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Eight Squared Con: Eastercon 2013

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The 64th British National Science Fiction Convention
29 March - 1 April 2013, Cedar Court Hotel, Bradford

GoHs: Walter Jon Williams • Freda Warrington • Anne Sudworth (artist) • Edward James (fan)

Official Eight Squared Con: Eastercon 2013 pages.

Back to the Cedar Court Hotel in Bradford, this time in the snow; it was still as friendly and pleasant as before . There was lots of great programming, so much so, in fact, that there were several times that I wanted to go to two parallel sessions simultaneously.

This year is the first time I took my notes using Evernote , rather than a pen.

Programme highlights

Superheroes on Films

Ming, David Tallerman, CE Murphy (M), Susan Booth, Michael Abbott

Faster than a speeding bullet, superheroes have escaped from comics to films and found a whole new audience! How have they changed in moving to Hollywood -- is there a formula, when is it worth breaking, and what should be done next?
  • Why did Iron Man work and not Green Lantern?
  • fans put up with a lot
  • why aren't they putting their best animators on this?
  • superpowers == magical powers -- when you also add aliens, that's too much!
  • continuity
  • XMen, I had v low expectations -- came out saying "it didn't suck!" -- that's a compliment!
  • bits to please the fans, but don't distract general audience
  • problem that Hugh Jackman is 6'3" Wolverine is 5'3"
  • lots written about these people, great depth "thick text"
  • films are based on the same material, but different stories
  • most comic book movies are a conglomeration/mixture
  • but in the movies, they take bits from each universe
  • 1990s movies, not the special effects, B grade
  • 1970s -- first Superman film -- brilliant!
  • how many times can you reintroduce the character -- eg Spiderman
  • some at the latest Star Trek movie didn't know there was a TV series!
  • there's a core audience who know the characters from comic books, or animated series, or osmosis -- plus hardcore fanboys who want a big fight
  • are superheroes just another Hollywood hero?
  • so problems are director, writer, casting -- not superheroes
  • need to have an existing character to sell to Hollywood
  • DC does not seem to be able to find their history
  • respect is critical to superhero films


  • q: a questing hero, changes through story -- an iconic hero, just is -- Green Lantern, tries to make "the man without fear" human!
  • q: the current lot is working so well -- it doesn't underestimate the audience -- then "boil the frog" by building up
  • sequels can assume audience seen first movie, but first can't assume audience knows anything
  • q: what would you like to see as a movie?
  • they can't get a Wonder Woman vehicle off the ground!
  • WWII superheroes don't work nowadays
  • some casting for females doesn't work well
  • q: Dead Pool script, v good, but R/18, no appetite in Hollywood
  • q: Roz Kaveny (invented term "thick text" -- Nick suggested I apply it to comics)
  • q: Hollywood's view of female superheroes -- My Super Ex-Girlfriend

    • Fifty Years a Time Lord

    Paul Dormer, Sarah J Groenwegen, Theresa Derwin, Dominic Oliver

    Since Doctor Who first appeared, we've introduced colour television, videotapes and computers, though no time machines yet. Fans from throughout the programme's history look at how it has (let's face it) regenerated itself.
    • TK: mother used to watch Dr Who with me on her knee
      • born 364 days after first epidoes broadcast
      • vaguely remember Patrick Troughton, but was Jon Pertwee, in colour, in Spearhead from Space
  • PD -- remember first episode
  • SG: Australia -- 5 yeasrs younger than show
  • TD -- born in 72, got into Dr Who about age of 10 -- sofa, Tango, popcorn, snuggle with sister, saw daleks, protecting 7 year older sister! love at first sight
  • DO -- UK Gold, Jon Pertwee -- new series, get your own doctor
  • very first episode is so weird -- opening sequence of policeman -- could be Dixon of Dock Green or Z Cars, but with the theme tune still playing
  • infinite possibilites of where it will go next week
  • v moral -- for 50 years!
  • Companion -- wouldn't we all like to be there with that insane guy
  • variety of stories
  • Ian and Barbara are such different kinds of companions from subsequently
  • each era is different, as you grow up with it
  • why has it kept going?
  • not a children's programme -- it's a family programme
  • ITV "Pathfinders in Space" -- Sidney Newman producer
  • disappointments
  • Queers Dig Timelords
  • q: factor all the way through -- suspension of disbelief -- maintained through nearly every episode, it nearly always seems possible
  • Ace -- great -- need more like her
  • longevity -- maybe I don't like current Doctor/Companions/whatever -- but it keeps changing -- there'll be a new Dr, a new writer, they'll get rid of Adric -- and it becomes watchable again -- keep an eye on it, knowing it will change
  • Neil Gaiman episode got lots of viewers because he was the writer -- and he delivered
  • in run up to cancellation, were killing off daleks, cybermen etc
  • continuity
  • that's why it works
  • Moffett -- planning to reveal the Doctor's real name -- danger of revealing too much of what happened before v first episode? -- spoil the mystery?
  • makes ordinary things scary
  • playing daleks in the playground
  • recreation of key villains in new series
  • The Great Intelligence -- I didn't realise the significance of the London Underground map
  • what's your favourite moment/story?
  • The Doctor Dances -- moment between the Doctor and Rose, his glee at someting we all take for granted, makes him more alien
  • Pyramids of Mars -- Sarah Jane just so good
  • The Day of the Daleks -- esp Target novelisation -- better!
  • Tardis malfunction, Jon Pertwee meets himself -- and patronises himself -- he really does do it to everyone!
  • Cassandra (skin woman) -- satire on fashion
  • spinoff --- Torchwood, Sarah Jane -- both ended -- what should replace them?

    • Good Technology

    Tanya Brown, Brian Turner, Alison Scott (M), Ming, Nile Heffernan

    We live in a permanent technological revolution. Today, all our gadgets aspire to be a 4G smart phone with 3-d printing capability on Web 2.0 living in the cloud. What's coming tomorrow? Alison Scott logs into the Wayforward machine with Tanya Brown, Nile Heffernan, Kin-Ming Looi and Brian Turner.
    • Ming: obsessed with tech since using a computer in the classroom -- more fun, more convenient -- but I work in info security, so am aware of the flip side
    • Nile: work with the second worst programming language, for a bank, writing self improving sw that makes life worse for you
    • TB -- I love tech that makes life more fun -- more computing power in your phone than Apollo, then use to show pics of cats -- I can go on line and find a track I haven't heard for 20 yrs
    • BT -- Tech Launch, website -- consumer tech
    • AS -- Plokta -- J of Superfluous Technology
      • trickle down arrangement -- my children have iPhones because I have a newer one -- tech you can wear, interact with -- doing things for free, learning from MIT professors
  • wikipedia -- everyone is very rude about it, but everyone uses it all the time -- great place for first opinion, but it's just a starting point, enough to know where to start looking
  • fitbit -- wearable -- tells me how many steps I've done
  • personal space becoming social space -- Google Glass -- hands free video of everydday life
  • the cloud -- convenient for us -- but available to others
  • sociopaths, v wealthy -- for them, concentrating wealth is only thing
  • crowds organised for free what used to be expensive to do
  • info for free, democratising, can undermine sources of information
  • good info is expensive
  • one newspaper has made more in online advertising than print advertising -- unfortunately it's the Daily Mail
  • BBC only surviving because of gov money
  • tech can help break ties to fixed locations -- not obvious where it will lead
  • bluetooth -- meshwork -- could replace centralised networks
  • not just new gadgets, but new ways of thinking -- we change, adapt to tech -- in profound ways
  • Nigerian adverts -- most people will know it's a scam -- done to make sure the ones who do respond will fall for it
  • only programmes where ads are worth it on TV are ones watched in real time -- sport, reality TV


