My Second Eastercon
Apr. 13th, 2004 12:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coalescentHow to explain an Eastercon to someone who's never been, or even heard of it? It's six hundred fans (literature fans, mind...) in the same place, over the same weekend, doing a very wide range of things: attending or contributing to panel discussions on anything sf-related you can think of, selling or buying books, producing (or complaining about) the con newsletter, filking (god help us), costuming, building robots, demonstrating how a Tesla coil works, drinking, and, of course, arguing about the definition of a sandwich. But it's also so much more than that.
This year, Concourse, the 55th British National Science Fiction convention, was held at the Winter Gardens convention centre in Blackpool. Not the most inviting location in the world; it was particularly disturbing to sit on the train opposite three guys who were cheerfully discussing Violent Crimes I Have Committeed. But the con itself was good. The Guests of Honour were Philip Pullman, Christopher Priest, Danny Flynn, Sue Mason and Mitchell Burnside Clapp (with an honourable mention for Francis Spufford), but the best thing about Eastercon is that literally dozens of other authors, critics, and notable persons in the field go too; and they get involved, contributing to panels and other events as much as anyone else. This year, amongst others, I saw Ian Macleod, author of The Light Ages; Charles Stross, wunderkind of the British SF scene; Justina Robson, author of Natural History and others; Adam Roberts; Richard Morgan, this year's winner of the Philip K Dick award; John Jarrold, ex of Earthlight; Gwyneth Jones; Tony Ballantyne, up-and-coming author who has published some first-rate stories in Interzone over the past couple of years and whose first novel, Recursion, is due out in a couple of months; Peter F Hamilton; and Alastair Reynolds. And, of course, John Clute, master critic of the fantastic and co-author of The Encyclopaedias of Science Fiction and Fantasy, before whom we all bow down in awe. There's nothing quite like being able to walk up to the Clutemeister and casually chat to him about, say, whether he thinks Cloud Atlas should be a contender for the Clarke Award next year (answer: yes, definitely), or why zombies eat brains, but not in films (answer: if you go back to the old sources, the myths and the voodoo, they're mental vampires).
No, I take that back: the best thing about Eastercon is the people you go with. In my case, that was![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
greengolux, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
twic, snowking, despotliz, elleblue, truecatachresis, squigglyruth, ajr...and many others were also there, including cleanskies, swisstone, alexmc, hawkida, ang_grrr, dougs, and probably at least half a dozen more whose lj names I don't know.
So how did it all go down?
Friday might have been the best day. The first event we attended was the George Hay Memorial Lecture, this year given by Francis Spufford. The lecture covered the peculiar mythology that grows up around engineers and those that work with technology. In Britain we have boffins - white coat, white hair, glasses and a befuddled expression - and what does this say about our relationship with science and technology? After all, you'd hardly describe Leonardo da Vinci as a boffin. The material covered here was related that explored in his wonderful book, The Backroom Boys, but none the less interesting for that; in fact, Spufford turned out (for me at least) to be one of the stars of the con, contributing to numerous panels and always bringing an interesting perspective to the discussion. There's an online quiz (inevitably) where you can find out what sort of geek you are. Spufford, I think, is the ultimate geek liason. He can translate between us and them with perfect ease.
Next up was a panel on the future of SF publishing, which was unfortunately relocated at the last minute to a large, loud hall, meaning that it was at times hard to follow. What I picked up, though, was surprisingly optimistic; apparently science fiction is starting to make the sales that fantasy has routinely made for the last decade - or perhaps more accurately, the sales have been there all along (10% of books sold in Britain are SFF), but now the booksellers are starting to believe it. A quick break for dinner, then it was time for a panel on children's books ('are the classics still classic?'). This again suffered from noise pollution, but the lineup was so good - John Clute, Ian Macleod, Francis Spufford and Janet Figg, with Farah Mendlesohn moderating - that to a certain extent this didn't matter. What made the panel work, I think, was the mix of perspectives: not just authors, or readers, or critics, but panellists from each camp. Well, that and the fact that the discussion itself was fascinating, raising the idea that there may not be such a thing as a canon of classic children's literature; the idea that children's books are, far more than other writing, inescapably of their time, partly because the writers are (obviously) not children themselves.
