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TOM POLLOCK LAUNCHES ‘THE GLASS REPUBLIC’ FORBIDDEN PLANET LONDON FRIDAY 2nd AUGUST 6 – 7pm   2013

TOM POLLOCK will be launching THE GLASS REPUBLIC, sequel to the astonishing THE CITY’S SON (Jo Fletcher) at the Forbidden Planet London Megastore on Friday 2nd August from 6 – 7pm.

Pen’s life is all about secrets: the secret of the city’s spirits, deities and monsters her best friend Beth discovered, living just beyond the notice of modern Londoners; the secret of how she got the intricate scars that disfigure her so cruelly – and the most closely guarded secret of all: Parva, her mirror-sister, forged from her reflections in a school bathroom mirror. Pen’s reflected twin is the only girl who really understands her.

Then Parva is abducted and Pen makes a terrible bargain for the means to track her down. In London-Under-Glass, looks are currency, and Pen’s scars make her a rare and valuable commodity. But some in the reflected city will do anything to keep Pen from the secret of what happened to the sister who shared her face.

‘…nails that spot between utterly normal and blood-curdlingly weird perfectly’ Jon Courtenay Grimwood

Tom Pollock is a graduate of the Sussex University Creative Writing Programme, and a member of the London-based writers’ group The T-Party. He has lived everywhere from Scotland to Sumatra, but the peculiar magic of London has always drawn him back.

FORBIDDEN PLANET
Forbidden Planet is the largest store of its kind in the world. Some of the biggest names in SF, Fantasy and Cult Entertainment have come to our London Megastore for events, including Jonathan Ross, Kevin Smith, Sam Raimi, Guillermo del Toro, John Landis, Terry Gilliam, Christopher Lee, Simon Pegg, William Gibson, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, and Stephen King.

For more about our signings please go to: http://forbiddenplanet.com/events/

NEIL GAIMAN AT FORBIDDEN PLANET FORBIDDEN PLANET LONDON MONDAY 17th JUNE 1-2pm 2013

Forbidden Planet are delighted to welcome NEIL GAIMAN, signing THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE at the Forbidden Planet London Megastore, 179 Shaftsbury Avenue, WC2H 8JR.

 THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE is a fable that reshapes modern fantasy: moving, terrifying and elegiac - as pure as a dream, as delicate as a butterfly's wing, as dangerous as a knife in the dark.
 
It began for our narrator forty years ago when the family lodger stole their car and committed suicide in it, stirring up ancient powers best left undisturbed. Dark creatures from beyond the world are on the loose, and it will take everything our narrator has just to stay alive: there is primal horror here, and menace unleashed - within his family and from the forces that have gathered to destroy it. His only defence is three women, on a farm at the end of the lane. The youngest of them claims that her duckpond is ocean. The oldest can remember the Big Bang.

 Neil Gaiman has spent his adult life making things up and writing them down. He lives more in America than he does anywhere else. He has written books and films and children's books and television. He has a blog over at www.neilgaiman.com. He's won more than his fair share of literary awards, was voted twenty-first equal on a recent poll of Great British Authors, and has no idea where he put his keys.

FORBIDDEN PLANET
 Forbidden Planet is the largest store of its kind in the world. Some of the biggest names in SF, Fantasy and Cult Entertainment have come to our London Megastore for events, including Jonathan Ross, Kevin Smith, Sam Raimi, Guillermo del Toro, John Landis, Terry Gilliam, Christopher Lee, Simon Pegg, William Gibson, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, and Stephen King.

