Mike Brooks

Next Friday I’ll be zipping off to Peterborough for my first FantasyCon!

“But Mike,” I hear you cry, “you write scifi, not fantasy! Why are you going?”

Well, first of all, I’m published in scifi, but I wrote fantasy before I wrote scifi and I’m writing fantasy now, as it happens. Secondly, although it’s called FantasyCon it’s basically about speculative fiction in general, including scifi. Also, I can do what I want.

“And will anyone be stupid enough to put you on a panel here, like they did at Nine Worlds?” is very likely to be your follow-up question. And the answer is that yes they are because I’m on the ‘New Futures’ panel at 2.30pm on Saturday in Althorpe (Panel Room 2) with Ian Whates, Naomy Foyle and Nina Allen, and I’m on the ‘Other People’s Playgrounds’ panel at 3.30pm in the same place with Simon Clark and Tim Lebbon, and being moderated by Gav Thorpe in a turnaround of our roles at Nine Worlds.

“And don’t tell me they’re letting you DJ too, like Nine Worlds did, in their disco on the Friday night?” is almost certainly what any sensible person would ask after that. And my answer to that is “maybe”. They seem open to the idea, but it sounds like they’ve hired an actual proper DJ and I’m not sure whether someone like that would want an amateur using their equipment. So the attendees might after all get away without having me aiming tunes at them.

I might see you there!