For its April meeting this year the Birmingham Science Fiction Group is proud to welcome Robert Blackham, noted Tolkien expert, who will be showing his new presentation about Tolkien’s experiences in the World War. Bob returns to the BSFG following his successful and popular presentation in 2009.

Bob is the author of several books about J.R.R.Tolkien, including The Roots of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, Tolkien’s Oxford, The Pitkin Guide to Tolkien and Tolkien and the Peril of War. Bob’s presentations always give a fascinating insight into Tolkien’s experiences, as well as suggesting possible inspirations that would later turn up in Middle-Earth.

The meeting is on 13 April 2012 at the Briar Rose Hotel on Bennett’s Hill, Birmingham; this venue is just 5 minutes walk from New Street Station and handy for all bus routes. The meeting opens its doors at 7:30 pm.

The group itself has many members of all ages, and between them the membership has an enormous wealth of knowledge of literary SF, as well as film, television, etc. If you want to know about a particular author or book, the BSFG may be able to help you! Just let them know you are a first timer when you turn up and any member will be happy to introduce you to the committee and make you feel as welcome as we can…

If you live anywhere in or around the West Midlands, the BSFG is the group for you! For further information, and a copy of our monthly newsletter, please email: BHAMSFGROUP@YAHOO.CO.UK

This July, QUAD in Derby brings together a host of leading science fiction, fantasy and horror writing for Edge-Lit, an exciting new day event for one of the city’s leading venues. The ideal day out for fans, readers and aspiring writers of genre fiction, Edge-Lit gathers together over thirty authors, agents and speakers for a wide range of workshops, panels, readings and much more.

There are many more leading names to be announced for the event, with the first two Guests of Honour for the 2012 event confirmed as Christopher Fowler and Geoff Ryman.

Christopher Fowler is a multiple award-winning author with thirty novels and twelve short story collections to his name. He is best-known for his Bryant and May mystery novels, with his most recent title in the series being Bryant and May and the Memory of Blood. Christopher has also written a number of successful thrillers, as well as the highly succesful graphic novel Menz Insana. His other credits include creating the War of the Worlds video game for Paramount, as well as running a successful film marketing company and writing for TV and film stars such as Kenneth Williams, Michael Caine, Pierce Brosnan, Leslie Neilsen and the stars of Monty Python.

Geoff Ryman is an acclaimed author of science-fiction and fantasy, with his most recent title, The King’s Last Song, drawing stellar reviews. Other leading titles include Was…, Lust and Air, with his novels having claimed a host of awards including the British Science Fiction Award, World Fantasy Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award, The Philip K. Dick Award and many more. He is also a lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester University.

Edge-Lit runs from 10am – midnight on Saturday 14 July 2012, with tickets just £25, including access to all activities on the day. For more information, and to book your tickets, visit the website HERE

It has been almost 12 months since 42, the Genre Open Mic Night, started in Worcestershire, and the founders have something special planned for their birthday bash in March.

42 was started by Glenn and Angela James in 2011, to provide a platform for writers, musicians, and performers interested in genre subjects to find their audience and a voice.  It has grown significantly in the last year, and branches of 42 will be starting in Birmingham, Newcastle-Under-Lyme and Stoke-on-Trent.  With the event’s first birthday coming up, the significance of its opening month can be revealed.

In looking forward when 42 was established, March was chosen as in that month in 2012, it will be 90 years since the premiere of the first full-length film adaption of Dracula: The legendary German film Nosferatu by F. W. Murnau.

Nosferatu, the most Gothic and chilling vampire film ever made, will be the event’s theme for the evening, and the organisers invite contributors to embrace the dark theme in their works for the night.

42’s organisers have formed a strong bond with the Worcestershire Film Festival (now in their inaugural year), and headed by founder Simon Munn, the Film Festival will be contributing to the Nosferatu evening in style.

Contributors on the evening will include the renowned Gothic Diva Suz Winspear, Raine Evans, Fergus McGonigal, Damon Lord, Darren Farley, John Taylor, Joseph O’Donnell, and continues with the fine serial of Michael R. Brush.

