Tag Archives: EasterCon

Blending the Con

19 Tuesday Jan 2021

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In case you hadn’t noticed, there is something of a global pandemic going on at the moment. You may have picked up hints of it amongst the news of insurrection in the US… This pandemic has led to a series of different measures to try to manage the impact ranging from total lockdown to the uniquely confusing Tier system in the UK.

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Photo of me on the SFF Romance Panel at Worldcon 2019 taken by Carien Ubink‎

This has, understandably, led to some issues with the normal running of events. Anything that requires a large number of people to get together in one place for an extended period of time is a high risk for spreading a virus so any number of LARP events, conferences, conventions and the like have been cancelled since March last year and in some cases we have got to the point where the rescheduled events are at risk of being cancelled as well. Some events, such as the New Zealand Worldcon in August, went fully virtual. Others are still waiting for when they can plan new dates for fully in person meets.

With this in mind, Eastercon (which was due to be in Birmingham last year but got cancelled) has been planning for a number of possible outcomes when it returns on the 1st to the 4th of April, 2021. This is probably wise as there seems to currently be no reliable way to predict the extent of the virus or the progress of the government’s response to it by then and therefore no real way to know what restrictions will or will not be in place.

So, Eastercon’s plans are to assume that at least some of the con will be virtual. Even if hotels are allowed to have guests and host events, even if a significant portion of the UK population have been vaccinated, there is still a high risk that international members of the con will not be allowed to travel into the UK so they need to work on accomodating them. So, working with available technology to figure out how to have both in person and virtual attendees both on panels and in the audience.

Which led me to thinking… assuming we eventually do rid ourselves of the pandemic with its Tiers and Lockdowns and endless Zoom meetings, how should this change conventions in the future?

During the first lockdown in March 2020, there was a lot of talk about ‘the new normal’ and how our newfound powers of being able to ‘work from home’ (that we’ve really sort of had since the 90s but nevermind) would change the workplace. Some assumed that once the pandemic was gone ther would be a return to the ‘old normal’. Others suggested that, having realised that it is possible, some might ask for more chances to work from home. How will conventions go in this? Will they return to as it was before or will they adapt by adopting some of the tricks they learned during lockdown? I’m going to consider some possible benefits of the latter…

Authors incliding Jacey Bedford and Ruth Long doing a panel at Mancunicon Eastercon

Mancunicon – me on a panel about Romance with Jacey Bedford and some others. There was standing room only… Taken by Russell Smith

One huge advantage will be space. Eastercon and Worldcon are both getting much bigger. To the extent that some venues can no longer house them adequetly. In 2016, Mancunicon in Manchester had significant  problems with space, with some panels being in rooms that were too small for the audiences who wanted to see them. Hell, this was so bad that even a panel I was on had standing room only and people waiting outside because they were not allowed in. At Worldcon 2019 in Dublin, a guest of honour almost did not make it to a panel I was moderating because the room was full so they were stopping people getting in. Luckily they knew who she was and let her in. This can lead to disappointed attendees because they cannot get into something they wanted to see and be an issue for the organisers who might have to deal with complaints and also set up systems for queuing for panels so there is no huge crush at the door. While the obvious solution might be ‘hire bigger venues’ that comes with the problem that, actually, in the UK at least we seem to be running out of ones that are big enough.

So, running the convention virtually will minimise this to an extent. First of all, attendees present in person might be disappointed that they could not get into the room. However, if the panelists are all on camera and the panel is being streamed, they can access it on a laptop or tablet or even a smart phone in the bar or even their hotel room.

Secondly, more people can be members of the convention full stop. A set number of ‘physical tickets’ can be sold to those who want to attend in person but there can also be ‘virtual tickets’ on sale at a lower price. This increases the overall income of the convention, which should hopefully cover additional cost of the tech to achieve it. This may be an option for some international attendees. I know that I could never afford the travel to the US or New Zealand for a Worldcon but I could afford a ticket to watch elements of it online.

Another issue, linked to the above, is volunteers appearing on panels, workshops, talks etc. As pointed out above, not everyone can travel to a con. Some simply due to distance but others maybe because of disability or childcare issues or similar commitments. There have been a few people who I would love to see on a panel or doing a talk at a UK convention like Eastercon but they have been based in the US or Canada and while some Eastercon attendees are from the States, it is still a significant investment in time and money to make the trip. If the tech can be in place to project a panelist on a screen so they don’t have to be present in the room but they can still interact with the panelists who are present and the audience if needed this would be an improvement.

