I spent the weekend travelling across worlds — the Nine Worlds Geekfest, to be precise. It’s hard to imagine a better celebration of fandom in all its wonder, weirdness and glory. There was something for everyone: from academic studies of trends in fan fiction, to the fantasy authors playing a locked-room Call of Cthulhu, to panels on time travel, cyberpunk and superheroes, to cosplay that covered the gamut from steampunk to Sharknado.  And while clever programming is definitely something to crow about, the diversity and inclusiveness of the con is, for me, its biggest win.

Among the highlights were the New Voices sessions, featuring five minute readings from unpublished and debut authors. I had the pleasure of MCing on both Friday and Saturday nights; here’s a list of the authors and their works.

FRIDAY 8th August 2014:  

JY Yang: Harvestfruit

Available to read on the Crossed Genres website.

Vincent Holland-Keen: Billy’s Monsters

Available from Fox Spirit Books in November 2014.

Angus Watson: Age of Iron

Available to buy from all good bookshops in September 2014.

Chele Cooke: Fight or Flight

Available now from all major online retailers.

Laura Lam: False Hearts

Available from Tor/Macmillan in January 2016.

Pete Sutton: Roadkill

Not yet published.

Anna Caltabiano: The Seventh Miss Hatfield

Available at Waterstones, Amazon, and other bookstores.

Cleland Smith: Sequela

Available in paperback and on Amazon Kindle.

Matt Suddain: Theatre of the Gods

Available now from Jonathan Cape/Vintage, in all formats from all major outlets.

SATURDAY 9th August 2014

KT Davies: Breed

Available from Fox Spirit Books in September 2014.

Tade Thompson: The Last Pantheon

Co-written with Nick Wood, and will be released later this year in the AfroSF2 Anthology.

Rhiannon Thomas: A Wicked Thing

Available from February 2015.

Stephen Aryan: Battlemage

Available from Orbit in 2015.

Stark Holborn: Nunslinger

This is a serialised work; books 1-9 are currently available in ebook format, the final 3 instalments will be released in September, and the full paperback omnibus is due for release in December 2014.

Anne Charnock: A Calculated Life

Published by 47North, available as an eBook and paperback.

Peter Newman: The Vagrant

Published by Harper Voyager, available in May 2015.

Taran Matharu: Summoner: The Novice

Available in Spring 2015.

Tiffani Angus: Threading the Labyrinth

This is a Creative Writing PhD project, and should be available after Tiffani graduates in 2015.