I’ve just booked my place at ‘Orbital 2008′ – next year’s Eastercon. See http://www.orbital2008.org/ for further details.

I’m writing this at home after the long drive back from Chester. I’m tired and I haven’t slept much – but this year’s Eastercon was a great success, and I had a great time.

I got to meet and spend time with all the people I was hoping to – people who I’ve only previously communicated with via email, such as:

• Jetse de Vries
• Gareth D Jones
• Andrew Hook
• Paul Raven (aka Armchair Anarchist)
• Neil Williamson
• Liz Williams
• Martin McGrath
• Roy Grey
• Ian Hocking
• Niall Harrison
• Shaun C Green
• And many more…

Paul’s already posting reports and photos on his Velcro City Tourist Board site. I was intending to have some pictures of my own to put up, but my camera was misbehaving and all I’ve got are some uninspiring shots of the hotel’s exterior…

The highlights of the weekend for me were:

1) Seeing one of the manga-style illustrations SMS has done to accompany my story ‘Ack-Ack Macaque’ when it appears in Interzone.

2) Debating the future of British science fiction with Jetse over a late night dinner in a local restaurant.

3) Hanging out in the hotel bar having freewheeling, lager-fuelled conversations with the people listed above.

4) Sitting next to Charles Stross at the BSFA Awards ceremony – especially interesting for me, as my short story ‘The Last Reef’ was nominated in the Best Short Fiction category but didn’t make the final short list.

5) Participating in a discussion panel this morning – and managing to get though it without saying anything inflammatory or stupid.

6) Hearing from Focus editor Martin McGrath that he’s going to publish three of my poems in the next issue of the magazine.

I’ll be making a brief appearance at this year’s Eastercon in Chester. If you’re going and you’d like to meet up, drop me a line.