In a segue of breathtaking artfulness, the panel immediately after this was about slash fiction. I've repressed most of it, thankfully, but I'm left with the strong impression that it's just pointless; you can claim you're exploring the psyche of a character as much as you like, but in the end you're not, you're inventing your own version of that character for your own personal gratification, and in many cases it's a version that is in direct opposition to the one in the text. But, as Geneva pointed out, this is at least as much an objection to fanfiction in general as it is to slash.
And then there was the panel about The Future Of Fandom, for which we all sat in the third row.
Something is happening in the fandom of the fantastic.A slippage. A freeing-up. The silliness is astounding. Notions are sputtering and bleeding across generations -
- OK, no, that's not entirely (or indeed at all) accurate. But it was too good an opportunity to parody China Mieville's New Weird manifesto to miss because, as you may have gathered, we were spotted and duely named by the panellists. I don't think I've ever been part of a Movement before; certainly not one that has exchanged taunts via a convention newsletter, at any rate ("Dear Old Fogies, You'll never take us alive! Love and kisses, the third row"/"To the third row: resistance is useless! - The Old Fogies").
The newsletter itself deserves further mention, since several of us helped out throughout the weekend. The idea is that a double-sided sheet of A4 comes out twice a day carrying news, gossip, schedule changes, and so forth. It was via the newsletter that I found out about the Hugo shortlists on Saturday (and the retro Hugos; that 1953 Best Novel list is a killer), and it was via the newsletter that I found out that David Pringle has stepped down as the editor of Interzone, to be replaced by Andy Cox (but what's going to happen to The Third Alternative?). All-in-all, an invaluable service, heroically run by Alex Mclintock. It felt good to be a part of it.
Saturday's highlight was the Not The Clarke Awards panel, in which several ex-judges (plus, this year, Francis Spufford) debated the merits of what was felt to be an idiosyncratic shortlist and tried to predict what will win, and what should win. In the end, their conclusion was the same on both counts: Tricia Sullivan's Maul, not least because it's the only book nominated that is (a) not part of an ongoing series and (b) proper science fiction, dammit. Quoth one panellist: "It's impossible to second-guess the jury that picked this shortlist." And at the end they talked a little about how judges are selected, and Claire Brialey asked for BSFA members theoretically willing to be judges to make themselves known, so Geneva and I gave our names. In many ways, it's a terrifying prospect, and I'm sure that in any queue there will be many people ahead of me who are much more qualified to do the job...but I'd be lying if I said it didn't appeal to me. Other saturday events included Chris Priest's guest of honour speech, and a couple of panels (one on 'designing alien characters', one on 'superheroes: pen and ink or silver screen?') that lacked good moderators, and as a result meandered inconclusively about all over the place.
Sunday was incredibly busy: A panel on modern sf followed by a panel on the Victorian influence on sf followed by a panel on fairytales followed by a panel on computers in sf followed by philip pullman's guest of honour interview followed by a post-cyberpunk panel followed by the BSFA awards followed by a panel debating the relative merits of fanzines and blogging followed by dinner! Followed by a panel on Firefly followed by a panel on fannish feuds, followed by bed. Somewhere in there we ate packed lunches considerately provided by Liz' mum and yes, those were the sandwiches that provoked the great debate. Then on monday there was a panel about modern fantasy, then a long train ride to London and an attempt to see Jeff Vandermeer and Jeffrey Ford talk about their work at Borders on Oxford Street. But we were late.
A couple of notes on a couple of things:
Other reports:
Geneva|Lyndsey|Liz|Dougs|hmpf
Related:
Geneva on paper vs. web|Sarah on media programming at cons
And to conclude, the obligatory list of media exchanges.