  • Cory: tech is great for news, doing better than ever
  • wikileaks has more scoops in a year than the big 5 papers together
  • ability to get news, as well as leaks, out, has been democratised -- no gatekeeprs
  • we learn to look for news -- NOT things like Fox News
  • internet -- no matter how small minded and mean your views, you can find enough other people like you to convince you this is a common viewpoint
  • Nicholas Carr -- Is Google Making Us Stupid?
  • take away the drudgery, more time to do the real work
  • we're just changing, doing things differently, not necessarily worse/better
  • increasingly time poor, because so much more to do
  • Goodreads -- v interesting use of tech -- publishers ignored it -- Amazon bought them yesterday
  • majority of companies are monarchies
  • Google Glass -- where will that take us
  • Louise Mensch -- attempted blackmail -- said, yeah, of course I did it, everyone did -- did her political career no harm

    • Head to Head: E Nesbit and C S Lewis

    Marcus Rowland, Bridget Wilkinson, Sandra Unerman, Gaie Sebold, Sarah Ash

    Two early children's fantasy authors, both with strong ideologies. The panel examine them, their influences and their effects.
    • SA: difficult to choose a favourite Nesbit -- The Story of the Amulet is probably my favorite (also The Magic City ) -- The Magician's Nephew has strong link -- connection with the past, which seeps into their present -- Lewis pays homage to this with Queen Jadis arriving back into Edwardian London
    • GS: it's often the first one you discover -- tLtWatW , Five Children and It -- you can walk through a doorway, into a sandpit, and discover a magical world -- not something you had to be born into, can discover it on your own doorstep
    • BW: The Magician's Nephew or The Screwtape Letters ; read too young, rediscovering now -- incredibly influential on who came after -- Psammaed Trilogy; Railway Children is approachable, polished
    • MR: Psammaed trilogy -- can't split them very easily, all written originally serialised in Strand Magazine -- work as a whole; came to Lewis by odd route -- read Out of Silent Planet first! Probably best Narnia is tLtWatW , but I have problems with Aslan -- problems with argument from divine authority
    • SU: The Magic City -- children build a city in the house, which then comes to life -- idea almost more fascinating than what she does with it
      • SA : I then made a magic city of my own
      • GS: me too!
      • SU: Harding's Luck -- Dicky plants bird seed, something magical comes out of it -- so I planted seed
      • GS: that's why there's something familiar about Close Encounters , where the guy builds something in his living room
      • it's cargo cult, sympathetic magic -- you recreate conditions where magic can happen
  • both write fantasies starting in the everyday world
  • I read a lot of imitators of Nesbit, from the 50s and 60s -- a child moves from the current to a fantasy world
  • Susan got left behind, for being interested in stockings and boys
  • a country that's a more real version of the place we love?
  • Nesbit also had an agenda -- Fabian socialist message
  • Bastables -- there's no magic -- just ingenuity of raising fortunes of the family through their own endeavours -- interplay between characters, how they learn through their mistakes -- echoes of Nesbit's own life?
  • then look at MacDonald, Morris -- other early 20th century fantasists
  • Nesbit influences Lewis, some scenes reminiscent of Mary Poppins, all children's time travel novels
  • when I was growing up in 50s, Nesbit had period flavour -- but Eager feels dated
  • Enid Blyton ? The Faraway Tree -- influenced by Nesbit?
  • Lewis is part of High Fantasy tradition, Nesbit of Low Fantasy
  • That Hideous Strength -- medieval/renaissance influences of nature of the world -- rather alien for 20th century
  • Pratchett 's Guilty of Literature -- comedy that's circular, that comes back to beginning , versus the epic that goes up to a peak from which it can never return
  • influence on Pratchett -- Nesbit much stronger than Lewis?
  • Lewis in Narnia -- rotate cast in a consistent setting
  • Nesbit -- fantastical and everyday -- but made both interesting, same style
  • Andre Norton , Susan Cooper
  • Planet Narnia -- each book is an exploration of one of the medieval planets
  • redemption of the Calormen -- Lewis being heretical
  • Lewis -- only one story happening at a time -- Nesbit, more interlocked, some characters don't care about the main plot
  • Nesbit -- consolatory fantasty -- missing parent returned -- children's greatest desire is for family to be reunited
  • Nesbit -- Man-Size in Marble -- ghost story for adults
  • Lewis -- Till We Have Faces
  • do you have to read them (for the first time) as a child?

    • Underground London

    Simon Morden, Roz Kaveney, Paul Cornell, Anne Lyle, Mike Shevdon

    Take one London. Add magical society hidden from most people. Mix in famous places from the city, and optionally garnish with police procedural. Why is this such a great recipe?
    • SM: Metrozone books
    • PC: London Falling
    • AL: The Alchemist of Souls -- Elizabethan London
    • MS: urban fantasy linking historical and modern London
    • why are people obsessed with London and not ... Birmingham?
      • London sucks everything in -- like a psychic vampire!
      • Spaghetti Junction takes the shape of a dragon's head!
  • take history and meld that into present day
  • old enough city to be a "thick text" -- layers of signifiers, fact, rituals
  • no-one reads Milton Keynes as text!
  • then York should have an enormous body of work -- so should Canturbury
  • Rome, Paris do -- and Glasgow -- but not Edinburgh?
  • New York has also accumulated "weight"
  • writers come from elsewhere to London -- Dick Whittington legend
  • London, Paris, New York -- an amalgamation of a lot of villages and towns
  • London -- Elizabethan times -- everything nasty was pushed south of the river -- Southwark
  • commercial sales aspect -- lot of people have been to London, want to read about it
  • publishing houses in London
  • William has to conquer England, then conquer London separately -- a separate entity only 1000 years ago
  • Tudor London is Underground London now
  • trade guilds -- Dick Whittington as hero
  • death -- fire, plague, rats, ...
  • London of popular culture
  • London in the Marvel Universe
  • London in DC universe -- as recently as 1970s depicted as mud huts...
  • hidden rivers of London
  • interface between rivers, sewers and tube
  • Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere -- creates new London lore from whole cloth
  • Christopher Fowler's Roofworld
  • James Herbert's The Rats
  • gives a believable base for fantasy -- you know what the rules are/should be, so you can tell when something is off
  • A-Z Elizabethan London -- 1570 map -- layout of streets hasn't really changed
  • psycho-geography -- walk up Tottenham Court Road, just before turn right to Forbidden Planet -- there's a strange kind of gap, emptiness
  • Hawksmoor
  • some stonking great churches -- clearly there to terrorise the populace!
  • what's the Shard?
  • from the Ally Pally, it looks like someone's stuck a dagger up from the underground
  • Allan Moore's From Hell -- talks about London geography very well
  • The land under England -- everything important in Tolkien is underground -- Alderley Edge -- mines
  • secret tunnels
  • big bowl of clay -> longevity
  • Newcastle > Kings Cross = 3 1/2 hrs; Kings Cross -> Heathrow = 45 mins
  • Quatermass and the Pit
  • London Under London
  • London as a melting pot
  • this is what island states on the edge get
  • different layers built over each other -- Huguenot chapel, then a synagogue, then a mosque
  • I have a 1938 Red Guide to London -- with all the maps -- fantastic -- pre WWII
  • The Story of the Amulet
  • A Dance to the Music of Time -- 40-50 yrs
  • The Man Who Was Thursday -- a brilliant London
  • Stow's 1598 Survey of London -- massive history of guilds, chirches, ..
  • Mike Carey's work -- all the "other bits"

    • What's Big in Microbiology?

