Croeso/Welcome

[pendragonpress]

Hope you had an uneventual trip back, Brian.

I was on the Guinness, Ian, so had no complaints (well, it wasn't the perfect pint of G but it was certainly drinkable).

Picked up a copy of Infinities (the third in the Foursight series from Gollancz, ed. Peter Crowther) for a snip at a fiver. I urge anyone to track down a copy: read the novellas from Eric Brown and Ken MacLeod on the train home, and they were just outstanding (especially Eric's). Just got Alistair Reynolds and Adam Roberts to go.

[Troo]

I think I made a serious error at AltFiction by not actually having any spare time. I kept attending those pesky workshops and panel thingies

Good to see you there, Chris. I think I'll definately be doing '08, and hopefully my other half won't be so poorly next time so we'll be able to hang around for drinkies when it's over, rather than rushing back to the car to make headway on the three hour drive

Heading to FantasyCon?

[pendragonpress]

Originally Posted by Troo

Heading to FantasyCon?

Does one of those black or brown hairy beasties defecate in the woods?

[Ian Whates]

Originally Posted by pendragonpress

Picked up a copy of Infinities (the third in the Foursight series from Gollancz, ed. Peter Crowther) for a snip at a fiver. I urge anyone to track down a copy: read the novellas from Eric Brown and Ken MacLeod on the train home, and they were just outstanding (especially Eric's). Just got Alistair Reynolds and Adam Roberts to go.

You still have a couple of great stories to go then, Chris. Adam's "Park Polar" put me in mind of that old film The Thing (was it John Carpenter?) -- very suspenseful and effective, whilst Diamond Dogs reminded me of Algis Budrys' Rogue Moon -- a book I've always loved.

I actually plucked up the courage to ask Al Reynolds about that a year or so ago and he admitted that Rogue Moon was one of his favourite books and that the homage was quite deliberate. He expressed surprise that more critics hadn't picked up on it.

Two very good stories, in any case. Hope you enjoy them.

Oh, and I agree with you about Eric Brown's "A Writer's Life" -- the first thing I ever read of his, and I thought it excellent (though the Sci-Fi element struck me as almost an add-on).

[Ian Whates]

Originally Posted by pendragonpress

Does one of those black or brown hairy beasties defecate in the woods?

What, you mean a cow?

[Troo]

What the hell's a cow doing in the woods? Are you leading it astray?

[pendragonpress]

Just realised that some of you may not know who I am (which is okay by me, since I want the books to speak for themselves, but it's hardly the most friendly stance to take...)

So, without further ado:

Pendragon Press is me, Christopher Teague (founder, editor, typesetter, webmaster, occasional cover designer) with a little help from no-one, except the authors themselves when it comes to pimping.

I know, such a wonderful word that, "pimping". Years ago, it was called "marketing".

Back in 1999, I foolished decided to print an anthology that was Nasty Snips, then in 2000 I did it again with Noel K Hannan's debut (and only, insofar as I am aware) short story collection Shenanigans under the proper business name of Pendragon Press.

With two books that weren't selling, and three grand in the red, I quickly realised my mistake and took a sabbatical, but still kept my fingers in the genre, my eyes on the pies. Whatever that means...

In 2002, I edited the anthology Tourniquet Heart which came out from Prime Books in the USA and that experience (not to mention flying to Chicago for World Horror that year) fuelled the fire again, so to speak, but it took another year before I decided to try again and published Steve Lockley & Paul Lewis' novella The Ice Maiden. By this time, digital printing had come along and made the initial costs easier to manage.

Since 2003, I've more or less kept to a 3-4-book/year schedule, publishing collections from Paul Finch, Rhys Hughes and Stuart Young (that included the British Fantasy Award-winning novella "The Mask Behind the Face" last year); two novels from Mark West and Robin Gilbert (which proved to me just how much I still have to learn about the trade); and novellas by Lavie Tidhar and Gary McMahon; plus, the anthology Choices which features six novelettes from Eric Brown, Stephen Volk, Gary Fry, Andrew Humphrey, Richard Wright and Paul Finch.

The novellas and short fiction were much easier for me to sell and market than novels, and those remain my favourites, not to mention the Pendragon Press mainstay, but as for genre, then I'm open to anything except high/heroic fantasy. If I like it, then I'll probably accept it...

At EasterCon '06, I published Triquorum, an anthology of three novelettes from John Grant, Allen Ashley and Lavie Tidhar, which has now become a new imprint: available bi-annually and direct, each edition will contain three novelettes that will be eclectic and different. Thus far I have absolute crackers lined-up, from very new or relatively new authors, all waiting to kill some trees...

As for the future: a spankworthy new website, later this year hopefully; a smorgesbord of great novellas waiting to be unleashed over the next two years; and... well, you'll just have to keep an eye on things...

All Pendragon titles aren't available in any shop, but you order them in any good bookshop by quoting the ISBN. Better still, purchase direct, or through some very good book dealers on both sides of the 'lantic who have happily stocked them, and actually care about books and don't treat them has mere "products".