This coming weekend, Angry Robot authors and Overlords will be strutting their funky stuff (Oh, no!) to the musical stylings of Mr Craig Charles as well as lounging in various bars and appearing on panels and signing books – you know the drill.

Authors appearing:
Dan Abnett, Adam Christopher, Anne Lyle, Andy Remic, David Tallerman, Lavie Tidhar, Guy Haley and Ian Whates

And the Angry Robot office crew:
Marc Gascoigne, Lee Harris, Darren Turpin, and Amanda Rutter

These are the various panels/signings we’ll be taking part in (Angry Robots are listed in bold):

FRIDAY

12.00pm – The Bar is Open

3.00pm – Elf Preservation
Gav Thorpe, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Graham McNeill, Juliet McKenna and Joe Abercrombie ponder if it’s really fantasy if it doesn’t have magic and monsters. Jared Shurin hosts.

3.00pm – Signing: Dan Abnett and Adam Christopher

4.00pm – Using History
Adam Christopher, Paul Cornell, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Pat Kelleher and Maria Dahvana Headley talk about how the past can help your fiction. Hosted by Sandy Auden.

5.00pm – How do you put the Punk into Steampunk?
Lavie Tidhar, Stephen Hunt and Robert Rankin talk to Jonathan Green.

5.00pm – Signing: Guy Haley and Gav Thorpe

6.00pm – How to get Published
Anne Lyle, Anne Clarke and others. Guy Haley hosts the discussion.

6.00pm – Signing: Andy Remic and Lavie Tidhar

SATURDAY

12.00pm – Space Opera
Dan Abnett, Peter F Hamilton, Jaine Fenn, Michael Cobley and Aaron Dembski-Bowden ask if books are the only medium flying the flag for spaceships. Alastair Reynolds hosts.

1.00pm – Ready, Steady, Flash!
Lee Harris challenges Paul Cornell, Stacia Kane, Tony Lee and Juliet E McKenna to write short stories in just five minutes.

4.00pm – It’s not a Story – It’s a Map!
David Tallerman, Ian Whates, China Miéville and Gaie Sebold wonder: does fantasy place world-building over character? Juliet E McKenna hosts.

5.00pm – Signing: David Tallerman and Ian Whates

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*Disclaimer: Applicable only to people near Prestatyn, Wales.

Adam reads from Empire State at the UK launch

The launch for Adam’s Empire State at Forbidden Planet on Thursday last week was a great success. We’re still waiting for the firm numbers to come in, but FP have told us that it is one of the most successful launch/signings they have ever held there.

Which is nice.

A good time was had by all, and after reading a tantalising excerpt from the novel, Adam was kept extremely busy by the long queue of eager readers.

And if you missed the news at the weekend, the Financial Times said this of Empire State:

Suffused with a love for noir fiction and the golden age of American comic books, Christopher’s Empire State is something of a tour de force. If, somehow, Raymond Chandler and Philip K Dick had collaborated on a Superman story, they might well have produced this novel.

Congratulations to Adam on a fine launch, and our thanks go to Danie and the team at Forbidden Planet for making it all happen.

New Yorkers – don’t forget Adam’s signing at the Mid-Manhattan Library tomorrow evening from 6.30-7.30pm. (Details here, or click the image to the right).

Empire State is out now in paperback and eBook formats. Order a copy from your favourite indie, chain or online retailer.

Adam will be signing and reading from the novel, and it’s a great chance to meet him and get hold of a copy of one of the most exciting debuts of the year from one of the most exciting debut novelists of the year.

For all you UK peeps:
A reading/signing at Forbidden Planet Megastore, Shaftesbury Avenue, London.
This Thursday (5th January) from 6.00pm-7.00pm.
Details here.

For New Yorkers:
A reading/signing at the Mid-Manhattan Library
Tuesday January 10th, from 6.30pm-7.30pm.
Details here.

“Adam Christopher’s debut novel is a noir, Philip K Dick-ish science fiction superhero
story… a novel of surreal resonances, things that are like other things, plot turns
that hearken to other plot turns. It’s often fascinating, as captivating as a
kaleidoscope… just feel it in all its weird glory.”
- Cory Doctorow, author of Makers and Little Brother

The library people, they say: “This event will take place in the first floor corner room of the Mid-Manhattan Library and seating for this event is limited. Please RSVP…” which you can do by visiting www.nypl.org.

New Yorkers and other residents of the United States within travelling distance, this is your chance to get in on the ground floor, to be able to say in years to come and without a hint of truth-stretching, that you were there at the launch of Adam Christopher’s career as a published author. And damn it, you’ve got the signed and dated (don’t forget to ask him to date it) paperback to prove that you were.

