Our official activities on Thursday didn’t begin until 11 AM, so I had plenty of time to go down the street to Starbucks for our morning coffee, then I finished the last of the thirty signed/sketched copies of Hellhole and packaged the boxes for pickup, and found I had time to edit a chapter in the room.  Time for the other duties.

We met Nigel in the hotel lobby, who took us to London’s well-known SF specialty shop Forbidden Planet.  We met the staff, signed all of their new copies of Hellhole as well as their backstock, personalized several books for the staff, then had lunch at the swanky Wollesley restaurant with Simon & Schuster sales reps and the buyer for Forbidden Planet (chicken & dumpling soup, avocado salad, wienerschnitzel, and lemon meringue for dessert).

with James and Lou at Forbidden Planet, London

In the afternoon, Simon & Schuster had set up a room with 500 copies of Hellhole to sign; unfortunately we had only 50 minutes to do them all before I was due on a panel with other authors for a special blogger press conference.  Rebecca and the Simon & Schuster publicity assistant Emily worked together to keep the copies moving and I did manage to autograph all 500 copies before they whisked me off to the panel.

The conference room was crowded with dozens of bloggers from across the UK, and I sat with six other authors (young adult, romance, thrillers, mysteries, and mainstream); the bloggers asked questions for their various blogs, then we had a reception in the Simon & Schuster offices.  Afterward, Nigel had arranged a more private reception for me at a traditional British pub with book-buyers, S&S staff, and fans from around the area who had won a contest to join us.

Blogger press conference with (l–r) authors Helen Warner, Craig Robertson, Michelle Harrison, Justin Somper, Sophie McKenzie, Milly Johnson, and Kevin J. Anderson, with moderator Ally from Simon & Schuster.

Friday morning we packed up our suitcases and checked out of the hotel, joining Emily (editorial assistant) and another Emily (publicity assistant) on a train journey out to Rye on the southeastern coast, to participate in the SFX Weekender, a large science fiction and pop-culture convention held at a resort near the seaside.  The train arrived, giving us just enough time to drop our luggage at the hotel and make it over to the convention complex.  Fifteen minutes later I was on stage in the cozy pub venue, where Sandy Auden from SFX magazine interviewed me for an hour and I answered questions from the audience.

After a quick lunch, I participated in a panel on Science and Science Fiction with Stephen Baxter, Peter F. Hamilton, Gary Gibson, and China Mieville, after which I did an hour-long book-signing at the Forbidden Planet booth, then a panel on When Fans Go Bad, a panel on What Scares Us in the 21st Century, and finally an interview with a web magazine.  They got their money’s worth out of having me there for one day of programming!

Science and Science Fiction panel (l-r):  Stephen Baxter, Peter F. Hamilton, Gary Gibson, China Mieville, Kevin J. Anderson