If you have any feedback for the Octocon 2019 committee, please complete our feedback survey.
We really appreciate your assistance in helping us make Octocon 2020 better – thanks!
Octocon Returns… (in 2020)
After an excellent one-day Octocon 2019 (we sold out of memberships!), we’re delighted to announce Octocon’s return in 2020 for our 30th anniversary.
Friday 9th – Sunday 11th October 2019, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Blanchardstown, Dublin
Guest of Honour: Michael Carroll
Flash Sale on Octocon 2020 Membership
Until 7pm on Monday 14th October 2019, we are running a flash sale on Octocon 2020 membership!
Visit https://registration.octocon.com to get yours!
- Attending Adult Membership: €50
- Concession: €40
Octocon’s Programme Guide is Live
The programme guide should be suitable for use on most browsers and devices. It’s an instance of KonOpas, an open-source project providing conventions with easy-to-use mobile-friendly guides.
If you appear in the programme and wish to have your bio or picture updated, contact programming@octocon.com.
This guide will work in your browser even when you don’t have an internet connection. You can also install it as a home screen app.
Octocon goes up!
This year, Octocon is on the second floor of the Crowne Plaza Blanchardstown hotel – one floor up from last year.
Take the lifts at the back of the lobby to get there – do not take the central staircase as that only goes up to the first floor!
Octocon Needs You!
Octocon needs volunteers on the day of the convention, to set up our rooms, look after our registration desk, flash the STOP signs at panels, and a host of other jobs.
Whether you can spare one hour or several, we’d really appreciate your help.
Sign up to be a volunteer (Google survey)
Programme Survey Deadline Approaches
The deadline for submitting your programme suggestions and participant surveys for Octocon 2019 is Wednesday September 11th.
If you have any suggestions for us or would like to considered as a programme participant, fill in the surveys asap!
Send us your programme ideas (Google Survey)
Apply to be a programme participant (Google Survey – also includes a chance to suggest programme items)
2019 Guests: Diane Duane and Peter Morwood
We will be joined at Octocon 2019 by some of our previous Guests of Honour: Diane Duane and Peter Morwood.
If you’re going this week to Dublin 2019, an Irish Worldcon, don’t miss Diane Duane’s many appearances as Guest of Honour!
Diane Duane has been a science fiction and fantasy writer for nearly forty years. Her best known works include her long-running (since 1983) “Young Wizards” series — its (sort of) eleventh and twelfth novels Young Wizards: Lifeboats and Interim Errantry 2: On Ordeal, having come out in 2017.
She’s also known for the nine bestselling Star Trek novels for which, among many other works, she was awarded the Grand Master / lifetime achievement award of the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers.
She is presently working on completing the epic fantasy series begun almost forty years ago with The Door Into Fire, and hopes to publish book 4, The Door Into Starlight, in the near future.
Novelist and screenwriter Peter Morwood was born in Northern Ireland, but has lived in various parts of County Wicklow for more than half his life. He’s been married to fellow-guest Diane Duane for even longer.
Besides his own fantasy series The Book of Years, its prequel series The Clan Wars, the folktale-inspired Tales of Old Russia, several short stories and even a brief venture into comics, he has co-written half a dozen novels with Diane (including one on their honeymoon), as well as episodes for Gargoyles, Spider-Man Unlimited and Batman: The Animated Series, and the award-winning live-action miniseries Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King.
He’s keen on medieval military history and the sharp pointy stuff that involves; he likes foreign travel and the interesting places, foods and drinks that involves; and he does half the cooking and most of the photography for their hobby-foodblogs EuropeanCuisines.com and RealIrishDesserts.com.
2019 Guests: Peadar Ó Guilín and Ruth Frances Long
Octocon is delighted to announce its first guests for 2019, both of whom know more than a thing or two about the folklore, mythology and fairy tales that we’ll be discussing this year.
Irish writer Peadar Ó Guilín is the author of the YA novel, The Call, inspired by the beautiful northwest of Ireland where he grew up. The Invasion, a sequel to The Call and the end of the duology, was published in March 2018 and is a finallist for the 2019 Lodestar Award for Best Adult Book, to be awarded at Dublin 2019, an Irish Worldcon.
In September 2007, Peadar published his first novel, The Inferior, which the Times Educational Supplement called “a stark, dark tale, written with great energy and confidence and some arresting reflections on human nature.” Foreign editors liked it too, and over the coming year it is to be translated into eight languages, including Japanese and Korean.
His fantasy and SF short stories have appeared in numerous venues, including Black Gate magazine and an anthology celebrating the best of the iconic Weird Tales.
Ruth Frances Long writes young adult fantasy such as The Treachery of Beautiful Things (Dial, 2012) and The Dubh Linn trilogy set in the world of demons, angels and fairies that exists alongside our own in modern day Dublin (A Crack in Everything , A Hollow in the Hills and A Darkness at the End (O’Brien, 2014-2016)).
In 2015 she was the winner of The European Science Fiction Society Spirit of Dedication Award For Best Author of Children’s Science Fiction and Fantasy for A Crack in Everything.
As Jessica Thorne she writes fantasy and space opera romance – The Queen’s Wing (Bookouture, 2018) and The Stone’s Heart (Bookouture, 2019)
As R. F. Long she writes fantasy & paranormal romance such as The Scroll Thief, Soul Fire and the Holtlands stories (The Wolf’s Sister, The Wolf’s Mate and The Wolf’s Destiny).
She lives in Ireland and works in a library of rare, unusual & occasionally crazy books. But they don’t talk to her that often.
In Memoriam: Martin Hoare
It is with great sadness that the Octocon committee has learned of the death this morning of one of our members, Martin Hoare, in hospital in his hometown of Reading, England.
Martin provided technical equipment and expertise to Octocon for several years, as well as to many other conventions throughout the UK and the rest of Europe, travelling in his red van and accompanied by his stuffed panda Doris. One of his most recent convention gigs allowed him to indulge another of his great passions – real ale – as organiser of the fan bar at Eastercon 2019 in England.
He was given the Doc Weir award in 2015 for being an unsung hero of fandom, and was well-known for his kindness and his sometimes sideways problem-solving.
He will be missed by a great many people and Octocon wishes to express our deepest sympathies to his nearest and dearest.
Thank you for everything, Martin.