And all you UK people, don’t forget you can get in even earlier by heading on down to the Forbidden Planet Megastore in London on January 5th.

One of the exceedingly illustrious word-smiths invited to attend is none other than our very own Lavie Tidhar, esq. author of the highly-regarded Bookman Histories (tomes currently available for public perusal consisting: The Bookman and Camera Obscura, to be completed in February of the year 2012 by The Great Game) who will be joining a plethora of creatively-minded personages of great renown.

The event will be hosted by the fine, upstanding folk behind The Kitschies (“an annual award for those books which best elevate the tone of genre literature”) fame, who would like to make the following known to all and sundry: “Entry is free and there’s no ticket required. If you would like to RSVP, you can do so on the event’s Facebook page. (RSVPing makes sure we have enough of The Kraken Rum for everyone. How’s that for an incentive?)”

A feast of steampunk literature and art, with free Kraken Rum for all? Can you think of a better way of spending a Thursday evening on Charing Cross Road (sans the obvious addition of a pair of spring-heeled boots, a filigree’d sword-cane, a yellow handkerchief, three burly Russian sailors and a visiting Dutch burlesque troop lately of Old Amsterdam)?

No, we didn’t think so.

Full details are available at www.thekitschies.com.

Jo has posted details on her blog – cake, champagne and speculative fun! – and it sounds very much as though all are welcome, the more the merrier.

We Angry Roboteers are all going to be an Antipodean distance away on the day, but we’ll be there in spirit (even if Lee’s the only one of us who’s even remotely likely to be out of bed at 5.30 a.m. UK time) and we’ll certainly raise a glass of something suitable to mark the occasion.

This signing has had to be cancelled, due to impending deadlines, ferocious dragons, and other writerly dangers.

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Dan Abnett – Angry Robot author of the thoroughly modern Elizabethan adventure novel Triumff: Her Majesty’s Hero and the hard-hitting military-sf thriller Embedded – will (now not) be signing copies of his latest published works at Waterstone’s, New George Street, Plymouth, on Saturday November 26th from 11.00 a.m. through to 2.00 p.m.

Further details available from Waterstones.com.

[And yes, technically, this event has been organised by the fine folks at Black Library and Rebellion to promote Dan's latest Gaunt's Ghosts and 2000AD titles, but hey, if you sneak a copy of Triumff or Embedded in, we're sure nobody will complain. And if they do, zap 'em with your death-ray*.]

*Does not constitute an incitement to zap anyone with a death-ray. No responsibility will be accepted for purely coincidental death-ray related injuries.

This is a no-ticket-required event and full details can be found on www.forbiddenplanet.com.

If, for lack-of-geographical-proximity reasons, you’re unable to attend in person but would very much like to secure your signed-on-publication-day copy of Empire State, you can pre-order from Forbidden Planet for delivery after the event.

These three practitioners of the dark arts will be at Warwick Arts Centre on Monday 31st October from 7.15pm, talking about the nature of horror. Tickets are available from the Warwick Arts Centre website for just £8 per person (£6 concessions).

Don’t say we didn’t warn you! Bwahahahahahaaaa!

It’s that time of the year, again – FantasyCon is once more upon us.

As ever, Angry Robot will be out in force. If you’re in Brighton this weekend, do pop along and say “Hi.” It’s well-worth attending.

Here’s where we’ll be (other folk will also be on these panels, of course):

Friday
2.00pm
Adam Christopher and Lee Harris on the panel Maintaining Your Online Presence

3.00pm
Guy Adams in Making a Living as a Writer

4.00pm
Gary McMahon in Has Crossover Overtaken Genre?
Adam Christopher – Reading from his debut novel, Empire State

10.30pm
Gary McMahon Reading

Saturday
10.00am
Marc Gascoigne in Judging a Book by its Cover

11.00am
Peter Crowther – Book Launch: Darkness Falling
(Pre-order your copy of the Limited Edition Hardback here with FREE eBook!)

1.00pm
Dan Abnett in Where Next in SF?

2.00pm
Adam Christopher in New Genre Voices

2.30pm
Anne Lyle Reading

4.00pm
Dan Abnett in Comics: Indies vs Majors

4.30pm
Mike Shevdon Reading

5.00pm
Ian Whates interviews Guest of Honour, Gwyneth Jones

9.00pm
Peter Crowther in Favourite Books

10.00pm
Guy Adams in Tie-In and Series Fiction

11.00pm
Guy Adams – guest DJ in Sarah Pinborough’s Disco of Doom*

Sunday
10.00am
Ian Whates in How to Market your Novel/Book

11.30am
Guy Adams Reading

1.00pm
BFS Banquet and Awards Ceremony
Includes Best Novel category, in which Pretty Little Dead Things by Gary McMahon is shortlisted.

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*Might not be the actual title