    Joan Paterson, Liz Batty, Tracy Berg, Vince Docherty (M)

    The panel discuss how microbiology is used in genetics, medicine and elsewhere.
    • cold in here, so excercise your own mitochondria, doing aerobics?
    • JP: I'm a medical consultant at Addenbrooks -- cancer genetics -- how patients are affected, family history assessment -- main focus is interpreting new genetics as it applies to real people -- how far micro- molecular biology has taken us in human genetics and genomics
    • LB: UOxford -- genome sequencing of pathogenic organisms
      • tech has improved hugely, so can do hugely more than we dreamed of
      • I do the computational side
  • TB: inst for cancer researcher -- how we use microbiological organisms in research, how that has advanced cancer research
  • basics
  • what's big?
  • it's now feasible to look at activity across tissues, across time
  • the more you look into it, the more complex it gets! but tools are becoming cheaper, better
  • q: non-coding DNA is not junk -- regulation areaas? so also need to understand it?
  • recent paper -- how much DNA is functional -- depends on definition of "functional"! got lots of flak about this paper
  • not all non-coding is junk, but maybe some is -- also, DNA bends, so distant places become close
  • storage -- all synthetic DNA
  • now also have chimp, gorilla, orang utang genomes -- find non-coding areas that are nevertheless conserved, so must be important!
  • individuals with a species, differences between species -- how does that work?
  • real insights coming -- human genome only a start
  • every era of genetic research feels like the most exciting time
  • "Next Generation" sequencing -- what will you call the next one? -- add 'omics on the name -- see #badomics
  • be careful not to over-hype
  • more research is needed
  • take a protein you don't know the function of, compare it to ones you do -- look at structural sharing -- we evolved, reusing bits -- sometimes it does work
  • disease surveillance will change -- new emerging diseases
  • can we be predictive? can we predict outbreaks before they happen, prevent them before they infect people?
  • antibiotic resistance is an increasing problem -- spread in plasmids -- might be able to see which bacteria have the potential to accept such a plasmid
  • discovery of anitbiotic resistant plasmids has moved genetics forward -- can put almost any human gene onto a plasmid with antibiotic resistance, select them using antibodies -- investigate gene function etc
  • q: cancer cells reprduce out of control -- how does that harm people?

    • Sensory Overload

    Roz Kaveney, Dr Bob, Simon Ings, Walter Jon Williams, Paul McAuley

    Why stop at five senses? There are many other senses in the natural world, more available through technology, and even more in SF and Fantasy. Our panel explores.
    • SI : I wrote a book about the eye
    • RK: I get synaesthesia when I get migraines
    • would you plug in to an extra sense, and which one?
      • WJW: I want the ability to plug out when needed -- not be manipulated -- younger people have developed a keen bullshit detector -- can flick through web pages rapidly
      • DrB: sense of smell akin a to a dog/cat -- all that info around -- turn hearing off when neighbours hifi is loud
      • RK : being able to perceive patterns -- my synaesthesia makes music become coloured lights dancing with structure
        • I would like to do that with information -- hunches on hunches -- seeing the links
  • PMc -- I live in London, so need to dial down sometimes
  • we know sensors will fail us -- I had a badly detatched retina -- made me value what I have
  • what range of senses?
  • relation between senses and expertise -- how we use our senses -- I listen to a lot of classical music, and can hear the different instrumental lines, for most it's just a wash of sound -- I don't have perfect pitch, but have quite good musical memory -- it's just expertise, using it a lot
  • there are things like senses -- balance, body state
  • memory training
  • WJW -- I outline anovel in advance -- but the result is opaque to anyone but me
  • SF is v good at scale -- sensawunda is changes of scale -- v good at the sublime
  • iconic works
  • Joanna Russ -- has telepathy -- people revert to stone age primitives, since they don't need tech to communicate
  • tech -- does it extend, limit senses?
  • RK: I now have plastic lenses in my eyes -- don't need glasses, get to see 3D cinema -- it's mostly rubbish, occasionally cool
  • use Google glasses that edit out things you don't want to see -- the Right might bring up their children with glasses that edit out brown people, queer people, poor people
  • John Clute -- Appleseed -- yes, you can see real world, but will have to pay for the privilege
  • hack so that eveyone is brown!
  • we see "ghosts" -- lions in the corner of our eyes
  • the concsiousness of the event is constructed, sometimes after the event
  • q: Soylent Green , the meal sequence -- works on taste, if you know jam
  • WJW: attitudes and emotions can be programmed through movement: dancing, martial arts -- if you are dancing in exuberant way, you can't be anything but exuberant -- matiral arts, programming this explicitly
  • poetry -- conveying sensual info -- a privileged medium for this?
  • Spider Robinson , Telempath -- superior sense of smell
  • Robert Asprin , Bug Wars -- a colour blind lizard can't see that the red/green camouflage is no good
  • q: emotions as a sense?

    • Alexander Bogdanov

    Simon Ings

    "Alexander Bogdanov, science fiction pioneer, philosopher, physician, Lenin's friend and rival, explored the idea of automating society. The West calls this cybernetics and it fuels consumer culture. But in the Soviet Union, Bogdanov's philosophy was discredited and suppressed. With pictures, video, short readings, and no small amount of handwaving, I'll explain why Bogdanov, not Wells, is the true founder of modern sf."
    • powerful, ironical works
      • combination of far-sigtedness and short-sightedness
  • Sonja Vesterholt -- Danish film producer, Russian born
  • SF always huge in Russia
  • imagining what a total revolution would look like, psychic, sensual, psychological
  • we think Soviet engineering is shoddy, and gimcrack -- but it's much more playful and inventive than that -- invention, experiment, making do
  • born Aug 1873
  • Russia is not capitalist -- it's based on mutualism and cooperation -- because it's society based on famine -- poor quality land, no intensive agriculture allowing industrialisation -- system organised to avert starvation
  • Kropotikin -- anarchist, naturalist, geographer -- contributed hugely to evolutionary theory -- cooperation and evolution towards efficient energetic state -- brilliant work
  • Sigmund Exner -- Austrian naturalist -- how a buzzard stays stable in a thermal -- built a buzzard and put in updraft -- first example of learning about natural world through construction and expt
  • Ernst Mach -- a physicist, couldn't afford to fund experiments, so worked more as physiologist -- psychology of sensations
  • sensual reln to the world around
  • Bogdanov -- wants a means of feeling that is not alienated -- life in fullness, not life of serfdom -- designing a mental therapy for a nation
  • small number of ways to join together
  • early Systems Theory!
  • in the west -- tend to look at things, not systems
  • can you make it stick?
  • Red Star : one of most interesting, and worst, SF books and ever written
  • Martians are dying -- they decide that more culture, art etc will survive, if they exterminate the earthmen
  • it did not get good reviews -- especially from the Bolsheviks -- "you've created a nightmare, and we don't want to go there" -- then they did!
  • Bogdanov continued with tectology
  • his philosophy doesn't allow science for its own sake -- must be entirely anthropocentric, and serve society at all times
  • brotherhood, commonality in Soviet SF -- influenced by Red Star
  • he was vilfied by Stalin, marginalised -- but hugely influential on Soviet science -- science as an "easy fix" -- to huge detriment of science -- Lysenko said he could produce new crops in 2 1/2 yrs

