Guest of Honour - Eric Flint

Born in southern California in 1947, Eric has been writing comic fantasy fiction since his college days. Despite this, he didn't get around to getting anything fictional officially published until 1992, when his short story "Entropy, and the Strangler" won first place in the Winter 1992 Writers of the Future contest.

Before dedicating himself to writing as a career, Eric occupied himself by getting a PhD in History from UCLA, becoming a socialist political activist, and working as a longshoreman, truck driver, machinist, meatpacker, auto forge worker, glassblower, and probably a few other things as well.

Finally deciding that, after more than 25 years, he'd "paid his dues" as a political activist, Eric decided to pursue his dream of becoming an author of science fiction and fantasy.

His first published novel, Mother of Demons, came out in 1993 and he's been writing full-time since 1999. Among the works he has produced in this time have been 1632, The Philosophical Strangler, the Belisarius series (with David Drake) and the Heirs of Alexandria series (with Dave Freer and Mercedes Lackey). He has also written two short stories set in David Weber's Honor Harrington universe, and collaborated in a novel for the same universe, Crown of Slaves. His full bibliography is far too large to be listed here, but includes huge volumes of books and short stories written, co-written, and edited (Eric has been heavily involved in the re-issuing of classic science fiction stories written by greats such as Keith Laumer and James H. Schmitz).

Among his other hats, Eric is also the First Librarian of the Baen Free Library, which since 1999 has provided a selection of Baen-published books free online for easy reading or download. Several of Eric's own books are on there, and are highly recommended by the Concom (plug, plug).

You can find out more about Eric and his works from the following websites:

Eric Flint's place on the web

http://www.ericflint.net/index.php/

Baen Free Library

http://www.baen.com/library/

The Conspiracy II Committee are stoked to have Eric onboard as our Guest of Honour, and hope that he and Lucille enjoy their stay in the Land of the Great White Cloud.

Guest of Honour - Dylan Horrocks

Dylan Horrocks is a New Zealand comic artist and writer. Born in 1966 he has written and drawn extensively, both original works and for other titles. His original works include his graphic novel Hicksville (1998), which has been translated into French, Italian and Spanish, and Milo's Week, a weekly political comic strip for the New Zealand Listener (1995-1997).

He has also written comics for DC Comics and Vertigo, including a 25-issue run on Hunter: the Age of Magic, 19 issues of Batgirl and 3 issues of Legends of the Dark Knight.

In 2002 Dylan won an Eisner Award for Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition. In 2006 he was appointed the University of Auckland/Creative New Zealand Literary Fellow. He has also been nominated for a wide variety of other awards.

Dylan has a great interest in the history of New Zealand comics and in 1998 he assembled an exhibition of New Zealand comics called Nga Pakiwaituhi o Aotearoa: New Zealand Comics, which showed at the Small Press Expo/International Comics and Animation Festival in the USA. He also edited and published the show's 100-page catalogue, which was nominated for a Goodie Award for Best Publication about Comics.

Dylan's most recent short piece is 'The Physics Engine', an 11-page comic in the writers-and-scientists collaborative book Are Angels OK? (2006), which weaves together imagination, real science, and RPGs. Dylan also designed the cover of the book.

We on the Conspiracy II Committee are really looking forward to having Dylan as a guest. You can find out more about him on his website:

http://www.hicksville.co.nz/

Guest of Honour - Marianne de Pierres

Marianne de Pierres is the author of the award-nominated Parrish Plessis series: Nylon Angel, Code Noir and Crash Deluxe. Her short fiction has appeared in various book anthologies and magazines. She has been an active supporter of Australian genre writing and was the co-founder of the VISION writers group, and ROR - wRiters On the Rise - a critiquing workshop for Australian professional genre writers. She is currently working on her next series for Orbit Books called The Sentients of Orion, and a film project for Sydney-based, Enchanter Productions, called Stalking Daylight. 2007 will also see the publication of her children's novel, Citrine, in a shared world series called The Lost Shimmaron.

Website: www.mariannedepierres.com

Parrish's Patch: http://torleys.proboards34.com/index.cgi

Guest of Honour - Isobelle Carmody

Born in Australia in 1958, Isobelle first began writing her highly acclaimed Obernewtyn Chronicles when she was just fourteen years old. She continued to work on them through high school and University, completing a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in literature and philosophy, and subsequently moving on to work in public relations and journalism. In 1987, Obernewtyn, the first of the books in her series, was published.

Isobelle has written many award-winning short stories and books for young people since then, including another three books in the aforementioned Obernewtyn Chronicles (of which the fifth and final part will be published sometime in 2006/07), her fantasy trilogy the Legendsong Saga, and a number of stand-alone books including Alyzon Whitestarr and The Gathering (which was a joint winner of the 1993 Children.s Peace Literature Award).

Isobelle currently divides her time between her home in Australia and her travels abroad. The Conspiracy II Concom are pleased to be able to welcome her to the shores of New Zealand.

Guest of Honour - Fred Gallagher

Fred Gallagher, also known as Piro, is the illustrator, writer and co-creator of the anime/manga-inspired webcomic Megatokyo, which has been running since 2000. Fred has been a professional webcomic artist working full-time on Megatokyo since 2002, supported by his online store.

New comics are released for free on his website three times weekly, and earlier issues have also been collected into four books published by Dark Horse Comics and DC Comic's CMX imprint. Fred also has a website of his personal artworks, Fredart.

Fred has appeared at anime conventions in the US and Britain and was invited as a guest at Anime Expo Tokyo in 2004. The Conspiracy II Concom are pleased to be able to welcome him for the first time to the shores of New Zealand. Sarah, known as Seraphim to readers of Megatokyo, will also be accompanying him.

Website: www.megatokyo.com

Fan Guest of Honour - Barbara Clendon

Barbara has been reading voraciously all her life, and made the easy leap from King Arthur to fantasy and science fiction when she was 13. Starting with Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov, she's always liked stories that were different and that were "stepping out into the unknown spaces".

Always a fan of second-hand bookstores, she jumped at the chance to own one herself, before suddenly discovering she'd read everything in it and wanted more. Deciding to try and bring in more of the books she wanted to read herself, she wound up importing and selling new science fiction and romance books to finance her own habits.

Although Barbara was already involved in New Zealand romance fandom, SF fandom took a bit longer to come knocking. It was a suggestion that she attend Conquest in 1995, which she did without knowing anything about it, that brought Barbara into SF fandom at last. Barbara says the thing she loves about SF fandom is how completely accepting people are of how you look and how you act, as well as the wide range of interests. At her first con, she was confused when people were pointing at the books and calling out names she didn't recognise - it was only later that she found out they were identifying the artists who'd painted the covers!!

These days, Barbara, her husband Peter, and their piles of tempting books are familiar sights at New Zealand SF cons. The Conspiracy II Committee are thrilled to have Barbara as our fan guest of honour, and are sure that she'll have many stories of her own to share with us.

Barbara's books

http://www.barbarasbooks.co.nz/