Looking Upwards

[coalescent]

Yesterday was this year's BSFA/SFF AGM/event day, Looking Upwards. It was a very good day; I managed to catch up, at least briefly, with almost all the people I wanted to catch up with, and the talks and panels were largely good. Some brief notes:

• Ian McDonald gave a brief history of the life cycle of a movement in sf (which went something like, origins -> core text -> manifesto -> theme anthology -> wannabes -> poor imitations -> rediscovery fifteen years later as 'retro'), and then discussed some of his reservations about the Mundane SF manifesto. Fun talk.


• The SFF panel was on 'Is Science Writing the New SF?', with Francis Spufford, Oliver Morton, fjm and major_clanger chairing. This was a very interesting discussion, but wandered quite a long way off the original topic. Much of the time focused on what you might call the philosophy of science education; whether children are being taught to reason for themselves, whether that's sufficient, that sort of thing. I'm glad that pmcmurray took up the issue of children doing or not doing 'hands-on' science in the home these days (growing crystals, dismantling wirelesses, generally messing about in the kitchen, that sort of thing) and pointed out that if they're not doing that, they are playing with computers and computer software. I think this is an obvious parallel, and it's been going on for a while, to the point where in terms of childhood experiences directing adult interests, I think the infotech-heavy sf of, say, Charles Stross is the present-day equivalent of the rocket- and space-adventure-heavy sf of the golden age.


• karen_traviss gave an enjoyable talk on approaching writing as a business, rather than (or at least as much) as an art form. Very entertaining, and at times mind-bogglingly practical and pragmatic; and I really must get around to reading City of Pearl at some point.


• The last panel of the day was the BSFA panel 'Best of British', with hh fishlifter, Steve Jeffries, Ian McDonald, myself, and Paul Billinger chairing. I was nervous about this beforehand (having agreed to be on it, I realised that I don't actually think myself knowledgeable enough about British sf to be confident picking potential Bests; The Affirmation and Stand on Zanzibar have gone on my list of Things I Should Try To Read Before Worldcon) but it seemed to go well enough in the end (pace the usual disclaimer about my public speaking abilities). I think if there was a problem with it, it's perhaps that it didn't offer much scope for debate; the trouble with discussing The Best is that you're going to nod along with most people's choices and think that yeah, actually, they've got a point.

So yes, good day. Thanks to all those who organised it.