Books Borrowed: 1
Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
Books Returned To Me: 1
Natural History by Justina Robson
Books Returned To Others: 3
Dogwalker by Arthur Bradford
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
The Backroom Boys by Francis Spufford
Books Bought From The Dealers' Room: 7
Travel Arrangements (collection) by M John Harrison
A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair by Nicholas Fisk
Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem
The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye (collection) by Jonathan Lethem
Passage by Connie Willis
The Fourth Circle by Zoran Zivokvic
The Book by Zoran Zivkovic
Magazines Or Other Material Bought From The Dealers' Room: 3
Fantasy And Science Fiction, January 2004
A Very British Genre: A Short History of British Fantasy and Science Fiction, by Paul Kincaid
A Load of Old BoSh, by Bob Shaw
Books Bought From Borders On Monday Evening: 1
The Child That Books Built by Francis Spufford
Books Acquired For Free Because Liz' Dad Had Been To The Remaindered Shop And Bought Duplicates: 1
Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds
Books Acquired For Free Simply For Going To The Convention: 1
Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay
Fanzines Acquired: 3
Banana Wings #19 Ed. by Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer
Earisheen #3 by James Bacon
Liejournal: The Concourse Newsletter, #1-#5 by many. If it counts.
And now, I'm off into town. I'll have to catch up on my friends page later.
This year, Concourse, the 55th British National Science Fiction convention, was held at the Winter Gardens convention centre in Blackpool. Not the most inviting location in the world; it was particularly disturbing to sit on the train opposite three guys who were cheerfully discussing Violent Crimes I Have Committeed. But the con itself was good. The Guests of Honour were Philip Pullman, Christopher Priest, Danny Flynn, Sue Mason and Mitchell Burnside Clapp (with an honourable mention for Francis Spufford), but the best thing about Eastercon is that literally dozens of other authors, critics, and notable persons in the field go too; and they get involved, contributing to panels and other events as much as anyone else. This year, amongst others, I saw Ian Macleod, author of The Light Ages; Charles Stross, wunderkind of the British SF scene; Justina Robson, author of Natural History and others; Adam Roberts; Richard Morgan, this year's winner of the Philip K Dick award; John Jarrold, ex of Earthlight; Gwyneth Jones; Tony Ballantyne, up-and-coming author who has published some first-rate stories in Interzone over the past couple of years and whose first novel, Recursion, is due out in a couple of months; Peter F Hamilton; and Alastair Reynolds. And, of course, John Clute, master critic of the fantastic and co-author of The Encyclopaedias of Science Fiction and Fantasy, before whom we all bow down in awe. There's nothing quite like being able to walk up to the Clutemeister and casually chat to him about, say, whether he thinks Cloud Atlas should be a contender for the Clarke Award next year (answer: yes, definitely), or why zombies eat brains, but not in films (answer: if you go back to the old sources, the myths and the voodoo, they're mental vampires).
No, I take that back: the best thing about Eastercon is the people you go with. In my case, that was
greengolux, twic, snowking, despotliz, elleblue, truecatachresis, squigglyruth, ajr...and many others were also there, including cleanskies, swisstone, alexmc, hawkida, ang_grrr, dougs, and probably at least half a dozen more whose lj names I don't know.So how did it all go down?
Friday might have been the best day. The first event we attended was the George Hay Memorial Lecture, this year given by Francis Spufford. The lecture covered the peculiar mythology that grows up around engineers and those that work with technology. In Britain we have boffins - white coat, white hair, glasses and a befuddled expression - and what does this say about our relationship with science and technology? After all, you'd hardly describe Leonardo da Vinci as a boffin. The material covered here was related that explored in his wonderful book, The Backroom Boys, but none the less interesting for that; in fact, Spufford turned out (for me at least) to be one of the stars of the con, contributing to numerous panels and always bringing an interesting perspective to the discussion. There's an online quiz (inevitably) where you can find out what sort of geek you are. Spufford, I think, is the ultimate geek liason. He can translate between us and them with perfect ease.
