Berren: Here, look master, no one’s doing anything useful with this site at the moment – let’s crash here again for a bit.

Syannis: Can we just go home?

Berren: There was this bloke in the night market last night and he was selling all this weird stuff that looked really cool. Yeah, and next to him was this old bloke with a stack of books. Had a sign up that said something like Johnner for jug pan. Dunno what that was about.

Syannis: I think you mean Japan.

Berren: A what-pan?

Syannis: Japan. It’s a place.

Berren: Never heard of it.

Syannis: Powerful rich kingdom across the sea. Sea swallowed a a good chunk of it and then spat it out again. Lots of people died.

Berren: And who’s this Johnner?

Syannis: Genre, idiot.

Berren: Eh?

Syannis: Stuff like us. Made up stuff from places that don’t exist. Low-brow escapism if you ask some people. Stories. Bad for you, apparently, like listening to the story of some miserable old quack-intellectual merchant musing over the spiritual emptiness of his life of obsessive avarice and acquisition has any more relevance to my life. I’m talking about stories that touch upon the primordial myths we all carry inside us, our basic hopes and fears and desires stripped of contemporary complexities and concentrated to their bare essentials.

Berren:Uh?

Syannis (with a quiet sigh): With swords and dragons and fighting and stuff.

Berren: Sweet! (frowns)

Syannis: Mind you, with these bloody sword-monks busy cutting everything to bits left right and centre and with us being all out of work and skint, I dare say you can’t afford a bunch of tawdry stories about dragons and stuff.

Berren: Oh that’s all right. I’ll just go and steal s . . . er, go and do some extra work. Dragons? Did you say dragons? Are we in it?

Syannis: ‘Fraid not. Go and have a look for yourself. Visit the night market, genreforjapan.wordpress.com or click here for more. Can we go now?

Berren: Dragons! Dragons dragons! Oh, wait, and there was this bloke hanging around shouting stuff. Rijerd Little-Dick or something. Said we shouldn’t be helping foreigners.

Syannis: You mean foreigners like me?

Berren: Er . . .

Syannis: I’ve really had enough of that nob. (heading for the exit while sharpening sword) Where was he, exactly . . .?

Berren (running after): Anyway, Johnner for jug pan! I mean Genre for Japan! Cool stuff! Rare stuff! Cheap stuff!

The Genre for Japan auctions opens at 9am today (monday 28th) and will run until the following Sunday. If you’re after dragons, you can bid on a complete set of A Memory of Flames here; alternatively, if you want something read, written or can otehrwise think of something useful for me, you can bid for some of my time. Unless it’s too do software, because that counts as too humiliating. There are loads of other great books up for grabes and numerous opportunities to get yourself into various fantasy and SF novels.

For more Berren and Syannis, The Thief-taker’s Apprentice is available in paperback from 7th April