4) Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell

Managed to read this on the way to Worldcon and in the rare insomniac moments while there. Of course I must have read it a couple of times as a teenager but it’s always interesting to come back to it. Just a few things that struck me on rereading:

1. It’s not so much a novel as a set of political statements framed as tragedy.
2. There is, however, a genuine moment of suspense for the first time reader when we don’t know if O’Brien is really a counter-revolutionary or not.
3. Julia as a character is better drawn than I remembered. I think that when I first read the book I was hoping she would “really” be as ideological as Winston, but in fact her approach is an important contrast to his. “You are only a revolutionary from the waist down” is one of the most important lines in the book.
4. Room 101, taken on its own, actually isn’t very terrifying – it only acquires its impact from what has come before. But it does give the plot another element of suspense after the main question – will they manage to overthrow Big Brother or not? – has been answered.

Again, bolded those of you who I’ve actualy met; rather a change compared with two weeks ago.

ajshepherd, akicif, alarielle, alexmc, alliemay, andwatagain, andyhat, ang_grrr, annafdd, artw, autopope, aynathie, banskid, barsine, blonde222, bouncingbelle, bricoleur, bring_back_food, brisingamen, britzkrieg, burkesworks, busarewski, butterbee, captain_wesker, ccfinlay, cdpoint, ceemage, chance88088, chernikovsun, cherylmorgan, chess, chilperic, coalescent, communicator, crazysoph, creaney, crystalfrog, cwgerard, cygny, dace_holenfor, daegaer, davesangel, davidstewart, deadspeaker, deannawol, dear_hubby, deborah_c, despotliz, djm4, dougs, eastethnia, eiko82, eimear_rose, elise, ephiriel, etherealfionna, eugie, eyeliner297, feorag, fjm, flemmarde, fluffcthulhu, flyingsauce, givali, grahamsleight, greengolux, gummitch, h0pal0ng, habseligkeit, hawkida, hddod, hedgetrimmer, hells_librarian, hfnuala, ianmcdonald, ias, inner_storm, irishlass04, jacobsmills, james_nicoll, jdigital, jere7my, juleske, kate_nepveu, kcjones, kenmaher, kharin, kradical, kulfuldi, las, lauriemann, leedy, leex, leila_azziza, liadnan, lopt, lostcarpark, luned, major_clanger, marykaykare, megolas, mevennen, mik_yesha, minny, mireille21, mr_renaissance, msisolak, mylescorcoran, nalsa, nancylebov, natural20, new_brunette, nhw, nickbarnes, ninebelow, nmg, nrivkis, nyphur, omegar, original_kaos, papersky, peake, pickwick, pnh, politicinternet, prosewitch, purple_pen, purplecthulhu, purplepooka, pvaneynd, qatsi, qdbii, rangerdewshine, redbird, rfmcdpei, rozk, rparvaaz, sammywol, sbisson, scattyme, sdn, seawasp, sevenorora, shsilver, shutters_i, silk_noir, sinclair_furie, sisterdew, skyra123, slovobooks, smhwpf, sneerpout, srk1, stellanova, stilldancer, sugarimp, sulkyblue, susansugarspun, swisstone, synan, tamaranth, theferrett, thette, ticking_fool, tnh, vnp, watervole, wiselamb, wwhyte, wyvernfriend, yhlee, yonmei, yourownmeretrix, zhaneel69.

I noticed , and in passing at Worldcon but didn’t quite manage to talk to them.

I found this rather alarming!

Books (Fiction), including comics:
Brian Aldiss, Cultural Breaks
R Scott Bakker, The Darkness That Comes Before
Daniel Clowes, Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron
L Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt, The Compleat Enchanter
Samuel R Delany, Babel-17
Samuel R Delany, Dhalgren
Guy Gavriel Kay, Sailing to Sarantium
Paul Kearney, The Way to Babylon
Paul Leonard, Doctor Who: Genocide
Kelly Link, Magic for Beginners
Frank Ludlow and , eds, Emerald Eye
, King of Morning, Queen of Day
Tom Reamy, Blind Voices
Robert Silverberg, The World Inside
Clifford D Simak, City
E.E. “Doc” Smith, First Lensman
E.E. “Doc” Smith, Galactic Patrol
E.E. “Doc” Smith, Triplanetary
Norman Spinrad, The Druid King
, Accelerando
, The Family Trade
James Tiptree Jr, Star Songs of an Old Primate

