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May 8th 2010
Guests
Our guests confirmed so far* are
(in alphabetical order):
Stephen Deas
has been writing, acting and living in stories for as long as he can remember. He has dabbled with both science fiction and fantasy, but it was with the latter that he achieved a modicum of success with The Adamantine Palace, published by Gollancz in 2009. The sequel, King of the Crags, is due in April 2010. When not writing, Stephen dabbles with physics and engineering, and is a STEM ambassador, going into schools and convincing kids that maths and science are cool.
www.stephendeas.com
Jenni Hill
is the Junior Editor for Solaris Books and Abaddon Books. She lives with her boyfriend in London and works in Oxford. After her English degree at Oxford University she worked for Forbidden Planet, did work experience at 2000 AD and edited financial documents for an American company called Morningstar (don’t worry, no references to signing away her soul to Lucifer in the contract!) before coming to Solaris last summer. She’s relatively new to the SF & F publishing business, and will be speaking on a panel with some debut authors about what it’s like being a debut editor. Her favourite writers are Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman and Joss Whedon.
Ben Jeapes
watched far too much Dr Who at an early age and started writing science fiction at the age of 18 in the mistaken belief that it would be quite easy (it isn't). As well as 18 short stories he is also the author of His Majesty's Starship (1998), The Xenocide Mission (2002), The New World Order (2004) and Time’s Chariot (2008), plus numerous items of ghostwriting that annoyingly earn more than his own stuff.
www.benjeapes.com
David Moore
is an Australian émigré and life-long geek, who cut his teeth on Asimov and Tolkien and never looked back. He came to England for the weather - this is actually true - and was indefinitely delayed by his beautiful and talented wife, Tamsin. David has been sporadically published over the years, mostly in fairly specialised internet 'zines (including $5 for a 14-word poem on a Twitter 'zine; at 36 cents-per-word, the hightest rate of pay he's ever received for writing), and currently works as an editor for Abaddon Books and Solaris Books, Rebellion's twin genre imprints. He lives in Reading.
Solaris Books
Geoff Ryman
is a Canadian living in London. His 8 novels and many short stories have won multiple awards. Air (Gollancz 1985) won the Canadian Sunburst Award, the Arthur C Clarke Award, the BSFA Award and the James W Tiptree Award. His mainstream fiction includes Was, an historical view of the American West viewed through the prism of the Wizard of Oz and 253, one of the earliest Web hypertext fictions. In print form, this novel about 253 people on a London Underground train is his best-selling novel, winning the Philip K Dick Award. The King’s Last Song (HarperCollins 2006) was inspired by a visit in 2001 to an archaeological dig at Angkor Wat and he is a frequent visitor to Cambodia. His most recent book When It Changed is an anthology of commissioned collaborations of SF writers and scientists. He also teaches Creative Writing at the University of Manchester.
Mike Shevdon
is a technologist by profession, the closest job to 'sorcerer' he could find. He arranges for one group of people to press buttons on behalf of a second group according to arcane rituals and complex formulae. Often the wrong buttons are pressed, requiring a technologist. Mike has staved off any mid-life crisis by writing a novel, thinking this should prove cheaper than a sports car. That’s still undecided but he's written a second book regardless. His debut novel, Sixty-One Nails, introduces Niall, a man saved from a heart attack on the London Underground by an old lady who tells him he's not completely human. It encompasses an ancient historical event, the Quit Rents Ceremony, involving arcane rituals and complex...no really, it does. Published in autumn 2009, Sixty-One Nails has received many complimentary reviews, much to Mike's relief. The Road to Bedlam follows in summer 2010.
shevdon.com
Ian Watson
did the Screen Story for Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence
as well as quite a lot of SF novels and story collections, most recently a volume of demented tales, The Beloved of My Beloved (2009), in collaboration with Italian Surrealist Robert Quaglia, probably the only full-length genre fiction by two authors with different mother tongues. Also he writes SF poetry. He lives in a little village in Northamptonshire.
* Guests' appearances are subject to the usual considerations of work, domestic and other issues forcing a last-minute cancellation.
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