To infinity and beyond
Lucca Comics & Games confirms itself as the home of international science fiction. In addition to the already announced Korean science fiction author Kim Bo-Young,the event will also be attended by the writer James Dashner(in the photo), author of the dystopian series The Maze Runner (Fanucci Editore), on which the film The Maze Runner (2014) was based, and the Peruvian illustrators HugoEspinoza and Jose Cavero, who will be present with Future Fiction to present Andean Futurism, a pre-Columbian science fiction movement. Dashner will be the protagonist of the panel “Dystopian Races” that will take place in the San Girolamo Auditorium on Friday 3 November at 4.30 pm. Espinoza and Cavero, instead, will present with Francesco Verso the Andean Futurism in the panel of the same name that will take place at the Auditorium Fondazione Banca Del Monte of Lucca on Sunday 5 November at 3.15 pm.
There are also many local authors who meet their readers at Lucca Comics & Games. From the queen of fantasy Licia Troisi, who will present her new popular science book Astrophysics for the Anxious (Rizzoli), together with Filippo Bonaventura, one of the three physicists of the Facebook community Who’s Afraid of the Dark?, making his debut with the book History of a Proton (Rizzoli). The two will debate in the panel The Anxious Proton on November 1st at 11.30 am. Troisi will also be moderator of the round table The Italian fantasy is Woman, on Friday 3 November at 5.30 pm, which will involve historical authors such as Cecilia Randall and new voices of fantasy such as FioreManni, present at the event with her new novel Il re delle volpi (The king of foxes) (Rizzoli), and the debut author Chiara Cecilia Santamaria.
There will also be a moment to discover the debut of Sara Stefanizzi, aka Kurolily, who with her L’isola maledetta (The cursed island) (Fabbri Editori) want to transmit her passion for gamebooks ad pop culture to her audience: appointment on Wednesday 1 November at 12.45 pm at the Auditorium Fondazione Banca Del Monte of Lucca.
Appointment at Lucca Comics & Games also for fans of Manlio Castagna, who after the dark fantasy of 2022, returns to bookstores with the horror novel Prova a non dormire (Try Not to Sleep), published by Sperling & Kupfer and he will be presented at the Auditorium Fondazione Banca del Monte of Lucca on Saturday 4 November at 4.30 pm in the panel “Stephen King and horror in Italy”, with the authors Lucio Besana and Roberto De Feo. Speaking of horror novels, the festival will also see the launch of the Piemme’s Dark series with the novel La porta viola (The purple door) by PaolaBarbato.
Also present at the festival as moderators will be Megi Bulla (La biblioteca di Daphne on TikTok), influencer and author of the book Milena insegnami la felicità (Milena teach me happiness) (Fabbri Editori), and Valentina Ghetti, influencer and teacher. The two content creators will lead, in pairs or alone, the panels of some of the event’s most important guests such as Camille Monceaux, Benjamin Lacombe, MinaLima, Christelle Dabos and A.Y. Chao.
Lucca Comics & Games is also in-depth. During the five days of the festival, fans and readers of the most beloved sagas and genres of fantasy will be able to discover J.R.R Tolkien, thanks to BrianSibley’s meetings and the panels and seminars organized in collaboration with Bompiani and the Italian Association of Tolkien Studies.
They will be able to explore the boundaries of horror, gothic and weird with Roberto Recchioni, exceptional moderator for the meetings dedicated to A.J. West, the new Piemme series, and the master of horror Thomas Ligotti, whose volumes will be present at the fair thanks to “il Saggiatore”.
They will be able to measure the distance that separates science from its literary interpretation, science fiction, thanks to the meetings moderated by the journalist and populariser Emilio Cozzi, such as the panel on ESA’s IRIDE satellite constellation and the one on the role of women in science, entitled Beyond Marie: the role of women in science, which will take place on Sunday 5 November at 3.30pm. 120 years after the Nobel Prize to Marie Curie, the first woman to receive this world-class honour, Cozzi brings to the Lucca Comics & Games table Paola Catapano, Italian journalist and television presenter, science communicator at CERN, Patrizia Caraveo, Director of Research at the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF), Licia Troisi, astrophysicist and populariser, and SimonettaDi Pippo, astrophysicist and former Director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, in remote connection, to take stock of this increasingly important issue.