A round of applause, a round of drinks and at least a week off please for the exceptionally hard-working peake and brisingamen, who once again put on a great evening at this year's Arthur C. Clarke Award. Great new venue, great atmosphere, and another good night was had by everyone. If you haven't heard yet, Neal Stephenson won with Quicksilver.

The only two award finalists able to be present were Stephen Baxter and Gwyneth Jones; other authors taking advantage of the free wine included China Miéville, Geoff Ryman, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Christopher Priest, Dave Langford, Ben Jeapes, Cherith Baldry, Liz Williams, Christopher Evans, Paul McAuley, John Clute, Martin Sketchley and molly_brown; I'm sure there were plenty more I didn't catch sight of but one other I was happy to see was Roger Levy, who I hope will become a more familiar face at British SF events. He also mentioned that one of my interview questions at February's BSFA event has somehow resolved a plot problem he was having with his third novel, so that made me particularly pleased as punch... plus a kind offer from swisstone means I shall happily be burning some extra midnight oil in the coming weeks.

After the award ceremony, everyone hung around until 9pm, then del_c and I nipped into the pub for a swift half with coth, Brian, Roger and Eemeli Aro, before promising to meet up with tamaranth, swisstone, ladymoonray, the_magician, nolley et al at the Slug and Lettuce. We finally made it there just after 10pm but everyone must have moved on, so we headed back to Reading and I got a cab home, tired and much happier than I was this time last night.

Tags: fandom, science fiction
call me: grateful for friends