Guest of Honour - Peter F Hamilton
Everything you need to know
Peter F. Hamilton had his first book, Mindstar Rising, published in 1993, which was so long ago now he can't quite believe that's a real thing anymore.In the intervening thirty-one years he's written about thirty books, including a children's magical fantasy series, and a YA trilogy.However, he's best known for large scale -really, really large scale- space operas. Given writing is a profession that allows him to sit at home in blissful solitude listening to playlists as he types, it has somehow resulted in him being invited to conventions all over the world -and now Bristol. It also recently saw him asked to give evidence to a House Of Lords select committee about possible future threats faced by the UK.
A native of Rutland, he is one of only three entries in the Popular Culture section of that county's Wikipedia page, sharing the honour with Eric Idle's Rutland Weekend Television, and the fact that Rutland was the last county in England without a MacDonalds (they surrendered in 2020). Seeing what was coming, he left in 2017 to live in Somerset for seven years, and has now moved to Essex.
His latest novel, The Archimedes Engine, published 19th September 2024, is something of a departure for him. It is still a large scale space opera, and it's part one of a duology, however it is set in the universe of Exodus -a computer game. As the game was still in development when the contract was signed, the game makers asked him to write his own story in that universe rather than novelize the game. He also got to be a consultant on the Exodus universe, which means he helped build a lot of it.