For more about our signings please go to: http://forbiddenplanet.com/events/

The Name Of The Doctor by Steven Moffat            18 May 2013
  Now this is more like it and confirms my earlier thoughts about the earlier episodes conserving budget as I doubt the likes of Richard E. Grant, the Victorian Trio, the fabulous Alex Kingston and, well, spoilers for the last name and it would hurt to tell you collectively wouldn’t have come cheap on the budget or certainly have bitten heavily into it.
  Although I’m avoiding giving away the plot here, even giving my thoughts on some aspects is definitely going to be spoiler. If you don’t want to read it, don’t go further unti you’ve watched the story.
  It’s rather interesting with the opening sequence that we see cameoed in sequence order: William Hartnell and Carole Anne Ford, Tom Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Jon Pertwee, Patrick Troughton and Peter Davison. Oddly, not Colin Baker (his costume later in the story), Paul McGann and David Tennant (although as we know he’s going to be in the anniversary story in November that might be excused). Probably the best establishment shot is confirming that Susan was on Gallifrey so is a Time Lady. Hands up all those of who whooped on that bit of information on the screen.
  From London 1883 to 2013, another alternative to establishing connecting across the centuries. Probably the most interesting is this isn’t the current River Song but gives obvious hints that she has to return to the series for at least a season at some time.
  Probably the biggest question is the title of this story and although other names are revealed, including the Valeyard, then I’m glad that it’s not revealed. We already know that River Song knows and although she says it, we don’t hear it, let alone why the Doctor chooses to keep it a close secret. Thinking about this, I suspect it has to do with something that happened on Gallifrey rather than off his home world or why else would the likes of the Monk, the Master and the Rani also not have their true names. As they are all renegades, can I surmise that it’s because they were all rebellious renegades and had their real names stripped from them. If you are burning with curiosity, the Doctor’s real name was given in the 70s ‘The Making Of Doctor Who’ book but you would have to be able to read Gallifrey heliographics to pronounce it. If you refer back to ‘The Armageddon Factor’, Drax, another Gallifreyan but failed to made Time Lord grade identified the Doctor by his college name. If nothing else, it shows that Time Lords don’t keep the same name throughout their regenerations. Maybe having an active title serves them better.
  The reveal for Clara is…er…revealed and soon as the Great Intelligence decided to undo the Doctor’s victories, it was pretty obvious what was going to happen next. There is a problem with this. Go back to the first 1963 adventures, had the Doctor failed with the primitive man, let alone the Daleks, he would certainly have been killed. Ergo, the Great Intelligence would only need to go to one destination and bye, bye Doctor. Indeed, it would even be before the televised adventures just after he left Gallifrey. Mind you, time is so convoluted, not to mention the reset of the universe a couple seasons back, that all regenerations can co-exist in some way. That would explain the odd times when several regenerations could interact for a story but it does leave a grey area as to why the Great Intelligence couldn’t have done a ‘Genesis Of The Daleks’ and simply have stopped the Doctor and Susan leaving Gallifrey in the first place.
  A very metaphysical story and the set-up for the end for November is going to have you riveted to your seats come that Saturday. This story certainly makes up for the rest of the season. I just hope it reminds show-runner Steven Moffat that using this one as a template that we really do need some better structured stories with some well-defined foes for the Doctor to defeat with his wits more than his sonic screwdriver. Although he used it in this story, it wasn’t fundamental to the solution.
  That’s not to say it’s perfect. Having the Doctor fooled by the children Clara looks after is definitely too stupid. Can anyone honestly say that a Time Lord smart enough to out-wit the most dangerous species in the universe would fall for such a thing because he wasn’t familiar with humans?
  However, in the most important way, this story has made me want to see what happens next so although this isn’t a finale, it has all the makings of a two-parter. Where’s my TARDIS, going to move forward to November.

GF Willmetts
May 2013

The Mythopoeic Society  PRESS RELEASE:  May 14, 2013
2013 Mythopoeic Award Finalists Announced:

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature

Alan Garner, Weirdstone trilogy, consisting of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (Collins), The Moon of Gomrath (Collins), and Boneland (Fourth Estate)

Caitlin R. Kiernan, The Drowning Girl (Roc)

R.A. MacAvoy, Death and Resurrection (Prime Books)

Tim Powers, Hide Me Among the Graves (William Morrow)

Ursula Vernon, Digger, vols. 1-6 (Sofawolf Press)


Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature

Jorge Aguirre and Rafael Rosado, Giants Beware! (First Second)

Sarah Beth Durst, Vessel (Margaret K. McElderry)

Merrie Haskell, The Princess Curse (HarperCollins)

Christopher Healy, The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom (Walden Pond Press)

Sherwood Smith, The Spy Princess (Viking Juvenile)

 
Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies
Robert Boenig, C.S. Lewis and the Middle Ages (Kent State Univ. Press, 2012)

