(continued from here)

And so, I went to Worldcon in Glasgow. I read with envy of people who were able to attend lots of panels, go to signings and spend long hours hanging out with their mates; because I was doing two jobs in Glasgow, I had even less time than usual. (Also, I forgot to fill out the programme participation form, which is probably just as well.) Lots of good friends were there who I barely said hello to, or simply did not see at all. I think next time I may just announce that there will be a specific evening and a specific bar where I hang out. I did this on the Thursday night for the WSFS team, though not all were able to attend, and by the end a few extras had joined.

As will be visible from the above, I injected a bit of light relief, at least for me, for much of the convention by donning a pair of elf ears which I had bought at Eastercon. This made me feel generally happy. When people asked why I was wearing them, I replied that I was cosplaying the Hugo Administrator. (One of the people I said this to turned out to be Suzan Palumbo, the administrator of the Ignyte Awards.)

I was not the only person to have the idea.

It was also very nice to catch up again with Yan Ru, who I had met in Chengdu. I got a badge made for her.

I did manage to attend a couple of panels, one on the likely winners of the Best Novel, Best Series and Best Graphic Story categories (which of course I already knew), and also I was pleased to top and tail Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer’s Guest of Honour presentation. Best of all, I got to the two main musical events, a pre-convention organ recital at the Kelvingrove and the orchestral concert on the Friday night.

Before I get to the Hugos, I must say something about the Business Meeting. First off, the work load on the top table (and to a much lesser extent those of us supporting them) was extreme. This was the longest agenda, and the longest Business Meeting, on record, thanks not only to the reckoning from Chengdu, but also a bunch of other items that some people felt compelled to add to the agenda. I am amazed that Jesi Lipp got us through it, and even finished slightly ahead of time. But it meant that the meeting lasted from 10 to 3 every day, rather than the usual 10 to 1.

I was content with most of the decisions made at the meeting. Good things: an apology to those disqualified without justification by Chengdu was approved; the ban on virtual participation which was sneaked through last year was reversed; the proposal to restrict Site Selection voting rights to People Like Us was rejected; so was the Best Independent Film proposal (more on that when I write about the consultative vote which we trialled before the convention).

Less good: although the amendment clarifying the definition of Best Professional Artist and Best Fan Artist is largely my own wording, I am concerned that many fan artists are unhappy with it. I hope that it can be improved between now and Seattle. The one winner this year that particularly attracted sniping was Best Fan Artist, which indicates that the status quo still needs improvement.

A lot of the really serious stuff was kicked to various committees which will report next year. I got voted onto the committee which will investigate what actually happened at Chengdu. I was also appointed to another committee which will look at the administration of the Hugos more broadly, including the possibility of external audit. Other committees will consider the Business Meeting itself, and Hugo software.

I think that those who love the Business Meeting need to realise that less is more; that making it a smaller burden and less of a time sink for Worldcon members will improve its popularity. The fact that we successfully got through all of the business in 20 hours should be set against the fact that there was far too much business in the first place. This won’t be changed by passing new rules; a cultural shift is needed.

Unfortunately a number of people caught COVID at the convention. I did not, and the two people I spent most time with who did catch it had been wearing masks most of the time (at the Business Meeting). Masks, of course, are better at protecting other people from you than vice versa. I saw somewhere that the rate of infection at Glasgow was not very different to that at the 2021 Worldcon in DC, which had a much more vigorous masking policy. There are no easy answers.

Back to the Hugos. Much of one’s time as Administrator (and team) is spent getting material objects to the right place at the right time. We were fortunate in that the lair where we assembled the Hugos was just backstage of the Armadillo, but we had to assemble rocket, base and plaque and also do the other bits, like pins and certificates. The ceremony and receptions were handled (and handled well) by the Events division rather than by us.

During the rehearsal, Vince Doherty had the excellent idea that I could bring the first Hugo ever awarded, by Isaac Asimov to Forrest J. Ackerman as #1 Fan Personality in 1953, onto the stage as part of my speech, and I must admit that for me that was the high point of the convention – feeling a direct connection with the previous 70 Hugo ceremonies.

That Hugo trophy, voted in good faith by the Worldcon voters of 1953, started a democratic process of appreciation of fan and professional activity that continues to this day. Controversy was there from the beginning – Ackerman rejected his Hugo and wanted it instead to go to British fan Ken Slater, who kept it for decades and eventually passed it back to Ackerman. John Scalzi summarized it in a witty introduction to the ceremony.

At the end of the evening, putting Emily Tesh’s award for Best Novel away, I realised that I could get a nice shot of the oldest and most recent Hugo trophies beside each other on the shelf.

But I am getting ahead of myself. The ceremony had its regrettable glitches, notably when a pre-recorded video failed to play, and when it turned out that the Chinese titles and names in the slides had somehow been mangled beyond recognition. It also turned out that one set of plaques had three errors, including misspelling the word “Worldcon”. Despite those problems, the atmosphere in the room was hugely positive, almost redemptive. There’s a lovely piece about it here. I seem to have voted for only two of the winners myself, but that is par for the course, and I certainly don’t begrudge the other 18 their awards.

The Hugo team, in the wings of the stage, were uniquely poorly placed to hear the speeches made by the winners. It was not until much later that I caught up with Emily Tesh’s well-chosen final words:

I wrote Some Desperate Glory imagining, if you like, a “bad end.” […] I love a bad end. I imagined the worst possible outcome of what humanity could become, some of the worst of our species: cruelty, brutality, hatred of outsiders and love of power. Tonight, I’d like you all to join me in imagining instead the best, which is something science fiction can do and has always done. And through and because of that power of imagination, I ask you to act in whatever way you can and whatever way is right for you to support the victims of violence and warfare around the world, in Gaza, in Ukraine, in Sudan and in many other places. To support the victims of cruelty and intolerance close to home, including here in the islands where that solidarity is dearly needed right now, especially for the victims of the recent racist riots, and for those targeted by the transphobia of some parts of the UK media. I wrote humanity’s bad end, and I call upon you all, with perfect faith, to prove me wrong.

And that brought us to the after-party, which I must say I enjoyed a lot – indeed the pre and post Hugo receptions seemed to me to work better, as a combination, than at any other Worldcon I have been to (the 2017 and 2023 after-parties were awesome, but the pre-ceremony receptions not as good as Glasgow).

We of the Hugo wrangling team spent Monday packing Hugo trophies ready for shipping, and more than a week later we are still gathering addresses for the finalist pins and certificates, and arranging for extra trophies for those who have requested them. But I enjoyed it all immensely, and the person to thank most for that is Esther MacCallum-Stewart, the Chair.

I took an extra day in Glasgow to unwind and to attend the committee farewell dinner, which I had never managed to do before at a Worldcon. I used my extra day profitably, visiting the Kelvingrove in the morning for a proper look around – my word, there is so much there:

And in the afternoon I went to see the Govan Stones, relics of the religious centre of the ancient realm of Strathclyde; a couple of the Glaswegians who I spoke to at dinner had never heard of these amazing 9th to 11th century monuments, a stone’s throw from the Armadillo (if you throw the stone across the river very vigorously).

Next year, unusually, the Hugo team will be much the same as this year. I will be the Hugo administrator again; Cassidy, who was deputy Hugo administrator this year, will be WSFS Division Head; Kathryn Duval will repeat her role as Deputy Division Head; and my deputy as Hugo administrator will be Esther MacCallum-Stewart. Hopefully we will avoid the pitfalls of 2024, and make different mistakes instead.

See you in Seattle, perhaps?