News 
Juliet ePublishes Novella
Our Guest of Honour Juliet E McKenna has just published her out-of-print novella Turns & Chances online. She's also taking the opportunity to post some blog articles looking into the challenges involved in independent epublishing. The first article is available here.
Added on 2012-06-08 19:00 by Mad Elf
Terry wins!
Our congratulations go out to Sir Terry Pratchett, the most recent winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse award for comic fiction — presented to the author of the book which most captures the spirit of PG Wodehouse, which the judges decided was Terry's 50th novel Snuff.
The award also carries the unusual honour of having a Gloucestershire Old Spot pig named after the winning work. I'll avoid any attempts at puntastic humour here...
Full story here.
Added on 2012-05-30 22:48 by Mad Elf
Sir Terry on prize shortlist
Let's all keep our fingers crossed for our special guest, whose novel Snuff is shortlisted for a prestigious Comic Fiction prize. It isn't the first time one of his works has been in the running, so let's hope it's fourth time lucky!
Full story here.
Added on 2012-05-15 20:26 by Mad Elf
By the light of the red-hot super Earth...
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has for the first time directly observed the (infra-red) light given off by a extra-solar planet: a (probably) water-covered rocky companion to 55 Cancri. Not to get our hopes up though; it's about eight times the mass of Earth, is close enough to its star to be tidally locked and have an 18-hour orbit, and has temperatures around 1,725°C on the hot side. (Which the JPL website charmingly describes as "hot enough to melt metal"... pick your metal carefully enough and -38°C is "hot" enough to melt it.) Apparently the water is in a supercritical liquid/gas state, which sound like it may have some interesting physics attached to it. Unfortunately 41 light years is a bit far for that sort of observation...
Full story here.
Added on 2012-05-09 20:58 by Mad Elf
Price Increase on 1st June 2012
Our special introductory membership rates will only be available until the end of this month. So please sign up soon if you want to take advantage of them.
From 1st June 2012 an adult attending membership will cost £55 and an unwaged membership will cost £45. All other categories remain as at present.
Added on 2012-05-02 19:14 by Christine