Of Books & Little Lead Monsters - And Not Getting Hit In The Puss With A Flanged Mace By Mary Gentle, 30 Years Ago

 Well, it's the last day of the week and indeed the month, and one I shall be pleased to wave off into the sunset.

The building work has ground to a halt unexpectedly and thus we have no rooms in the downstairs part of the house, including the games room outside, untouched by the mess.

My builders are good, but I do sometimes question their methodology - particularly when it scuppers my gaming plans and desire to entertain a group of friends here at the Dark Tower...

Last night, apropos of resupplying the wagon train, I was leaving Sainsbury's  when I noticed a massive pile of 80s fantasy and sci-fi books on the charity book table, all stores seem to have these days.

I grabbed a full set of Hugh Cook's 'Age of Darkness' and David Eddings' 'Malloreon' in 80s jackets - as is right and proper.


As I was moving them out of Dust Central this morning, I happened across one of several copies of Mary Gentle's 'Golden Witchbreed' which to me is one of the best books of the 80s in the sci-fi genre. If you haven't read it, do so. I have never read a book which is so immersive but at the same time able to clearly convey the sense of being on a totally alien world.

As you can see, my original copy has taken some hammer, but I was at Salute in '94 and noticed a lady with the Fight School who were demonstrating how to hit people at the show - very useful in the Kensington Town Hall era - bearing the name tag 'Mary Gentle'. So I walked up and asked politely 'Are you Mary Gentle the author or Mary Gentle who hit's people?'

Being assured of the former, I whipped out my copy which I had stuck in my bag for the purposes of passing a night on National Express, with the usual 'salon' of drunk students and members of the Jesus Army, and politely asked if she would autograph it for me.

She said no, she wouldn't and hit me with a flanged mace (oh, how so many dream of that )

Of course, she didn't do that and obligingly signed my book:

 

I have been making my penultimate painting list for the fantasy project and give or take a coupe of hundred models it's as follows:

 222 Chronicle Orcs  

10 Citadel Wyvern Riders 

 5 Citadel Dark Elf War Eagle Riders 

240 Chronicle Hobgoblins 

180  Dark Elf Foot 

48 Dark Elf Cold One Riders

90  Red Orc Wolf Riders 

60 Giant Wolves

160 Red Orc Foot 

15 Ogres 

12 Assorted infantry (Dark Elf Wizards etc)

Dark Elf Wizard on Cold One 


The cost of amassing that lot was eye-watering, let me tell you... But it means my retirement plan is a lot closer to completion.

Beyond that, I have about 100 Chaos warriors and the same number of Gargoyles to get painted, having spent a King's ransom on getting the last 11 Gargoyles I needed.

I have about 200 or so Lizardmen and Dragonewts which I plan to paint myself, and then that's it - mission accomplished.

At Partizan you may recall, we saw the WoFun plexiglass stuff. It looks excellent and in 18mm is almost as good as traditional figures. I would say that properly based, it's every bit as good a product. To this end, we have plans for large armies of the stuff in late 2024 through 2025. 


The above pic is from the WoFun collector's group on Social Media. Inspiring stuff!

Well, the working day beckons, so if you will excuse me, I better go and crack on at the coal face of creativity for 9 hours.


TTFN



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