Eastercon - first panel

[ffutures]

My first panel - From book to game explained, moderated by me - went reasonably well, with several different aspects of game-related fiction and fiction-related games covered in moderate detail. The star, of course, was Ian Watson, with his wonderful account of the suppression of his novel Space Marine - now worth up to eighty quid on eBay, folks - but everyone put on a pretty good show.

Also got to panels on alien biology (should be useful for the Weinbaum RPG) and 3D photography (one of my oldest interests), and saw a lot of old friends.

Tomorrow I'm not on any panels, just a lot of interesting ones to go to, and the Dr. Who special in the evening, on Sunday evening I'm moderating Couldn't I just waste him with my crossbow?, a light-hearted look at the disconnect between role playing and fictional narrative. Which reminds me to ask if anyone can give me a link to the Dork Tower strip about a Lord of the Rings Campaign and Igor's opening move - some of you will know which one I mean.

And Monday morning I'm hoping to run The League of Extraordinary Geometers, my Forgotten Futures / Flatland crossover, if I can get players signed up.

I originally thought I was on five panels, fortunately that doesn't seem to be happening. Two plus the game is quite enough.

Comments

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Really, whats the story with Space Marine?

I have a copy of that I picked up in the cancer shop a couple of years ago for 50p.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It's as rare as hen's teeth - It has elements of fairly overt homoeroticism, all of them pretty much implicit in the original setting etc. but spelled out in more explicit detail by Watson. Games Workshop weren't going to publish it without major changes, then sold off their publishing operation to another company and forgot to tell them about the changes; it was published, and GW immediately banned it from their shops and will never authorize republication.

It really is worth serious dosh.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

How fantastic, and how odd that out of all of my books, this is the one that is the most valuable.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Not necessrily, you never know until you check. I once got a copy of the original Gollancz hardcover of Little, Big, and was very pleased because the typeface of the original paperback was tiny. Then I discovered the hardcover was worth about £150, it was the first edition and pretty rare. A friend who sells second-hand books had a copy of the Gollancz paperback, which was the same typeface as the hardcover, and gave me that plus £120 for the hardback.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I used to have a very early edition of the Hobbit, its one of those books I can remember being around forever, and it might even have been a first paperback edition. And when the Lord of the Rings films came out, I searched the house from top to bottom looking for it, but alas it had vanished. Probably leant to somebody and never given back. Which is a shame, because I believe that's worth a lot of money now too.