Books (Non-Fiction):
Andrew M Butler and , eds, The True Knowledge of Ken MacLeod
Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks, The Making of Doctor Who (first edition)
, A Very British Genre
David Langford, Up Through An Empty House of Stars
David Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction
M.J. Simpson, Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams
Splitting Infinity (Worldcon souvenir book)

Magazines:
Albedo [One] #30
Foundation #94, Summer 2005
Locus #534, July 2005
Matrix #174, July/August 2005
Meta #2, August 2005
Mimosa #27, 2001
Vector #242, July/August 2005

Videos:
Doctor Who: The Chase
Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks

Proper dust jacket for With Stars in My Eyes by Peter Weston

I have a very tolerant wife.

We resume on Sunday afternoon, when I returned from lunch to find myself witnessing the official photograph of the official signing of the official contract for the new edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, by John Clute, Dave Langford and Peter Nicholls. I was pleased to learn later from Dave Langford that he is fairly optimistic it can be completed fairly quickly (whatever that means), and positively thrilled to hear that the new Encyclopedia will be primarily a low-cost subscription on-line resource, capable of being continually updated. OK, I do like dead trees as a medium, but for a work like The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction the extra benefits of on-line searches and perhaps also hyperlinks to external information will be huge.

I mainly just hung around for the next few hours, bumping into (at last!), Conor Kostick, and and her mother who had come over to present the James White Award. Had a good chat with , and . Then it was time to go to the Hugos.

I’ve already written up the Hugo results, but just want to note that I felt a small lump in my throat at the ceremony. I’ve been writing various web pages about the Hugos for five years now, and at last I was actually there. More prosaically, as well as a particularly high percentage of UK-bsed winners, I have a suspicion (which I will check some time) that a higher proportion (or at least number) of women won Hugos this year than is usual. (I calculated three years ago that a third of Nebulas in the fiction categories had been won by women, but only a quarter of Hugos.) More number-crunching to follow.

Met up with for a post-Hugo drink, and we witnessed the cheers and applause of the Moat House bar as a kilted strode in bearing his Hugo. We then repaired to the Hilton, admiring of ‘s success at crowd control, and looked around for parties. The Hugo nominees party was rumoured to be a) the place to be and b) opening to all after half an hour; neither of these rumours turned out to be true, and we tried out the Spruotlore/Irish party before eventually gravitating to the Finns. Somehow the Finns had managed to put together the ingredients of a fine time, lots to drink (including a particularly addictive liquorice flavoured vodka), lots of people, and what appeared at the time (though my memory as time goes on is increasingly blurred) to be good conversation. I eventually found my room mate (whose blog I have now syndicated as ) talking to Ken and Carole MacLeod, and we returned to our lodgings.

On Monday morning I bumped into and on my way in, and wandered round the dealer’s room with (who was somewhat the worse for wear) to buy presents for my family (sadly the picture of the Very Hungry Cthulhu had already been bought) before my 11 o’clock panel. This was supposed to be on the future of politics, chaired by Caroline Mullan, but wandered off a bit into the decline of the Swedish social model, since there seemed to be a lot of Scandinavians both on the panel and in the audience. It was also my last panel as a participant.

My one comment on programming – which in general I greatly enjoyed – would be that, if possible, moderators should have a bit more input into both the description and personnel of their panels. I did seven panels throughout the con; the one I myself moderated had an extraordinarily ambiguous description which left it unclear as to what it was supposed to be about; another had a moderator whose views were completely different to those of the other three panellists, which distorted the discussion; two had at least one panellist who really had no interesting ideas about the topic of the panel (and in one of those two cases the panellist in question was me). I appreciate that it’s not an exact science; also in comparison to the many many such events I do for work, I’d say that Worldcon panellists are without exception (of the panels I attended) clever enough and articulate enough to rise above the petty problems I mention, and that Worldcon audiences are among the most forgiving, appreciative and intelligent I have ever addressed. In terms of the logistics of the panels on which I myself appeared I have no complaints, but we were all just talking heads; I noted problems elsewhere with overhead projectors and slide projectors.

