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Epredator

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Epredator / Ian Hughes is a metaverse evangelist, Doctor of Technology and Senior Analyst, IoT at 451 Research. He has worked in unusual and emerging technologies in both a corporate setting and out in startup land. He specialises in using game technology, such as virtual worlds to help people communicate and understand concepts.
Being a techie, and working across many mediums he has used social media since before it was as social as it is now. Blogging and sharing ideas is a core part of who he is.
Science Fiction is a natural genre and his first book was spawned from using and developing software for virtual environments.
He was resident super geek on a UK TV show called The Cool Stuff Collective for 39 episodes from 2011-2011. He was able to share his enthusiasm for new technology with the next generation, as well as working alongside a monkey, a cave girl and a host of other characters. In the third series he got to relive his own saturday morning childhood TV memories by flinging custard pies at people too.
His epredator handle is common across most games and platforms. It is part of his online persona, but heavily integrated with his real life one. Things may be digital but they are still real.
He used to use just Predator because he was good at instinctively hunting down bugs. However, then the 20th Century Fox movie and characters appeared and it became a much more common name and handle. The Yautja offering an honourable and strong character to identify with too. In the late 90's everything was getting e put on the front of it, ebusiness, ecommerce. So in part a joke he added the e. It stuck.
Epredator became a well known handle through the rise of virtual worlds such as Second Life in 2006-2009. By sharing his ideas with colleagues he became known as a metaverse evangelist. Travelling the world explaining why you don't need to travel the world when you can meet in a virtual world full of expression and fun.
He is not all digital though, he is a Head Instructor in the self defence martial art Choi Kwang Do. His wife and two children (the latter are both now black belts too) all practice the art.

Reconfigure Cover
SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY

Reconfigure

BY Epredator • POSTED ON Oct. 23, 2015

Epredator (Cont3xt, 2016) tells the story of a young coder who’s suddenly able to manipulate reality in this sci-fi novel.

Roisin Kincade is a programmer who loves to use her code to manipulate the digital world. She doesn’t consider herself a hacker, although she relishes the depictions of hackers in movies and views her work with a significant amount of romanticism. When she accidentally types a Linux command into Twitter instead of into her command-line interface, she expects her tech-savvy Twitter followers to make jokes at her expense. Instead, she receives a message from a mysterious account that seems to be inviting her to hack into a simple text game: “She was hacking, by invitation, but on a public channel. Another memory flowed past of a green screen and the phrase ‘Shall we play a game?’ ”—a reference to the 1983 movie WarGames. The new game contains a list of objects that are strikingly similar to those in Roisin’s own room. It also contains a list of commands, and when she enters one of them to move a virtual “mug” to a new position, she finds that the actual mug in her room has also physically moved. She then dives into the program to see how much she can manipulate reality—a hacker’s dream. What she doesn’t immediately realize is that there may be other entities watching her actions or that she may have unintentionally wandered into a trap. Epredator relates this tale in the irreverent, enthusiastic language of Roisin’s techie subculture—full of coding jargon, pop-culture references, and internet slang—and he manages to explain just enough to make even Luddite readers feel at home. Roisin is a charmingly guileless protagonist, and the overall plot replicates the puzzle-style computer games that are referenced in the text. The story contains just the right combination of paranoia, wonder, and fantasy to make for a fun bit of escapism, and the author even manages to land a satisfying final twist as well.

A short but punchy tale of a techie who gets in too deep.

Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-5187-7284-9

Page count: 312pp

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016

Reconfigure - What's it all about

Awards, Press & Interests

Day job

Internet of Things, AR and VR Analyst

Favorite author

William Gibson

Favorite book

Neuromancer

Favorite line from a book

Imagine a cassette, that made its images plain to you, no on off switch or power... we already have such a thing in the printed book

Favorite word

Fascinating

Hometown

Basingstoke

Passion in life

Family, Tech, Choi Kwang Do, Video Games

Unexpected skill or talent

Martial Arts Teacher, Doctor of Technology

Reconfigure: Readers' Favourite - 5 Stars, 2016

Reconfigure: Independent Author Network Book of the year Finalist, 2016

Read Reconfigure, a New Cyberpunk Novel by Metaverse Pioneer Ian "Epredator" Hughes, 2016

ADDITIONAL WORKS AVAILABLE

Cont3xt

A twisting, interlinked, serendipitous science fiction adventure. Set in the near future, using real World technology and current science theory, as an accurate base to embark from. The action rolls on. Exotic locations, martial arts, gaming technology and virtual reality all feature prominently. Roisin Kincade once again finds she has to use all her gaming and techie knowledge to save herself, and her friends, from the Combined Corporate Surveillance Operation (CCSO) and the powerful cartels that run the World. She had been busy trying to change the CCSO from the inside. She finds herself rebuilding her interface to the quantum machine Ray K. This time with some serious upgrades, using EyeBlend. It is a high end, augmented reality interface headset. With the right adjustments and code, it may be the perfect tool to take on Commander Drake. I she still inextricably linked to him? That link could become incredibly dangerous, or just give her the advantage she needs. Will she outsmart the keen instincts of the Commander and his organisation? Can her technology hold up under pressure?
Published: Jan. 22, 2016
ISBN: 1523647752
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