RED FLAG

A quick update: the organizers of the First Contact Day 2016 convention in Telford I was scheduled to attend with fellow Star Trek writers Una McCormack and Larry Nemecek have announced that the event has been postponed - more details are here at the FCD website.

I'm sorry to hear this - Una and I had a great time at last year's First Contact Day - and I hope the FCD team can return for another event in the future.

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Welcome to February; hopefully this month will have less blood on its hands, but it is kicking off with a bang (or more accurately, a dakka) as the Horus Heresy Weekender 2016 event happens up in Nottingham at the Belfry hotel on Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th February.

In what has now become something of an annual pre-Christmas tradition, Siobhán Thomas of the London South Bank University - she's Senior Lecturer and Course Director of the BA (Hons) Game Cultures course there - has wrangled together myself and a group of games writers to talk about what it is we do.

Under the banner of the LSBU and in association with the International Games Developers Association London and The Writer's Guild of Great Britain, I'll be joining a bunch of industry veterans to talk about this year's theme of combining narrative with gameplay; here's the event blurb...

Playing the Story – how to marry gameplay with narrative without divorcing the player.

With narrative-driven and narrative-heavy games getting 9/10 and 10/10 reviews, has the era of story in games arrived, or is plot still ‘gameplay’s bitch’?

Join Rhianna (Tomb Raider) Pratchett, James (Deus Ex) Swallow, Andrew (Fable: Legends) Walsh, Ed (Brink) Stern and Tom (Subnautica) Jubert for a panel on the tricks, traps and travails of making stories work in games. After the event we’ll be heading over to The Albert Arms pub for further chat and networking.

The panel will take place at the Keyworth Centre, London South Bank University on Wednesday, December 9th from 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM. Tickets are free but limited in number; to register for one, click Here.

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Ah, Bromley; you might not think it, but this leafy London suburb has always a dash of science fiction running through its streets. HG Wells spent a troubled childhood there before going on to write The Time Machine and War of the Worlds. Ziggy Stardust himself, David Bowie, lived there in the 50's. And if you want to stretch the definition, even children's author and local lass Enid Blyton flirted with SF concepts in some of her novels.

So it's kinda cool that this Saturday, a couple of time machines (specifically a TARDIS and the one from the 1960's movie of the same name) will be materializing there, along with me and a bunch of other folks for the inaugural SCI FI Bromley show; there's also a concert planned for the evening, where the Lewisham Concert Band will play a set of famous SF themes.

The event runs from 11:00am to 6:00pm at the Great Hall in the Bromley Civic Centre.

As well as a display of props, sales stands and cosplay stuff going on, I'll be there signing books and taking part in Q&A panels with fellow authors Graham Guy and Graham Austin-King at 12:15pm and 3:15pm.

Also appearing at the show are Jami Reid-Quarrell from Doctor Who and Star Wars alumni Nick Joseph, Ted Western, Alan Flyng, Barrie Holland, Laurie Goode, Brian Muir and Stephanie English.

Entry to the show is free and tickets for the concert are £18, with proceeds going to charities Connect and the The National Brain Appeal.

For more information about the event, check out the website Here.


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Just a quick reminder that the Nine Worlds Geekfest event is taking place this weekend from the 7th-9th August, at the Radisson Blu Edwardian hotel across from London's Heathrow airport, and I'll be along there on Saturday 8th to talk about Star Trek, tie-in fiction and more...

You can find out more about the event by visiting the website Here.

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So the delightful folks over at the Nine Worlds Geekfest event have been kind enough to invite me along to their convention this year, which is being held over the weekend of the 7th-9th August, at the Radisson Blu Edwardian hotel across from London's Heathrow airport.

As they describe it, "It’s about gaming, film, cosplay, fandom, literature, science, geek culture, meeting people and having a really big party" and you can find out more about the event by visiting the website Here.

I'll be along to talk about stuff - currently I'm on the dedicated Star Trek track but there may be more of me depending on how things shake out - and joining me will be a whole bunch of other interesting people, including my fellow Trek novelist Una McCormack and top gaming chap James Wallis. The current guest line-up is listed Here.

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A couple of weekends ago, I got to round out my merry month of May with three days of relaxing nerdery at the UK Games Expo convention in Birmingham, a massive board gaming event packed with interesting folks, cool games and lots of to indulge my cardboard and dice habit...

While I was there, Steven Hesse of the ace Geek Apocalypse podcast/YouTube/Twitch channel sat down with me at my signing table for a chat to talk about such things as my love of games, how I got my start as a writer and the challenges of writing in a shared universe. You can find me Here on Episode 80 (from the 26.17 mark), or also via iTunes if you'd like to subscribe to Steven's show.

This episode also features a whole bunch of other folks, including Librium Games, Dice Sports, The Next Great American Board Game, Andrew Harmen of Frankenstein's Bodies, Chris Birch of Modiphius, Dave Cousins of North And South Games and Rob Burnham, editor of the new Tabletop Magazine.

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After I had such a great time there this year, it wasn't a a hard choice for me to say yes to an invite to 2016's First Contact Day event; a Star Trek and Sci-Fi TV convention taking place in Leicester over the weekend of 1st-3rd April, FCD 2016 already has Star Trek Voyager's Garret Wang, Babylon 5's Claudia Christian and Patrica Tallman and Trek experts Larry Nemecek and Doug Drexler on the guest list, and I'll be joining them along with my fellow Star Trek writer Una McCormack.

For more information about the event, check out the official site Here.

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It's the UK Games Expo event in Birmingham this weekend, the largest convention of its kind in the country, and I'm going to be along as a guest, as well as giving my dice a workout...