home > SF > cons > Paragon2: Eastercon 2005

The 56th British Easter Science Fiction Convention
25--28 March 2005, Hinckley Island Hotel

GoHs: Ben Jeapes, Robert Rankin, Richard K. Morgan , Ken MacLeod .

The third Eastercon in the bizarre, but friendly, Hinckley Island Hotel (same hotel as 2001 and 2003 , only the name has changed). The facilities were again excellent: good function room space, friendly staff, and continuous food: the lunch and dinner menus were this time more varied, and the queuing to pay problems had been solved. Continuous process improvement!

Several items were themed around the Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse. The Sofa recounted ordering the prizes: "I went to Thornton's and said that I wanted ' x bunnies, this many with War, Death, Plague, Famine", and they just said 'fine, you can pick them up tomorrow'"

Programme highlights

• David A. Hardy -- SFX in Space
• Panel -- Not the Clarke Awards
• Panel -- Unrealised weapons of WWII
• Panel -- Fu Manchu and Mr Big : Xenophobia and Bad Guys
• Dave Lalley -- Miscellaneous 2
• Ben Jeapes -- GoH Desert Island Discs
• Armand Leroi -- George Hay Memorial Lecture -- Human Mutants
• Robert Rankin -- GoH
• World Premiere Audience Participation Richard III
• Doctor Who -- the first of the new episodes, which we all watched from behind The Sofa
• Filk concert
• James Steel and David Wake -- To Live and Die in Costume
• Panel -- Altered People
• Panel -- Dan Dare and the BSEF
• Richard Morgan -- GoH
• Panel -- The Hero as Villain
• Masquerade
• Panel -- Drummond, Templar et al: the Clubland Heroes
• Panel -- Death of the Hero

David A. Hardy -- SFX in Space

Dave presented a DVD show which is essentially a scene-by-scene comparison of the eerily prescient 1950 film Destination Moon and the real Apollo 11 moonlanding, plus some other, rather less prescient, space flight films.

Panel -- Not the Clarke Awards

A discussion of this year's Arthur C Clarke Award shortlist

• The shortlist for the Arthur C Clarke 2005 award is:
  • Ian McDonald -- River of Gods
  • China Miéville -- Iron Council
  • David Mitchell -- Cloud Atlas
  • Richard Morgan -- Market Forces
  • Audrey Niffenegger -- The Time Traveler's Wife
  • Neal Stephenson -- The System of the World

• Ian McDonald -- River of Gods
  • It's ambitious -- has 10-12 story lines -- set in India
  • only one that's on both the BSFA and Clarke shortlists
  • I really really liked it -- amazing world building : genetic engineering, AI, alien artefacts, VR, social changes, ...
  • one of his most original and best
  • a little hard to get into, because of so many characters, especially the first 60 pages
    • everything is new, almost overwhelming, but fascinating
    • then get to explore all the threads in detail
  • it's a Frankenstein plot -- things driving it go away and there's no reason it couldn't happen again -- a weakness

• China Miéville -- Iron Council
  • not his best book, but it's still crammed with wonderful inventive ideas, baroque language
  • he finally writes openly about politics -- Marxist revolution
  • mid section -- riffing off cowboy books -- tends to drag -- and if you're not into railways it may be a bit of a bore
• central section is a million times better than everything around it -- the rest is too uneven
• opening section is a D&D wilderness adventure with as many interesting and entertaining monsters as possible!
• he's constantly experimenting -- this is different again
• after I'd finished, it didn't feel quite as imaginative or exciting as the two previous -- it reined in some of the more excessive traits -- his style is improving, but I didn't find it quite as interesting -- didn't like the characters: they're idealistic
• the revolution is a failure -- being idealistic doesn't bring bout a better world

• David Mitchell -- Cloud Atlas
  • not easy to describe -- published as mainstream -- Booker shortlist last year -- six stories arranged like Russian dolls, also arranged in time -- many styles -- the SF is very good, aware of previous SF -- there's a near future Brave New World , and a later post-apocalyptic -- all about the use of power
  • I count some of these things as weaknesses -- the different styles, I don't see a purpose, other than showing off! -- each individual segment is quite fragmented -- series of letters, interview Q&A, ... -- very hard to read, very tiring -- keep getting new stories, and am often not interested in them -- only tiny ad hoc connections -- no unity
  • in every section, someone is being deceived, or is not who they seem to be -- the style reflects the voices of the characters from different eras -- but there are thematic similarities
  • it's about how history is understood in terms of stories -- one of the characters turns out to be writing the previous story
  • it is written from outside the genre, but with a lot more understanding than others, eg Atwood -- and there are no squids in it!
  • he has two previous novels with a similar structure of multiple voices
  • about deception and the use of power
  • more style than substance -- empty underneath
  • it didn't feel like a novel, but like a bunch of chopped up short stories that didn't work -- felt like him playing with structure
  • style novels are usually forgettable, but this is very vivid

• Richard Morgan -- Market Forces
  • tried twice to start reading it -- got bogged down, seemed silly -- Mad Max crossed with Wall Street -- couldn't get on with it
  • Near future world, with contracts/promotion by challenge/duel in car races, run your competitor off the roads, ideally kill them
  • very fast paced, cinematic -- found it difficult to follow in text, but would be exciting on the screen
  • I really like Richard's other books -- Altered Carbon, Broken Angels are also high octane -- this isn't his best book -- it has only one idea and he worries it to death for several hundred pages -- so why is it on the shortlist? maybe someone wants to praise it as a searing indictment of capitalism, as a satire -- but it's not, because satire is subtle and witty -- it's ignorant offensive crap -- it's the moral equivalent of painting all gays as paedophiles
  • It's a very moral book -- it's very violent but it never shies from the consequences
  • I think it does glamorise the thugs
  • you can't look at the main character and say that he's happy ever after -- he's deluded
  • a smart reader will see that, but the not so smart will see it as glamorisation!