OK, my experience of conrunning is limited – I volunteer at some cons but have not had to organise the logistics of one to any extent – and my experience of AV is based purely on using it to teach and the same experience as pretty much everyone else since March 2020 so I may be missing huge issues with this. However, I do see that this is an opportunity to think about this longer term than just the current crisis. Like workplaces in general, maybe it is time to start working out what the ‘new normal’ is actually going to be.

Ytterbium Eastercon: Monday.

22 Monday Apr 2019

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Monday at Eastercon is always a weird thing. Very much about the take down and only a few items on.

My plan for this day was to attend two interesting items.

One was Aging Societies, a panel with John Scalzi and Caroline Mullen. In this, the three panelists discussed ideas about how society cold deal with the growing elderly population in the future. The solution in Scalzi’s Old Man’s War was obviously discussed as were a few other books that looked at concepts of immortality. I was surprised no one mentioned the Peter F Hamilton books (Mispent Youth  and the Commonwealth Saga) which explore this topic but otherwise it was a very interesting conversation. As a former gerontologist, I had opinions… but I may bother to put them into a blog post on aging later.

 

6C1A8520-Pano.jpgThen I went to a coffee date with Frances Hardinge. Like John Scalzi’s similar event on Sunday, this was a relatively informal chat with the author over coffee or tea and, in this specific case, biscuits.

Because, being a LRPer and it being something clearly built into the DNA of the average live action roleplayer, Frances had managed to overcater on biscuits. This many:

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For 12 people.

However, she had also been thoughtful enough to supply gluten free jammy dodgers which was a major plus in my mind and meant I could indulge in biscuits…

Discussion covered the range of her books and touched upon possible film adaptations (two of her books have been optioned – Cuckoo Song and The Lie Tree – but this is no guarantee of an actual TV series being produced), her tendency to be both weird and cruel to her characters (and how they went back to her early attempts at writing when she was 6) and the strange things young children ask authors. Overall, a very fun and interesting hour of conversation.

After that, I worked in the green room for a few hours and that was pretty much it for my time at the con other than drinking and socialising and spending the ‘groats’ I had acquired volunteering. These are special Eastercon fake money given to volunteers that can be spent on pretty much anything. The bar accepts them (as apparently does the hotel to pay for room bookings over the event etc.) and the traders at the convention will exchange books. jewellery or cat’s ears for them. I even heard a rumour that some of the surrounding restaurants were also accepting them… I spent mine on some food, some drinks and a book from one of the traders. This year, the groats had been designed by Sidney Padua – one of the guests of honour – and looked amazing. I kept one (despite it being worth £2!) for the cool value alone… I mean, look at this artwork…

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Ytterbium Eastercon: Sunday

22 Monday Apr 2019

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Sunday is, as we all know, a day of rest. Easter Sunday doubly so. Especially when Easter Sunday just happens to be the Sunday after a Saturday at Eastercon.6C1A8489.jpg

I’d originally planned a lie in and a late arrival at the con. However, fate and a chance encounter with one of the Green room staff on Saturday that led to a promise to help out on Sunday morning meant that I was now honour bound, by ancient compact and powerful dark con magic, to an earlier start than I’d had the entire con so far.

Which was fine, only I did one of my usual errors and turned up for my shift a whole hour earlier than I thought it was.

But it was fine and I had an enjoyable morning ticking people off lists and organising drinks for participants in panels and talks.

My next call was a post lunch coffee date with John Scalzi. This was 12 people  in a room talking with John Scalzi with tea and coffee available (though John Seemed happy with Coke Zero). Three minutes before the official start of this event, he told us the story that had to be left off the record about a con a few years ago (and I will hold to that unofficial gagging order but I am totes teasing you with the fact I know something you don’t know… unless you were involved or at this event…) before launching into the event proper. What followed was an hour of questions and discussion with John holding forth on many topics ranging from his work as a consultant for Stargate Universe to his work as a film reviewer, his writing career, his love of fan art on stuff from ‘Sex, Death and Robots’ and his reflections on his post about straight white male being ‘easy mode’ in the game of life. As always, the coffee events are a weird sort of mix of informal ‘hanging out with the author’ combined with a more formal interview event. This one was so popular, they had to organise a second one later in the day.

After this and a short break where I did some more volunteering, I headed to a talk called ‘The Genius of Rosa’ by our old blog buddy, Russel A Smith. This looked at the episide of series 11 of Doctor Who that was set at the time of the (in)famous Rosa Parks bus protest. Russ went into detail on the episode and talked about the history and social context of the episode. The talk was mainly focussed on tackling the opposition to the episode, the negative comments that came (it seemed) simply because it was an episode about a black woman protesting.  Each objection (like ‘the message was too heavy handed’) was answered in the talk.

