Well, if you really want to know how it was I came to be chained to an oak tree, half-way up in the middle of nowhere, with wolves trying to eat me out of it, I'll tell you. Of course, it's not nearly as interesting as what happened afterwards, but you can piece that together yourself if you go down to any of the taverns around the Praetorian barracks and listen to what the soldiers sing. If you can understand German, of course. They sing things like:

High the Allfather
Hung in the hornbeam;
Nine days and no drinking,
Nine nights and no nurture...

or:

Alfege the Earl, Odin-born,
Great in guile, wise in war...

I often go down there and listen. It never crosses their minds that it was only me all the time...Interested yet...?

You should be. That's the first couple of paragraphs from Votan, a historical novel by John James about how the crafty Greek merchant Photinus tries to buy the Baltic amber mines from dimwit natives who aren't as dim as he thinks, and ends up founding a mythological pantheon instead. As one does...

It's a tongue-in-cheek, witty first-person narrative, with little side-jokes that work even better if you know anything at all about Graeco-Roman history and/or Norse mythology. And sometimes it's surprisingly harsh, when that likeable (though not very trustworthy) chap Photinus gives a jolting reminder that his voice comes from the late first century, when life is cheaper than you think.

First published by Cassell in 1966, and found by me in Lisburn library around 1969 (officially I was too young for books from the Adult Library, but I was very persuasive when it came to "Viking stuff,") Votan was issued as a Tandem paperback in 1971 (owned it, loaned it, never got it back - I wasn't the only one in my form who was keen on Viking stuff, and Parky was bigger than me.) In 1987 Bantam brought out a unified-binding paperback "set" of this and James's two other historicals, Not for all the Gold in Ireland and Men Went To Cattraeth, which are the versions I now own. They went out of print in about 1990, and after that nothing for two decades.

Until now. Well, now-and-a-bit...

In Not for all the Gold in Ireland, Photinus tries to recover his family's Deed of Monopoly to the Wicklow goldmines, and ends up far too close to an Irishman called Setanta with a dislike for cattle-rustling... I started reading the book last night, in connection with another project entirely, and noticed it and Votan were getting a bit mangy. (Men Went To Cattraeth is almost mint; no Photinus, different style, different tone, unfamiliar mythology, not for me.) I started wondering if they were easy to replace, and idly looked up the titles earlier today.

That's when I discovered Neil Gaiman is bringing Votan back into print as Volume 2 of the Neil Gaiman Presents series from Dark Horse. (Thanks, Neil! Now, what about The Long Ships?))

Comixology give a publication date of 8 July 2009, while Amazon.co.uk claims 1 August, 2009; however, the absence of any actual book to buy, and the beginning-of-this-month post on Babylon Wales suggests that it'll be available sometime early this year instead. Second-hand (hardback) copies can be found in various places for various prices, from as low as $20.00 to as high as $350.00(!) but with the new edition listed at $13.00, nothing more need be said.

Here's Jo Walton's review, from the Tor Books website. My own review would be kinder, because I don't object to the humour as much as she does, but she hits all the main points.

When it comes out, get it and read it; I think you'll like it. I certainly do, and have done, for more than forty years...

BBC4, a couple of years back, broadcast Who Killed Mrs De Ropp? a dramatization of three of Saki's delicately vicious Edwardian short stories, The Storyteller, The Lumber-Room and, of course, Sredni Vashtar.

I hunted them down on the Net, not difficult since they're all PD, and saved them as a .DOC file which I've just finished re-reading. Well, not quite "just." The re-reading was ten minutes ago, because as usual after finishing Sredni Vashtar with its final line ...Conradin made himself another piece of toast... I ended up in the kitchen, feeding slices of Stafford's Crusty Farmhouse White into the Dualit and then, buttered with much butter, into me.

Since it happens nearly every time, I wondered: has anyone else this sort of automatic response to improbable stimuli?

Not smell, that's too easy unless the scent of coffee makes you want cornflakes (not so improbable at breakfast, but after dinner rather more so) and even sound, especially something frying, can have a Pied Piper effect. However, being enticed to eat toast by the last sentence of a story almost a century old is a bit odd because – as you'll discover if you haven't read it before - Sredni Vashtar is mostly about matters more macabre than that.

That word is "alive." Apparently.

I just discovered this on my website (yes, just... I really must start paying more attention to it, he said, not for the first time.) Submitted by nickdiment on October 21, 2009 - 09:25.

Dear Mr Wormwood

I was interested to see your comments concerning my brother, Adam, on the link from Wikipedia which are, to be honest, verging on the libelous. Not that he would give a damn.

Adam was never in trouble with the Treasury. This is an accusation whipped up, we can only imagine, by the only person who might stand to gain in the unlikely event of McAlpine ever coming to the screen.

