it.

After that, I attended the Flame Tree book launch. We got a lovely speech from Lee Murrey, a hilarious one from Ramsey Campbell, and an amazing reading from Anna Smith Spark. I treated myself to a stack of books from Flame Tree yesterday, but I was tempted buy more today.

After the launch I spent several hours chatting and drinking with friends and new acquaintances, until we got chucked out of the con bar and went down to the hotel bar, until I left at 1 a.m. We’ve overwhelmed the hotel slightly, I don’t think they realised how much SFFH people like to drink.

World Fantasy Con 2025: Day 1

I have registered, I have my goodie bag, and I have been to the dealers room.

https://worldfantasy2025.co.uk/

I wasn’t planning to buy anything today, but I gave in and spent lots of pennies visiting the FlameTree Press table, the Wizard’s Tower table, and the Portal Bookshop table, as well as a couple of indie author tables

I have pretty much spent half my book budget and may need to reduce it further to get a suitcase to take them home in.

I’ve treated myself to three notebooks from FlameTree, some teas from the Bird & Blend shop, and a pocket watch from a jewellery maker.

I’m having a break in hotel room. I’ll go back to the con about half four for the 5pm workshop I’ve signed up for. Until then I’m resting amd writing.

Report from Brighton: 29th October 2025

Holla all,

I’m in Brighton for World Fantasy Convention 2025. I arrived yesterday. It’s raining. I found dragons after visiting Brighton Gallery and Museum and the Pavilion gift shop. I’m planning to visit the Pavilion itself on Monday if I have the energy.

This morning I used the hotel swimming pool, hot tub, and hydrotherapy pool. Then I had a continental breakfast, before heading out. I eventually had lunch at the Shelter Hall, which wasn’t too bad. Expensive, but everything in Brighton seems to be expensive. I’m definitely going to have the flatbread thing I had today again.

I’ve been writing since I got back, typing up and sharing the next bit of my space dragon story. There should be more later in the week. I’ve got a quiet morning planned tomorrow, before I go to the con hotel for registration and visit the dealers hall.

There’s a BFS meet-up in the con hotel bar this evening, which I plan to attend, but until then, I’m going to rest. I need a nap. Badly.

Maria and the star-dragons: Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Lah-Shah, Aurox. 5 IGASS standard days later

Lah-Shah hovered the shuttle over Sahrai’s compound. The late summer sunlight bathed the shipping containers in an orange light as the vegetation reached out grasping branches and a small crowd of flying monkeys rested on the hot roof. The shuttle didn’t seem to disturb the creatures even as Lah-Shah landed in the roadway. One of the creatures sat up and started furiously batting stubby wings. It climbed down the side of the container, bounced across the yard and up on to the fence, where it balanced carefully.

Lah-Shah watched in amazement as it held up a tablet and started to type. He opened the shuttle hatch, stood from his chair, stretched his own truncated wings, and prepared to leave.

“Oi!” A squeaky voice screamed. The creature had left the fence and approached the shuttle hatch.

“What” Lah-Shah said, “are you?”

The creature tapped at the tablet screen with a claw, “I Prrt-hai, am Rwwharr. Maria call us purple flying monkeys.” The tablet spoke.

“Have you seen Maria?”

Prrt-hai looked at the tablet, witing for the translation. The purple flying monkey spoke, the tablet translated and spoke again.

“Yes, yes, Maria at den with Sahrai and Suppai. We take you.”

“Is it far, I can fly us?”

“We fly! Come, we fly!” the tablet spoke again.

“No, I’ll fly us in the shuttle.” Lah-Shah found he was already getting used to talking to Prrt-hai and hearing his question translated into a facsimile of Prrt-hai’s language, and then getting two answers, the expressive screams and clicks the creature used and the bland computer voice of the tablet.

Prrt-hai looked at the shuttle and at the tablet, reading and listening to the translation. It started typing again. The tablet said,

“No shuttle, no. Quiet. Shh! We fly.” Prrt-hai flapped its wings, climbing into the shuttle.

Lah-Shah had doubts about the ability of the flying monkeys (who, despite Maria’s expressive name for them weren’t quite purple, but a mix of orange, brown, red, and purple) to keep up with him.

“Ah,” Lah-Shah breathed out and felt his skin change to a reluctant cream, “Let me lock up and shift, and we can get going.”

“I help?” Prrt-hai was looking around now, inquisitive.

Lah-Shah feared that once the Auroxian sentients joined the Association they would find themselves a niche on ships, they seemed to have a quick grasp of technology.

“No, I’m fine, please get out of my shuttle.” The little simian alien looked from the tool box it had opened to Lah-Shah, “And leave that wrench there, thank you.”

Prrt-hai blew a raspberry and hopped down, taking the tool with it.