 

Then there was a panel on Medicine in SF in which a bunch of medical doctors and biomedical scientists looked at concepts of medicine in science fiction and discussed the viablity of the methods. A lot of time was spent on the possibility of ‘AI Doctors’ similar to the Doctor from Voyager and what this may mean in terms of patient care and the risk of litigation (who is to blame if a medical AI makes a mistake?) but there was also time for a bit of discussion aboutpersonalised medicine,  homeopathy and the sort of medical scams that exist now and how these may be worse in the future.

 

The final panel of the day was called ‘History of Representation in Doctor Who’. This panel looked at how well Doctor Who covered issues like race, sexuality, sexism and disablism. The panel looked at examples of this and considered their own first experiences of Doctor Who and how that affected them. Highlights included Fiona Moore discussing how some showrunners were really bad at feminism if they tried to be feminist but actually really good if they didn’t try and Guest of Honour DC pointing out how Barbara (first Doctor Who female companion) was actually a really strong character for her time with a lot of agency. There was also an almost universal fanship for Captain Jack Harkness.

After this, it was time for dinner and the bar… and spending all the hard earned groats from volunteering…

Ytterbium Eastercon: Saturday

21 Sunday Apr 2019

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Saturday for me was when Eastercon got… busy… there was so much I wanted to see and do today and so much I missed, plus I was busy with a lot of volunteer work too. However, as this mostly involved holding up a card to say when a panel was overunning, it was no great effort and I got to watch the panels too.

First panel of the day was “What is #Ownvoices and why is it important?” This panel 6C1A8357.jpgfeatured the wonderful Russell Smith, a regular on this blog, and a selection of other diverse voices who were there to discuss their own experiences of being seen as ‘other’ in publishing. For example, the tired old excuse of “We already have a book about [insert minoroty issue here], we don’t need another one.” An argument easily countered by “but you have half a dozen books about the experiences of cis het white males…” The panel made it clear why these were issues, whey they shouldn’t need to be an issue and discussed what is now a growing and more vocal group of #Ownvoices. In all, an entertaining panel.

6C1A8382.jpgThis was followed by an interview with Frances Hardinge, another old regular on this blog. As a guest of honour, she had certain obligations, including being interviewed. The interview ably covered the spread of her work and discussed such topics as her thoughts on over researching and the personalities of her main characters. For example, the wonderful quote as tweeted by Farah Mendledesohn on twitter: “My heroines tend to have other things on their mind: like surviving, or revolutions, or not eating people.”

Then we had John Scalzi’s interview, where Emma Newman went into detail about his 6C1A8420.jpgcareer as a writer, the popularity of his blog (Whatever) and why he is the only writer in history who does not seem to have imposter syndrome (diagnosis: he is a Mage…). This interview also covered why he is destined to be eaten by a polar bear (because, as a Mage, if he wishes it, it will happen and he did say if he were to get eaten hy any sort of bear it should be a polar bear as that is the most environmentally friendly option).

There then followed the Hay lecture where Hamied Haroon, of the University of Manchester, talked about medical imaging. My one take home message from that lecture was “Any chance of any jobs in your research group?” because it looked like awesome work I would really liked to have got involved with as a biomedical scientist with an especial interest in the technical aspects of research…

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After this, things got a little dark and sinister… with a panel about conspiracy theories called ‘Paranoid Politics and Fantasy’. This one also featured John Scalzi, who did coin the phrase ‘Trump’s Razor’ to describe the situation where the stupidest possibility is most likely true. Much discussion about various theories and the reasons they exist as well as looking at differences in past and present in terms of conspiracy.

Next we had ‘Romance in Fantasy and SF’ which did explore differences in current romance vs older romance tropes, mostly examining the change in the ethnicity and sexuality of those involved in it.

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Finally, there was ‘Creating Fantasy Biologies’ which ranged through a lot of evolutionary and paleontological theories and tried to work out how these will apply to alien or fantasy species. This was an entertaining panel that was, unfortunately, over crowded due to being in the smallest room.

