Charles Christian's Urban Fantasist

Top story: Read the Winning Entry

Follow the link to the winning entry to our Sci-Fi-London Urban Fantasist 24 Hours Flash Fiction Challenge. www.urbanfantasist.com/article/flash-fiction-challenge---1st-place---rebecca-innes-with-forgetting-4080

First place: Rebecca Innes with Forgetting

Second place: Julian Gyll-Murray with Equal Creations

Third place: Anthony D'Auria with Unsettled

Fourth place: Ariel Tan, with Familiarity

Chronicles

Story Telling on the Trinc !

Get yourselves up to Hartlepool this coming Sunday for the Tiffin on The Trinc event – that's HMS Trincomalee, a frigate that was built for the Royal Navy in 1817. The day is a mixture of Steampunkery activities, a rock concert and storytelling by me!

Something for Fathers Day - Luke, I am your Father!

Still with the Lego, here's a rather cute StarWars themed video from Lego for Fathers Day via The Guardian newspaper.

Now for some serious news: Lego faces getting angrier !

Amid all this fuss about governments spying on their own citizens, PRISM and all that, it is good to see some serious topics are also making the news. Yes, research has discovered that the faces on Lego minifigure heads have become progressively angrier.

Flash Fiction Challenge - 1st place - Rebecca Innes with Forgetting

Here is the winning entry for this year's Sci-Fi-London + Urban Fantasist 24 Hours Flash Fiction Challenge.

Dream of Stone reissued

More book news: the 2011 ghost story collection A Dream of Stone & Other Ghost Stories – which includes my story Confessions of a Teenage Ghost-Hunter – has been reissued. It can be purchased as a paperback directly from the publisher or via Amazon.

Quickest Way Down featured in BSFA "Best of 2012"

I'm happy to report that my short story collection This the Quickest Way Down was featured in the British Science Fiction Association's Best of 2012 issue of its magazine Vector.

Great day in Sonning & Pleased to Meet You Saint Sarik

Team Urban Fantasist had a great day at the Reading Writers one-day conference in Sonning, where I gave a talk/workshop on how to create A Credible World in fiction. I'm going to be posting a summary of my top tips on this site within the next week or so.

Welcome to the Modern World

Welcome to the Modern World – yes, it's a girl earning her living by being covered in cold Heinz baked beans, while sitting in a bath at a service station on the M11.

Flash Fiction Challenge - we have our winners

We finally have the results of our Sci-Fi-London Urban Fantasist 24 Hours Flash Fiction Challenge: 1st: Rebecca Innes with Forgetting. 2nd: Julian Gyll-Murray with Equal Creations. 3rd: Anthony D'Auria with Unsettled 4th: Ariel Tan, with Familiarity.

Support Clarion via its Write-a-Thon campaign

The Clarion Foundation – the people behind the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Workshop at UCSD – has launched its annual Write-a-Thon fundraising campaign. Signups are open from now till the beginning of the Write-a-Thon on June 23th.

Have ebooks crossed the chasm?

Have ebooks now crossed the chasm and become a majority product? At the recent BISG Making Information Pay conference (reported in The Bookseller) the latest BookStats figures for the US publishing industry in 2012 provided an interesting spotlight.

Exclusive interview with the futurist Ray Kurzweil

Here’s my exclusive interview with the American futurist Ray Kurzweil, while he was over here in the UK last month for the LawTech Futures 2013 event in London. This is the only interview Ray gave while he was in the country.

Writers' Day Programme - 1st June

I'm pleased to say I've been invited to attend the Reading Writers' Day, which takes place in Sonning on Saturday 1st June. I'm going to be running a one-hour talk and workshop in the afternoon (starts 3:00pm) on Creating a Credible World in fiction.

Working Lunch

In the course of doing some research on trademarks on the UK Intellectual Property Office website I spotted that lawyers fall into the same tradmark class as Tarot card readers!

No discernible increase in piracy with DRM-free ebooks

One of the topics that has been rumbling along in the background of the epublishing debate is the importance – or otherwise – of DRM (digital rights management) protection on ebooks.

The Weird - new one day conference

Here's some information about a one day conference taking place in London in November - if you want to pitch a proposal for a paper you have until 1st August.

Ray Harryhausen RiP

Sad to read about the death of Ray Harryhausen, the king of stop-motion movie making (back in the days bfore CGI). Here's a nice obiturary.

Postcard from Whitstable

The postcard says it all - tho we did have tea and cakes sitting at Peter Cushing's favourite table at the Tudor Tearooms in Whitstable.

The London Skyline

The London skyline (looking east) from the top of the Park Lane Hilton - that's Canary Wharf in the distance behind the Shard.

Me and Ray - we're just like that!

And here's me interviewing the American futurist Ray Kurzweil earlier this week - he's explaining how in the future 3D printing will mean a clone of me can do the work while the real me stays in bed and watches myself on YouTube.

Chris Beckett wins Arthur C Clarke Award

Congratulations to Chris Beckett, whose novel Dark Eden (the story of an alien planet where the incestuous offspring of two stranded astronauts struggle to survive) last night won the UK's top science fiction prize, the Arthur C Clarke award.

24-hour Flash Fiction Challenge starts THIS Wednesday

Listen up – here is your advance warning that the Second 24 Hour Flash Fiction Challenge, being run by the Sci-Fi-London Film Festival and UrbanFantasist.com, starts THIS Wednesday (1st May) at 5:30pm and closes at 8:00pm on Thursday 2nd May.

Ray Kurzweil interview ahoy!

I'm childishly excited that on Tuesday I'll be interviewing Ray Kurzweil, the Futurists' Futurist, in London as part of the LawTech Futures event.

Campaign to Stop Killer Robots

No, this is not a joke to promote a new Terminator movie, there really is a campaign to Ban Killer Robots !

Angel of Primark

Well I can't offer you the Angel of Harlem (old U2 track) but I can offer the Angel of Primark (Norwich branch). Impressive wings sir. Plus a smile and a thumbs-up from an angel!

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