John Bremer, C.S. Lewis, Poetry, and the Great War 1914-1918 (Lexington Books, 2012)

Jason Fisher, ed., Tolkien and the Study of His Sources: Critical Essays (McFarland, 2011)

Verlyn Flieger, Green Suns and Faërie: Essays on J.R.R. Tolkien (Kent State Univ. Press, 2012)

Corey Olsen, Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012)


Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies

Nancy Marie Brown, Song of the Vikings: Snorri and the Making of Norse Myths (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)

Jo Eldridge Carney, Fairy Tale Queens: Representations of Early Modern Queenship (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)

Bonnie Gaarden, The Christian Goddess: Archetype and Theology in the Fantasies of George MacDonald (Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press, 2011)

Michael Saler, As If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary Prehistory of Virtual Reality (Oxford Univ. Press, 2012)

David Sandner, Critical Discourses of the Fantastic, 1712-1831 (Ashgate, 2011)


The Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature is given to the fantasy novel, multi-volume, or single-author story collection for adults published during 2012 that best exemplifies the spirit of the Inklings. Books are eligible for two years after publication if not selected as a finalist during the first year of eligibility. Books from a series are eligible if they stand on their own; otherwise, the series becomes eligible the year its final volume appears. The Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature honors books for younger readers (from Young Adults to picture books for beginning readers), in the tradition of The Hobbit or The Chronicles of Narnia. Rules for eligibility are otherwise the same as for the Adult Literature award. The question of which award a borderline book is best suited for will be decided by consensus of the committees.

The Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies is given to books on Tolkien, Lewis, and/or Williams that make significant contributions to Inklings scholarship. For this award, books first published during the last three years (2010–2012) are eligible, including finalists for previous years. The Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Myth and Fantasy Studies is given to scholarly books on other specific authors in the Inklings tradition, or to more general works on the genres of myth and fantasy. The period of eligibility is three years, as for the Inklings Studies award.

The winners of this year’s awards will be announced during Mythcon 44, to be held from July 12-15, 2013, in East Lansing, Michigan. A complete list of Mythopoeic Award winners is available on the Society web site: http://www.mythsoc.org/awards/

Doctor Who - 2013 Season: Nightmare In Silver by Neil Gaiman      11 May 2013
  Considering the Doctor is supposed to be in control of his TARDIS, it does seem odd that it takes him, Clara and her two charges (that’s the children that’s she’s governess or nanny to for those outside the UK) to a defunct world-wide fun park rather than when it was populated, but that’s budgets for you.
  With elements of cyberpunk, you can’t help but notice touches of ‘Blade Runner’. One almost expects to see J.F. Sebastian’s robots to come out of the woodwork. Well, nearly, as we do get the superb Warwick Davies playing Porridge. Love to see how parents explain to their sprogs that having someone hidden playing the game was how people cheated with early automatons. Until the revelation at the end, I would have loved to see him become a companion to the Doctor, mostly as a voice of sanity.
  There’s no big reveal that the Cybermen are back this time, looking sleeker than the earlier versions, but this is one of their ultimate forms, assimilating more like the Borg than before. Sometime someone has to find out what happened to the Telos version and would they have come into conflict with the human version. Makes you wonder how far into the future this adventure happened. More so, that the means to destroy them wasn’t also employed against the Daleks or why didn’t they wipe the Cybermen out themselves?
  The Cybermats seem to be have been replaced by the Cybermites. Are we going to see Cybergerms next? Now that would really get under your skin. They are still mostly leaderless. Even the one that tries to dominate the Doctor only gets a little smarter because it locks onto the Time Lord.
  Unlike the other episodes in this season, Matt Smith gets a chance to really act, even if it must have driven him crazy to be be…well, two-minded. Any of you people out there work out the chess moves that were being used, let me know. Would be interested to see how valid a game it was.
  Clara being nicknamed the Impossible Girl and getting to know a little more about the Doctor’s interest in her should be moving her story along but all she’s really worried about is seeing him the following Wednesday. Doesn’t she realise that in temporal terms, it’s only a moment away for the TARDIS?
  Tonight’s reference to the past is to see inside the Doctor’s brain and all his earlier regenerations. Firmly established as ten now, making the Hartnell version the first and no more than a kid, time and relatively speaking, when he fled Gallifrey. Oh, there was also a sly reference to the ‘Tomb Of The Cybermen’ story.
  In some respects, scriptwriter Neil Gaiman is getting to grips with writing ‘Doctor Who’ this time around. It’s either that or this story has more flesh and bones compared to the rest this season. He does manage to pack a lot in, even if there is no grief for the victims of the Cybermen attack.
  It looks like there was more money spent on this episode which might explain the sparseness of the earlier stories. The trend for no real villainy by the enemy is getting worrying. The Cybermen are mimicking the Daleks as a single enemy with one desire only. It makes the Telos version look far more dangerous. The Doctor really does need some intelligence adversaries. Really needs an upgrade.

