Our Guest of Honour, Joe Abercrombie, has had his novel, The Blade Itself, named as a finalist for the Tähtifantasia Award, given by the Helsinki Science Fiction Society for fantasy novels translated into Finnish, and it is quite an impressive group he’s up against. The Finns translate books from all over the world, but sometimes take a while to do it. So Joe’s book is up against works by Jorge Luis Borges, Haruki Murakami, Ursula K. Le Guin and Stephen King’s son, Joe Hill. Full details here. Congratulations, Joe!

Good news! We have finally completed all of the bureaucracy necessary to set up a PayPal account and (more importantly) get money out of it. So you can now buy BristolCon memberships online here. Please remember that you have only until May 24th to buy at the low introductory rate of £15. We will be making decisions about the amount of function space we take in the hotel (and therefore the amount of programme we can run) based on the level of early sign-ups. So the more of you that sign up soon, the more you get in November.

As you may have noticed, we have added a page to the web site listing all of the events at which BristolCon members can be found through the year. Well we have just added another one. On May 8th the fabulous writers collective, The Write Fantastic, will be celebrating its 5th birthday with a one-day event in Oxford. We are expecting to see all of the Write Fantastic members there, and Juliet E. McKenna tells us that they are also expecting Stephen Deas, Ben Jeapes, Geoff Ryman, Mike Shevdon and Ian Watson. There are plenty of trains from Bristol to Oxford each day (though you may have to change at Didcot or Reading) so if you are local to us you should be able to get to this one.

We are delighted to welcome yet another talented person to the BristolCon line-up. Terry Cooper is an illustrator, author and budding screen writer. Learn more about him on his web site.

We have another author planning to attend BristolCon. You may have seen stories by Stephanie Burgis in Strange Horizons, Black Static, and Future Bristol. However, by the time BristolCon ‘10 comes around she will be an internationally famous author of fantasy novels for most improper young ladies. Find out more on her web site.

We are delighted to announce that author Kim Lakin-Smith is once again planning to attend BristolCon. By November Kim will have two new novellas out from Newcon Press. Also her short story, “Johnny and Emmie-Lou Get Married”, has been shortlisted for a BSFA Award this year. Congratulations, Kim, and good luck!

Paul Cornell tells us that he will be signing at Forbidden Planet in London on Thursday evening. More details on his blog.

We are delighted to announce that local Bristol artist, Simon Gurr, will once again be exhibiting at BristolCon this year.

Our thanks to Paul Cornell and Eugene Byrne for mentioning us on their blogs.

Our thanks to Joe Abercrombie for blogging about us, and to Paul Cornell for tweeting about us.

Paul also points us at the first press release for his medical drama, Pulse. The BBC says:

St Timothy’s is one of the UK’s top teaching hospitals, home to some of the country’s most promising trainee doctors. But beneath its veneer of medical normality lies a secret network of dangerous experiments pushing back the boundaries of science with potentially horrifying consequences

Eeek!

There’s more about the pilot episode, which will be shown on BBC3, here.

Finally we are happy to announce that our good friend Eugene Byrne will once again be attending BristolCon this year.