FANTASTIKA!

Swecon, alias Fantastika 13, was indeed fantastic ... Belatedly, here's a massive thank-you to everyone there. Massive thanks to Carolina, to Eva who saved my life, Ebba, Helena, Thomas, Tomas and Rebecka.

Stockholm's SF bookshop, SF-Bokhandeln, is terrific, and Glenn and Mats in particular were great hosts. Thanks, guys! Hi to Nene and Lennart also... And in the rest of the convention, Matthias (who can read my books in any order he likes), Socialist-Simon (I will use my diacritics correctly from now on), to Dan and Rufus and Nina and Anna (Gable) and my old pals Anders and Bellis. The chat was great, the panels good fun, and the Dead Dog party wonderful. Did I mention that I love Stockholm?

Everyone was terrific, and I tried not to spend too much time hanging around with fellow Brits, but it was great to see Jo Walton, Mike Cobley, Lavie Tidhar, Iain Sale and John Berlyne, also Chris Barker (too late – you are a writer now). (Mike and I are now officially the oompa-loompas of SF. Apparently.) Back home, hats off to Suzy Jenner at my lovely publishers Gollancz, who flew me out there.

Finally hugs to Saija the Number One Fan Girl! (That's her in the picture.) Cheers to Eemeli... also to Cristal Huff. By sheer coincidence, this where I mention that Scandinavia is great, wouldn't Finland be a great place to hold a con!!!