Greetings from London! June 15, 2005 – Posted in: Aberrant Normalcy

Hi everyone.

Nice work, Matt, on Issue #2. Everybody loves it. I’m still waiting to hear back from a few UK booksellers, but I’m confident I can place it somewhere. No need to deprive people this side of the pond of this lovely volume.

Well, I’ll just come out and admit it. I have not yet taken the London SF scene by storm. What can I say? I had to find an apartment and prove my existence through Kafkaesque layers of bureaucracy just to get a cell phone here. World domination: temporarily postponed. That said, I did go to a reading hosted by Pat Cadigan (a.k.a. The Queen of Cyberpunk) two nights ago at Borders books. Michael Marshall read from Blood of Angels, the latest in his Straw Men series. Though not technically speculative fiction, we were assured of creepy and possibly otherworldly elements in this continuation of his serial killer saga. Sadly, my lack of knowledge regarding the London bus system meant that I missed the first half of the reading, but I did like what I heard.

Afterwards Pat Cadigan interviewed him and then opened the floor to questions from the audience. Most were die-hard Michael Marshall fans asking questions like “does it freak you out to write about such disturbed people?” Answer. “No. Not really.”

Marshall went on to explain that one of the goals of the Straw Men books was to explode the myth that serial killers are these freaky geniuses totally different from me and thee. In reality, he claims, they’re just a few ticks further along the OCD scale. An interesting insight, I thought.

He also mentioned that he’s collaborating with Neil Gaiman and Stephen Jones on a series for the BBC. No details sadly.

Pat Cadigan seemed like a righteous chick and I look forward to hearing her again. Next week I’m off to the monthly meeting of the British Science Fiction Association. Characteristically for Brits, they’re meeting in a pub. Note to self: take up drinking to fit in better around here.

Ta for now. More later.