Forbidden Planet Bares All!

Thanks to Angry Robot books, LAUREN BEUKES will be signing an exclusive pre-release hardcover of ZOO CITY at the Forbidden Planet Megastore, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8JR on Thursday 29th July from 6 – 7pm.

Zinzi December has a talent for finding lost things. But in a city of black magic, familiars and damaged people, some lost things don’t want to be found. To save herself, Zinzi will have to confront her demons and find the hardest thing of all: the truth. An astonishing second novel from the author of the highly-acclaimed Moxyland.

Lauren Beukes is a recovering journalist who used to hang out with township vigilantes, electricity thieves, trendoid swingers, teen vampires and great white sharks; now she spends most of her time making stuff up as a TV scriptwriter and novelist. She lives in Cape Town with her husband and daughter.

ZOO CITY ART TOY CHARITY AUCTION

As part of the Zoo City promotion, five art toy BARES are being auctioned for the Suitcase Project, helping Johannesburg’s refugee children. These unique customs a have been donated by the Am I collective and decorated by South African artists Joey Hi-Fi, Elise Wessels, Clemi, Willeen le Roux, Carine Nguz and Bia van Deventer.

Lauren will be bringing one of the Bares, Bi-Polar Bare by Willeen de Roux, with her to the event.


And please don't forget to go and bid!

Three Of The Best!

FORBIDDEN PLANET & TOR UK
are delighted to bring you

CHINA MIÉVILLE, ADAM NEVILL & MARK CHARAN NEWTON

Three huge talents; one signing event - we're delighted to be hosting a triple signing with Clarke Award winner China Miéville, Adam Nevill and Mark Charan Newton on Thursday 20th May 6 - 7pm at the Forbidden Planet Megastore, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8JR.


In China Miéville’s KRAKEN, a prize specimen has come to the Natural History Museum – a giant squid, whole and perfectly preserved. When it disappears, curator Billy Harrow finds himself in a city of warring cults and surreal magic – and the forthcoming end of the world.


APARTMENT 16 by Adam Nevill is wonderfully written, deftly plotted tale of utter horror that will have you turning the lights on in the middle of the night. Follow and unravel the tale of Barringon House – and discover that the doorway to Apartment 16 is a gateway to something terrifying.


Three weeks in advance of publication date, CITY OF RUIN by Mark Charan Newton is the follow-on to the massively successful Nights of Villjamur, taking us back to the lands of the Red Sun. This time, we go to Villiren, where Brynd and investigator Jeryd must fight to save a city that’s already in ruins.

This will be an open-plan event, and is very likely to be followed by an evening of celebration.

You have been warned!

FORBIDDEN PLANET is delighted to be hosting one of our famous multi-author events. To celebrate two brand new NewCon Press anthologies, THE BITTEN WORD and CONFLICTS, at 5pm on April 22nd, Forbidden Planet 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London will be playing host to: -

Keith Brooke, Eric Brown, David L Clements, Andy Remic, Sarah Singleton, Kari Sperring, Sam Stone, Ian Watson and Ian Whates


This is a new-format signing, no tables, no queues – we open out the store floor and give readers a chance to meet the authors and talk to them about their work. An array of fantastic books will be on hand to be signed – including Ian Whates’ CITY OF DREAMS AND NIGHTMARE and Ian Watson’s ORGASMACHINE.


Also available will be special pre-publication copies of Andy Remic’s SOUL STEALERS, second book of his successful Clockwork Vampire series from Angry Robot Books.

And yes, there will be beer, though possibly not with these two...

So.Me, So.You, So What?

So. What were you doing, the Night Before The Net?

I was in the pub. I was round my mates’. I was running round with a sword in all weathers. I was singing round bonfires and waking up, sweating under canvas, still young enough to be hangover free.

My mates were the most important things in the world – and we moved mountains.

Cue a post that’s been stewing for weeks.

It started the evening I saw ‘City of Men’ (appropriately a very human and empathic film); it’s spanned a couple of Friday mornings at the Tuttle and got pissed at the MOO Party. It’s had lunch in Hyde Park with @markmedia and @iankath and it’s hit crystallisation upon realising that @annohio, always Champion of the Social, has moved her blog.

Whatever sites, platforms, methods of online communication we choose - they’re just the framework.

The framework for the people.

Somehow, I had lost this.

Attending the Tuttle has been a slow sartori. Friday mornings at the Coach and Horses offer coffee, croissant and conversation – and a range of people who cover every angle, business and level of experience. It’s encouraging and encompassing and there’s always someone with an answer.

London, then, has a very strong Social Media community – precisely because ‘hub’ events like the MOO Party bring us all together, face-to-face; they reinforce existing bonds, forge new ones and provide a riverhead for ideas and motion.

It’s common sense, isn’t it?

So: how did I lose sight of the First Rule?

If you follow my Tweets, you probably know I can’t get to many of these events. In the great arena of ‘be noticed: be seen!’ I rattle my tin mug up and down The Bars of SAHM and rely on Friday avatars to make up my social shortfall.

My web community has kept me sane, given me focus, helped my business and occasionally got me into mischief…

…but somehow, like a bad retail manager, I’d lost touch with the shop floor – the basics I instinctively understood in my fighting-Viking twenties.

Thanks to a little freedom, I finally have them back.

The ‘social’ in Social Media means ‘people’ – it means being sat in the pub, talking it up after your second pint. It means meeting-up with those in your city and tweeting-up with those stopping by; it means getting off your geeky arse and getting out from behind your screen.

I remember now.

This isn’t So.Me – this is So.Cial.

I can be a right fucking idiot, sometimes.