Wandered into a conversation with and , who introduced me to and . The latter persuaded me to attend an extraordinary presentation by Duncan Lunan about the Green Children of Woolpit, a 12th century mystery which he reckons points to a high-level conspiracy involving Henry II and the Vatican to conceal the fact that the children had been transported from a human colony on another planet. I shared with those present certain information I received earlier this year from an Eastern European foreign minister which seems to me to undermine one of the key arguments of Duncan Lunan’s thesis, but I will say no more of that here.

and were still at the same table an hour after I’d left them, and we were joined by Julian West as we munched on sandwiches. Then it was time for the Closing Ceremony. As Robert Sheckley was absent through illness, and Jane Yolen had already left, it was up to Chris Priest to respond to the convention on behalf of the professional community, which he did eloquently and gracefully. Though he finished with a good-natured dig at – “I think that in years to come, we shall look back to Charlie winning his Hugo last night, and say to ourselves that that was the moment when science fiction changed for the w- I mean, when science fiction changed forever!”

I seemed to spend the afternoon helping with the dismantling of the Science Fiction Foundation stall, then, long chat with and various other luminaries of British fandom. very kindly invited me to join a literary dinner, but my plane flight did not allow for this, and I ended up finishing my worldcon with a slightly grotty chicken tikka masala in Glasgow airport in the company of and Enid.

Minor logistical complaint – I put a bid in on one of the scanner/printer sets that the con was trying to get rid of, but come the crucial moment nobody seemed to be able to tell me if I had won the auction or indeed where the equipment physically was, so I dropped the issue. I would certainly have had difficulty humping it onto the plane, so perhaps it’s just as well.

Apart from the two very minor grumbles noted above, I had a great time. Apologies to those weren’t there and who’ve had to endure these ramblings over the last few days. Apologies to anyone I met and haven’t mentioned. See you all again soon.

Well, I don’t think I can really complain. Of the stories I put top of my own list, River of Gods appears to have come second to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell; “The Clapping Hands of God” came second to “The Faery Handbag”; and “The Concrete jungle” and “Travels With My Cats” both won. As did the Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, which is excellent. (With Peter Weston’s book second.)

Longer post tomorrow; now I have to go and join the long long queues for a) getting my stuff back from the cloakroom and b) getting a bus to the Hilton.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susannah Clarke

“The Concrete Jungle”, by

“The Faery Handbag”, by Kelly Link

“Travels with my Cats”, by Mike Resnick

The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, edited by and – Yee-hah!

Best Professional Editor: Ellen Datlow. Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: “33”, Battlestar Galactica. Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: The Incredibles

Best Fan Writer: David Langford. Best Web Site: SCI Fiction. Best Semiprozine: Ansible. Best Professional Artist: Jim Burns

James White Award: Elizabeth Hopkinson. John W Campbell Award: Elizabeth Bear. Best Fan Artist: Sue Mason. Best Fanzine: Plokta

Yesterday was my heavy panel day, in that I was on one with , Ian McLeod and James Lovegrove at 10 am on “The Breakup of Britain”, and then moderating another with a more European theme at 11 with Harry Turtledove, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Keith Brooke and Patrick Gyger. The first one was fairly full; the second, in a much bigger hall with over 200 seats, was completely packed. I did wonder how many were there just to hear Harry Turtledove and Jon Courtenay Grimwood, but the audiences in both cases seemed to appreciate my own contributions. In fact there was an interesting overlap of themes between the two.

Then I actually sat in on my first serious discussion panel of sf, ‘s “Not the Hugo Awards” discussion, with the panellists being four well-known editors. There were significant disagreements about what ought to win, but a surprising consensus on what will win – Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susannah Clarke; “Winterfair Gifts”, by Lois McMaster Bujold; “The Faery Handbag”, by Kelly Link; and “The Best Christmas Ever”, by James Patrick Kelly. We shall see this evening; I’ve already made my own views sufficiently well known. I did at least meet (howver briefly) Chance, which means the only lj person I am still on the lookout for is .

Lunch followed, with Chris Beckett again, and then I had a look around the art show, enjoying it so much (see my post yesterday about the Very Hungry Cthulhu) that I missed getting into ‘s presentation on 3-D images of Mars. Everyone who went said it was fantastic, and I should have anticipated the crowds. I looked in on the Eurocon business meeting and duly voted for ‘s bid for Ireland in 2007, but as it turned out the Danes won.

However, rather than hang around for the result I headed over to the Moat House Bar, where I encountered and a couple of other Scottish fans (one being Michael Ross) who’d been to both my morning panels, and wanted to continue the discussion while plying me with real ale, which almost made up for missing Mars. Eventually we bestirred ourselve to go to David A Hardy’s video presentation cutting between 1950’s space movies and the 1960’s footage of the real thing. I will never get tired of watching the first moon landing – it always brings a tear to my eye – but it was very interesting to see the extent to which the 1950s film-makers had foreshadowed the way we think about it. (Apart from the very silly scene from Destination Moon where we saw the newly landed astronauts trying to call New York.)

