London Comic Con!

My schedule for London Comic Con this weekend. Come find me and say hi!

Friday:

15:15pm – 16:00pm: Authors of Action – Best-selling authors Brian McClellan (The Gunpowder Mage series Wesley Chu (Time Salvager) and Kevin Hearne (A Plague of Giants) Jen Williams (The Copper Cat trilogy) and Heather Child (Everything about You) discuss what makes a great action scene in fiction.  Bloody violence or rated PG? How much does other media – films, television, video games – influence an author when it comes to crafting their action beats? Moderator – Alasdair Stuart

17:15pm – 18:00pm: Once More with Meaning – The great speculative fiction stories throughout the years have always held a mirror up to our society’s own turbulent history.  Just look at the works of JRR Tolkein, George RR Martin, Gene Rodenberry, or Stephen King to name a few, to see evidence of this.  MCM chats with authors Brian McClellan (The Gunpowder Mage series) Jen Williams (The Copper Cat Trilogy) Wesley Chu (Time Salvager) Lucy Hounsom (Worldmaker Trilogy) and Sam Miller (Blackfish City) to find out how they take real world concerns and stories ripped from the headlines and create engaging speculative fiction around them.

Saturday:

15:00pm – 15:45pm: To Grim or not to Grim – Grim Dark is one of the many sub-genres within fantasy fiction, having enjoyed a massive surge in popularity over the last two decades, thanks in no part to works from authors like George R.R. Martin and Joe Abercrombie.  It’s a genre that’s bold, brash and bloody, and it’s got legions of fans.  But, like any good sub-genre, it’s also got its detractors.  Join fantasy authors Brian McClellan (Powder Mage Trilogy) Scott Lynch (The Gentleman Bastard series) Jen Williams (The Copper Cat Trilogy) Lucy Hounsom (Worldmaker Trilogy) Peter Newman (The Vagrant) and Mark De Jager (Infernal) as they debut the pros and cons of “going dark”. Grim Dark, that is. Moderator: Jared Shurin

Sunday:

11:00pm – 11:30pm: Orbit Presents: Brian McClellan – CJ and the Live Stage gang sit down for a chat with award-winning fantasy author Brian McClellan (Wrath of Empire) and discuss the latest novel in his acclaimed Gunpowder Mage series. 

14:00pm – 14:45pm: World-Building Blocks – No matter whether you have dragons on every street corner, demons lurking beneath the shadows of our ordinary world, or sentient computers plotting to take over star systems, all good fantastical fiction requires strong world building.  Authors Scott Lynch (The Gentleman Bastard series) Elizabeth Bear (Ancestral Night) Liz De Jager (Blackhart Legacy) Lucy Hounsom (Worldmaker Trilogy) Brian McClellan (The Gunpowder Mage series) and Mark de Jager (Infernal). Moderator – Anne Perry