In all an excellent day if somewhat tiring…

 

 

 

New year musings…

01 Tuesday Jan 2019

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As usual, I am late at doing a retrospective of the old year. In fact, I may be more than a year late as I cannot recall if I did one of these last year or not…

Anyway, after being name checked in Russel A Smith’s blog yesterday I have been shamed into doing a new year post of my own…

Eddie the smooth coated fox terrier on a beach with a ball2018 has been a mixed year. I lost two things. One was my full time employment, with redundancy in June. The other, more tragic and personal, was the loss of Eddie, our Smooth Fox Terrier. This last one is still very recent (December) and he will be sorely missed. He has featured both in this blog as ‘Christmas dog’ and also had a small cameo in my first novella publication (Transitions) where he is found eating from an upturned bin during a scene where the hero, Brandon, leaves a love note on Helen’s doorstep. I am sure he would have been the first to tell you that the entire plot of that story was all about him and the bin eating scene was artistically essential for the overall plot of the novel and if you cut it out the whole story collapses.

However, there were also good things in 2018. For one, the loss of employment has allowed more time for writing – both fiction and non-fiction. This has meant that I have now almost completed my second educational resource and will be starting a third later in January. I will be using this blog to announce when these are published so keep an eye out for that. The two current ones are based on the BTEC level 3 Health and Social Care specifications for 2016. The potential future one will be based on the Applied science specification.

I’ve also kicked the fiction writing up a notch. I have been working with a new writing Authors incliding Jacey Bedford and Ruth Long doing a panel at Mancunicon Eastercongroup, courtesy of the wonderful Jacey Bedford who is shown in the photograph from a panel I shared with her at Mancunicon (Eastercon) and that has given me some inspiration and encouragement. I am currently working on two novels. One is a sequel to Gods of the Deep called Gods of the City which will bring us back to the Arcroc and the adventures of Rachel and Everyn. The other currently does not have a name (it was formerly Fortune and Troy but that title no longer works for various reasons and I need a rethink…) but will be set in the Waypoint universe which has already featured in two of the stories in Lurking Miscellany.

Final thing in writing is that I have become a reviewer for the BSFA Review. My reviews have not (at present) made it to the page but are expected to start appearing in the next issue which is due out soon. I have been reading a mix of trad and self published books. Spoiler alert, my review of Lost Gods by fellow Mancunian Micah is largely positive. This has nothing to do with the fact I got to attend the lavish release party…

Purple relief figure in Brick lane, LondonIn photography, I have made massive changes. I attended a course at the London Institute of Photography in August. I spent a few days in London with them doing artistic shoots in Brick Lane and the Barbican centre and a few other places.  I learned a lot there and have been applying what I learned to my work. One of the images I took there is shown here – some of the fascinating graffiti in Brick Lane, London. I also traveled to Cyprus to photograph my sister’s wedding, which was an amazing experience and have found a group of local photographers who have been meeting in a pub in Manchester every Wednesday to experiment with interesting photography ideas. I have set up a facebook page to showcase some of my more recent shoots both from those sessions and others.

I also found out that a good friend of mine has recently qualified as a professional photographer and did a residency abroad which was very successful and which makes me very jealous of her. You can see examples of her work here. She is absolutely amazing and I want her to do well if only so that the wonderful photos she took of me and my wife at a friend’s wedding become collector’s pieces in the future :).

For the year to come I am making my usual creative resolution but modifying it. Over the last two years I have made it a policy to do at least one creative thing every day, even if only a small thing (literally a word or two on a document counted). It didn’t matter what it was – writing something, taking a photograph or editing a photograph all counted. However, in the latter half of 2018 I modified the rule a little. Now, instead of being able to do photography OR writing tasks I am being strict and saying that I must do writing every day. I am not making a similar rule for photography as I know that it is often erratic when I can get to do that. However, I am sure there will be more of that to come. The writing every day is essential for the writing group anyway. There must be new stuff for them to critique each meeting and that means I have had to up my volume.

Coming up this year are a number of things.

First of all there is the release of Out of this World Alphas due soon. 15th January is the release date you should put in your calendar. FB_IMG_1545486717540.jpgOr you can click the link and pre-order if you prefer and it will be delivered to your e-reader on the release date. I have a story in this anthology set in the Arcroc that stands between Gods of the Deep and Gods of the City.

Secondly, thanks to the aforesaid Russel Smith, I am working on another anthology which will be based in Manchester. I have the vague concept of a story incubating for that which involves druidic magic.