    • The Far Future

    Ian Watson, Stephanie Saulter, FD, Walter Jon Williams, Stephen Baxter

    Let's not waste time: we should get on with solving the problems facing us in five or ten billion years' time (crashing galaxies, red giant Sun, possible gamma bursts...). If we make it that far, what will our civilisation have grown into? Will we be ready when the stars go out? Our panel, include Stephen Baxter, Stephanie Saulter and Ian Watson, look to the future.
    • the nature of Deep Time
    • what will be left of we've got now
    • cosmology -- Planck satellite measuring Big Bang echoes -- the headline is the universe is " 60 million years older than we thought " -- but that's only a difference of 0.91% -- it's pretty well nailed down
      • dark energy
      • Freeman Dyson -- we can survive forever in an expanding universe, by going slower and slower -- dark energy blows all that away -- we end in the Big Rip -- there's no tech solution for this
  • we know an enormous amount, but know nothing at all about Dark Matter, Dark Energy
  • after more expansion, far galaxies become invisible -- there will be no evidence for a large universe
  • SETI -- main contribution to our happiness is that it has discovered nothing!
  • how do I write fiction about a universe where everything is destroyed?
  • aliens in fiction tend to represent only one aspect of humanity
  • Spock is interesting in that he denies his humanity
  • I'm interested in genetics -- my "aliens" are severely genetically modified humans
  • Sean Williams -- Astropolis trilogy -- unified connected galaxy with speed of light constraints -- shows the impossibility of galaxy wide cluture under these constraints -- people say "I'll see you in 120,000 years time", and do!
  • HG Wells -- The Time Machine -- far future, and biology
  • constraints of own evolutionary level -- we think in terms of conflict, we're tribally rooted, territorial -- it's how we construct our narratives, even of the far future
  • and portrayals of a different way don't work well
  • I'm constrained by how story works -- if you have a conflict-free far future, there's no story, just a tour guide
  • extinction is very important
  • Olaf Stapledon struggled with this -- he wrote to Haldane : your utopia excites me, but you can't have a utopia until you redeem the suffering of the past
  • if we transfer memory, experience, ... into another form -- do we become an amalgam? thinking about what continuity means
  • does fantasy deal with this better?
  • the US is a place peole go to escape their history -- they no longer have to have traditional hatreds and allegiences
  • does it matter if Andromeda collides with us? it doesn't matter much, especially on the timescales of civilisations living in them
  • if we are stuck with the speed of light, that will limit speed we can expand
  • q: physics, biology -- but what about society? -- it evolves much faster than biology
  • smaller timescales are harder to do than big timescales, where you can just jump over the gaps and assume they work
  • q: 10,000-100,000 year timescales?
  • if 1000 Shakespeares in your history, no one will have the same kind of impact -- so there will be more diverse influences
  • exoplanets -- we know there's somewhere else to go!

    • GoH Item - Anne Sudworth

    Guest of Honour Anne Sudworth talks about her paintings.
    • marvellous!
    • wonderful red "light tree".

    Forgotten TV and SF of 1975

    There was more to watch in the 70s than Blake's Seven and that Doctor chap. Our panel dig up some oldies, some of them golden, some of them Steel. Dev Agarwal moderates Malcolm Davies, Dave Lally and Inamac.
    • [arrived late]
    • whether there needs to be a reason for why bad things are happening
    • single play had disappeared
    • whole load of wonderful b&w stuff -- should be a b&w channel
    • q: original Survivors -- outside broadcast => film in 70s
      • film survives better -- videotape gets wiped
      • tend to notice switch between film and video now, but not then
      • also switch from 405 to 625 lines
  • q: Counterstrike -- 1969 -- aliens amongst us, but we never saw them, they were working through human agents -- mind controls
  • Ace of Wands
  • q: how has it influenced us?
  • Dr Who just carried on
  • Survivors -- bit of a failure
  • Outcasts
  • Tomorrow People -- remade in Australia -- utterly no similarity to the original
  • golden age for children's TV
  • pace has increased, SFX easier now, then plot had to fill the time
  • reflections of society -- socialist government making a pig's ear, so right wing programmes -- when Tories in charge, we have left wing programmes -- a green liberal bias due to arts graduates in charge
  • Edge of Darkness
  • Cold War -- standard background then, historical artefact now
  • 1973 -- Moonbase 3
  • Pathfinders in Space (1950s) -- there was tension between the nations, but an underlying hope that when someone got into trouble, others would come to the rescue
  • Invaders -- a mysterious forces taking over -- basically the communists
  • detente in the 70s
  • why was the remake of the Prisoner so hopeless?
  • 1970s, average BBC series was 13 weeks, but many didn't make it past 6 or 10
  • unless it was on BBC, you wouldn't see it everywhere -- ITV regions
  • higher cost risk now -- then it was cheaper to produce, plus the BBC licence income or ITV advertising income allowed it
  • more autonomy in ITV regions
  • one reason why we're getting a lot more European TV -- Scandi factor
  • was it better?
  • the same writers crop up again and agan: Kit Pedler , Nigel Kneale , Terry Nation , PJ Hammond , Victor Pembleton
  • good stuff
  • Quatermass spans several decades
  • q: shorter run serials would have the one writer -- longer series have script editor plus several writers
  • Kudos -- stable of writers that write for their series
  • people writing SF in 60s, 70s, were also doing ZCars, etc
  • Avengers -- a spy series, but it had the odd robot -- SF so familiar, injected into lots of different places -- Man from Uncle
  • BBC wiping tapes
  • BBC is croudsourcing -- they got the whole of Dads Army back
  • b&w print + betamax luminance allows you to restore the original colour
  • remakes? recommissioned all of Noggin the Nog and Ivor the Engine in colour -- we see the 70s remakes, not the 60s original
  • Nigel Kneale -- The Road, a live production before VHS -- only the scripts remain -- a brilliant SFnal resolution of what seemed supernatural events
  • Terry Nation -- The Incredible Robert Baldick: Never Come Night -- a Victorian professor travelling around country in steam train, investigating mysterious events -- early steampunk!
  • others:
  • it's the 50th anniversary of a major film this weekend -- Bodega Bay -- The Birds
  • I'm so grateful that some of this is now on DVD, and so annoyed at what we've lost -- but we also lost the Library of Alexandria...
  • every decade someone thinks this is the golden age

    • Motherhood in SF and Fantasy

    Mike Cobley, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Aliette de Bodard, Chris Beckett, Terry Jackman (M)

    Where are the mothers in our depictions of future societies and fantasy worlds? Very often absent or ignored. Our panel looks at the depictions of motherhood and asks what more we can do.
    • CB: Dark Eden, Holy Machine -- and I am a father
    • AdB -- I write books with families
    • RLR -- I'm a Filipino writer of fantasy, and a mother
    • MC -- Shadow Kings trilogy, a Space Opera trilogy -- some strong female charachters
    • reading John Scalzi , Lost Colony -- at the very end, the lead female character declares herself pregnant -- the end of book, the end of series -- pregnancy is the end of life as we know it!
      • Terry Pratchett , Wyrd Sisters -- Maid, Matron, Crone -- had to cheat with Nanny Ogg, not strictly speaking a "mother", just a matriarch
      • hard to find mothers central to the plot
  • MC -- strong female characters feel entirely natural -- Catriona is genetically engineered to be a living computer, but it didn't take -- she went off to become a research scientist, got involved with sentient forest -- the forest is more a mother than Catriona is
  • RLR -- I've been reading a lot recently, including non-western SF -- western SF, UK US, sidelines mothers -- African-American, Asian SF, features mothers more prominently, more present -- a cultural thing
  • AdB -- mothers are defined by their children -- Sarah Connor, Jessica Atreides, ...
  • CB -- in fiction generally, motherhood, parenthood, marriage as a state, rather than the end of story, is massively under-represented, as opposed to romantic love!
  • a difference between the influence of mother, and the centrality of the character of mother
  • AdB: "Weight of a Blessing" -- mother and daughter relationship, passing on of memory -- age gap tension
  • what could be more exciting than being in jeopardy and your child in jeopardy?
  • mother = protection?
  • maybe our real life relationship with our own mothers affect how we write
  • there is a perception that life is over as soon as you become pregnant, that it will be centred around the children, that you won't do anything else significant
  • if SF is aimed at teenage boys, maybe we don't want to get into that subject? it can create all kinds of tensions uncomfortable for the writer to revisit
  • maybe in the next Star Wars , a mature Luke Skywalker will worrying about his kids going off the rails?
  • q: mothers are not written about because they are not sexy?
  • q: Bruce Sterling , Islands in the Net -- has a mother as protagonist
  • in children's fictions, mothers are largely absent -- looking for a playground away from what ties and binds us
  • SF aimed at adult women
  • the single mother -- now v strong in Romance -- now the hero!
  • making the mother dead but still looming large is a common approach
  • mother = protection, but inconvenient, replaced by something else
  • Cherie Priest, Boneshaker -- the protagonist mother goes into a dangerous place to find her son, but continues being a person as well
  • q: mother as antagonist
  • conflict is needed for a story
  • Lois McMaster Bujold -- Cordelia
  • The Testament of Jesse Lamb -- creepy
  • Hester Shaw in Philip Reeves Mortal Engines series -- doesn't like her daughter
  • what about where the parent has to kill the child, because it's turned out so bad

