A SELF-PUBLISHED author from Ilminster is gaining fans through his science fiction novels, since the second book of a trilogy was released last year.

Samsun Lobe has been enjoying success with his Dying Star series, attending two major shows last year, one at the NEC in Birmingham and another in London, at which his books sold out.

His latest work, Exodus, is out now, with the final part of the trilogy, Darkness, set to be released later in the year.

After originally training as an artist and designer Samsun worked in digital media and the computer games industry for 22 years. He has also been running his own e-learning software development firm for the last eight years.

Samsun also does a lot for Ilminster, sponsoring one of the senior football teams and a successful paintball team, but writing science fiction remains his passion.

Samsun said: “The shows went really well and I sold everything I took. I’m always busy but this is one of my main things – hopefully I can just do this on its own one day but that’s a long way off yet.”

World class artists including Michelle Hoefener are producing illustrations of characters and scenes from the books for promotional material.

Samsun also writes e-learning instructional courseware with his software firm and has written for Quad magazine, a UK-based quad biking publication.

When the News last caught up with Samsun in 2010 he was just getting started but things have really taken off since.

Samsun added: “Doing the shows has been a massive help to me and I have built up a steady fan base.”

Samsun’s Dying Star Facebook page now has more than 760 likes – to find out more about the series follow the related links on this story.