A quick note, this month. I’ll be at three(!) conventions between now and the end of the month.

First up, I’ll be at the International Literature Festival Dublin, doing a panel with Dave Rudden about fantasy trilogies.

“Dave Rudden recently published the first in a new adult trilogy whilst Gareth Hanrahan brought his to a conclusion. Two fascinating fantasy authors discuss creating memorable characters, plot evolution over a series, and the challenges of world building.”

It’s on Saturday May 16th.

The following weekend - May 24th - I’ll be at MCM Comicon London on the Sunday, doing a panel on gaming and fantasy writing. It’s not up on their website yet, irritatingly, but it’s scheduled for 3pm as part of the Writer’s Block.

And the weekend after that, I’ll be at UK Games Expo. I’ll be on the Pelgrane stand most of the time, although I’m booked in to do at least one panel at 10am on the Saturday.

“We're bringing the creators of some of the funniest RPGs ever together to talk about how you can reduce your players to giggling heaps. Learn the art and craft of making games hilarious from Allen ‘Paranoia’ Varney, Gareth ‘The Laundry, Merryshire Detective Club, DIE: Metadungeon, a lot of Paranoia too’ Hanrahan, Fleur ‘Flabbergasted!’ Sciortino, Anna ‘Apothecaria’ Blackwell and Chris ‘Kobolds Ate My Baby’ O'Neill, being given silly things to do by James ‘Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen’ Wallis. They'll talk about the games and moments that made them laugh the hardest, and how to translate a joke on the page into encounters your players will  re-tell for years. It's the perfect panel to start your Saturday.”

I’m just back from DagdaCon, a new Irish convention (small, but perfectly formed). I ran two games - one session of Merryshire Detective Club, testing the Orc and Pie scenario from Dreadful Heir, and one Terraforming Mars game about establishing a titanium mine on Mars. Both went very well, although I’m still figuring out how to make Terraforming Mars work as a convention game.

Project Roundup: April was mostly working on the current novel, which is now at 94,000 words and the ending is, if not in sight, then somewhere within those mountains up ahead. Theoretically, I should be handing it in this month, but everyone’s agreed that’s not going to happen.

Of the others:

MERRYSHIRE DETECTIVE CLUB: I’ve done a little more tweaking of the core rules, while working on the increasingly gigantic DREADFUL HARE collection. We’re moving towards crowdfunding, so expect to hear about this one a lot more soon.

DIE: METADUNGEON: As I write, the crowdfunder is rolling to an absurdly successful conclusion. I can’t imagine we’ll make the £200,000 “more money for Gar” goal, but given I was nervous about the initial £55,000 “do it at all” goal, it’s been a triumph. Now I need to write the thing.

EDIT: crowdfunder still going. DIE will not die.

TERRAFORMING MARS: Slowly ticking along. The structure of the game is very different to other things we’ve done. We had a big meeting where we went through all the extant projects, and poked at them, and they mostly work, and I was very happy with how certain rules elements worked in play at Dagdacon - but it’s a big tangle of interconnected systems.

PSYCHIC ICEBERG PILGRIM: Waiting for feedback.

TUNNELS & TROLLS: Waiting for the starting gun.

FISH STEW: Started in on this on Friday.

The Dungeon Book is out August 11th. All the chapters have opening illustrations by the wonderful Edel, and if you approach me at one of the above cons and whisper the magic phrase “I’ve pre-ordered”, I shall give you a card with one of those illustrations.

BREAKING NEWS: I - well, Sword Triumphant - is been nominated for a European Science Fiction Society award.

I was on the Page One podcast and the Narrative Damage podcast. I will, if everything comes together, be doing a game session with them at some point.

CURRENTLY READING: Halfheart, by Linden Lewis

CURRENTLY WATCHING: For All Mankind S5

CURRENTLY PLAYING: The last thing I played was Rosewood Abbey; another Mythic Bastionland session next week.

This was not a short one, which rather sums up the year.

See you on the far side of the convention spate - or, if you’re there, at a convention!

Gar