MARK MORRIS

Twenty years ago today I sold my first novel, Toady, to Piatkus Books. Even now I remember the day so well. I'd spent it round at Nel's (she was then my girlfriend, and is now my wife), working on what was to become my second novel, Stitch. However in truth I was feeling a bit down. Three of the four publishers I'd initially sent Toady to had rejected it, not because they didn't like it, but because they thought it was far too long for a debut novel. The book had taken me over two years to write, and was something like 250,000 words long, and I was beginning to wonder whether I'd wasted my time, whether I'd have been wiser writing two or even three shorter novels over the same period. I arrived back at my flat around 5 or 6pm, to find a letter on the hall table with Piatkus's logo on it. Fearing that it was yet another rejection, I opened the letter and started reading - and suddenly everything went weird and fuzzy. It was a long letter, but Judy Piatkus made it clear in the first couple of sentences that she loved Toady and wanted to buy it. It took me a while before I was able to read on. I was so excited and overwhelmed that I literally couldn't think. Eventually I phoned Nel and read the letter to her, and she screamed in my ear - with joy, I hasten to add. Then she cycled round to my house and we jumped up and down for a while - and no, that's not a euphemism - before phoning a bunch of friends and going down the pub and getting massively pissed.

So...erm...yeah. That's what I was doing twenty years ago today.

To bring things right up to date, on Friday I was at the Bath Children's Literature Festival for the second year running. Together with Robert Shearman and Simon Messingham, I was being interviewed about writing for Doctor Who. It was a sell-out event, and massively enjoyable. Just like last year the kids were incredibly excited and enthusiastic and full of love for the programme. What made it even better was that after the event a bunch of us went out for a meal. Our party included Nicholas Briggs, the voice of the Daleks and Cybermen, and...giant fanfare...Elisabeth Sladen! For those ill-educated louts among you who don't know who Elisabeth Sladen is, she played (and still plays) arguably the Doctor's most popular companion ever, Sarah Jane Smith. I remember seeing Liz's first appearance at my grandma's house back in 1973, when I was ten, so to be sitting next to her at dinner was a huge thrill. And I'm delighted to report that she was lovely and chatty, and that even up close she still looks incredible. I confessed to her that when we were introduced earlier that evening, my instinct was to be terribly unprofessional and just give her a great big hug - whereupon she grinned and gave me a great big hug!

Sometimes this job is just brilliant.

One of the nicest things about no longer being a judge for the World Fantasy Awards is being able to read the books I want to read, and at my own pace. You don't realise what a luxury this is until you have it taken away from you.

After finishing my judgely duties I went off on holiday and took a selection of the books I'd been stockpiling for the past six months. And after gorging myself on nothing but fantasy and horror for the first half of the year, I must admit that there wasn't a single genre book among them.

Maybe it was the sheer freedom of being able to read purely for the enjoyment of it, or perhaps I simply chose well this year, but I must admit that every single book I ended up reading on holiday was superb.

I started off with David Peace's The Damned United, a fictional account of Brian Clough's ill-fated 44-day reign as manager of Leeds United back in the 70s. As a Leeds fan, I guess I had a vested interest in the novel, but David Peace is always worth reading whatever he's writing about. He has a blunt, almost brutal style and his books have a kind of raw, savage poetry to them. I'd recommend them whole-heartedly, but be warned - they're not for the squeamish or faint-hearted.

The next book I read was The Rain Before It Falls by one of my favourite authors, Jonathan Coe. I still regard Coe's What A Carve Up! as his strongest book (and one of my favourite novels of all time), but The Rain Before It Falls is nevertheless a very worthy addition to his output. It's a beautifully structured and heart-rending novel about life and loss and regret.

Next up was Death of a Murderer by another of my favourite authors, Rupert Thomson. I haven't read all of Thomson's books, but I've read enough to know what an incredibly diverse and brilliant writer he is. Death of a Murderer is about a man looking back on his life from a hospital morgue, where he's been assigned to guard the body of Moors Murderer, Myra Hindley. He does this by conversing at length with the 'ghost' of Hindley, who may or may not be a product of his imagination.

All right, it all sounds a bit near to the knuckle, I know, but it's really not. It's thoughtful and poignant, and like all the other books I've talked about - and am going to talk about - in this column, it's incredibly compelling.

However, if I had to give a prize for my favourite book of a fantastic summer's reading, it would have to go to The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. It's taken me a while to get round to this - my wife, Nel, read it two years ago - but I'm so glad I finally made the effort. It's a wonderful novel. I really can't praise it highly enough. It's incredibly emotional, and gets right to the heart of what it means to be a human being. Again, it's a novel about life and death, about mortality and loss and the passage of time and the human condition. Towards the end it actually made me cry. I had to stop reading for a while because the tears were pouring down my face. But don't let that put you off. Believe me, it's a stunning novel. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's one of the best novels I've ever read.

It needed a strong novel to follow such an amazing book, and thankfully David Mitchell provided it with Black Swan Green. I hadn't read anything by Mitchell before, and I'm told that this is his most straight-forward and accessible book. It's about a year in the life of a thirteen year-old in the early 1980s. It's about growing up and coming to terms with life, and I absolutely loved it. It's funny and wry and (that word again) poignant, and so beautifully observed that anyone growing up in or around that time can't fail to recognise a great deal of themselves in the novel.

This weekend it's the British Fantasy Convention, which has been one of my annual highlights for the past twenty years, and this year looks like being as fantastic as ever. It's always brilliant to see so many old and dear friends, none of whom I see anywhere near often enough. I'm particularly excited this year because Christopher Golden is the US Guest of Honour. Chris is a great mate and I can't wait to see him. Because we live on opposite sides of the world, we only manage to get together once every year or so. In fact, the last time I saw Chris was at the World Horror Convention in Toronto eighteen months ago, so FantasyCon this year is going to be really special.

And of course I'll be as busy as ever. I'm on three panels this year, two of which I'm moderating, and will be involved in various book launches - in the role of contributing writer - throughout the weekend. In fact, one of the panels I'm moderating will feature a couple of writers who are making their convention debuts, Joseph D'Lacey and Bill Hussey, both of whose first novels have recently been published by a relatively new horror publisher, Bloody Books.

Keeping with this column's general theme of great reading, as soon as I heard Joe & Bill were to be on one of my panels, I went out and bought copies of both of their novels. I've now read Joe's novel, Meat, and I'm delighted to report that it's one of the best horror debuts I've read in a long time. Despite its lurid cover, which I must admit led me to believe that it was going to be just another unimaginatively gory stalk & slash fest, Meat is a thoughtful and incisive comment on the horrors of factory farming and the meat processing industry. It makes its points clearly and decisively, and yet the novel never comes across as preachy or crusade-led. Indeed the story is utterly absorbing, the characters vivid and the style strong and assured. I for one will definitely be looking forward to more of Joe's work in the future, and I'm also looking forward to meeting him personally in a few days' time.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I've only just started Bill Hussey's novel, Through A Glass, Darkly, and so don't feel qualified to comment on it just yet. Fifty or so pages in, I'm enjoying it so far, though. With my old mates Tim Lebbon & Sarah Pinborough making up the quintet it should be a fun and interesting panel.

Before I go, here's the cover of one of the books being launched at FantasyCon this weekend. We Fade To Grey is an excellent anthology of novellas by some of the best new writers in the genre. It's edited by the irrepressible Gary McMahon and published by Pendragon Press. I've provided the Introduction.