It’s easy to see the British Fantasy Society as some kind of equivalent to the SFWA, but though they do share certain qualities, the differences outweigh any similarities. The BFS is an inevitably smaller operation, without the clout or the restrictive membership, yet it also has a wider mandate - no less than “…the promotion of all that is best in the Fantasy and Horror genres.” Although there’s a definite slant towards the literary side, it doesn’t just exist as a resource for writers, let alone an elite cadre of professional writers - it’s free for anyone to join, whatever their interest or investment in genre fiction.
Their most recent event, a get together in my home town of York, perfectly reflected that dichotomy. On the one hand, it was a bunch of people vaguely united by an interest in the fantasy genre, drinking beer and chatting about whatever took their interest. The venue, a local brewery, was well chosen, in that it was a nice relaxed place with plenty of space and good-quality alcohol on tap, (although some kind of sign outside, or indication that it was open, would have been helpful.) It wasn’t a big crowd, with maybe twenty-five people attending, but everyone seemed happy to chat to everyone else, and there was a friendly, laid back vibe to the whole affair.
Slightly more formal, and definitely more leveled at the considerable percentage of writers in the crowd, was the presence of two guest speakers - Marc Gascoigne of The Black Library and George Mann from Solaris Press. For those who don’t know, (and I didn’t), The Black Library publishes war-gaming giant Games Workshop’s fiction line, while Solaris is the Library’s new imprint, handling original fantasy and science-fiction material. Marc and George spent about an hour interviewing each other, which - despite being essentially an extended advert for Solaris - was actually enlightening, funny and in the end quite exciting, since their picture of the state of genre literature was more hopeful than any I’ve heard elsewhere.
The night was organised by Lee Harris of local small press magazine Hub, and as well as keeping things on track, Lee presented a short quiz to round off the night. It’s difficult to imagine a harder or more obtuse set of questions, courtesy of Hub’s non-fiction editor Alasdair Stuart, but it was a nice change of pace, and there were so many prizes - in the shape of a huge stack of books - that no one went away empty-handed.
All in all, I had a good night, and got the impression that everyone else was enjoying themselves. Lee merits considerable credit for arranging something like this, especially in the north of England, which usually seems to be viewed as too much of a backwater for such events. Hats off too to Marc and George - Solaris is the kind of thing that’s absolutely vital if fantasy and sci-fi literature, (indeed, literature of any sort), is going to survive, and the fact that they’d devote time to an event like this suggests real commitment. Hopefully the night was successful enough to lead to bigger and better events - in the meantime, Hub deserve another plug for their consistent reliability (and freeness), and Solaris look like they have the potential to be a genuinely positive force in the field of fantasy and sci-fi literature, and are well worth checking out.
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