Alex Bell - fantasy author

This is a rather short-notice announcement of the spectacular signing extravaganza that will be taking place in Forbidden Planet on Shaftesbury Avenue, London, next Thursday (22nd Jan) from 5-7pm. There will be a positive abundance of literary talent on hand, as can be seen from the list of confirmed guests below:

• Joe Abercrombie
• Alex Bell
• Mark Chadbourn
• David Devereux
• Jaine Fenn
• Jon Courtenay Grimwood
• Tom Lloyd
• Suzanne McLeod
• Steven Savile
• James Swallow

So if you’re an aspiring writer then you should probably turn up (even if you don’t want to buy any books) so that you can absorb our combined genius, osmosis style. It really works, y’know, absolutely guaranteed* . . .

We will all be available to sign books, talk knowledgeably about any subject you care to name (as long as it’s science fiction), and look generally inspiring and impressive (as long as you’re inspired and impressed by a bunch of geeks).

Because this website is still so brand spanking new I wasn’t able to announce this exciting, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity until now, barely a week before the big event itself. This will therefore be my excuse if those other nine authors I have mentioned sell every single volume by the end of the evening whilst I remain trapped behind a towering pile of my own books so extraordinarily high that you can’t actually see me cringing behind them.

* Disclaimer. (Not a legally binding guarantee - nor should it be taken as such, relied upon to any extent or passed on to third parties. Heretofore there is no empirical evidence whatsoever for the Osmosis Theory and it is not intended in any way, shape or manner to be the foundation of any decision that any third party may make to their own - or another’s - detriment on the basis of reasonable reliance and/or specialist knowledge. In other words, Alex Bell sometimes talks the most outrageous and blatant nonsense - she studied law for a very long time.)

Well, here it is: my very first post for my very first blog.

First of all - and as a matter of prime importance - I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not this man:

This is the estimable Alexander Graham Bell. I, on the other hand, am Alexandra Rebecca Bell - and I have heard all of the jokes, people - believe me, all of them. I did not invent the telephone, and what’s more I am not, in fact, a bloke. If you’re looking for the telephone guy then I’m sorry to say you’re in the wrong place. I am a writer of (extremely entertaining) books but I’ve never yet invented anything (unless you count this potato bake thing I cook sometimes).

Now that that’s all sorted out - welcome to my blog. Indeed, welcome to my shiny new website. Feel free to marvel at just how beautiful and sophisticated and slick it is. If I’d known the site was going to be so pretty, I would have become a published author much sooner . . .

Be prepared to be dazzled, amazed and over-awed by all the wonderful things here. But, most of all, expect to be simply astonished by my narcisissm (see what I did there? Impressive-sounding word in the very first post - and correctly spelled too), because I expect this blog will mostly be Rants. Rants about stuff I love and stuff I hate and all the stuff in between. There is, after all, a great big world just crammed full of stuff out there.

On a side note, I’m completely and unashamedly obsessed with my little Siamese cat but I will try very hard not to blog about Suki more than once every hour as, apparently, not everyone finds her the everlasting source of amusement that I do. But Suki aside, there’s plenty of other things that I sometimes get the overpowering urge to just waffle on about. And whilst I’m not above explaining the highs and lows of Hogan’s Heroes to my three cats (not that there really are any lows with that show), just think how much more fun I can have putting it on the web where the odd real life, actual, biological, flesh-and-blood, human, homo sapien person might actually read it . . .

But I will still always talk (and occasionally sing) to my cats.

So now you know: I am opinionated and I am eccentric. Normal people - please approach my blog with extreme caution.

Hello good evening and welcome… gather round, folks, gather round and witness the wonder of this new website for the lovely and talented Ms Alex Bell, author extraordinaire!

In times to come (very soon, I expect) Ms Bell will be adding things of interest for you to read, but it is one of the few privileges of the humble web-developer to be the first to post something on a brand new site. I promise what follows from Alex will be far more interesting, erudite and poetic.