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Guests of Honour
Sean Punch
Sean Steph Swainston Steph Swainston started writing stories set in the Fourlands in 1982, when she was eight years old. Twenty-six years of development later, the Castle books are both great entertainment — with giant Insects and immortals — and literature — a source of observations about our world, the characters we meet every day and the trials we face. The Year of Our War (2004), No Present Like Time (2005) and The Modern World (2007) see the Fourlands through the eyes of Jant Shira, the Emperor's Messenger; half Awian and half Rhydanne, the only man in the world who can fly. Steph is finishing the fourth novel in the sequence: Above the Snowline, to be published by Gollancz in April 2009. Although Steph is a Yorkshire lass with roots in Bradford, she now lives in Wokingham. She studied archaeology at Cambridge and the University of Wales. Her sense of wonder at the deep past and love of weird fauna and flora adds to her Edward Lear-style wordplay and makes her books both fascinating and fun. Steph lives with chronic back pain from a car crash six years ago which was, of course, her fault for driving like a speed freak but she doesnt let it stop her. She also loves the outdoors; a good walk followed, if at all possible, by a glass or two of single malt whisky. Henry Gee Henry Gee is a palaeontologist and evolutionary biologist who as a senior editor of Nature, the international weekly science journal, devised and edits Futures, Nature's award-winning science fiction column. (In 2005 the European Science Fiction Society awarded Nature the accolade of Best Science Fiction Publisher.) He is also the editor of Mallorn, journal of the Tolkien Society and wrote The Science of Middle Earth. He lives in Cromer, Norfolk, with his family and numerous pets, whose lives are documented in his blogs I, Editor and The End of the Pier Show Sib Machat Sibylle Machat (or, in short: Sib) has been involved in the German filk community for over a decade, which she discovered via tapes bought at a Star Trek convention. Music was not a central aspect of Sib's upbringing or an early passion for her, though she was reportedly able to sing along (if the reproduction of all lyrics as "didy no no me babe" counts as 'singing along,' that is) with her dad's Johnny Cash tapes in the car at a rather early age. She has, suffice to say, expanded her repertoire somewhat since then. The current state includes being able to play the guitar, trying to teach herself the keyboard, and having produced an assortment of songs she vaguely hopes are funny. Sib lives in northern Germany right now, where she teaches American Studies at the University of Flensburg, is writing her PhD, and does not get to spend enough time sailing. Sib is right now alternating between still not quite believing that she's been asked to be the filk Guest of Honour at Harmuni and making plans for what she's going to surprise (and hopefully entertain!) people in her set with. |
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