Stuart Aken: Dave Hughes

Sunday, 10 August 2014

A Scary New Experience?

Dalek (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How do you feel about new experiences? Scared? Excited? Curious? Eager? All or none of these?

On Saturday, less than a week away, I’ll be attending a convention for the first time. And not simply attending, but participating; signing books, answering questions and taking part in a live forum with other authors, LindaAcaster and J S Collyer. All new stuff for me.

Fantasticon, organised and run by my publisher, Fantastic Books Publishing, is a great event that takes place in Hull on 16^th August. A country boy at heart, I rarely visit the city of my birth, but this Saturday I’ll drive the 25 miles with eager anticipation. There is much going on:

Gamer? Elite Encounters’ Dave Hughes will be on hand. And there’ll be RPG and retro gaming. Oculus Rift mean anything to you? I’m in ignorance, at the moment, but I’m sure I’ll discover all about this on the day.

Dr Who fan? – John Leven and Simon Fisher-Becker will be giving a chat and answering questions. And there’ll be a Dalek (make sure you bring your sofa to hide behind!)

SciFi your thing? - New novels associated with the Elite game will be available, with writers there to sign them, and an audiobook exclusive with Christopher Jarvis.

Fantasy fan? Chat with alternative history/paranormal author Linda Acaster, who’ll be there with her books. J S Collyer will join the fantasy discussion and I’ll be there to chat and sign my own books in the A Seared Sky series – we’re launching book 2, Partings, at the convention, too.

There’ll be Cosplay, so plenty of fun outfits on display. Independent films, author and actor signings, music, R2D2 from Star Wars along with a speeder bike, a green screen for some super photo effects, comic books, and free soft drinks and biscuits and a raffle with some very unusual prizes.

What more could you want?

Now, of course, lots of you won’t make it to Hull. But there’ll be a Twitter #tag session during the evening, just search for #SciFiHour from 21:00 BST and you can join in. Also, there’ll be information and opportunities to interact on the Facebook site and various blogs after the event.

I’ll try to keep you all up to date with happenings before and after the day so you can enjoy some of the benefits of this fantastic day.

For those who can make it; see you there!

Tuesday, 5 August 2014

A Fantastic Convention: FantastiCon.

As many of you know, I'm involved with the fantastic convention, FantastiCon, to be held in Hull, England, on 16th August. I'll be there, signing books. But, rather than repeat information, I thought I'd just copy the newsletter sent out by the organiser, my publisher, Fantastic Books Publishing. Even if you can't attend (and it's definitely worth the effort for those who can make it) there are aspects of the day that will interest you.

Excellent news this week as the inaugural FantastiCon spools up for launch and all 5 books are at the printers. The spine art lines up to create an image of the iconic Cobra Mk3 spacecraft heading for a space station. The header to this newsletter shows how. If you would like to see the full covers, please head over to Orion Arm News, for all your Fantastic Elite Fiction news!

In only 10 days we will be welcoming delegates from all over the world to the very first FantastiCon and we are all really excited at the prospect. So many people have come together to help and the current programme is looking rammed full of exciting and Fantastic things to do on the day.
Below is the current programme for FantastiCon;

10am - Doors open to Golden Ticket holders
11am - Welcome to FantastiCon 'We made it and you guys are the reason why'
12pm - Elite Encounters with Dave Hughes
1pm - Welcome by Commander Dan to standard ticket holders
2pm - Elite author chat, Q&A and book readings.
4pm - Dr Who chat with Simon Fisher-Becker and John Levene, Q&A.
5pm - John Levene Sergeant Benton memorabilia auction
6pm - Elite audiobook exclusive play with Christopher Jarvis
8pm - Stuart Aken, J.S.Collyer and Linda Acaster author chat and readings.
9pm - Take part in the very first #SciFiHour live on Twitter from the event and meet the Vampire Wars cast - performance, chat, Q&A
10pm - Fantastic Awards Ceremony followed by charity raffle prize draw
MIDNIGHT - And now, the end is near...

As well as everything above, there will be some amazing things going on throughout the day including cosplay fun (those guys always have fun), RPG Gaming, Retro gaming, Music, Oculus Rift action, Independent films, author and actor signings, loads of sellers of shiny comicbook/cosplay/Elite merchandise, green screen photography, a Star Wars speeder bike, R2D2, free soft drinks and biscuits and even a Dalek too!

Lots and lots of projects are incoming but for the next two weeks our focus will be on this awesome event so I hope you'll all join in online (we plan to have live camera feeds to the event), on Twitter (with the very first #SciFiHour) and on our other social media channels and help us make this a Fantastic day for everyone.

Here's the floor plan of FantastiCon, created by our very own Darren Grey. Thanks Darren, we especially love the 'Hyperspace Entry Point'!

Books, audiobooks, trailers and now international events. You guys have no idea how Fantastically fun this has become! Thank you for your continuing encouragement as we continue to change the world of publishing, one Fantastic book at a time!

Just imagine,

Daniel and Gabi Grubb

Amongst other things, I'll be launching book 2 of my epic fantasy series 'A Seared Sky'. Book 1, 'Joinings' was released on 30th March. 'Partings' will appear from this date. More on that later, however.

Once more, my apologies for my recent absence from these pages: we're selling our house and this has involved a good deal of work, time and effort.