    • Doctor Who

    Watch the season premiere "The Bells of St John" in the company of your peers.

    Steampunk Morality and Victorian Values

    Fiona Anderson (M), Leisel Schwarz, Philip Palmer, Chris Butler, Mike Cobley

    Steampunk draws on the speculative fiction of the nineteenth century. If you're writing a steampunk story, what Victorian social values do you use, and which do you throw out? And which might sneak in when you aren't looking?
    • move from Georgian gin-soaked debauchery into Victorian strait-laced time
      • Protestant ethic -- chastity, abstinence, temperance
      • Victoria, family values
      • all about respectability, what was proper
      • but also colonialism, racism
        • 40k/yr died of TB
        • death was a part of life -- the world was a harsh and scary place
  • abstinence as contraception
  • Victorians honed and perfected the art of hypocracy
  • so why are we fascinated by them?
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
  • I'm not convinced they were that admirable on science, either!
  • Indian steam engine builders were better than the British, so were deliberately shut out of the Empire market
  • slave trade
  • homosexuality -- Victorians firmly believed, in the pre-feminist age, that women did not enjoy sex
  • Victorian manliness -- strong, stoic, channeled energy into sport, adventure, etc
  • the rise of the factory was a good thing
  • workers rights -- good things came out of it
  • Steampunk was not originally popular -- it has now become entirely successful -- why?
  • a good novel will explore the darker side, but will include a mythologisaton of the better side
  • the cultural side is driving the popularity, not the books
  • industrialisation happened several decades after colonisation -- so the rich powerful elite were used to treating underclasses with ruthlessness
  • being a servant was a sought after position -- they got only half a day off a week, if lucky, but they did eat three times a day
  • British Library patterns section
  • Steampunk uses an era as the basis for fantastic fiction -- cf fantasy and the medieval era
  • it hits reset button on SF, allow us to go forward again with a sensawunda
  • handheld gadgets

    • Law and New Technology

    Sarah Groenewegen, Susan Hall, Simon Bradshaw, Carolina Gomez-Lagerlöf, Adrian Tchaikovsky

    As technology changes, the law and society struggles to keep up. The panel look at some of the recent problem areas.
    • SH -- intellectual property solicitor
    • SB -- ex engineer, now barrister
    • CGL -- swedish patent office
    • AT -- civil litigator, fantasy author
    • Games Workshop and the recent "Space Marines" claim
    • presently witnessing land rights grabs by rights owners that has not been equalled since the enclosures
    • copyright up to life+70 and possibly further, some arguning should be perpertual, like land
    • trade marks, like in HHGTTG, we need to keep an eye on what people doing, even if their plans are in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'
      • Space Marines -- was registered as TM last century -- class 16, printed materials, including books -- they objected to its use in the title of the book, rather than in the text
      • Wet Wet Wet, the unauthorised biography -- but WWW is a trademark -- however, this use id within permitted use, because it is describing the thing the book is about -- eg, you are allowed to advertise "genuine Volkswagen parts" without infringing the trademark
      • we need to keep an eye on trademarks, not copyright
  • is the registration a valid one? the term was used earlier, back to the 1930s
  • Games Workshop was also in the news last year -- there were uploadable 3D printer files for Games Workshop figures -- Games Workshop sent a takedown notice, asserted copyright, because it's a sculpture , not just a toy
  • however Star Wars Stormtrooper outfits, deemed not copyrightable
  • copyright, trademark, patents -- these are all quite different
  • book cover -- artistic copyright
  • imprint of Tor -- registered as a trademark -- you can infringe, trade on their reputation -- you can even get "pass off" problems on things not trademarked -- you infringe if you are using it in the "trademark sense" -- you can use the name to talk about Tor
  • design -- consider a 3D object like a teddy bear -- the first character merchandising in England was Peter Rabbit -- Beatrix Potter went to the Patent Office with the doll -- registered the design -- what it looks like
  • patent -- an idea, a way of solving a technical problem -- protected for 20 years -- has a technical effect
  • US patents are different -- includes idea of utility -- so can patent business methods, swinging on a swing, questioning people on a TV show, ...
  • Europe, look at it, is it novel, not obvious
  • a patent is invalidated if you can show someone else described it first -- even a SF author
  • criminal law
  • you are not allowed to patent a mathematical formula -- computer code looks like maths, but also involves lots of invention -- need to think around the law to protect sw without changing the law
  • q: a computer program is a bunch of switches -- I could hardwire the pattern of switches, etch that into silicon -- it becomes a device -- patentable
  • q: what about patents on genes, enzymes, etc
  • the boundary between scientific discoveries and engineering processes
  • q: patent trolls -- non-practising entities -- where's the innovation?
  • big corporations completely blanket areas with loads of incremental patents -- this stifles innovation
  • difficult to deal with a patent action, which is where patent trolls come in
  • "few things are more deadly than a weak patent in the hands of a litigator with deep pockets"
  • make sure your own patents are really good
  • q: is the law fighting at a disadvantage against geeks when they get uppity?
  • future laws
  • Criminal Justice and Immigration Act section 67 -- covers extreme pornography = whatever the examining justice thinks squicks them
  • the tiger extreme porn case , Wrexham
  • q: 3D printing -- what is happeing?

    • Magician

    Fan, author, voice of Red Dwarf's toaster and the first person to be ejected from the Magic Circle in 85 years, John Lenahan is one of the UK's most sought-after magical entertainers; we're very fortunate to have a performance from him for our Saturday night.

    Maiden, Mother, Who? Older Women in Genre Fiction

    David Tallerman, Ian Sales, Freda Warrington , Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Caroline Mullan (M)

