The Battle of Pratchett and Rothfuss

By: Unknown on 13:06

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So this week we’re going for something a little bit different (again). Instead of a review we’re going to be looking at the exciting (and I’m not going to lie slightly irritating) scheduling for the World Fantasy Convention as it looms on the horizons of our calendars.

For those of you who don’t know what I’m going to be dithering on about this time the World Fantasy Convention (we’ll call if the WFC for the sake of laziness and brevity) is an international convention for the publishing industry focusing on the fantasy genre. So perfect for me! It’s usually held in the USA but will sometimes make its way to Canada, and so this year marks only the third time that the convention has been hosted outside of North America. Great news for me!

If you go to the WFC website you can see a long list of attending members many of whom are delegate parties from publishing companies from around the world (Gollancz, Orbit, HarperCollins to name but a few) and many others are authors, old and new, famous and infamous. The rest are likely made up of people like me, keen enthusiasts and only just stepping foot into the industry! There’s panels, discussions and awards ceremonies so a little bit of everything that you could want!

So there was excitement abound recently as the WFC website placed up its first official line up of programming, with only a few short weeks to go! Of course, not all of the programming will be as fascinating as others to every single attendee but it all looks rather fabulous and my mouth is already salivating with the prospect of this fantastical buffet.

So I look down through the days and give a chuckle here and a coo there at various amusing and interesting panels. But what’s this!? “Sir Terry Pratchett: In Conversation” I am not ashamed to admit that there was a little bit of hyperventilation when I realised that Terry Pratchett is going to be an attending member of the WFC this year! It is not often that you are offered the opportunity to meet a man who is as much as part of British culture as he is an international best seller.

But, now! What is THIS!?

It turns out that the Conversations with Terry Pratchett happens to be scheduled for the same hour that the readings by Patrick Rothfuss is scheduled! This is a most unpleasant and undesirable turn of events. Mr Rothfuss is perhaps my favourite author, not only because of the lyrical and beautiful books he has produced but if you follow his blog you’ll see that he’s a very kind and humorous man who really does a lot for charity.

I am super super miffed at this, but I know that if it weren’t Patrick Rothfuss then it would be someone else and I’m sure another attending member would be just as upset as I was when I found out. But thankfully the scheduling does appear to have 2 readings per hour slot so I am hoping that this means the readings start every half an hour. This at least gives me half an hour of basking in the reflected glory of Terry Pratchett before I sprint to absorb the mighty awesomeness of Mr Rothfuss’s beard.

There are many other reasons to be going to the WFC and I am going to a small meeting with Tor UK the book publishers which I am also very much looking forward to. I am also hoping to get some meeting time with other publishers to get their take on what I can do to get into the fantasy game within the publishing industry.

But that’s all my news for now, no doubt I shall batter your peepholes with more news as it comes forward! And rest assured that I am deep into the second instalment of The Gentleman Bastard Sequence so there shall be a blog about that soon enough!

Until then my teary-eyed viewers, readers and reviewers; Good hunting!