The anniversary meeting will be held on Wednesday 28 March 2012 in the Lunar Bar above the Swan with Two Nicks public house in central Worcester.  Tickets are £3.00 and available on the door.  Further information HERE

We have a fabulous prize up for grabs in another free prize draw! Thanks to the generosity of Alex Davis, organiser of the Discover Festival (a weekend of SFFH in Leicestershire), we can offer one lucky winner a pair of tickets to the festival (worth £45 each).

The festival takes place at Snibston Discovery Park, Coalville, Leicestershire, over the weekend of 18 – 20 May 2012. It features well-known guests, author readings, panel discussions and workshops, and you can be there for free. This competition is open to both BFS members AND non-members, but entries from BFS members will count as TWO entries to the competition, giving members more chance of winning.

All you have to do to be in with the chance (or two chances!) of winning tickets is to answer the following easy question:

Who are the three Guests of Honour at the Discover Festival?
(HINT: The answer can be found at the Festival website HERE)

Email your answer to news@britishfantasysociety.org with the subject line DISCOVER COMPETITION, by midnight UK time on Friday 16 March 2012. Please give your name, and indicate whether you are a BFS member or non-member (if you know your membership number this would be useful too, but if you don’t know it, don’t worry as we can check this).

One lucky winner will then be randomly drawn, notified and sent their tickets as soon as possible thereafter. Remember, if you’re a BFS member you only need to email once and your entry will be counted TWICE, giving you more chance of winning. But if you haven’t yet decided to join the BFS you can still enter the competition (you might like to think about joining too though – which you can do HERE). BFS committee members are, of course, excluded from entering the competition.

Watch out for further MEMBER-ONLY competitions coming soon too!

Christopher Priest will be visiting the Birmingham Science Fiction Group in March 2012. Christopher is the author of twelve novels and numerous short stories. He has won the Arthur C. Clarke best novel award 2003 and the British Science Fiction Association best novel award 2002 (for The Separation) as well as the 1996 World Fantasy best novel award 1996 for The Prestige.

Christopher’s writing career spans an enormous breadth of subjects, published over a 40 year period (his first novel, Indoctrinaire, was published in 1970). The BSFG is very lucky to host to such a well respected author and Christopher’s talk is likely to give fascinating insights into his creative process.

The meeting is on 9 March 2012 at the Briar Rose Hotel on Bennett’s Hill, Birmingham; this venue is just 5 minutes walk from New Street Station and handy for all bus routes. The meeting opens its doors at 7:30 p.m.

The group itself has many members of all ages, and between them the membership has an enormous wealth of knowledge of literary SF, as well as films, television, etc. If you want to know about a particular author or book, the BSFG is likely to be able to help you! Just let us know you are a first timer when you turn up and any member will be happy to introduce you to the committee and make you feel as welcome as we can…

If you live anywhere in or around the West Midlands, the BSFG is the group for you! For further information, and a copy of our monthly newsletter, please email:            bhamsfgroup [at] yahoo [dot] co [dot] uk

The next BFS Open Night is on Friday 2 March 2012 at The Mug House, 1-3 Tooley Street, London Bridge, London SE1 2PF (tel. 020 7403 8343). If you are travelling by public transport to London Bridge station, look for the exit that says “Duke Street Hill” or “Tooley Street”. The evening starts at 6pm. There are two main events happening. These are: An Eibonvale Press launch and a silent charity auction run by Quercus Books.

Further details:
Eibonvale Press are launching a brand new anthology edited by Allen Ashley, entitled Where Are We Going? Several authors including Allen Ashley, Joel Lane, Douglas Thompson, Marion Pitman, Terry Grimwood, Jet McDonald, Andrew Kirby, Gary Budgen and cover artists David Rix are expected to attend and sign copies of the book. Where Are We Going? will be selling at the special low price of £7 paperback and £16 hardback on the launch evening.