    There are plenty of kick-ass young heroines these days, but their mentors are nearly always male. Where are the older women in genre fiction, and why aren't they written about, or put on TV, more?
    • older women tend to be relegated to side roles, even in fiction -- older men can still have adventures, be active -- older women relegated to Matriarch, Wise Woman, secondary roles
    • Barbara G Walker, The Crone
    • Kim Stanley Robinson , Mars Trilogy -- characters age -- so by the end there are older women protagonists
    • Frank Herbert , Dune -- Bene Gesserit
    • Bruce Sterling , Holy Fire -- Maya starts 93, then becomes 19, but with mind of 93yr old
    • what counts as "older"? over 40, 50, 60?
    • we don't notice older women, since as we notice and recognise them, we stop tagging them as old
    • readership, authors are aging -- characters age along with them?
    • Sherri Tepper , Lois McMaster Bujold -- older women characters, because they started writing later in life?
    • Marta Randall -- Islands
    • Tanith Lee -- The Birthgrave
    • Andre Norton
    • Robert Heinlein -- many ensemble novels -- Hazel Stone
    • Elizabeth Moon -- Remnant Population , and others
    • what kinds of stories allow older women?
      • an alternate history -- women as the Mercury astronauts -- the were trained, but never flew
  • DT -- my first novel failed the Bechdel test -- I had a strong major female character -- but it still failed!
  • FW -- my Midsummer Night is a contemporary fantasy -- Julianna Flagg, in her late 60s, is v strong, a sculptor, but not a superwoman, she refuses to go quietly, has a younger male assistant -- I pictured her as like Helen Mirren!
  • there is more to write about, because they have had more life experience, more possibilities for backstory
  • Robert Graves , I Claudius -- Livia
  • all the recent fuss about Mary Beard -- grey hair indicates age, and long hair indicates unfettered sexuality -- if your cognitive abilities aren't great, this combination will fry your brain!
  • older women in historical context -- as wells of experience and power -- they become more relevant -- they provide contnuity in the society
  • CM -- one thing you can learn from parenthood, is having to lead by letting people do what they want, and learning from it -- quiet interventions -- it's not so visible a form of leadership
  • q: Howl's Moving Castle -- different culture
  • q: older women appear as antagonists in childern's literature -- witches, stepmothers -- they don't appear as not antagonists in adult literature?
  • as you grow older, you get more confident, you don't need loads of young men's attention -- in fact it gets easier to get on with things outside this attention
  • we are now products of several generations of small families -- less chance for aunty networks
  • q: a lot of SF is about an innocent gaining experience
  • the older women living in shadow of husband, who dies, then becomes an innocent abroad, discovering things for herself
  • it is fun to have a character who knows more than the people around them, or even than the reader
  • is there any reason why Obi Wan Kenobi couldn't be a female character?
  • q: films: A Simple Life , and Amour -- melancholy of age
  • CM -- I'm in my mid-fifties, and I feel like I'm 20, reliving my life over again
  • John Meaney, To Hold Infinity -- the mother of grown up son as protagonist
  • Battlestar Gallactica -- President Laura Roslin
  • Tai Chi Sabre Sword Spear -- the freedom to take up these things
  • now working with characters as people, not stereotypes
  • [discussion after: John Wyndham 's Trouble with Lichen ; the latest Paul McCauley ]

    • SF Foundation George Hay Memorial Lecture

    Henry Gee

    One SF writer noted that 'if you read Nature long enough, your dreams will start to carry footnotes to other dreams'. Dr Henry Gee has been on the editorial team of Nature for a quarter of a century. His talk will give you the inside story on what goes on inside the leading international journal of science.
    • paleontologist
    • Science of Middle Earth , ed of J Tolkien Soc
    • writing an SF trilogy
    • senior editor for Nature
    • Nature office behind Kings Cross station
      • 20-25 editors, mostly PhDs
  • Nature was once a magazine -- no TV, radio, internet -- so people read a lot -- preiodicals, magazines, ...
  • I joined Nature at end of the era of Hot Metal -- world-wide subscription ~50k
  • today, subscriptions are lower, but most people see it on line, via Uni/library site licence
  • we get ~11k submissions/yr, 20% get sent off to review, and we publish 7-8%
  • get remarkably few cranks
  • need to read up, check references, refine opinion
  • peer review
  • open access
  • gold -- available immediately -- UK government route, some Nature journals do this
  • who pays
  • the editorial process adds value
  • charges
  • what does it do for peer review?
  • title for article: The Fall of the Mouse of Usher
  • q: does anyone attempt to charge rejected authors?
  • q: charging for gold -- affect independence of peer review -- will only go to gold acess reviewers?
  • q: open access charges -- what is it that costs £5k?
  • q: copyright
  • q: last year there was a notorious libel trial -- Mohamed El Naschie -- does this happen often?
  • I have had some unpleasant correspondence with rejected authors!
  • q: do you consider new authors as peer reviewers for other papers?
  • q: what are your favourites you've edited?

    • GoH: Edward James

    • Kari: all scientific journals are realy fanzines
    • knew Tony Sudbery, mathematician and SF fan -- at York
    • can sneak SF teaching past History HoD, by teaching utopian thought
    • currently writing a book on Lois McMaster Bujold
      • themes -- disabilitity -- in almost every one of her books
      • leadership
      • gender -- uterine replicators
      • she hasn't got a UK publisher -- bookbuyers won't take her up -- a belief that "women don't write SF, it won't sell"
  • if I could bear to write a book on a single author again, it would be CJ Cherryh
  • some children read SF, and become scientists -- there is also subset who become historians?
  • student applications will say "I've read Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, and Terry Pratchett" -- but they would have read only the set book of the classic authors
  • Kari: Guinivere, The Chessboard Queen -- great, and v funny
  • Farah: remember the Liverpool SF Foundation
  • q: academic prejudice against SF -- is it only against adventure, or is it something especially toxic?
  • you can't understand a literature like SF by looking at just a few SF canon authors -- you need to read as widely as possible
  • q: what's your definition of AF?
  • q: The Cambridge Companion to SF
  • q: what's the connection between the processes of history, and SF and fantasy criticism
  • Kari: there's a difference between Historian and English academic -- historians speak more languages, mostly dead ones

    • GoH Item - Walter Jon Williams

    Guest of Honour Walter Jon Williams is interviewed by Roz Kaveney.
    • latest trilogy -- This is Not a Game , Deep State , The Fourth Wall
    • it's Easter -- so, how many of your characters die, are reborn, and become gods?
      • several, maybe in a different personality
  • the era of The Master Computer ended when real authors got computers on their desks, and found out how stupid they are
  • Gaiman's 2nd law: all tech predictions will become true, and won't work properly
  • The Crown Jewels , House of Shards , Rock of Ages trilogy -- PG Wodehouse meets Jane Austen, in space
  • Aristoi -- multiple personality syndrome
  • Metropolitan series
  • I wrote an episode of Andromeda [1.10 All Great Neptune's Ocean]
  • the Alternate Reality game
  • Howard Waldrop -- short stories of alternate world steam punk -- I was obsessively reading them, and deduced the rules of Alternate History:
  • series of SF stories about writers -- Wall Stone Craft, The Last Ride of German Freddy, the Boolean Gate (Mark Twain and Nicola Tesla), ...
  • have turned out to be popular
  • I have an Ambrose Bierce story -- I've been thinking about it for nealry 20 years!