As for conferences etc. I am not able to make Picocon again this year, which is a shame because I really enjoyed my time there last year. However finances are against me there and, besides, I have two other amazing conferences to get to this year. One of these is Eastercon which this year is in London and gives me the chance to catch up with Frances Hardinge again after too long not seeing her. Regular readers will recall many years ago when she appeared on this blog having done a reading for World Book Night at the Fab cafe. I also did a reading then but I am not sure as many noticed. I am looking forward to a good weekend of panels and talking with people who I tend to only see once a year over Easter…

The other main event this year is like Eastercon only bigger… Worldcon is coming to Dublin this year and as that makes it far more accessible than it has ever been I am going to travel there in August. I have also been involved in the brainstorming sessions for this, which seem to involve a bunch of people sending emails with crazy panel ideas and the rest of us either agreeing with them or making them crazier. No spoilers but I am sure any of you who attend will be in for some treats… I am looking forward to my first Worldcon and will be there with a camera in order to take lots of photos of Dublin to bore you all with.

So that is it… plans for the new year as they currently stand. I hope you all have a good new year yourselves and are successful in any and all ventures you attempt.

 

Eastercon (April 2017) Part the first.

01 Thursday Jun 2017

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Dr Emma King demonstrates thermodynamic principles (by blowing shit up)

I’m late in submitting my Eastercon diary. I blame work in the real world for sapping all the time I have available to blog – most of my spare time lately has been spent on writing (working on something new, it’s not going well but at least it’s going) and photography. I am also scrimping a lot here as, unlike last year’s diary, I am not planning to do an entry for every day. I had planned to do a daily diary while at the event but circumstance, alcohol and Russell Smith happened. Repeatedly.

This was my second ever Eastercon and already I felt like a veteran. I’d upped my game by actually staying in a hotel rather than going home each evening (arguments that they should have relocated to Manchester for my convenience were met with flat refusal, apparently the committee mostly live in Birmingham and they wanted the easy commute, strange coincidence…). I’d also been given three programme items to be on, two of which I was moderating and the third was with Pat Cadigan, one of the guests of honour.

There was an opening ceremony. The guests were introduced. Then Dr Emma King of the Royal Institute took the stage and proceeded to blow up bits of it using flour, gherkins, a lot of electricity and jelly babies. This sort of thing is apparently normal when the Royal Institute of Science put on shows and, according to her potted history of the institute, such things have been normal since it was first founded and evidence that it was almost certainly set up by Time Lords.* Luckily the stage survived (or was time shifted back to a time when it had not been blown up…) and proper health and safety procedures were followed. The only casualty was a single Jelly Baby.

6C1A0889After a Friday afternoon panel on communication in science and a wonderfully instructive workshop on preparing manuscripts for submission by Joanne Hall**, I started the weekend properly with a beer with R.A Smith. The fact that I have been having beer (and annual birthday dinners and parties) with R.A Smith since we were both at university does not make this unremarkable because this was a concept known as a ‘Literary Beer’ in which attendees at the conference can book onto a session with an author and sit and drink beer (or the drink of your choice) with them and talk books. A similar concept, the Kaffeklatsch, takes place during the day and supposedly replaces beer with coffee. However, I was aware that there were some drinking beer at Kaffeklatches and some heretics were even drinking tea! Russ had a good turn out for his beer and he proceeded to entertain with anecdotes and secret spoilers about upcoming events in his as yet unwritten book 3 of the Grenshall Manor series. He also performed an adequate re-enactment of a turret in the very obscure computer game Beachhead…

The next day I was at a loose end as I was not slated for any programme items until Sunday morning. However, I decided to check out the Women in Star Wars panel which played out to a packed room despite the early time of day. The discussion ranged over tropes that apply to women, particularly the idea of George Lucas riffing off Japanese ideas for female characters, as seen in anime and Japanese cinema and how that explained the paradox of Leia as the Princess who needs to be rescued but is also a strong, independent woman who is a leader in her own right. Apparently in Japanese cinema that is a common theme.

I followed this with a workshop on self publishing by F.D Lee that looked at many of the pitfalls that a self published author might get into. Some good tips, including pointing out that if you are publishing mainly on Amazon and other online sources, your cover is only ever really seen as a tiny thumbnail and so you should design it accordingly.6C1A0935

The afternoon was spent pleasantly in a Kaffeklatsch with two outstanding authors – Peadar O’Guilin and Peter Kalu. Originally it was supposed to be two separate events but because of very few attendees it was decided to merge them into one. The low numbers seem to have been across the board for this afternoon slot and one theory was because famous fantasy artist Fangorn was doing an art tour and everyone wanted to do that.  So we ended up with five in total, all writers in some form, and as Peadar generously pointed out we were all attending each other’s Kaffeklatschs.  There was a lot of discussion about Irish myth, African and Caribbean myth, football, zombies and zombie footballers. The last due to Peter’s latest book which apparently sees the 1966 England World cup squad coming back from the dead. As they do.