Succumbed to drugs! Really, why do you make this sort of guff up? Adam is well and lives in Kent.

Personally I think his books are crap and have not stood the test of time at all well. But then I'm not a author so what would I know?

Sincerely - Nicholas DimentThat's an interesting misspelling of my surname: shades of The Screwtape Letters and The Eiger Sanction, though not a major character in either.

The comment refers to my post last year (indeed linked on the Adam Diment Wikipedia page,) posted about a week before this follow-up.

Tonight I've taken another look at the entry on Another Nickel in the Machine; there are more comments since the last time, one that he's living in the Far East (which contradicts "Nicholas Diment", though Kent does get several mentions, so which of these authorities on Diment's whereabouts is the right one?) and a couple referring to marriage and children.

Getting away from the personal stuff to a topic I find more interesting, there are also suggestions about how to bring the books back through Print On Demand. This would be just the ticket, if the rights can get sorted out, because a lot of people besides myself seem to think they're not crap at all: here's one who not only enjoys them, but explains why. If PoD does happen, I'll definitely buy a set: my paperbacks are now better described as tatterbacks, and books don't get that way by being ignored.

That word is "alive."

I just discovered this on my website (yes, just... I really must start paying more attention to it, he said, not for the first time.) Submitted by nickdiment on October 21, 2009 - 09:25.

Dear Mr Wormwood

I was interested to see your comments concerning my brother, Adam, on the link from Wikipedia which are, to be honest, verging on the libelous. Not that he would give a damn.

Adam was never in trouble with the Treasury. This is an accusation whipped up, we can only imagine, by the only person who might stand to gain in the unlikely event of McAlpine ever coming to the screen.

Succumbed to drugs! Really, why do you make this sort of guff up? Adam is well and lives in Kent.

Personally I think his books are crap and have not stood the test of time at all well. But then I'm not a author so what would I know?

Sincerely - Nicholas DimentThat's an interesting misspelling of my surname: shades of The Screwtape Letters and The Eiger Sanction, though not a major character in either.

The comment refers to my post last year (indeed linked on the Adam Diment Wikipedia page) but was evidently posted about a week before I wrote a follow-up.

This evening I've taken another look at the entry on Another Nickel in the Machine; there are more comments since the last time, one that he's living in the Far East (which contradicts "Nicholas Diment", though Kent does get several mentions), a couple referring to marriage and children, and - getting away from the personal stuff into something I find more interesting - suggestions about how to bring the books back through PoD.

This IMO would be just the ticket, if the rights can get sorted out, because a lot of people besides myself seem to think they're not crap at all: here's one who not only enjoys them, but explains why. If PoD does happen, I'll definitely buy a set: my paperbacks are now better described as tatterbacks, and books don't get that way by being ignored.

...The Irish one this time, and just as good in its own way as the USDWCon at the beginning of September. One was big, the other was small; one was far away, the other was relatively speaking in our own back yard, one was hot and dry, the other was intermittently but impressively - Hollywood special effects impressively - wet.

And then the sun would come out :-)

D and I had a great time - including one especial benefit, being able to sit and speak to Terry for the first time in too long. We didn't have any opportunity to chat with him at all during the Tempe convention, so really enjoyed being able to just talk: about knightly things like spurs (we gave him a pair, since HM didn't) and swords (he's making one, since HM overlooked that, too) and the leverage being a Sir can give against the more annoyingly petty bureaucracies; about writery things like DragonDictate, which can now be trained to recognise the vocabulary of a complete backlist; and about stuff we weren't allowed to mention till the banquet - the Scottish BAFTA award for Living With Alzheimer's. I'm happy the documentary won, but at the same time I wish it had never needed made.

We had the chance for a natter with Jack Cohen and Bernard Pearson as well. Jack is as wise as ever, and added some interesting comments to our impromptu, five-minutes-warning Folklore panel (the original panellist didn't show) that gave people second thoughts about having furry slippers in their bedrooms, never mind on their feet. Bernard is his usual ebullient self - has anyone ever thought of bottling that man's laugh as an anti-depressant? If an audible dictionary needs to define guffaw, that's what to use.

Much beer was consumed over the weekend (of course) and I'm not the only one to think that Sir T. Pratchett, all in black with a white beard, looked very well matched by the pint of Guinness in his hand. He also seemed very at ease, so much so that he decided to extend his stay at the hotel. And There Was Much Rejoicing.

We weren't the only ones who got plenty of Terry-time beyond the programme items (where there were a few moved or cancelled events, but nothing earthshaking that a glance at the Voodoo Board couldn't fix.) The Falls Hotel and the convention numbers were both cosy enough that he was able to sit in one place and let the con come to him - which it did, with great enthusiasm. As he said at the closing ceremony, IDWCon gave him fond recollections of other early conventions, and he even used the word "relaxacon."

Though fortunately not the word "custard." :-D