    • Revolutionary Fantasy

    Juliet McKenna (M), Francis Knight, Gaie Sebold, Kate Keen, Adrian Tchaikovsky

    Epic Fantasy has a reputation for conservatism. Our panel storm the barricades to liberate it from Divine Right and nostalgia.
    • anyone wanting power shold be shot on principle
    • the conversation I keep having with people who don't read fantasy -- "It's all divine right nostalgia, conservative, etc" -- well, not the stuff I write, or xx -- have you watched Game of Thrones?
    • was there ever any truth in it?
    • yes, it was all about the nobles
    • The Land of Green Ginger -- a classic fairy tale -- kings, nobles -- fairy tale tradition -- but at the other end there's the smart peasant putting on over on the god
    • Tolkien -- it's what people think of if they haven't read anything else
    • Sword & Sorcery -- so embedded in monarcy v peasants, that I never even noticed
    • fairy tales, princes and princesses -- all about princes going out and doing things -- even in Tolkien, Legolas is a prince
      • but the hobbits are the heroes -- and they have an elected mayor, not kings
  • as we grow older, and get more cynical, we notice things
  • I wrote the epic blockbuster fantasy masterpiece --- which if it had achieved print would have had the size, weight, and literary mertit of a housebrick -- but I had to get it out of my system
  • stock fantasy -- a static society, for a thousand years -- why? has no-one had an idea in all that time?
  • insect-based societies -- a bottom up democracy -- queens don't make any decisions
  • hereditary systems are absolutely at the mercy of the competence of the top guy
  • 1970s -- unexamined feudal societies -- cherry picking easy bits of Tolkien
  • Gemmel -- his heroes are not the rulers, his rulers are often propped up by better people
  • still default settings -- anarchies -- but then take them apart -- also more examination of change
  • hereditary power is the norm for most of the planet, for most of the time
  • but there are revolutions
  • "the lunatic fringe that gets the centre to move over a bit"
  • Midsummer Night's Dream -- Shakespeare couldn't nasty about the monarchy -- but the fairy king and queen are not noble, they are having a nasty domestic spat over who gets to keep the pretty slave boy
  • reader: if you open a novel, you have no idea what you will find -- that's the great thing about fantasy
  • divide between the culture and the individual
  • danger of getting preachy
  • q: inspiration from studying history -- esp at Uni, with social history (rather than school's "great man" history) -- so many great books exploring ordinary lives
  • I was on a panel when someone said "well, there aren't many prominent women in history"
  • O-level history -- we were told only about the battles the Royalists won -- umm...
  • Egyptology -- moving to digging up the villages around the tombs -- ordinary people
  • q: three R's :
  • not just the great warrior -- need logistics for armies
  • q: how we can live in a world where the Arab Spring is currently happening, and read "noble king" fantasies?
  • my favourite comfort reading is Terry Pratchett -- v subversive!

    • The Brothers Grimm

    David Hebblethwaite, Anne Sudworth, Tanya Brown (M), Theresa Derwin, Carolina Gomez-Lagerlöf

  • there were older collections -- French, etc -- the Grimm brothers didn't change as much as earlier collectors, to start with -- there were 7 editions, the got more suitable for children -- children's literature starting around this time
  • the Nazi party decreed every household should have a copy!
  • the stories probably changed a lot before the Grimms, and have continued to change in popular culture
  • Grimm brothers' father died when they were v young, they were almost outcasts -- a lot of tales have a wicked witch and a father woodcutter led astray -- the father they never had as hero?
  • there was lots of story collecting going on, to capture a disappearing folklore -- started by Grimm brothers
  • stories subsequently changed -- angled more towards children
  • recent Hansel and Gretel, Enchanted , Shrek -- self-satirising
  • lots of retellings -- Tanith Lee , 1970s
  • Lin Carter anthology in early 70s, with some darker retellings
  • lots of retellings -- we got 80 submissions for retelling Red Riding Hood
  • Jack the Giant Killer
  • Mirror Mirror (don't bother), Snow White and the Huntsment (v pretty)
  • Once Upon a Time
  • Grimm TV series -- not all Grimm stories -- Pinnochio -- other stuff that has become part of fairy tale tradition
  • people don't care where the stories come from
  • Bruno Bettleheim -- The Uses of Enchantment
  • Cinderella -- films, Barbie
  • Grimms were writing during Napoleonic Wars
  • it was v popular to have Jung/Freud interpretations at beginning of last century
  • also a lot of geographical analysis -- how the story changes over places
  • "Folktale by Numbers"
  • representation of women
  • tales were then adapted
  • q: Grimms called them "household tales"
  • Sleeping Beauty -- no, let's not go there
  • q: household tales -- the intellectual view: these are about fantastic things -- grownups don't believe fantastic things -- so they must be for children -- but they've got bad things -- so we must take them out
  • Coursera -- Grimm to Doctorow
  • Hansel & Gretel Witch Hunters -- it's hilarious!
  • the story of the The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage -- it all goes fine when each is doing their own thing, it only goes wrong when they do each other's tasks -- "a place for everyone, and everyone in their place"
  • Hoffman -- there is a world of wonders, of terrors -- it's only one step away -- but we forget
  • Sondheim's Into the Woods -- subverts things wonderfully

    • Head to Head: Anne McCaffrey and Joanna Russ

    Ian Sales, Bob Neilson, Tanya Brown, Caroline Mullan

    Two groundbreaking early female SF authors. The panel examine them, their works and their effects.
    • I think some of Russ ' books should be required reading, and I wouldn't say the same of McCaffrey
    • McCaffrey's books got me through my teens
      • many have said this
      • it's obviously written by a woman, female characters
      • speak to anyone feeling oppressed, misunderstood, not empowered
      • and maps! and dragons!
  • McCaffrey is read by boys too, they don't seem to mind the female protagonists -- Lessa, Helga, ...
  • "The Smallest Dragonboy" was on the syllabus at school -- many went on reading -- ended up at DragonCon
  • Joanna Russ -- my gateway drug to SF! The Female Man
  • most of McCaffrey is fantasy -- Dragonflight is SF, the other dragon books not so much
  • Russ had an agenda, McCaffrey didn't, at least to start with
  • Russ was polemical -- McCaffrey was not as driven a feminist, more folksy -- a "strong woman"
  • McCaffrey was dominated by her father -- she trained as opera singer, won a Hugo, her achievement was never acknowledged -- her husband was the same -- she had the guts to pick up two small children and leave
  • Russ started out to write feminist fiction, and continued after she felt her SF career had run its course
  • Russ is well known in SF critical circles -- not as well known as an SF writer outside these kind of circles -- she has a Masterworks series -- but is mostly out of print
  • Russ was after your head, McCaffrey was after your heart
  • TB: I bounced off Russ because I was at the wrong stage -- Extra(ordinary) People left me in floods of tears -- it really really was not what I wanted to read at that time -- I was alternating with reading romance -- McCaffrey always had some nice warm "romantic" or even platonic love, meshing with SF themes -- not in Russ!
  • Crystal Singer is an SF novel -- the sequel, Killashandra , is more romantic -- Crystal Line , even more romantic
  • I'd like to go back to Russ with a critical brain and fewer slushy romantic thoughts -- and I am now more aware of feminism
  • Russ -- 2nd wave feminism
  • Advenures of Alyx -- there's trilingual pun, filthy in three languages, and gets her out of a hole
  • Russ was published in the UK by Women's Press -- so not in high street bookshops -- in Dark they Were and Golden Eyed, and Forbidden Planet
  • every teenager should have McCaffrey -- every older person needs Russ
  • McCaffrey is in main bookshops
  • if we are lucky, McCaffrey's books will die because we will no longer accept the patriarchy -- we won't need them any more
  • at least some of the problems Russ and McCaffrey dealt with are not as relevant to younger women today
  • Russ will survive -- she interrogates patricharical attitudes
  • McCaffrey -- her best SF -- The Ship Who Sang -- in places it's ridiculously sentimental -- and some unpleasant attitudes to disability -- but v SFnal -- a moral book
  • McCaffrey was working out her demons in her writing -- abusive men -- Russ was clearly driven by demons
  • q: McCaffrey -- she wrote women's perspective, and about physically disabled, and indigenous populations
  • Russ' characters are usually flawed, and a wide variety of people, depression
  • McCaffrey is much easier to read than Russ
  • Russ' legacy will endure more, but McCaffrey has touched more people
  • be careful reading Russ if you are fragile, she won't spare you