Next up was a panel on the future of SF publishing, which was unfortunately relocated at the last minute to a large, loud hall, meaning that it was at times hard to follow. What I picked up, though, was surprisingly optimistic; apparently science fiction is starting to make the sales that fantasy has routinely made for the last decade - or perhaps more accurately, the sales have been there all along (10% of books sold in Britain are SFF), but now the booksellers are starting to believe it. A quick break for dinner, then it was time for a panel on children's books ('are the classics still classic?'). This again suffered from noise pollution, but the lineup was so good - John Clute, Ian Macleod, Francis Spufford and Janet Figg, with Farah Mendlesohn moderating - that to a certain extent this didn't matter. What made the panel work, I think, was the mix of perspectives: not just authors, or readers, or critics, but panellists from each camp. Well, that and the fact that the discussion itself was fascinating, raising the idea that there may not be such a thing as a canon of classic children's literature; the idea that children's books are, far more than other writing, inescapably of their time, partly because the writers are (obviously) not children themselves.
In a segue of breathtaking artfulness, the panel immediately after this was about slash fiction. I've repressed most of it, thankfully, but I'm left with the strong impression that it's just pointless; you can claim you're exploring the psyche of a character as much as you like, but in the end you're not, you're inventing your own version of that character for your own personal gratification, and in many cases it's a version that is in direct opposition to the one in the text. But, as Geneva pointed out, this is at least as much an objection to fanfiction in general as it is to slash.
And then there was the panel about The Future Of Fandom, for which we all sat in the third row.
Something is happening in the fandom of the fantastic.A slippage. A freeing-up. The silliness is astounding. Notions are sputtering and bleeding across generations -
- OK, no, that's not entirely (or indeed at all) accurate. But it was too good an opportunity to parody China Mieville's New Weird manifesto to miss because, as you may have gathered, we were spotted and duely named by the panellists. I don't think I've ever been part of a Movement before; certainly not one that has exchanged taunts via a convention newsletter, at any rate ("Dear Old Fogies, You'll never take us alive! Love and kisses, the third row"/"To the third row: resistance is useless! - The Old Fogies").
The newsletter itself deserves further mention, since several of us helped out throughout the weekend. The idea is that a double-sided sheet of A4 comes out twice a day carrying news, gossip, schedule changes, and so forth. It was via the newsletter that I found out about the Hugo shortlists on Saturday (and the retro Hugos; that 1953 Best Novel list is a killer), and it was via the newsletter that I found out that David Pringle has stepped down as the editor of Interzone, to be replaced by Andy Cox (but what's going to happen to The Third Alternative?). All-in-all, an invaluable service, heroically run by Alex Mclintock. It felt good to be a part of it.
Saturday's highlight was the Not The Clarke Awards panel, in which several ex-judges (plus, this year, Francis Spufford) debated the merits of what was felt to be an idiosyncratic shortlist and tried to predict what will win, and what should win. In the end, their conclusion was the same on both counts: Tricia Sullivan's Maul, not least because it's the only book nominated that is (a) not part of an ongoing series and (b) proper science fiction, dammit. Quoth one panellist: "It's impossible to second-guess the jury that picked this shortlist." And at the end they talked a little about how judges are selected, and Claire Brialey asked for BSFA members theoretically willing to be judges to make themselves known, so Geneva and I gave our names. In many ways, it's a terrifying prospect, and I'm sure that in any queue there will be many people ahead of me who are much more qualified to do the job...but I'd be lying if I said it didn't appeal to me. Other saturday events included Chris Priest's guest of honour speech, and a couple of panels (one on 'designing alien characters', one on 'superheroes: pen and ink or silver screen?') that lacked good moderators, and as a result meandered inconclusively about all over the place.
Sunday was incredibly busy: A panel on modern sf followed by a panel on the Victorian influence on sf followed by a panel on fairytales followed by a panel on computers in sf followed by philip pullman's guest of honour interview followed by a post-cyberpunk panel followed by the BSFA awards followed by a panel debating the relative merits of fanzines and blogging followed by dinner! Followed by a panel on Firefly followed by a panel on fannish feuds, followed by bed. Somewhere in there we ate packed lunches considerately provided by Liz' mum and yes, those were the sandwiches that provoked the great debate. Then on monday there was a panel about modern fantasy, then a long train ride to London and an attempt to see Jeff Vandermeer and Jeffrey Ford talk about their work at Borders on Oxford Street. But we were late.