6C1A1064 In the evening I attended the BSFA awards to watch awards begin given out to some very worthy people and to see Kari Sperring’s Eurovision host impersonation. I then yet again demonstrated my lack of geek by failing to attend the screening of the new series of Doctor Who which was taking place at 7 but instead opted to attend another Kaffeklatsch, this time with the wonderful Adrian Tchaikovsky. This was very well attended, despite the draw of Peter Capaldi on a big screen, and according to Adrian much better attended than his first Kaffeklatsch where he was able to buy coffee for all the attendees for very little money. There was much discussion on various topics and, as you might expect insects were a theme.

Once that was over it was time for food and drink and, eventually, bed…

*This is undeniably true. I have evidence. Good evidence. Well, had… it seems the entire body of evidence linking the RI to Gallifrey has apparently just vanished. As if it had never existed. Removed completely from time. That in itself is suspicious enough. Also, I am sure I saw Emma wearing a scarf once.

**I am not sharing any secrets, you can go to a workshop on your own… It was very instructive and did confirm that I was at least doing most things right when submitting to publishers, though I needed to up my synopsis and cover letter game a touch. Publishers look for any excuse at all to reject.

 

 

 

Gods of the Deep

20 Wednesday Jul 2016

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Well, it has been a long time coming. It seems like I have been talking about a sequel to Gods of the Sea ever since the Pirates and Swashbucklers anthology first came out all those years ago. In fact, it was quite ominously Friday 13th April 2012 when I reported to you all that I had got an email from the publisher of Pirates and Swashbucklers asking me to do a sequel.

And now, four years and approximately three months later… you can buy the completed book in both Kindle and paperback formats. gods of the deep postcard

Ok, I admit I was slow in getting this done but this project has gone further than I imagined it would. Plus I think I can still claim a faster turnaround than GRR Martin at the moment. What started as an idea for a  relatively  small novella turned into a much longer work and now includes two bonus short stories that explore the wider world in addition to a newly edited and tidied up version of Gods of the Sea which now serves as what I describe in the foreword as being similar to that scene in a Bond film just before the theme music plays.

And that is not the only thing that is special about this release. In addition to the wonderful cover produced by fellow Steampunk market trader and artist supreme, Lauren C Waterworth, you also have internal illustrations derived from the sketches that she made when creating the cover to coo over. If you like the cover, by the way, you should totally check out her facebook page and see if you can buy prints of her artwork. .

The official launch will be taking place at the Manchester Author event on the 13th August 2016. You can buy tickets for this event here. There I will be signing copies of both Gods of the Deep and Lurking Miscellany. I am also attending another signing event in Sandbach in November and Chester in April 2017. Finally I am also an attendee at Inominate, the Birmingham run Eastercon in April next year where I am hoping to be on some panels again. If you see me at any of these events feel free to pop over and say hi. Also, if you want to pre-order a signed copy of any of my books you can order them using this handy form and they can be delivered to you at the event of your choice.

You can also expect to see me sneaking into some other peoples’ blogs and messing around in there, getting mud on all the furnishings. I’ll post links to these as they go up. In fact there is one here for the Addicted to Reviews blog which went up earlier today. Go check it out and give the owner some love.

Finally, I am staging a stealth raid on the Manchester Author event Facebook page this Thursday (21st June). I will be taking control of the mic around 1030 GMT and holding onto it like grim death until it is wrested from my cold dead hands at 11pm by JF Holland. Come to the page to check out what nonsense I will spout. If it is anything like my last page takeover, expect some musical links to my books and some extracts… If you are lucky there may even be dog photos.

Don’t forget… buy your copies of Gods of the Deep as soon as you can!

@mancunicon: a weekend in the life of Eastercon Part 2: Saturday

03 Sunday Apr 2016

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In our last instalment of ‘Eastercon’, we went through Friday, including the True Love and Trophies panel starring Yours Truly. Today I intend to work through the events of Saturday…

 

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The ‘Balancing the Creative Life’ panel.