Lah-Shah flickered a frustrated green, “Just stay clear of the shuttle,”

Lah-Shah followed Prrt-hai and about a dozen of the purple flying monkeys as they flew over the forest, towards a grey bluff that rose out of the slowly rising ground like a metal ruler dropped in the forest. Tree-like vegetation whipped by, small bat-like creatures swooped past, chasing even smaller flying animals and avoiding the whip tendrils of the vegetation, while chittering angrily in the ultra-sonic range.

It was some distance, Lah-Shah calculated they’d been flying for a standard hour when they flew over the bluff and down into a cove, where water from a stream pooled and the vegetation had been cut back, revealing a small valley. Lah-Shah landed in the valley, where the ground around the stream was marshy. He hopped awkwardly further from the water and looked around. The cove walls were pock-marked with caves, too evenly spaced to be natural. Small faces poked out of some of the caves.

Too his left, near the forest edge, a group sat around a fire pit. A tent had been erected beneath a collection of branches. Several of the flying Auroxians landed by the fire and started chatting in their screaming language. Most banked over the pool and made neat landings in the caves. The sun was going down, making the cove shadowed and the fire brighter.

Prrt-hai landed on Lah-Shah’s back, tapping at the tablet at the same time.

“Maria and Sahrai by fire. With Suppai den.”

“Ah, at last!”

Maria walked towards him, tiredness and anxiety in every step, mud on xyr clothes and face. Another of the Auroxians, also carrying a tablet, hopped along beside his assistant.

“Maria, you’re safe! Why haven’t you answered my messages?” He turned his long serpentine neck to look at Prrt-hai, “And why is there a flying monkey on my back?”

Prrt-hai grinned as it read the translation. Or showed its teeth. It wasn’t a friendly look. Prrt-hai bounced down off Lah-Shah’s back, much to his relief, and fluttered over to Maria and xyr friend.

Review: Fantasy Fiction – A Writer’s Guide and Anthology, by Jennifer Pullen

About the book

The first fantasy-writing textbook to combine a historical genre overview with an anthology and comprehensive craft guide, this book explores the blue prints of one of the most popular forms of genre fiction. The first section will acquaint readers with the vast canon of existing fantasy fiction and outline the many sub-genres encompassed within it before examining the important relationship between fantasy and creative writing, the academy and publishing. A craft guide follows which equips students with the key concepts of storytelling as they are impacted by writing through a fantastical lens. These

– Character and dialogue
– Point of view
– Plot and structure
– Worldbuilding settings, ideologies and cultures
– Style and revision

The third section guides students through the spectrum of styles as they are classified in fantasy fiction from Epic and high fantasy, through Lovecraftian and Weird fiction, to magical realism and hybrid fantasy. An accompanying anthology will provide students with a greater awareness of the range of possibilities open to them as fantasy writers and will feature such writers as Ursula Le Guin, China Miéville, Theodora Goss, Emrys Donaldson, Ken Liu, C.S.E. Cooney, Vandana Singh, Sofia Samatar, Rebecca Roanhorse, Jessie Ulmer, Yxta Maya Murray, and Rachael K. Jones. With writing exercises, prompts, additional online resources and cues for further reading throughout, this is an essential resource for anyone wanting to write fantastical fiction.

Format 344 pages, Paperback
Published January 11, 2024 by Bloomsbury Academic
ISBN 978135016692

Look what beauty just arrived!

Lives of Bitter Rain, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

My copy of this novella, a special edition from Goldsboro Books, arrived today, and it is gorgeous. It is a prequel to Days of Shattered Faith, and features Angilly as a younger person. The cover illustrations and the end papers are delightful. They match the three novels in the series.

I’m going to get the audiobook so that I don’t damage the binding or get stains on the pages. I really need to get another bookshelf, since I’m pretty much out of space.

Job for when I get back from World Fantasy Convention.

Review: The Raven Scholar, by Antonia Hodgson

About the book

From an electrifying new voice in epic fantasy comes The Raven Scholar, a masterfully woven and playfully inventive tale of imperial intrigue, cutthroat competition, and one scholar’s quest to uncover the truth.

Let us fly now to the empire of Orrun, where after twenty-four years of peace, Bersun the Brusque must end his reign. In the dizzying heat of mid-summer, seven contenders compete to replace him. They are exceptional warriors, thinkers, strategists—the best of the best.

Then one of them is murdered.

It falls to Neema Kraa, the emperor’s brilliant, idiosyncratic High Scholar, to find the killer before the trials end. To do so, she must untangle a web of deadly secrets that stretches back generations, all while competing against six warriors with their own dark histories and fierce ambitions. Neema believes she is alone. But we are here to help; all she has to do is let us in.

If she succeeds, she will win the throne. If she fails, death awaits her. But we won’t let that happen.

We are the Raven, and we are magnificent.

