A brief message from the Late Cretaceous

Zing!

Let us pause for a moment, and toe the dust with our shoes, and consider the passing of great men. Paul Newman. I’m not, for a moment, pretending we don’t have ‘proper’ film stars these days, but we will not see the like of Paul Newman again. He was almost the last of the old-fashioned movie stars, who combined glamour with looks and an ability to utterly hold the attention. So, let us pause for a moment, and toe the dust with our shoes and consider the passing of great men.

Anyway, I’m sorry I haven’t posted recently. Places to go, people to see, Gaunt novels to write, Primeval novels to finish. Things have been a little busy since before GamesDay. My Primeval novel is now hurtling to a conclusion, and I think it’s rather good, though I say so myself (so do I - Nik). The lovely Primeval people promised me that my novel would be considered canonical, and they encouraged me to let loose with an imagination budget that would make it “Primeval the Movie”. So, I let rip. I think I spent the entire drama budget of ITV and Film 4 in my first three chapters, but what the hell? Cutter, along with Abby and Connor, get whisked away to Siberia in time to watch the Russian Federal Army do battle with Late Cretaceous dinosaurs. I love dinosaurs, me. This is like dinosaur heaven. There are dinosaurs, and there are soldiers and tanks attacking them. Oh, and did I mention, there are dinosaurs? It’s like all the games I played on the carpet when I was a kid with my Airfix soldiers and my anatomically and geologically incorrect plastic monsters.

I went to Tring on Saturday. It’s not often you get to write that sentence. Sitting down and having a lovely chat with a good many fine folk such as Jim Swallow and Juliet Mckenna would have been reason enough to go, in my opinion, but Gamesfest 3 had other things to recommend it. It was well organised and extremely friendly. I hope it happens again next year, and I hope more of you put it in your ‘must attend’ calendars. Gamesfest was a great opportunity to spend the day in a splendid location, to play games and talk with like minded individuals, and properly chat with artists and writers in a relaxed way, without the pressure of queues and timed signings etc. For my part, being invited to draw the raffle tickets and being escorted into the main hall by a squad of Imperial Stormtroopers was worth the 90 minute drive on its own. As it turned out, I wasn’t the droid they were looking for.