{"id":63,"date":"2010-05-17T16:44:26","date_gmt":"2010-05-17T15:44:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/?p=63"},"modified":"2010-05-17T17:57:17","modified_gmt":"2010-05-17T16:57:17","slug":"trapped-by-monsters-live-in-lincoln-2010-a-survivors-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/?p=63","title":{"rendered":"Trapped By Monsters Live in Lincoln 2010: A Survivor’s Tale"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ali Sparkes<\/a>, Mark Robson<\/a>, Tommy Donbavand<\/a> <\/strong>and I <\/strong>have returned from our show at the Lincoln Book Festival<\/a><\/strong>. One of us returned inside a monster. <\/strong>But all of us<\/strong> will bear the psychological scars<\/strong> of what transpired\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

After an opening section in which the monsters allowed each of us thirty seconds to plead pathetically not to be eaten, we were hurled straight into a Word By Word Story Round<\/strong>. Two kind young volunteers from the audience did their best to keep our choices out of the gutter, but in vain: I think this pic below captures the exact moment I shouted the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153UDDERS<\/strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A cavalcade of humiliations followed. Mark<\/strong> made us fart<\/strong>. Ali<\/strong> made us run like girls<\/strong>. Tommy<\/strong> made us race to turn three more unlucky audience volunteers into mummies<\/strong> using special toilet paper<\/strong> that (as he gleefully explained) had \u00e2\u20ac\u02dconly been used once.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 For my round, we recreated the mind-controlling spider-like parasites from Crawlers<\/strong> using rubber gloves attached to sausage balloons stuffed down the backs of our shirts\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I invited the audience to take on the role of the Queen in the book, giving commands to her hapless victims that we poor authors had no choice but to obey<\/strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Of course they were absolutely merciless<\/strong>. I think this (below) is us all obeying the order to \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcroll on the floor like babies.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

After a Q&A section<\/strong> in which we attempted to regain whatever limited authorial dignity<\/strong> we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d possessed at the start of the show, it was time for our closing statements<\/strong> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a last chance to beg for our lives before the audience was given the opportunity to vote for whoever they thought should receive the dreaded condiment of doom<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It was at this point that the drama of our predicament became too much for Ali<\/strong>, who \u00e2\u20ac\u201c for reasons that remain unclear \u00e2\u20ac\u201c suddenly burst into a spontaneous rendition of Whitney Houston\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI Will Always Love You.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 This was clearly a step too far for our audience, and \u00e2\u20ac\u201c still claiming desperately that her Blue Peter Badge<\/strong> might scratch the monster\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s delicate intestinal passages \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Ali <\/strong>was dragged from the stage by our monster jailer Simon<\/strong> to begin her, ahem, Alimentary Adventure<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Maybe I was just relieved not to be sharing Ali<\/strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fate, but the rest of the gig really was a lot of fun. Our listeners bought loads of our books\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6and we even got the chance to judge the fabulous entries of a monster drawing competition<\/strong>. Here are our three favourites (check out the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfloating eyebrows\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 on the right-!)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A MONSTER THANK YOU <\/strong>to Andy and Julie and everyone we met and spoke to. You know what? Considering that we suffered an ordeal of psychological torment<\/strong> that ended in one of us being eaten alive<\/strong>, we really did have a surprisingly brilliant time<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Poor Ali<\/strong>. Best of luck in there. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be waiting with high-pressure hoses and emergency fudge whenever you emerge. ;D<\/p>\n

Sam<\/p>\n

PS: William Hussey<\/strong>, author of the excellent Witchfinder: Dawn of the Demontide<\/strong>, witnessed the whole thing. For an alternative view of how the afternoon went, check out his brilliant new blog<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ali Sparkes, Mark Robson, Tommy Donbavand and I have returned from our show at the Lincoln Book Festival. One of us returned inside a monster. But all of us will bear the psychological scars of what transpired\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 After an opening section in which the monsters allowed each of us thirty seconds to plead pathetically not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theycrawl.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}