Nova Scotia revisited

I had the pleasure of attending a reading by some of the contributors in Mercat’s excellent new anthology of Scottish SF, Nova Scotia, last night in Edinburgh. It was a crowded audience there to see a great array of Scottish and Scottish-based writers and to enjoy listening to excerpts from what was our best-selling book at Worldcon last weekend.

The audience were treated to a fine literary variety, ranging in subject from drinking Deuchars IPA (brewed here in Edinburgh and one of the finest ales in the world – it powers many an SF conversation) with the Devil, a Scottish Presbyterian minister wrestling with heretical thoughts as he tries to contact new life in space, Rabbie Burns’ secret life in the Old West (including the World’s Worst Poet, William McGonagall as a gunslinger) and a mutant fish with a vicious attitude reminiscent of Middenface McNulty in a Glasgow pond.

Obviously not everyone could read their tales out from the collection, but many of the authors did come along to make it a special night and to sign copies of the book afterwards for readers (I have so many signatures on my copy it now resembles a high school yearbook).

There was Charlie Stross, his hands absently grasping for his new Hugo Award (Feorag made him leave it at home I think) treating us to his attempt at a Scottish accent and the Edinburgh patois. We had Ken MacLeod, Willie Meikle, Jack Deighton, Debbie Miller and many more, including Andrew J Wilson and Neil Williamson, the editors of this excellent collection, happily (and often cheekily) following in the footsteps of previous Scots writers such as Hogg and Stevenson.

Also present was Mike Cobley, the Shadowking himself, also fresh from Worldcon. The third part of Mike’s top fantasy trilogy, Shadowmasque, had been released just prior to Worldcon. Normally the publication of the final part of a trilogy is a joyous occasion for both writer and readers – fans get the closure on a story they have been following and find out what happens to characters they have emotionally invested in. Any bookseller who knows their stuff will also tell you that sales of the first two parts of the series jump up when the final volume appears too – quite a few folk wait for all three to be in print so they can buy them together and devour them back-to-back.

Unfortunately someone at Mike’s publisher obviously doesn’t know their stuff where this is concerned, because they let the first volume go out print. With the third part of the trilogy coming out and the Glasgow-based author appearing at the major SF convention in the world with lots of other authors, editors, publishers and journalists present they let it go out of print.

Luckily Mike didn’t take this lying down; he put out a call for help to the SF community online and it responded. Booksellers with his backlist, including the now out of print first volume, Shadowkings, managed to supply him with stock (including, I am happy to say, the FPI crew). And so there is a happy ending here as Mike was to be found signing away at the FPI table and around the Worldcon site, even generously giving some copies of the first book away to readers buying the second two volumes and posters as well; your SF community in action.