FantasyCon 2000 - Birmingham - 9th September 2000

FantasyCon is organised by the BFS and was, everyone told me, the place to go. Due to holiday's, I could only attend for one day and so I went on the Saturday (David Howe told me at the MOT day that it was probably the best full day). I drove across to Birmingham, more nervous than I had been for any other Con and went into Waterstones first, to delay the inevitable. In there, I bumped in Rob Rowntree and Lisa Negus, who were also going for one day and we decided to team up.

The Britannia Hotel seemed quite smart, though the rooms were all on corridors like tiny warrens and we quickly found our way to the booking-in room. There, having paid our dues, we immediately met up with the Enigmatic duo, Mick Sims and Len Maynard. They have been very helpful in my development (both in editorial terms and also in simply accepting stories) and being published by them gave my confidence a great boost. It was great to finally meet and talk with them. We toured the dealer room (and I spent another fortune - what with buying loads of books and smoking cigars, Con-going can get really expensive!), walked to the Andromeda bookshop (another fortune), sat in on Stephen Jones interviewing David Case, talked to loads of people, drank a lot (water for me, driving home) and met up with a load of faces, old and new.

Amongst many others (and I’ll miss loads here), I chatted with Paul Lockey, John B. Ford and Lynne, Paul and Mrs Bradshaw, DF Lewis, David Price (who remembered the grotesque comment from Sheffield), Steve Savile (I bought his book when, unbeknownst to me, I was standing next to him), Chris Teague, Darren Floyd, Brian Willis, Tim Lebbon, Derek Fox (Rob, Lisa and I stored our stuff in his room), Steve Lockley, Paul Finch, Steve Byrne and friends (The Inner Circle newsletter), Mark McLaughlin, Tony Mileman, Peter Crowther, Andy Fairclough, Doug Bradley and Noel K. Hannan. I saw Stephen Jones there but decided not to interrupt his conversation - I later found out he'd been talking to Michael Marshall Smith (and could have kicked myself for not going over !).

I left at 9.30pm, not wanting to leave it too late to wander across Birmingham to the car park, but the Con carried on for several more hours. Next year, I plan to do all three days, it'll be more than worth it.