FREDA WARRINGTON SIGNING A TASTE OF BLOOD WINE FORBIDDEN PLANET LONDON THURSDAY 11th MAY 6 – 7pm

FREDA WARRINGTON will be signing A TASTE OF BLOOD WINE (Titan) at the Forbidden Planet London Megastore on Thursday 111th May from 6 – 7pm.

“Not merely one of the finest fantasy novels of recent years, but one of the finest ever.” – Brian Stableford

1918. A First World War battlefield becomes the cosmic battleground for two vampires, as Karl von Wultendorf struggles to free himself from his domineering maker, Kristian. 1923. Charlotte Neville meets her father’s handsome new research assistant Karl – it is the beginning of a deadly obsession that separates her from her sisters, her father and even her dearest friend.

Celebrated for her epic vampire and supernatural novels, Freda Warrington has been nominated for the British Fantasy Society's Best Novel Award four times. Dracula the Undead won the Dracula Society's 1997 Children of the Night Award and Elfland won the Romantic Times Award in 2009 for Best Fantasy Novel. Warrington is based in Leicester. Like True Blood meets Downton Abbey, A Taste of Blood Wine is a vampire melodrama set in the early twentieth century.

FORBIDDEN PLANET
Forbidden Planet is the largest store of its kind in the world. Some of the biggest names in SF, Fantasy and Cult Entertainment have come to our London Megastore for events, including Jonathan Ross, Kevin Smith, Sam Raimi, Guillermo del Toro, John Landis, Terry Gilliam, Christopher Lee, Simon Pegg, William Gibson, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, and Stephen King.

For more about our signings please go to: http://forbiddenplanet.com/events/

Doctor Who - 2013 Season: The Crimson Horror by Mark Gatiss      04 May 2013
  The return of the Siliurian Vastra (actress Neve Mcintosh), her human female wife Jenny Flint (actress Catrin Stewart) and bodyguard/chauffeur Sontaran Strax (actor Dan Starkey) is something that I was waiting for and not disappointed. Not too sure about humans fainting when they see Vastra and Strax though, because that becomes as much over-used as the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver.  However, they really do need a series of their own to flourish because they essentially carried this episode until the Doctor appeared. Imagine what would happen if they took over Torchwood as it surely must have existed in 1893!
  As to the main gist of the plot where Mrs. Gillyflower arranges for people to enter her factory and turned into dummies, this has too much in common with ‘Carry On Screaming’. How many of you were prepared to cry out, ‘Frying tonight’?
  Considering the toxicity of the leech venom, I’m surprised that the Doctor hadn’t absorbed enough to regenerate.
  Tonight’s reference to the past is to Tegan Jovanka and never getting her to London Airport. Biggest disappointment is returning Clara back to her own time and job. Doesn’t this go against the Doctor wanting to find out who or what she is? Having companions safe after an adventure sorta removes the danger issue although it looks like it’s a set-up for the next story. Speaking of which, there is far too much reveal of the next story.
  There are some good points to this story. Diana Rigg as Mrs. Gillyflower and her daughter as a part and real life, Ada played by Rachel Sterling weren’t short-changed with dialogue or action. It’s a shame that more wasn’t done to explain their purpose other than to conquer the world. Judging by the number of extras and scenes used, I can’t help wondering if short-changing the earlier stories allowed more to be spent here.
  This story might not be perfect but is actually probably the best of the bunch so far.
GF Willmetts
May 2013