A couple of notes on a couple of things:
- The existence or non-existence of the New Weird kept circling throughout the con, like a shark. The problem seems to be a lack of agreement about what the term means, exactly. Some authors (stand up, Jeff Vandermeer) are understandably reluctant to be tarred with any brush that could lead to certain reader expectations in the future, but other panellists (stand up, Cheryl Morgan) argued that New Weird is an approach, not a set of characteristic; that it's about challenging convention, not about establishing new conventions. Permanent revolution, if you like. And several panels pointed out the increasing collision between mainstream and sf; there are sf writers whose listed influences are almost exclusively from outside the genre (Ian Macleod, Jeffrey Ford), and mainstream writers who are demonstrably influence by writers from within the genre (David Mitchell, Jonathan Lethem). And then there's slipstream, although it was quite reasonably pointed out that that can only exist as a useful classification if there's a stream to slip behind. All in all, it's an interesting time.
- The fairytales panel was interesting, but somewhat unbalanced: with John Clute and Peter Nicholls, and Farah Mendlesohn chairing, the critic-to-author ratio was somewhat skewed, and poor old Philip Pullman was a bit outnumbered. It has to be said, though, that he still contributed a great deal (and indeed, that was true of every panel he was on. I was a little surprised that someone as 'big' as Pullman would come to an Eastercon, and I'm impressed that he did. Although that said, I've seen him talk so often over the past couple of years that I'm almost at saturation point - I've heard all his stories, for now).
- I don't fully understand the concept of fanzines. No, that's not true: I don't fully understand the concept of paper fanzines. Yes, it's nice to have a physical artifact to take away with you, but fundamentally I don't see what it is that a paper fanzine can do that the online equivalent can't do better. That said, I don't think blogs are an accurate comparison. Community blogs, maybe, but not personal ones.
- In general, there were three streams of panel, I thought: The straight 'fan' panels (the future of fandom and so forth), the panels looking at what sf does ('computers in sf', 'designing alien characters', etc) and the panels looking at how sf does what it does (fairytales, and to a certain extent the reviews of modern genre work). I think my inclinations personally lie with the third type, but that the second type is the most broadly popular.
- The BSFA awards results. Two of them went to the right people - the non-fiction award to Farah Mendlesohn (and by proxy The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction), and to Colin Odell for the cover of The True Knowledge of Ken Macleod. Two of them went to the wrong people. The short fiction award went to Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean for The Wolves in the Wall, which surely only won because it was the most readily available; yes, the shortlist was weak to start with, but there was still more significant work there. And the Best Novel award went to Jon Courtenay Grimwood for Felaheen. I can accept that people like the arabesks a lot, although I don't understand why; I am surprised that they like them more than Natural History or Pattern Recognition.
- There is a media stream of programming, but it's limited in scope and ambition. There was a panel about Buffy, another about Farscape, and another about Firefly. Compared to the lit panels, this is very odd; where are the comparisons? Where are the critical assessments? Where are the reviews of the current field? There's a niche in the market there that straight media cons don't fill. And possibly most importantly, why not show some of the material under discussion? I think there was a video room, but I never found it, and that's not quite what I'm talking about, anyway; I'm talking about showing a film, then discussing it. Or showing an episode for people who've never seen the show, and then taking the discussion from there.
Then there are guests. Clearly it's impractical to invite actors, since they demand fees, but that doesn't matter - nobody cares about the actors, anyway. But what about the writers and creators? Joss Whedon is probably implausible (although imagine Joss Whedon and Philip Pullman debating fairytales, or storytelling, or anything!), but what about people like Simon Pegg or Russell T Davies?
Other reports:
Related:
And to conclude, the obligatory list of media exchanges.
