At the Kapow Comic Convention in London this year I was pleased to be able to take part in two Guinness World Record attempts, for Most Contributors To A Comic Book and Fastest Production Of A Comic Book, and now the results have appeared, in the form of the Superior Kapow World Record Special #1.

You know me, Elizabeth Bear, Seanan McGuire, Lynne Thomas and Cat Valente do this regular podcast, called The SF Squeecast? (There's a link on the right.) It's kind of like show and tell, where we each bring an SF/Fantasy text along and talk about how wonderful it is. Well, every now and then we have a special guest, in this case very special, because, talking about the works of Jack Vance, and then being asked our usual list of insane questions, it's George R.R. Martin!

Next year will be the twentieth anniversary of the first appearance of Bernice Summerfield, in the pages of the Doctor Who New Adventures novel Love and War, by me. It amazes me that she's kept going ever since, in books and audios. So now Big Finish are planning to go back to the start, with a new, full-cast, audio adaptation of the book, by Jac Rayner. Benny couldn't be in better hands.

I'm very pleased to have a tale in the new (third) volume of StarShipSofa Stories, the anthology associated with the podcast of the same name.


It's 'The Occurrence at Slocombe Priory', the M.R. James pastiche I've read out at a few conventions. Glad it's finally found a home. I share the book with such luminaries as Joe Haldeman, Cat Valente, Kevin J. Anderson, Tad Williams and David Brin. It's available in a range of editions, from the ebook at £2.99 to the single, one of a kind proof edition at £15o! (There are paperbacks and things in the middle.) Do take a look here.

And meanwhile, Tom Crielly, the artist who illustrated my story, shows off said artwork here on the collective blog he shares with my friend Gary Erskine and other Scottish comic artists. He has a contest also.

What a lovely day! What a lovely day to purchase Demon Knights #3, either at your comic shop, or, from 6pm UK time, digitally! We're all very proud of this one, especially the ending, which leads into the rather special #4, our Shining Knight issue. I've been loving all the good reviews. It's a privilege to be working with this highly talented team.

We went to Distant Worlds, the Final Fantasy concert at the Royal Albert Hall last night, and it was brilliant. That young audience had such an emotional connection to the pieces. When classical music was originally performed, the audience shared in the audio emotional lexicon of it: they shared in collective responses to the associations of a particular theme, and would thus applaud and cheer during the performance. This was like that, with well-loved tracks met with gasps and cries. Charming game play as well as cut scenes was shown on the screens during. And you've got to love a composer who writes an opera suite that he knows is originally going to be performed as a series of bleeps on an ancient sound card. Great stuff. And they're coming back next year.

Stormwatch #3 should be in your comic shops today, and available digitally from 7pm GMT. I did a (very fun to record) interview about it with the delightful Vaneta Rogers, and you can find the third and final part of my roundtable interview on all things dark and spooky with many of my fellow DC writers here.

I'm sorry to announce that I won't, after all, be coming along to Thought Bubble this year, due to unforeseen circumstances. I hope you all have a good time, and hope to return in 2012. Cheerio!