I got a bit tired of it after a while though and nipped across the corridor to a showing of “Father’s Day”, with Paul Cornell answering questions from the audience about it; great fun but soon over. Then bumped into and ended up going for a decent Chinese dinner with him, (we whose usernames are only three letters should stick together!), Andrew Butler and Elizabeth Wein. Then on to the party which was great fun; and I quit while I was ahead, having slept badly the first couple of nights, came back and got nine hours more or less uninterrupted.

Had a good chat with my room-mate, Alaskan author David Marusek over breakfast. The experience of Worldcon for me as a fan seems so very different from what a full-time writer is here for in terms of personal professional development. Then got here, and heard the sad news about Robin Cook.

Next was my heavy panel, “Is the American Empire on the Verge of Collapse”, with three acknowledged lefites (me, Ken McLeod, and here. The Azerbaijan elections are the first week of November. Go, sign up! (Though I’ll have to find out the details about Sweden in the next few days.)

After that I sat in on a second serious sf panel, part of the academic track, Tania Scott on Lord Dunsany, Mike Cosgrave on Home Rule and the Unionist mistakes of the late 19th century, and Michael Johnson on C.S. Lewis – a nice little trinity of Irish themed papers, all brief but thought-provoking.

Then I decided to come and update my livejournal, at no doubt huge expense in the business centre. Am seeing an old friend from Belfast for lunch and will be back in the afternoon.

On Monday he ate through Mercury. But he was still hungry.

It’s all a bit of a blur, so far. Arrived Thursday, regstered; went (with ) to the panel on how to enjoy Worldcon; did panel on “The Digital Divide” which was efficiently and academically chaired by Renee Sieber, the other two panellists being and and (who has already written it up) and also feauring and Ken MacLeod; then an hour’s break mostly talking to but also following up on the strange story of a George Washington portrait which I shall write up properly some time; then the panel I was most nervous about, on Doctor Who, chaired by Paul Cornell who wrote “Father’s Day”. But in fact it went really well, and as Paul I think said, it must be very difficult to run a bad panel on Doctor Who at an event like this.

After that I was free to spend (not too much) more money in the dealers’ room; went to Dave Langford’s presentation on Ansible with and about The Prize in the Game, and then to bed.

I now have two panels consecutively at 10 and 11 and am moderating the second of them. After that will exploit the rest of the day!

My room-mate arrived a day late from Alaska. Me: “Did you sleep?” Him: “Not since Wednesday!”

There’s a problem with my (cheap Fuji) digital camera – possibly two problems: everything on the screen is inverted (upside down, reversed). When I turn it on to try and take pictures, it tells me (in mirror writing upside down) that there is a “zoom error”, which I imagine is connected with the backwards problem, though it may not be.

On of the games on my mobile phone sometimes has this effect on the display, in which case I just turn it off and turn it on again. Is there an equivalent “hard reboot” for a digital camera?

Eating with and her beau. We tried to recognise the bearded guy at next table. Then Terry Pratchett put his hat on.

Good to be here – and to see many of you guys again/for the first time in the flesh!

Decent hotel, given the very low price – it does at least have an en suite bathroom, and internet access for £4 an hour, which is not super value but better than you get in some places. Also my room-mate’s flight was cancelled so he is spending 24 hours extra in Alaska, and I have the room to myself this evening.

I have already spent far too much in the dealers’ room. And I will be going back.

18:02 – Panel – The Digital Divide
Arrive at panel, find seat, shove Lilian towards the front and realise that I’m about to attend my first ever Worldcon panel.  Huzzah!
Panel actually rather good.  Nicholas Whyte works for some kind of institute researching politics and democracy in the Balkans, and has a large supply of fascinating insights and anecdotes.  One of the other panellists has lots of experience working with mature students who aren’t quite so internet-manic as the young-uns, so there’s much discussion of what it’s like when ‘outdated’ channels are closed down in favour of the internet, as well as the effect it has on countries that are new to the internet – while vast numbers of languages are now supported, English is frequently seen as a politically neutral second language shared by everyone.  How politically neutral English actually is is another matter…

Off to Glasgow now. See some of you there.

…arrived safely, but too late to use this evening – thanks, William!