Format 672 pages, Paperback
Published April 15, 2025 by Orbit
ISBN 9780316577229

Review: Stone & Sky, by Ben Aaronovitch

I’ve got the WordPress app on my phone now, so instead of copy/paste I photograph!

My Review

I’ve been listening to the audiobook of Stone & Sky, but I needed to go into town today so I visited Waterstones and got their only copy. It’s a signed special edition and I rather like the cover and end papers.

The fish scale pattern is rather subtle on the paper cover but you can just about see it in the photo. It’s mirrored on the end papers.

I’ve got a few Rivers of London books, and I’ve read every novel, novella and graphic novel. I’ve read quite a few of the short stories too. It’s getting to the point that my collection may need it’s own shelf in the library. When I get another bookshelf. I’m running out of space.

On this installment of Peter’s adventures, the gang go on a holiday to Aberdeenshire. Thomas, Abi, and the foxes are hunting a mysterious panther; Abdul is visiting his old friend and fellow weird creature hobbyist, Brian; Beverly decided it was time for a holiday for her, Peter and their twins, while Peter’s mum was supposed to be their babysitter. Since Peter’s dad can’t be left unsupervised, he came along, with his jazz band and their dodgy manager.

Peter gets dragged into a murder case, which becomes a missing person case, while Abi deals with her grief for her brother by hiding in trees photographing magic panthers from other worlds, until she falls in love with a mermaid. At which point she gets dragged into the same case Peted is investigating from a different angle.

Turns out, if you kidnap selkies and force them to work, and the local mermaids are involved, it gets dangerous for everyone. There’s a kraken in the North Sea, apparently. No one actually blows up an oil platform, but it gets close.

Peter doesn’t have any legal status as a copper in Scotland, so he’s got a new mate, DS Blansheil, who gets to learn all about the weird stuff on the job. Between then they attempt to capture a giant gull with teeth, intimidate oil industry execs, and taser an American practitioner, before heading to an oil platform to find a missing person. There’s a couple of wyvern attacks, too.

The story is told by Peter and Abigail as they go about their parallel investigations and adventures. The voice actors who play them in the audiobook do convincing Aberdonian and other Scottish accents, as well as London accents. As far as I can tell. I’m unfamiliar with both but the vernacular seems correct, and Aaronovitch does name a lot of local experts who advised him.

I do like the sound of a macaroni cheese pie, although I think my blood vessels would object (heavy pastry gives me a headache and too many carbs hurt my abdomen), so if I ever make it to Aberdeen I’ll avoid that particular local delicacy.

The story starts out fairly simply – what Peter did on his summer holidays – and becomes increasingly complex until there are multiple investigations and lots of new characters. Even the foxes get in on the act. The ones in Scotland apparently own a car, driven by a merman (well, mermaid teenager, Duncan isn’t technically legal to drive).

I followed the thread of the story quite well and I enjoyed the developments in familial relationships and friendships. Also, the twins are adorable. They are going to run Peter ragged.

Abi is becoming more of a main character with her foxes and her new girlfriend; her grief for her brother Paul dominates until she is distracted by Ione, who offers her support and a release, which allows her to cry as much as she needs to. By the end of the novel she has started to process her pain and, although she still has suicidal ideation, she is looking towards the future.

Aaronovitch draws on all sorts of folklore and mythology to people his stories, often with a new twist – mermaids who live on land and transform in the sea, selkies who can’t shed their skin and wouldn’t survive long out of the water. Although they do bark like seals. Kraken who guard baby selkies. River gods who try to act tough but look a bit daft. I enjoyed his takes on the folklore he draws on and it takes his stories to interesting places.

I am also amused by Peter’s Discworld and Lord of the Rings references. I picked up several, but the one from GUARDS! GUARDS! was particularly good. I may have missed references to other worlds, but I definitely got those.

There were bits of the story that seemed not to flow, like Ione suddenly coming back into the narrative as Abi runs down the tunnel or Beverly reappearing on the diving platform. Since the narrative is written in first person it adds to the feeling of confusion that the characters are narrating, but I had to reread a couple of times to work out what was going on.

Other than minor confusions at the climax of their individual investigations, I found this book an excellent addition to the Rivers of London universe.

ARC Review: The Scour, by Richard Swan

A HAUNTED LIGHTHOUSE

A JUSTICE ACCUSED OF MURDER

AND A SINGLE QUESTION

What is The Scour?

In the dying port town of Gdansburg, Sir Konrad Vonvalt finds the unthinkable: a fellow Justice imprisoned for the murder of a young boy. Despite the furious insistence of the townsfolk, the only evidence is a question written on a piece of paper by a dead man: what is The Scour?

The answer begins in the town’s haunted lighthouse and ends in its past–where Vonvalt may dig up more than he bargained for.