At some time between 6.30pm and 7pm, Allen Ashley will be announcing a “Postcard Competition”. This is a free to enter competition with simple rules – write an interesting postcard and win an Eibonvale prize. Postcards and pens will be provided on the night. The competition will be judged by Allen Ashley and the results will be announced at approximately 9pm.

Eibonvale will also be launching Jeff Gardiner’s debut collection A Glimpse of the Numinous.

Nicola Budd from Quercus Books will be running a silent auction on a selection of desirable Quercus publications from approximately 6.30pm onwards. Nicola will announce the start of the auction and how to take part. The books will be displayed on a couple of tables and people are invited to write their bids on a sheet of paper. The winning bidders will be announced at approximately 9.30pm. The auction is in aid of the charity Have A Heart.

The night will finish at about 11pm or when the BFS has drunk the bar dry (don’t laugh – it happens quite a lot).

So, get along to The Mug House on 2nd March. Buy a book or three. Give some money to a good cause. Meet up with pals old and new. Have a great time.

Further details: email Allen Ashley on editorwherearewegoing [at] hotmail [dot] co [dot] uk

World Fantasy Convention 2013 is pleased to announce that Academy Award- and World Fantasy Award-winning illustrator Alan Lee will be its Artist Guest of Honour in Brighton. Alan Lee began his career working as a commercial artist, contributing work to dozens of paperback book covers, including reissues of The Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories edited by Robert Aickman and R. Chetwynd-Hayes. After moving in the mid-1970s to a small village on the edge of Dartmoor in Devon, he shared a studio with Brian Froud and together they created the groundbreaking illustrated book Faeries.

The success of this picture book gave the artist the freedom to spend several years bringing the Celtic myth of The Mabinogion to life, and he went on to create the delicate watercolour illustrations for Castles by David Day, Michael Palin’s The Mirrorstone (in collaboration with Richard Seymour), The Moon’s Revenge by Joan Aiken and Merlin Dreams by Peter Dickinson, along with numerous book cover designs.

However, Alan Lee is best known for his association with perhaps the greatest fantasy author of all time, illustrating the 1,200-page centenary edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Artist and author soon became inextricably linked through such collaborations as Tolkien’s World: Paintings of Middle-Earth, the 1993 J.R.R. Tolkien Calendar (and many subsequent editions), Realms of Tolkien: Images of Middle-Earth, a new edition of The Hobbit, The Children of Húrin, Tales from the Perilous Realm and David Day’s non-fiction study Tolkien’s Ring.

The artist’s work for Rosemary Sutcliff’s Black Ships Before Troy received the prestigious Kate Greenaway Award in 1993 for distinguished work in the illustration of children’s books in the UK. In 1998 he won the World Fantasy Award for Best Artist.

Alan Lee has also enjoyed an equally successful career as a conceptual designer for movies, and his credits include Legend, Erik the Viking, the Jane Yolen-scripted Merlin and the Dragons, the 2005 King Kong and the 1998 TV mini-series Merlin.

Director Peter Jackson contacted the artist to work on his acclaimed cinematic trilogy of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King. After being nominated for The Two Towers the year before, in 2004 Alan Lee won an Oscar for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration for his work on The Return of the King. The artist is currently based in New Zealand, where he is working again with Jackson on the eagerly-anticipated prequels The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again.

“I’m very flattered to be asked to be Artist Guest of Honour,” says Alan Lee, “and happy to accept the invitation. I’m meant to be finishing on The Hobbit movies some time this year. My work on the The Lord of the Rings films went on for six years beyond what I was originally anticipating, but even if I am still involved I can arrange my annual trip back to England to coincide with the convention. I look forward to seeing everyone in 2013!”

Alan Lee joins previously announced Author Guests of Honour Richard Matheson and Richard Christian Matheson, along with Master of Ceremonies China Mieville, in the picturesque and vibrant seaside town of Brighton, on the south coast of England, over the weekend of 31 October – 3 November 2013.

Full details and booking information on the website HERE