 

 

I had a late start on Saturday and a relatively easy day. I turned up at 1pm in time for a panel which I felt was very relevant to me – Balancing the Creative life. This starred Tony Ballantyne as moderator and had Jackie Burns, David L Clements. Peter Ellis and Juliet Kemp discussing the issues of maintaining a 9 – 5 day job while also writing or producing art to a high enough standard. Several of the panellists claimed to cheat. Peter Ellis stated that he had not really started to write properly until he was retired from his full time teaching job and David L Clements was quick to point out that his job as an Astrophysicist did actually provide a lot of useful research material for SF novels. This panel also covered issues like being a carer for a family member and how to cope with raising a family. From that discussion I came away with a sense that I was doing a lot of the things needed to be both a full time worker and a writer – things like considering plotlines and character development in the otherwise dead time spent travelling to and from work, making good use of holidays and so on. I was also made aware of the wonders of noise cancelling headphones when it comes to shutting out distractions…

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General bustle of the Con

 

Later in the afternoon, I tried to attend the Female gaze panel, mainly because it was mentioned as part of the True Love and Trophies panel and was something I was interested in. However, it seems as though our ringing endorsement of this panel during our slot was enough to get them full long before the panel was due to start. So unfortunately I missed it, as did Ruth F Long who I caught up with later in an attempt to find out if she had learnt anything from it.

So, instead I decided to wander into a talk that was taking place in a larger room next door which was entitled ‘the Ecology of Doctor Who’ by Eira and Smuzz. This wasn’t (as you might expect) a discussion of fictional alien ecology but rather an interesting overview of the relationship between Doctor Who as a BBC TV programme and the ecological issues that were prevalent at different points in its history. Covering such things as the nuclear fears of the 50s, fuel crisis, deforestation and how these were represented in the show. The narrative was accompanied by a series of clips illustrating the points made and though these were plagued by technical hitches which delayed the start of the talk, they did help to make the points clear. The upshot of the talk was that Doctor Who has lost its way recently with regards to stories about the environment, though it is not clear if this is a deliberate policy decision or merely an accident of story selection, and that more should be done to use the show as a tool for educating the viewers about the issues relevant today. It was a talk delivered passionately with a lot of excellent arguments by a speaker who really knew his Who history and made a lot of points I agreed with, though I did disagree that New Who had wholly abandoned its liberal enviro friendly roots as there have been stories covering those issues. However, I am fully in support of there being more of that sort of thing – not just the ecological issues but also social and political ones. Doing the job that SF does so well – warning us about the dangers of the future based on the trends evident in the present.

After the Who talk ended (late due to aforementioned technical issues) I was rescued from the con by a crack team of special forces who dragged me to a restaurant for dinner… after which it was time to return to the convention for drinks and the disco… the disco that I missed due to getting involved in some fascinating discussions with various random people…

Next instalment: Sunday and a date with radio…

@mancunicon: a weekend in the life of Eastercon Part 1: Friday

01 Friday Apr 2016

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NB: There are a lot of links in here as I have tried to link to something from every person I saw over the weekend. However, I could not link to everyone mainly because I could not find a link I was 100% certain people would want shared (personal twitters etc.) If I linked you and you want it removed or (horrors of horrors) I didn’t link you and you are offended by this contact me. It can be fixed.

So, the weekend of Easter is always Eastercon time for those of a SF and Fantasy bent. An event where writers, artists and fans get together to talk, panel, display, sell and generally network amongst themselves. This year’s event was set in the sunny northern climes* of Manchester and was therefore aptly named Mancunicon and given a SF remodelling of that location’s famous Bee symbol** as a logo.IMG_8232

I’d decided to check out Mancunicon and see what all the fuss was about. After all, it was in the same  city and I am nothing if not lazy about how far I travel. So I booked as a member of the convention with no idea of what to expect. Not only that, I decided to offer myself up as tribute and volunteer to go on panels. May have been an insane thing to do but I soon discovered that insanity was all good here…

In the weeks leading up to the event I was informed which panel I was to be sacrificed on and given contact with the other members of it. A few emails and we all seemed to be up to speed on what we were doing. I therefore turned up well prepared for what I had to do on the panel and a lot of excitement for what was to come, though still not really sure about a lot of it…

Before my panel, however, there was a whole afternoon to get through. I wandered into the Deansgate Hilton in time to register and to attend the first panel that had caught my eye – Twisting the Story with Editor Gillian Redfearn, Susan Bartholomew, David Tallerman, Chris Wooding, Sebastien De Castell and Charles Stross. A fascinating discussion ensued about a topic that I have blogged about in the past and which gave some interesting insights. Ideas such as how to make a villain sympathetic were discussed (love seems to conquer all here, I used that one myself later). Unfortunately for me, Charles Stross was employing some hi tech gadgetry to jinx camera electronics, possibly involving the binding of demons into computer circuits, which meant that every time I tried to take a photo in that room it would not expose properly. Well that or I’d stupidly set the camera wrong… My ego says it was option one because that involves being defeated by a foe with superior resources. Chances are it was option two. Regardless, I could barely get any decent photos of that panel, which is a shame. The camera was mysteriously behaving for the next panel (which to be fair was a better lit room and I had noticed the settings were messed up and was able to fix them).