    • Extreme rewrites

    Bob Neilson, Jennifer Delaney, Ira Nayman, Sharon Reamer

    Jane Austen with zombies was just the beginning. Our panel put characters and ideas into stories that they've never been seen in before, and try to convince you that this one will actually work.
    • Foundation Trilogy by Victoria Secrets
    • Kama Sutra by PK Dick
    • Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde, and Lily Savage
    • The Once and Future King Kong
      • to become king had to remove a banana from a stone
      • he will be back when his people need him
        • Return of the Kong
  • The Lord of the Rings, by British Telecom
  • The Spy Who Came in From Cold Comfort Farm
  • Star Wars, ep IV, a New Pope
  • Conan the Barbarian's Jones Diary
  • Thunderbirds meets Angry Birds
  • Muppet Aliens
  • Aliens v Wallace and Gromet
  • Star Trek -- Captain Pooh, Eeyore Spock, Piglet Chekov, Wol McCoy, Kanga Uhura
  • Exorcist, the musical
  • Island in the Sea of Time-Share
  • Go Dorset in Five Mad -- William Burroughs, cut up method
  • The Forever War and Peace
  • Omega Man on the Titanic
  • The Andromeda Convention Outbreak
  • The Mean Streets of Bradford -- Bollywood Scorsese
  • Life of Pie, by Gordon Ramsey
  • Dr Zhivago Who?
  • Stand on Algernon -- Keyes
  • The Sheep Look up John Brunner -- With a Strange Device
  • Snow White and the Seven Samurai
  • Teletubby Spotting
  • Buffy meets Twilight
  • Wheel of Time, by Jeremy Clarkson
  • Mordor on the Orient Express
  • Tarzan as a wildlife documentary, voiced by David Attenborough
  • Jurassic Park, starring David Attenborough
  • 50 shades of Jean Grey
  • Some Like it Hot Fuzz
  • The Importance of Being Ernest Saunders
  • An Inspector Gadget Calls
  • 50 shades of Dorian Grey
  • can anyone come up with a mashup Marvel haven't already done?
  • Game of Thrones with cast of My Little Pony
  • Carry On Game of Thrones
  • Goon with the Wind
  • Barbie the Vampire Slayer
  • Scrappy the Vampire Slayer
  • Elmer and Louise
  • send every superhero to "What Not to Wear"
  • Superman v Muhammed Ali
  • Terry Nation Street
  • Pinky and Donovan's Brain

    • Gerry Anderson: Anything Can happen

    Margaret Austin, Tony Keen, Mark Slater, David Wake

    Gerry Anderson died last December, but his influence endures. His many TV programmes are discussed by the panel.
    • from Twizzle to New Captain Scarlet -- 4 eras -- early, classic, live action, late
    • MA -- I saw Twizzle!
    • DW -- I still fit in my Captain Tatan unifrom
    • MS -- I started at Space 1999
    • Early: Twizzle, Torchy, 4 Feather Falls, Supercar, Fireball XL5 -- opening credits
      • Roberta Leigh , after Twizzle and Torchy did Space Patrol on the other side of Atlantic -- JMS says it's the greatest SF ever seen
      • "Have you heard of the Twizzle Toy, no, there's only one" -- pre merchandising age!
      • b&w show repeats dried up when colour TV started
      • in my memoery -- Twizzle was a bit more exciting than that!
      • start off as explicit toys -- once Roberta Leigh left, became "real stories", drama about adult characters -- wanted to use animation to get into live action
      • Supercar -- first gimmick vehicle
      • all that flying, jet bikes -- instead of walking -- Tex's guns fire on their own, so deadn't have to use hands to draw!
      • Fireball XL5 inspired us in the playground
      • Supercar toys
  • Classic, golden age, colour: Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Joe90, The Secret Service, 1964-1969!
  • ethics in Stingray -- all those undiscovered underwater civilisations -- lets blow them to smithereens!
  • productive time -- Lou Grade as sponsor -- but ITV had no consistency of slot/exposure -- Granada/ATV were the only regions to show Secret Service
  • Secret Service, not repeated
  • characters getting more sensible names
  • puppets proportions change, as if puppets are growing
  • acronyms -- FAB, BIG RAT
  • Scarlet, really innovative
  • live action: UFO, Protectors, Space 1999,
  • Terrahawks, Dick Spanner, Space Precinct, Lavender Castle, New Captain Scarlet
  • Dave Lalley -- I have slept with Kate Kestrel
  • Thunderbirds is back in 2015 -- ITV
  • q:Troy Tempest attended LonCon 2 -- will he attend LonCon 3?
  • Space 1999 models were cobbled together from old Airfix kits -- Airfix loved this as they didn't have to make new parts
  • Steven Begg

    • Alternate Presents

    Sharon Reamer, Naomi Foyle, Farah Mendlesohn (M), Phil Nanson, Colin Fine

    Make a small tweak to society, or technology, or fashion, and how big a change can it make? Our panel explore other possible places we could have got to: some plausible, some less so.
    • SR: I am planning AH novel
    • NF: I am interested in utopic impulses
    • PN: I am slightly too fond of alternate military histories
    • CF: I like playing with languages and structures
    • PN -- theories of history -- lots of AH have military branch points -- percieved as clear and decisive points -- v the Marxisit ineluctable flow, that no individual can have an effect -- v charismatic individuals -- can imagine that there could be a different outcome to a battle where things wouldn't converge -- 3rd catastrophe, two Marxists streams, but interacting via individuals
      • Cortez in South America -- had he turned up when there wasn't such a weak emperor, would it have been any different
  • modern SF, fantasy -- everything was better in the Celtic past
  • also, if the Romans had won in Germany -- it would have changed the whole European dynamic
  • not just victories -- big losses are also interesitng
  • the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand -- was it a situation waiting for a flashpt, or would it have been completely different?
  • Jon Courtney Grimwood, Pashazade -- the Great War ended in 1915, it didn't become a WW
  • could a nomadic property culture become dominant? -- Kim Stanley Robinson , The Years of Rice and Salt
  • geodisasters, weather -- their influence on history
  • Israel could have chosen Yiddish -- closer to German -- or the Sephardic Jewish/Spanish language
  • for want of a nail -- how would we ever know?
  • without the war in Europe, Brtian might not have withdrawn from its American colonies
  • Boudicca -- her daughters were raped to rob them of their inheritace
  • one form of inheritance is through nephews, not sons
  • rigid primogeniture is reasonably recent
  • Salic v morganatic inheritance
  • what's the smallest change -- how can we effect a small change and get some things to change, but others to stay the same -- or is it a butterfly effect?
  • need to change human nature
  • more education
  • q: access to ubiquitous cheap energy, fossil fuels -- what if they had bee harder to get at?
  • crucial fossil-fuelled chemical revolution -- oil is important for plastics more than for energy -- we are wasting oil by burning it
  • are we already in an alternate present?
  • the stories we tell ourselves about who we are
  • the dramatic effect of the Norman invasion, on land ownership, genetics, language, ...
  • don't use computer metaphors of tech to think of ourselves as hardwired

    • The Clay Institute Problems in Mathematics

    Michael Abbott, Nicholas Jackson and Susan Stepney

    In the year 2000, the Clay Institute offered $1,000,000 for the solution to seven different problems on the frontiers of mathematics. Which problems, why, and what progress has been made?
    • my notes made for the panel, on the P = NP ? question
      • rate at which execution time grows wrt size of input
      • P -- polynomial time -- eg, searching an unordered list
        • polynomial time algorithms are "feasible"
  • NP -- non-deterministic polynomial time
  • does P = NP?
  • proof that P != NP
  • proof P = NP
  • my guess -- undecidable
  • tells us there's something we don't know about computability in this universe
  • allows possibility of other universes, different laws, where P = NP
  • Vernor Vinge -- A Fire Upon the Deep -- a possible explanation:

    • Pure and Applied Mathematics

    Nicholas Jackson

    Popular wisdom asserts that there is a divide between "pure" and "applied" mathematics, with the former being studied for its own sake, and the latter because it's "useful" in some way. In this talk, Dr Nicholas Jackson hopes to show that things aren't quite as simple as that, by looking at ways in which some apparently abstract branches of mathematics have turned out to have important applications in chemistry, physics and biology.