Books Borrowed: 1
Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
Books Returned To Me: 1
Natural History by Justina Robson
Books Returned To Others: 3
Dogwalker by Arthur Bradford
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
The Backroom Boys by Francis Spufford
Books Bought From The Dealers' Room: 7
Travel Arrangements (collection) by M John Harrison
A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair by Nicholas Fisk
Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem
The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye (collection) by Jonathan Lethem
Passage by Connie Willis
The Fourth Circle by Zoran Zivokvic
The Book by Zoran Zivkovic
Magazines Or Other Material Bought From The Dealers' Room: 3
Fantasy And Science Fiction, January 2004
A Very British Genre: A Short History of British Fantasy and Science Fiction, by Paul Kincaid
A Load of Old BoSh, by Bob Shaw
Books Bought From Borders On Monday Evening: 1
The Child That Books Built by Francis Spufford
Books Acquired For Free Because Liz' Dad Had Been To The Remaindered Shop And Bought Duplicates: 1
Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds
Books Acquired For Free Simply For Going To The Convention: 1
Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay
Fanzines Acquired: 3
Banana Wings #19 Ed. by Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer
Earisheen #3 by James Bacon
Liejournal: The Concourse Newsletter, #1-#5 by many. If it counts.
And now, I'm off into town. I'll have to catch up on my friends page later.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re: Media programming
Date: 2004-04-13 12:58 pm (UTC)What sort of subjects do you think would be good for intelligent, all mixed up discussions, at cons? Not a theoretical question; the con's in three weeks and the programme's entirely inchoate until this weekend.
Re: Media programming
Date: 2004-04-13 01:35 pm (UTC)One of the things I'd wondered about as something to do at an SF university group meeting, but which would probably work better at a con, come to think of it, is something on screen adaptations.
You could either discuss which short stories, novels, comics people would like to see adpated for the screen, and why, or which should never ever be adapted for screen and why not. Or you could think in general terms about the considerations a screen adaptor has to think about, such as how much plot and structure to leave in, how to create something visual out of something textual, etc.
Just an idea...
Re: Media programming
Date: 2004-04-13 04:04 pm (UTC)This is a topic that I myself have considered back in my much vounger days, when I had vague ideas of perhaps doing something film related. Then when I was choosing A-Levels, the Media Studies teacher's answer to the twin questions of "Will the course show lots of films?" (Yes), and "What efforts would be made the films accessible to me?" (Absolutely nothing, you'll just have to make sure you pay attention) put me right off the course and I picked a different third one instead. I did later get a letter of apology from the teacher after my mother complained to the college though. But I digress.
As I recall, the conclusions I came to were that it would be better to adapt short stories or novellas than novels, as fleshing a story out slightly would do a lot less harm than hacking it to bits, and that stories with strong characters - or the potential for strong characters - should be the first in the line for adaptation. I forget by now exactly which stories I had in mind.
My other thought of the time was that by avoiding any stories that called for high budgets, one could make a good tv series of short story adaptations. I think that particular train of thought was spawned by the 'new' series of the Outer Limits that was on tv at the time.
In short, what I'm trying to say is that I think you've got a good idea there.
Re: Media programming
Date: 2004-04-14 12:49 pm (UTC)I keep saying 'Hell is the Absence of God' would make a killer film, but nobody seems to be listening.
And ObTheYearOfOurWar: The Year of Our War, despite being a novel, would make a kick-ass film.
Re: Media programming
Date: 2004-04-14 03:40 pm (UTC)I'd have to re-read it for it's surely been a year now since I read Hell is the Absence of God, but from what I recall I wager it would probably have to be a film with a relatively high budget. And no doubt to have the story work on screen it might need a fair bit of rewriting.
That said, I think it could well be done. Hmm.
Re: Media programming
Date: 2004-04-14 04:20 pm (UTC)Can't see Hollywood putting in the money and not having a happy ending tbh.
Re: Media programming
Date: 2004-04-14 04:55 pm (UTC)I think sf stories that would work best on screen are ones that are set in contempory time, or a time that is close enough to contempory that the appropriate special effects and whatnot can be done without breaking the bank.
I have more to say but I'm near dead on my feet. I think what I'll do is make a mental note to return to the subject some time in the future in a brand new top-level post.
Re: Media programming
Date: 2004-04-13 02:34 pm (UTC)That's an excellent point.
Equivalent figures in other media aren't and don't, so we don't see them except as invited guests.
Yeah. I suppose that whilst I'm dreaming, I'd change that, too.
What sort of subjects do you think would be good for intelligent, all mixed up discussions, at cons? Not a theoretical question; the con's in three weeks and the programme's entirely inchoate until this weekend.
I shall have a Think. :)