Meet Garth Nix!

Garth Nix is coming to Waterstones in Birmingham on Thursday 29 October, where he'll be signing copies of his new book, Massif. If you've read him before, you'll know him as a bestselling Australian author of children's and young adult fantasy. He grew up in Canberra, studied at Dickson College, and later earned a BA in writing at Canberra University after working for the Australian Government and the Australian Army Reserve, before becoming a Senior Editor at HarperCollins.

His writing career really took off in 1995 with Sabriel, the first part of The Old Kingdom series set in an alternate England, which became an international bestseller. Other well-known series of his include The Seventh Tower and The Keys to the Kingdom. His work has been translated into 42 languages, and more than five million copies have been sold worldwide. Beyond novels, he's published novellas and short fiction and written for fantasy role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons.

Massif is a bit of a shift, though. It's billed as his first adult sci-fi novel, an epic space opera that mixes military sci-fi with cosmic horror, aimed at fans of Andy Weir and Pierce Brown. If you've mostly known him for the YA fantasy, this is a good chance to see what he's doing on a different scale.

The signing is at Waterstones, 24-26 High Street, Birmingham B4 7SL, starting at 12:00 on Thursday 29 October. Tickets are £25, which includes the book.