The Brentford Triangle by Robert Rankin

Synopsis

'Omally groaned. "It is the end of mankind as we know it. I should never have got up so early today" and all over Brentford electrical appliances were beginning to fail…' Could it be that Pooley and Omally, whilst engaged on a round of allotment golf, mistook laser-operated gravitational landing beams for the malignant work of Brentford Council? Does the Captain Laser Alien Attack machine in the bar of the Swan possess more sinister force than its magnetic appeal for youths with green hair? Is Brentford the first base in an alien onslaught on planet Earth?

A sequel to "The Antipope", this is the second novel in "The Brentford Trilogy".

What Did We Think?

(notes to follow)

Wirral Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction Event

Hi all, just a little shout out for a reading that will be going on as part of the annual Wirral Bookfest. I'll be going and I thought you might like to hear about it too:

Parallel Dimensions returns for its second year to bring together some of the UK's strongest emerging writers of the Fantasy, Horror and Science-Fiction genres.

 

Colin P Davies, Adele Cosgrove-Bray, Carol Falaki and Adrienne Odasso will share new fiction with their audience. Last year's lively Q&A session, which followed the readings, proved very popular.

 

Colin has seen over forty of his short stories published in anthologies and magazines. He is the author of "The Bookmole", a novel whose sequel is due out soon. His illustrations have also appeared in international genre magazines.

 

Adele Cosgrove-Bray's short stories appear in various anthologies published by Hadley Rille Books and Dark Moon Press. Her non-fiction writings have been featured in Prediction Magazine and Your Future. She is currently writing her forth in a series of Dark Fantasy novels set in Wirral and Liverpool.

 

Carol Falaki's first novel, "Birth in Suburbia" draws on her professional experience as a midwife. She has also enjoyed publishing success with her poetry.

 

Almost fifty of Adrienne Odasso's poems have been published in a wide variety of magazines, chapbooks and anthologies. Her six published short stories have also aded to her growing reputation as a talented writer.

 

Tickets are already on sale from all Wirral Libraries. Entry costs just £3 and includes refreshments.

 

Parallel Dimensions takes place on Saturday, October 16th, 2010 at West Kirby Library, Wirral. Doors open at 2pm. Be early to ensure a seat, as last year's event was very well attended.

Happy Birthday Blog

"Happy Birthday to Blog
Happy Birthday to Blog
Happy Birthday Waterstone's Liverpool One Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Club Blog
Happy Birthday to Blog"

Exactly 1 year ago today I posted the first entry on this blog. Since then we've grown and grown, receiving a record 704 views last month from people other than me. As the map on the right shows, these views have come mainly from the UK but also from distant lands (the figures are based only on the stats recorded by the blog for the last three months, not the whole year).

Other birthday stats: The most visited post on the blog is "Sister Book Club Forming: Coffee and Comics" with 76 views, closely followed by the summary of our discussion of The City and The City by China Miéville. The Sister Book Club post probably did so well thanks to some Twitter publicity from Graphic Novel author (and author of 800 Years of Haunted Liverpool), John Reppion. The blog also benefited from a recent piece of good PR by Science Fiction critic and publisher Cheryl Morgan (no relation) who picked us out for praise on her site.

So here's to a successful first year and the hope of many more.

Upwards and Onwards!

- Glyn

Edit: Apparently the blog shares its birthday with Liverpool-born horror supremo Clive Barker himself. Let's hope he hasn't seen the score we gave to Hellbound Heart....

Apologies for absence - October 4th

I'm sorry but I won't be at Monday's 6pm meeting to discuss The Brentford Triangle by Robert Rankin.

I've won last minute tickets to a big gig at the Hammersmith Apollo in London and the offer was too good to refuse. Sorry for letting you down but if someone takes some notes and most importantly records the score, I'll get it posted up on the blog ASAP.

Have a good meeting. See you next month, if not before, to discuss Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes.

All the best,

Glyn

Sister Book Club Forming: Coffee and Comics

I'm happy to announce that the Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Club has a baby sister!

I'm founding a new book club to read and discuss comic books / graphic novels / manga (call it what you want) under the name "Coffee and Comics."* We're going to meet at 6pm on the third Monday of every month, meaning that in theory it will smack in the middle between sessions of the Sci-fi/Fantasy Book Club.
The first meeting is on Monday October 18th.

Because I don't know what kind of people will turn up, I've selected two very different books for the first session and we'll discuss which ever one most people have read, hopefully we'll be able to say something about both of them. The books are the brilliant and touching Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and the exciting and infamous Hard Goodbye, the first volume of Sin City by Frank Miller. The aim was to pick two books that had commonalities but which were also very different. I also wanted self contained stories which were relatively inexpensive (as graphic novels go).Read one, both, or neither, then come along and chat.

There will be a few common sense rules, at least at first, the comics will have to reasonably cheap - not £30 hardbacks for example, and be able to stand alone as a single book even if they're a part of a series. Other than that, anything goes and all are welcome to attend.

If you're worried about this taking time away from my work with the Sci-fi/Fantasy Book Club (or even my studies) then worry not because thinking about this very possibility I've enlisted a sidekick for Coffee and Comics to help me run it and take over on occasions when I'm over stretched. It'd be great to see some familiar faces there so if anyone fancies coming along you'd be more than welcome. Same place, same time, different date. No doubt if it takes off there will be a sister blog too.


Hope to see you there!

*Drinking coffee is not required.

EVENT: Twisted Tales - Horror Readings

I could let the flyer talk for itself, but that's not my style.

On Friday 29th October 2010, at 6pm you can come and hear Horror short stories being read by real published Horror authors. Tom Fletcher's first novel The Leaping came out earlier this year and pits young graduates from Manchester against an evil in the Cumbrian Fells. Nicholas Royle's book Antwerp follows a brutal and mysteriously fascinating killer, Nick also runs Nightjar Press, a horror specialist small press. Conrad Williams, you may remember, was in store recently. On Saturday it was announced that he'd won the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel 2010 for his novel One, which will be going up as one of my suggestions for this group's future reading by the way. Ramsey Campbell is a Liverpool native and is listed in the Oxford Companion to English Literature as "Britain's most respected living horror writer", amongst his many awards he has 4 World Fantasy Awards and no less than 13 British Fantasy Awards!

The authors will each be reading a work of short fiction, signing and (time permitting) answering any questions. If I can wade through the paperwork we'll also be selling exclusive copies of books that are now out of print or previously unavailable.

Even if you're not a horror fan this is an event worth attending, and the perfect way to mark Halloween 2010!

Twisted Tales

Friday 29^th October at 6pm – 8pm

Ticket’s £2

Waterstone’s Liverpool One

12 College Lane

Liverpool L1 3DL

Tel: 0151 709 9820

E-mail: manager@liverpoolone.waterstones.com

September Newsletter

As the people most likely to care I thought I'd give you an exclusive preview of a new single-page newsletter for the Science Fiction section in store. I'm going to make one a month and post it up on the pillar next to the book club display. Feedback would be appreciated. [click on the image to open up a bigger version]