FantasyCon 2012 is delighted to announce the addition of two Special Media Guests to complement its already stellar line-up of Guests of Honour.

Actor, author and playwright Mark Gatiss is a quarter of the team who created the award-winning comedy/horror series The League of Gentlemen for the BBC. He also scripted the three-part Christmas portmanteau Crooked House and the 2010 TV movie of H.G. Wells’ First Men in the Moon, and he co-created the international hit TV series Sherlock with Steven Moffat.

As an actor, he has appeared in all the above shows, along with episodes of Being Human, Psychoville, Nighty Night, Clone, Jekyll, Funland, Dr. Terrible’s House of Horrible, Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), The Wind in the Willows and Midsomer Murders.

Mark is also an author, and his books include the Lucifer Box trilogy, The Vesuvius Club, The Devil in Amber and Black Butterfly, four Doctor Who novels, along with a biography of Hollywood film director James Whale.

Robin Hardy is an author, playwright, film director and producer, best known for his 1973 cult classic The Wicker Man, starring Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee and Diane Cilento. Today, it is justifiably regarded as a classic of British cinema.

He followed it in 1986 with the Irish serial killer thriller The Fantasist, featuring Christopher Cazenove and Timothy Bottoms, and he co-scripted and produced the rarely-seen Forbidden Sun (aka Bulldance, 1989), a mystery based around ancient Cretan rituals starring Lauren Hutton and Cliff De Young.

His latest release is The Wicker Tree, which we will be screening at FantasyCon on the Friday evening, following a Q&A with Robin and screenwriter Stephen Volk. Neither a sequel nor a prequel, but inhabiting the same territory as the earlier film, it is based on the director’s novel, Cowboys for Christ.

Please note that Mark Gatiss and Robin Hardy will both be attending FantasyCon for a limited period only.

They join FantasyCon’s Author Guests of Honour, Joe R. Lansdale, Muriel Gray and Brent Weeks, Special Editor Guest Mary Danby, and Master of Ceremonies Tim Lebbon.

After the success of last year’s event, the convention is returning to the Royal Albion Hotel on the seafront in the historic seaside town of Brighton, East Sussex, over the weekend of 27 – 30 September 2012. For further information, including how to join, visit the website HERE

Mark Gatiss photo (c) Linda Nylind for the Guardian

There were several ‘genre’ winners at the 2012 British Academy Television Awards, held at London’s Royal Festival Hall on 27 May.

As previously announced, Steven Moffat (Doctor Who, Sherlock) received a special BAFTA for his “outstanding creative writing contribution to television”. Sherlock also scooped an award when Andrew Scott won Best Supporting Actor for his role as Sherlock’s arch nemesis Moriarty.

The recently cancelled fantasy horror series The Fades won Best Drama Series, while the darkly comedic drama Psychoville won the Best New Media Award.

A full list of all the winners can be found HERE

Photo (c) BBC

Steven Moffat (Doctor Who, Sherlock) is to receive a special prize at this year’s BAFTA TV awards. In recognition of his “outstanding creative writing contribution to television”, the award will be presented on 27 May 2012 at London’s Royal Festival Hall. Previous recipients include former Doctor Who writer/producer, Russell T. Davies.

Moffat also received a writing prize at this year’s BAFTA Craft Awards for A Scandal in Belgravia, the first episode of Sherlock‘s second series.

Read the full BBC story HERE

SHERLOCK HOLMES: CROSSOVERS CASEBOOK edited by Howard Hopkins, Moonstone, p/b, $18.95, http://moonstonebooks.com/

Reviewed by David Brzeski

This is an anthology of new stories, in which Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson interact with some of their contemporaries, both real and fictional.

The book opens with a story, by Martin Powell, in which he sends Holmes and Watson to the Lost World, in search of one of Conan Doyle’s
other fictional heroes – Professor Challenger. I liked it a lot, but then I’m biased. I can never get too much Challenger.

I quite enjoyed Christopher Sequeira’s first story, even if it lacked anything in the way of crossovers, unless I missed something. It is, however, an interesting sequel to ‘The Sign of Four’.

Martin Gately’s story, however, I wasn’t keen on at all. The methodology of the criminal simply stretched my suspension of disbelief too far, especially the part about doctoring medical books to add spurious entries on “blood lice”. I did, however, enjoy the references to ‘The Maracot Deep’ – a non-Holmes Conan Doyle novel I have yet to get around to reading.

Win Scott Eckerts’s ‘The Adventure of the Fallen Stone’, as I would expect from him, contains more than enough crossover material to make up for the lack of any in Christopher Sequeira’s first story. I liked it lot. Naming a character after his friend – editor “Mad” Mike Croteau was a nice touch.

