This is the Guest list from the 2009 BristolCon.

Guests of Honour

Alastair Reynolds is one of Britain’s best-selling science fiction writers. Recently signed to a million-pound contract by Gollancz, he thrills readers with his complex tales of the far future. Reynolds’ Chasm City won the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel in 2001. He has also won a Seiun Award in Japan, and been three times nominated for the Arthur C Clarke Award. He lives in South Wales. For more details about Mr. Reynolds click here.

Charles Butler – A lecturer at the University of the West of England, Dr. Butler is one of the UK’s most respected experts on fantastic literature. His book, Four British Fantasists, won the 2009 Mythopoeic Award for Myth & Fantasy Studies. Dr. Butler is also the author of several novels for children and young adults. For more details about Dr. Butler click here.

Also Attending

Andy Bigwood is an artist, draughtsman, bookbinder, cartographer and illustrator from West Wiltshire, UK, where he lives alone, only venturing out for disastrous foreign holidays and the occasional convention.

Trained in technical illustration, in Bath (shortly before the evolution of computer aided art), Andy has provided artwork, cartography and cover designs for a variety of Fantasy, Horror, and Science fiction novels including The Winter Hunt, Conflicts, The Push, Future Bristol, and maps for the Wraeththu trilogy; twice winning the British Science Fiction Association Award for best artwork with the book covers of ‘disLOCATIONS‘ (2007) and ‘Subterfuge‘(2008) .
Cheryl Morgan won a Hugo Award in 2004 for the online book review magazine, Emerald City, and another one in 2009 for her writing. She has been nominated for several other awards, including the Best Fan Writer and Best Web Site Hugos. She currently co-edits the web site, Science Fiction Awards Watch and writes the Cheryl’s Mewsings blog. Since January 2009 Cheryl has held the post of Non-Fiction Editor at Clarkesworld Magazine.

Colin Harvey lives in Keynsham, and is a writer, reviewer and blogger. He is the editor of Future Bristol, published earlier in 2009, and of Killers, long-listed for the British Fantasy Award, and short-listed for the Black Quill Award. His fifth novel, Winter Song is to be published by Harper Collins’ new Angry Robot Books imprint in October.

Eugene Byrne is a novelist and journalist resident in Bristol. His books include Back in the USSA, co-written with his old schoolfriend Kim Newman, ThiGMOO, Things Unborn and a biography of Isambard Kingdom Brunel in comic form, drawn by Bristol artist Simon Gurr. In 2008, Eugene and Simon produced The Bristol Story, a 200-page graphic history of Bristol; over 100,000 copies were printed and given away free. This year Eugene and Simon brought out a graphic biography of Charles Darwin for the Darwin 200 celebrations.

Eugene has just finished writing a guidebook to Bristol’s Arnos Vale Cemetery, which is full of all the city’s leading dead Victorians and he says you really ought to visit it. He lives in quietly-desperate suburban respectability with his wife and two children, does all his own ironing and drives a Skoda.

Gareth L Powell is a science fiction writer from the United Kingdom. Elastic Press published his first fiction collection in August 2008, and Pendragon Press are due to release his debut novel in April 2010. He’s a regular contributor to Interzone and its readers recently voted his story “Ack-Ack Macaque” as their favourite short story of 2007.

Huw Powell is a brand-spanking new author. His debut novel, Rush Hour Rules (Vanguard Press) was published in June 2009. He is already working on his second novel, Death of the Midnight Warrior, and he’s a keen writer of Flash Fiction. Huw was born in Bristol and studied literature at University.

Jim Mortimore is an author, composer and award winning graphic designer. Though he has worked in many fields his first love is writing, and that’s where he hopes to make both his career and a lasting legacy for generations of readers to come. His work spans seventeen years, and includes a number of Cracker, Babylon Five and Doctor Who novels. His short story “The Sun in the Bone House” was well received when it appeared in Future Bristol.

Joanne Hall lives in Bristol, England, with her partner. She enjoys writing fantasy, and has been lucky enough to have short stories accepted by From the Asylum, Quantum Muse, Art and Prose, and Afterburn SF, among others. She has also had her New Kingdom Trilogy published by Epress Online, and a short story featured in Colin Harvey’s Future Bristol anthology. In her spare time, Joanne enjoys listening to music and going to concerts and the cinema, when she can be coaxed out from behind her keyboard. Her personal website can be found at www.hierath.co.uk, and she’s always happy to hear from readers.

John Hawkes-Reed is paid to shout at computers. Since he grew up on a farm in the Cotswolds, the shouting can be somewhat alarming. He has a variety of opinions which become mildly embarrassing as they age. The excitement of contributing a story to Future Bristol proved rather too much and he’s been having a bit of a lie-down.

Juliet E McKenna has always been fascinated by myth and history, other worlds and other peoples. This ultimately led to her studying Greek and Roman history and literature at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, as well as to a lifetime love of SF and fantasy fiction. She is the author of the acclaimed Tales of Einarinn series, translated into more than a dozen languages, as well as the highly praised The Aldabreshin Compass sequence. Her current project, The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution, is a trilogy exploring divided states, personal conflict and the rights and responsibilities of power, beginning with Irons in the Fire. She is one of the leading lights of The Write Fantastic, a UK authors’ initiative promoting the breadth and depth of current fantasy fiction, and reviews online and for Interzone and Albedo One. Living in Oxfordshire, England with her sons and husband, she fits in her writing around her family and vice versa.

Kim Lakin-Smith is a science fiction and dark fantasy author whose work focuses on urban dystopias, history and folklore, steam/gaspunk, and the notion of the outsider. Her debut novel, Tourniquet (Immanion Press) was published in 2007 and her short stories have appeared in Interzone, Celebration, the BSFA’s 50th birthday anthology, Myth-Understandings, All Hallows and others. She is a regular guest speaker at writing workshops and conventions.

Nick Walters is the author of several BBC Doctor Who novels including the award-winning Reckless Engineering. He has also published various short stories and articles. He lives and works in Bristol.

Paul Cornell is a writer of SF and fantasy prose, television and comics. He’s the writer of three modern Doctor Who episodes, and wrote Captain Britain and MI-13 for Marvel Comics. His novels are Something More and British Summertime.

Philippa Chapman has been running conventions since 2002, including heading up the Kumara Conventions side of our event. She is a keen costumer and has written for various fanzines. She has a weekly show on Glastonbury Radio. A semi professional lyric mezzo soprano, she has self-recorded several CDs.

Roz Clarke was born in Manchester and raised in London, and is now making her home in free-range and paint-splattered Bristol. She tossed aside a career in database development to take an MA in Creative Writing, which she attained in 2008. She is also a graduate of the Clarion West workshop, 2007. Her short story “Haunt-Type Experience” was published in Black Static #9 in February. She is currently tweaking a novel, quite mercilessly, and (still) looking for a fascinating day job.

Simon Gurr is an illustrator and comic artist whose professional comics debut was in 2000AD (the first strip to be drawn entirely with vector graphics). Since then he has collaborated extensively with author Eugene Byrne, producing web and print comics together including graphic biographies of Charles Darwin and I K Brunel. He is also the artist/author of a comic serial adaptation of The Day Of The Triffids.

His illustration work appears most often in books and magazines and includes SF and Fantasy subjects. He was the only illustrator to appear in every issue of roleplaying magazine Arcane, providing artwork for the popular Encounters series.