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The Biology in SF Panel. Not shown – Alex Lamb who is hiding offscreen

This was followed by a panel on Biology in SF. This one was lead by a group of writers who had between them more science PhDs than the average person could accumulate in a lifetime and two of them were not academics at all. When I had originally seen this in the schedule I had felt a little put out that I had not been considered for it given my background, but I judged the panel worthy and they played well to a packed house with standing room only. There was discussion of modern genetic techniques (in particular the technology that has recently been used to remove HIV virus DNA from T cells) and how Biology is now at the point where it is useful to SF, being at a point where it is still accessible to the layman while being weird and abstract enough for the wow factor without getting quite so weird or abstract as physics sometimes strays into and which only Stephen Hawkings can understand (which does somewhat limit your audience share…). The double bonus was that I could count this as continual professional development for my RL job…

Following this I went get some food and to sit in the bar and soak up the atmosphere of the event with a friend while waiting for my panel to start. It was during this time that Storm Constantine and Freda Warrington wandered in and casually claimed some seats right next to us.

You know, as if they were ordinary people and not authors who are like well known and stuff.

And that, as I was beginning to learn, was the spirit of Eastercon. There were some well known names here. I already mentioned Charles Stross, Chris Wooding and a few others above and there was also Ian McDonald (present as a Guest of Honour) and some other names who I was at that point unaware of. Award winners, best sellers, known names in SF and Fantasy literature. But there was no ‘us and them’ feeling. We were all ‘Us’ and that led to a nice relaxed atmosphere in which it was possible to have a conversation with someone about Donald Trump and forget that they have sold more books than you probably ever could.

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The ‘True Love and Trophies’ Panel as taken by R.A Smith (who was standing at the back due to lack of seats)

My panel started at 7 but the usual procedure was to report to the Green room for a chat with the rest of the panellists so we can go over our plans. It was called the Green room but in reality it was more the ‘Green Landing’ – a partitioned space on the third floor of the hotel near some of the panel rooms where those taking part in events could wait before going in. The room was run by the hard working and efficient Green Room Gophers who were there to check everything was in order and all panellists had everything they needed – including the drink that was on offer for anyone doing an event at the Con.

 

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All I can say here is I was probably making some deeply relevant and emphatic point, hence the hand blurring. Kate is clearly not impressed 🙂

I met up with the rest of the panel – the moderator Ruth Frances Long, Jacey Bedford, Kate Soley Barton and Justina Robson – and we had a short discussion about what we were going to talk about and, mainly, if we all agreed on what the brief for the panel actually meant. Then we did the panel…

And it was amazing! I was expecting a handful of people and all of those people we knew personally (R.A Smith was in the audience at my request taking photos and there were a few others I knew). However, like the biology panel, it was standing room only. OK, to be fair, the rooms were a little too small and so filled up quickly, but that was still a lot of people interested enough in ‘True Love and Trophies’ to stand at the back and to hang around outside trying to get in even though we were clearly full.

Discussions revolved around romance clichés. We touched on the ‘female gaze’ as that was the topic of a panel planned for later in the weekend the concept of using imagery designed specifically to attract female readers or viewers such as when male superheroes flex flawless musculature. Ruth posed the question about how this has affected romance literature. The inevitable and ubiquitous ‘half naked male six pack’ was put on the table (um, not literally I should add here…) and each of the female romance writers on the panel (Ruth, Justine and Jacey) seemed to have a story about how their publishers keep putting such things on there despite all requests not to. On other topics, Kate, as the reader in the group, made references to fan fiction and how romance works there. I made comments about the prevalence of ‘Happy Ever After’ and how it is ironic that the story considered the greatest romance ever by some, Romeo and Juliet, does not end happily at all.  The overall theme was what fantasy and SF could learn from more traditional romance stories and I think we covered a lot of it very well in the time we had. We could have gone on longer but we were out of time. I guess we left the audience wanting more which is always good.

The evening ended with drinks and discussion in the hotel bar… Overall a good time was had by all and there will be more on this in our next instalment (stay tuned!)

 

 

 

*Remember, as Obi Wan Kenobi was wont to say, we mean sunny ‘from a certain point of view’ i.e. not at all sunny. I’ve discussed Manchester weather before.

**You know about the Bees yes? They are on every bin and bollard in the city. No one could miss them (well I did…). The mystery of the bees was referred to a few times this weekend. TLDR version is they refer to the industry of the city.