Fantasy novelist dies after heart operation

Best-selling fantasy novelist David Gemmell has died, his publishers have said.

He was 57.

He underwent quadruple heart bypass surgery a fortnight ago and appeared to be making a good recovery before his death this morning.

Gemmell wrote 30 novels, starting in 1984 with Legend, a tale of a fortress under siege which has become an heroic fantasy classic and is still in print.

Born in west London in 1948, he was expelled from school for gambling in 1965 and worked as a labourer, driver`s assistant and nightclub bouncer before becoming a journalist and newspaper editor.

In a statement Transworld said: "For many years, David has been acknowledged as a master storyteller, one of the best-known and most highly regarded writers in his field.

"His themes of heroic adventure, leadership, personal heroism and the possibility of redemption for every one of us ring as true today as they did when he first published the novel that was to become a classic of heroic fantasy, Legend."

His most recent books were two historical novels about the siege of Troy, Lord of the Silver Bow and Shield of Thunder.

Larry Finlay, managing director of Transworld, said: "David was writing at the peak of his powers.

"He was a true pleasure to work with. We will sorely miss him, as will his thousands of devoted fans around the world.

"Our thoughts are with his wife Stella and his two children."


Bugger. :(

Damn, just noticed that I haven't even updated Alex's fight result. Sorry Alex.

The result was exactly as we expected.
Alex wins R1: 1.30 tap out to punches from mount.
To view the fight check this page >>

Alex's opponent was a reputable Kickboxer with over 20 fights but very little ground game.

Well done Alex on getting another step closer to you dream. There are several other fighters that Alex is looking at in the near future and hopefully they can prove a little more of a test for Alex.

Well done.

Today we rolled and then spent some time working on how to escape sidecontrol when your opponent has you crushed down and flat on your back. Specifically we addressed the first step, which is to get yourself into the right position so that u can star to work and create space, we repped this out and then rolled some more with the focus on escaping that above situation. We also pent sometime working pillow defence and getting our hooks into play sot hat we can go on
the attack again.