Hello, and welcome to the second half of this month’s newsletter. I’m sending it out in two halves because I had a lot of stuff I wanted to get into the introductory mail, and I dislike sending out vast blocks of text. Anyway…

One group of people I neglected to mention in my round-up of regularly held events last time was the players of games. This is largely because they’re the only group of people in what would loosely be called Irish fandom that are actually well organised. There are gaming events in Ireland on a regular basis, so much so that to list them all would swamp my little listing down there at the bottom, so I’ll confine myself to the largest ones, which would be Gaelcon, which is held every October, usually on the last weekend; and Leprecon, which is run by the Trinity College Dublin gaming society, and, at 24, is Ireland’s oldest gaming event. Gaelcon can be found at their web site and Leprecon at the Leprecon web site.

The lovely Deirdre has just finished reading Michael Carroll’s most recent offering, called ‘Loving the Stars’, which he wrote under the pseudonym Jaye Carroll, which he uses for his ‘romantic’ fiction. Michael is a talented and funny writer, and he borrows an exceedingly naughty retort from Robert Rankin’s Guest of Honour speech from Octocon 1999. Deirdre loved the book, and recommends it to you all. More information on Michael can be found at his web site

In a recent interview, Dylan Moran, star of the TV series Black Books spoke about the inspiration for the character Bernard Black, who owns the second-hand bookshop in which the series is set. He said:

Now, some of you may know that I’ve spent the best part of my working life behind the counters of various second-hand bookshops in Dublin, and I, for one, can’t imagine who he might be talking about…

Roger Gregg tells me that he has a few big names lined up for his forthcoming six-part comedy radio show, ‘Crazy Dog Live!’ Anyone who was at the shows Roger and Crazy Dog Audio Theatre recorded at the last two Octocons will know what to expect, and these new shows also need a live audience to help with the crowd scenes. The thing is, these shows are being broadcast live from RTÉ’s headquarters in Donnybrook, here in Dublin, on six consecutive Saturday mornings, in September and October, starting with the 14th of one month, and ending on the 19th of the other.

The sharp-eyed among you will notice that the last broadcast coincides with the first day of Octocon, and you’d be right! Plans are already afoot to organise busses, and all will be all right on the day, no doubt. Those of you who are interested in going to the recordings should send me back a note here, as Roger wants to put together a mailing list, to keep everyone abreast of what’s going on.

And those big names? Well, so far, Roger has got: Frank Kelly, who played Father Jack in ‘Father Ted’; Maria Doyle Kennedy, who was in the ‘Commitments’ and ‘Star Wars: Episode 1’; and Phil Proctor, who does some of the voices for ‘Rugrats’. And of course the usual highly-talented people from Crazy Dog…

I sent a mail to a number of people, asking them what they had forthcoming. This is what they’re up to…

• John McCrea said: “I'm drawing a Spider Man book called Get Kraven. The first issue is out next month. It’s a 7 issue mini series. That, and the new series of Dicks, which comes out this summer and is the funniest comic ever.”
• John Meaney said: “My next book, Context, is in production -- nice cover, and the contents are far better than anything I've done before -- and will be out in November. I'm polishing up a 17000-word story called The Swastika Bomb, for the Without A Net anthology being published by ROC in the US, with lots of big-name authors.”
• Mark Chadbourn said: “July will see the publication of The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke, a novella from PS Publishing, coming in signed and numbered hardback and paperback editions. It's about a man obsessed by the painting of the same name, which hangs in the Tate Gallery in London, and which may, or may not, be a gateway to Faerie. The introduction is by Neil Gaiman, who's been obsessed with the painting himself since his teens.”
• Simon Clark said: “Hodder & Stoughton are to re-issue my first four novels in paperback this year with brand new covers. Nailed By The Heart and Darker are due for release in September with Blood Crazy and King Blood following in October. Meanwhile, nearer Christmas a new novel, Stranger, is due in hardcover from Robert Hale in the UK and Leisure in the US.”
• Kim Newman said: ”I've just done a movie deal on a forthcoming book called An English Ghost Story…”

I have had a note from the chairwoman of MeCon, assuring me that all is well, and that they are going ahead next March. Apparently financial difficulties prevented the college from demolishing the Senior Common Rooms, so the venue is safe for another year, at least. I’m very relieved to hear this, and apologise to the nice people up there for being a nuisance! More on MeCon at the MeCon web site.

This is a graphic novel written in Irish, and as such is the only one I know of. It’s the story of St Patrick, and is damn fine stuff, too. The company who published it, Cló Mhaigh Eo, have plans in the pipeline for two more, so far, with the next one "An Tóraiocht", due in August, and "An Táin" to follow. The Forbidden Planet in Dublin has just got a shipment of this in, if you’re interested in owning a copy.

• I see that the Dublin Bookshop has moves from 24 Grafton Street, up the road to 36 Grafton Street, and a much bigger and more comfortable premises. It’s very beautiful, in a very austere and minimalist sort of way.
• I’m going to see if I can get any further information on various events I hear are in the offing, including two college-run SF cons, one in Maynooth, and one in Cork, where I believe they are predicting numbers up to five and six hundred. Bearing in mind that Octocon averages in the mid two hundreds, we’ll wait and see…
• I’m also attempting to find more information on the Irish Ghost Festival, which is apparently to take place in Cork in October and November. More on all of these if (and when) I get it.
• Any of you looking for old books could do worse than go to the Rare Book Fair, which is to be held in the Tara Tower Hotel in Booterstown, Dublin, on the 30th of June.
• Saturday the 29th of June sees the Dublin Gay Pride Parade, which I always enjoy. This parade symbolises for me, more than almost anything else, our movement forward from the parochial past, and towards a new joyous pluralist Ireland. I’m only sorry I’m going to be down in Waterford for the weekend, but I’ll be there in spirit.
• Which remind me that I haven’t taken the opportunity in a while to plug the Gay Trekkies, who meet once a month at Outhouse. Charming folk, who can be found at the Gay Trekkie web site.
• I’ll have some news on Horrorthon next time, hopefully. This is, briefly, a regular meeting of horror movie fans.

In the first of what will be a monthly quiz, I’m going to give a small but pleasing prize to the first right answer out of the hat, four weeks from now, to the following question: What, precisely, do John F Kennedy, Aldous Huxley, and C S Lewis have in common?

• I’m taking a table at SubCon, if any of you feel like coming along and saying hello. I’m also now more or less on the organising committee for SubCon, mostly in the capacity of guest liaison. The con will be running twice a year from now on, with the next one due on the 16th of November.
• I do a little reviewing for TheAlienOnline.net where I’ve been remarkably rude about a Witchblade graphic novel recently.
• I’m also being syndicated on silveroak.co.uk.This is an online SF bookshop, and Angie who runs it offered me money to reproduce this newsletter on her site. This is about the most flattering thing that has ever happened to me, and for quite possibly the second time in my life, I was completely speechless.

If you know of anything else that’s on, let me know. And, if you know anyone who might be interested in getting this newsletter, try to get them to subscribe!!

Pádraig Ó Méalóid
Irish SF News