The SFX Weekender

So, I drove down to Camber Sands yesterday for the second half of the SFX Weekender (I mean why else would you go to Camber Sands?) and had a great time.

I hooked up with David Moore and Jonathan Oliver of Abaddon/Solaris Books and signed some stock, as well as giving away some Pax Britannia badges, and was interviewed for a forthcoming podcast. I met ace Slaine artist and Preacher cover artist Glenn Fabry (who happens to think he's quite good). I was welcomed by Darth Vader and his Stormtroopers and ran into these interesting-looking fellows...


I listened to China Mieville talk about writing for the YA market (or not as the case may be), I listened to Jon Oliver read from his first novel The Call of Kerberos, I watched the fantastic Moon (starring the even more fantastic Sam Rockwell), I listened to a Q&A session with Toby Whithouse, creator of Being Human, having just watched a sneak preview of tonight's episode, and listened to a panel discuss the various merits, or otherwise, of tie-in and spin-off fiction (or tie-off, as one of the panellists called it).

Tom Baker regaling the crowds

Jon Oliver - lord of all he surveys

Glenn Fabry talks comic special effects budgets

Al Ewing - fellow Abaddon author

The 2000AD stand - Clint Langley and Leigh Gallagher draw for your entertainment

To conclude, here's a list of ten things that I now know as a result of the SFX Weekender that I didn't know 48 hours ago:

1) You can buy a bespoke Dalek for £3,000 but it'll take at least 10 weeks to make.
2) Glenn Fabry's thinking of becoming a teacher.
3) The novelisation of Snakes on a Plane was Black Flame's best-selling title.
4) Tom Baker gets chatted up in Waitrose by ladies of a certain age (that means they're in their 70s, I think).
5) Ianto Jones actor Gareth David-Lloyd was unaware of the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre's version of Torchwood, which they call Torchwool.
6) Cosplay is really just what my 3 year-old calls dressing up (but done by adults).
7) Gareth David-Lloyd would like to play Lion-O in a live-action version of Thundercats.
8) He-Man is camp.
9) Leigh Gallagher can't draw as quickly as Clint Langley.
10) This Christmas will see the release of the first Pax Britannia Ulysses Quicksilver omnibus.

Suffer the little children

I was out of the country when Torchwood: Children of Earth first aired and only just finished catching up on it last night. All I have to say on the matter is - how good was that?

Well, okay, it's not the only thing, but it was the best series of Torchwood ever, in my humble opinion. I know that John Barrowman (a.k.a. Captain Jack Harkness) has expressed how disappointed he was that the series transferred to the Beeb's flagship channel and was then cut drastically in length but, as far as I'm concerned, it was the right thing to do.


Torchwood was always a series I wanted to love (being a HUGE Doctor Who fan) and I have seen every episode. However, it was a horribly inconsistent series (at least for the first two years). It had its highlights - Countrycide and A Day in the Death - but also it's low points - take, for example, the dire Small Worlds. (Are supposed to believe in magic now too? I know that most of Doctor Who relies on magic rather than science, but at least it's consistently dressed up as science fiction.)

Too often the sex and drugs and rock-n-roll in Torchwood, that was added to the mix to justify it's post-watershed tag, seemed too tagged on and not entirely germane to the plot. (Did we really need a sex-mad alien rumpy-pumpying people to death when Species did it long ago?) It was as if a bunch of 15 year-old schoolboys had tried to see what they could get away with and were sniggering behind their hands for the duration of the show.


And then came Children of Earth. Harrowing, taut, exciting, dramatic, dealing with some serious issues, putting our heroes in genuinely threatening situations and having to make impossible decisions that no-one should ever have to make. And as a result it was utterly compelling and brilliant.


We got to enjoy some top notch writing by Russell T and top notch direction by Euros Lyn. It featured fantastic performances by Peter Capaldi, playing tragic scapegoat John Frobisher, Nicholas Farrell as the loathsome Prime Minister Mr Green, Susan Brown as Bridget Spears, John Barrowman, Gareth David-Lloyd, Lucy Cohu as his daughter Alice and of course Eve Myles. And what's not to like about Eve Myles?