Due to very popular demand, SciFiNow and Tor UK open competition, now sponsored by Play.com, to international applicants.

Aspiring writers from outside of the UK are now eligible to apply to leading consumer specialist magazine SciFiNow and SF imprint Tor UK’s competition to find the new voice in science fiction and fantasy.

Writers must submit a full synopsis of their novel, along with the first three chapters, by 20th August 2009. The judging panel is comprised of members of SciFiNow magazine and Tor UK, and a shortlist of six entries will be announced before the overall winner is revealed in SciFiNow issue 35, on sale 25 November 2009.

1. The winner will receive a publishing contract with Macmillan Publishers Limited for publication in 2010 dependent on publishing schedules. For the purposes of this competition we will pay the winning author a 20% royalty on net receipts but there will be no advance (i.e. an advance payment against future sales). Our contract is non-negotiable and we acquire world rights, with rights revenue split 50/50. We also reserve the option to publish the author’s second novel. The final book is intended to be published in the United Kingdom. Publication will be subject to the winner’s acceptance in writing of those terms and conditions and compliance with them.

2. All entrants must have a full length novel (being between 80,000 and 150,000 words long) completed and available upon request by the close of competition on 20 August 2009.

3. Entrants who have had a full-length novel previously published by a trade publisher anywhere in the world will not be eligible, (so you will not be excluded by virtue of having any previously self-published work). Additionally this competition is not open to employees or their immediate families of the Promoters and any companies within the Imagine Publishing Ltd. group of companies or the Macmillan Publishers Limited group of companies.

4. To be eligible, initial entries must comprise of a full synopsis and the first three chapters of a novel set in the fantasy or science fiction genre. There must be a novel completed and available for review by 20 August 2009 should the judging panel request to see the full novel. Entrants will not be put forward to the shortlist without a full novel. The synopsis and first three chapters should be double spaced and emailed to: [email protected] to be received by SciFi Now Magazine at Imagine Publishing Limited on or before the closing date of 20 August 2009 17:30 GMT.

Tiago would normally have taken his cut of the picked pockets and stopped right here at the Seaside Plaza. On the very edge, past the vendors on the cobblestone sea walk, Tiago would sit with his legs over the rocky sea wall and look out over the harbor.

Today he only detoured through the plaza to throw the crowd in between him and the woman chasing him.

He’d gotten a brief glimpse of her before the running started: tall, dark eyes, dark skin, dark leather jacket and microfibre pants, careful dreadlocks pulled back into a pony tail.

She was fast in the crowd. She wasn’t dodging around legs, using the ebb and flow of the masses to see open routes like Tiago. No, people who got in her way were just… thrown out of the way.

Too strong. She was some sort of soldier, Tiago thought, refocusing ahead.

He might have gotten himself into a bit of a situation.