Joe Gentile’s ‘The Secret of Grant’s Tomb was interesting. What this story really had going for it though was in being an example of one of the best things about crossover fiction. You see, I could guess which characters made up the crossover element, but I wasn’t at all familiar with them, or the their creator. I now have a number of Jacques Futrelle stories to read on my kindle.

Howard Hopkin’s Calamity Jane crossover is hilarious, if unlikely. I do, however think he missed a trick by not treating the reader to Mrs Hudson’s reaction to the smelly, drunk and obnoxious Calamity presenting herself at the front door of 221b, Baker Street.

‘The Adventure of the Sinister Chinaman’, by Barbara Hambly was worth the price of the book on its own. Great story, neatly written. Not a word out of place and an inspired crossover that had me grinning all over my face when I realised who it was.

Matthew P. Mayo’s, ‘The Folly of Flight’ reunites Holmes with a character he met several times in the past- the French gentleman burglar, Arsene Lupin. In Maurice LeBlanc’s original novels Lupin occasionally faced off against ‘Herlock Sholmès’, or ‘Homelock Shears’, in the British editions.

Richard Dean Starr and E.R. Bower’s story was for me the best of the recent Holmes/Aleister Crowley crossovers, despite having no supernatural element. In fact it was better for that. Much as I love all the recent Holmes crossovers with assorted supernatural themes, I had begun to fear that such stories were becoming the norm for new Holmes fiction, rather than interesting variations.

I remember reading Kevin Van Hook’s early comics work a good 20 years ago. He was one of the better talents to emerge during that B&W indie comics boom of the early 90s. ‘The Adventure of the Magician’s Meetings’, cowritten with Larry Engle, and featuring none other than Harry Houdini, is very good.

Matthew Baugh’s ‘The Adventure of the Ethical Assassin’ kept the quality up and also made me want to read the original book, ‘The Assassination Bureau’, by Jack London. The sly reference to ‘The Most dangerous Game’, by Richard Connell was a clever addition.

Will Murray, as expected, kept the standard high, with ‘The Adventure of the Imaginary Nihilist’, featuring Colonel Richard Henry Savage.

The next story, Don Roff’s ‘The House on Moreau Street’, I have major problems with. There’s nothing wrong with the story per se, but the writing is flawed. Roff peppers his story with inappropriate usage of words. I can forgive the use of modern phrases like “checked out”, and “peace officer” and even the US spelling of “labor”, but how can a knot be “unique”, yet “one commonly used by sailors”?

The final story, ‘The Adventure of the Lost Specialist’, by Christopher Sequeira (the only author to have two stories in the book) is a somewhat fanciful affair that will divide readers. In this story, Sequeira drags our intrepid heroes headlong into the Twilight Zone. It’s so odd that one can almost ignore the error he makes in referring to British Rail, which didn’t exist in 1903.

Overall, this is an excellent collection, with only a couple of truly disappointing stories out of the fourteen.

Sherlock actor, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Noel Clarke, who played companion Mickey in Doctor Who, are reportedly set to appear in the next Star Trek film. The follow-up to the 2009 film in the franchise will again be directed by JJ Abrams and is expected to be released in 2013.

Read the full BBC story HERE

At a glittering ceremony in Brighton on 2 October 2011 the following were announced as winners of the British Fantasy Awards 2011:

KARL EDWARD WAGNER SPECIAL AWARD: Terry Pratchett

BEST NOVEL: Demon Dance, Sam Stone (House of Murky Depths)

BEST NOVELLA: Humpty’s Bones, Simon Clark (Telos)

BEST SHORT STORY: “Fool’s Gold”, Sam Stone, from The Bitten Word, ed. Ian
Whates (NewCon Press)

BEST ANTHOLOGY: Back from the Dead: The Legacy of the Pan Book of Horror
Stories, Johnny Mains (ed.) (Noose & Gibbet)

BEST COLLECTION: Full Dark, No Stars, Stephen King (Hodder & Stoughton)

BEST NON-FICTION: Altered Visions: The Art of Vincent Chong (Telos)

BEST ARTIST: Vincent Chong

BEST COMIC/GRAPHIC NOVEL: At the Mountains of Madness: a Graphic Novel, Ian Culbard (Selfmadehero)

BEST MAGAZINE/PERIODICAL: Black Static, Andy Cox (ed.) (TTA Press)

BEST SMALL PRESS: Telos Publishing

BEST FILM: Inception

BEST TELEVISION: Sherlock

SYDNEY J. BOUNDS AWARD FOR BEST NEWCOMER: Robert Jackson Bennet, for Mr Shivers (Orbit)