• Audrey Niffenegger -- The Time Traveler's Wife
  • published as mainstream originally -- Henry has chronodisplacement disorder -- the narrative follows Clare
  • it's a romance -- sentimental
  • it's decent SF -- the "disease" is handled logically
  • it's too long at 400 pages
  • it's a "Richard and Judy" book!
  • I couldn't finish this one-- I got 50 pages in and realised I shouldn't read more or I'd be sick -- it was like reading whipped cream and icing sugar
  • I found it very readable -- I liked the character of Henry -- and I like Clare in the story -- I wanted to find out more about their relationship
  • it is a bit saccharine, but not overly so
  • but it has nothing of import to say -- it's just a romance
  • it highlights what it takes to be an interesting person -- -- Clare has no self-determination of her future, waiting for Henry -- she's damaged as a result
  • it's quite a dark and nasty story about not having a choice
  • the author is clearly aware of all the genre jokes about time travel, and works them in with twists
  • I don't rate it highly as an SF novel, but I do rate it highly as a novel that talks about the the things that SF talks about
  • this is a relationship that couldn't happen without the SF concept -- their first times are with each other, but not at the same time!
  • the structure is classic romance stuff: a not very interesting female character plus Mr Right

• Neal Stephenson -- The System of the World
  • for this to be on the shortlist, many judges must (a) like Neal Stephenson (b) like the Baroque Cycle (c) have read the first two
  • there's lots of research, and it's all on the page!
  • he has a great way of doing an infodump
  • it's full of wonderfully clever and inventive ideas, about one every 100 pages -- it's desperately in need of an editor!
  • have you ever thought it has been edited?
  • I read it intensely in a day -- I loved it -- but I don't think it should be on the shortlist
  • all three books are really one novel -- Quicksilver wins for all three?
  • also there's heated debate about whether it's SF -- it doesn't stand so well on it's own, and it's not as SFnal as Quicksilver
  • it's about the origin of science!
  • yes, but the SFnal content is minimal, especially per page
  • it's a homeopathic dose of SF

• River of Gods is favourite with the Panel -- but they suspect that Cloud Atlas will win, or maybe The Time Traveler's Wife
• the BSFA shortlist this year is Ken MacLeod , Kim Stanley Robinson , Alastair Reynolds , Jon Courtenay Grimwood , Susannah Clark -- there's a very different dynamic between a voted award and a judged award -- voted goes to most popular, judges each come along with a few favourites, so you end up with a more interesting shortlist this way, provided someone else likes it too

[ Iron Council subsequently won the Clarke Award]

Panel -- Unrealised weapons of WWII

Robert Sneddon, Simon Bradshaw, John Richards

• necessity is the mother of invention
• WWII is the closest thing to a technical singularity we've seen
• rationale for many projects less than rational or objective
  • no idea could be ruled out initially as too stupid, so some stupid ideas got a long way
• Grand Panjuram -- a 12ft high antimine device -- ran up the beach a bit, turned round, and came back
• the weapon that won the war was the proximity fuse
  • worked on by 1000s in total secrecy
• sometimes harebrained ides work because not working is not an option -- also, no-one looks at it closely enough to realise it's impossible
• Most Secret War -- R. V. Jones
• Jeffrey Pike -- Magnus' mad cousin
  • ice is hard as concrete, but brittle -- mix in wood pulp -- tough and hard to melt -- build a ship out of it! -- unsinkable, because can't sink icebergs -- though of quite seriously -- half mile long iceberg aircraft carrier
• most "modern" weapons go back a long way
  • ballistic missiles -- V2
  • in 1943 a number of British warships were sunk by rocket controlled missiles with a range of several miles -- later models TV guided
• lots of the wonder weapon systems so far in advance of their time they were very poorly developed
  • lots of very new "let's try this and see what happens"
  • needed to be sold to politicians
  • Hitler was an inveterate micro-manager, fascinated with and dismissive of wonder weapons
  • often very badly misemployed -- the Messerschmidt 262 was employed as a long range bomber, not an air superiority machine
  • Germans invented the first modern assault rifle -- Hitler said, that's fantastic, I want my personal bodyguard to have it
• Whittle and OHayden both treated equally poorly by their governments
  • modern ones based on OHayden
  • Whittle's was sat on because of infeasible materials
  • German approach eventually found the better way of axial rather than centrifugal flow
• during Cold War, -- extremely controlled command economies in a rigid state seem to foster local innovation -- because no way to get a project done other than unofficially -- more open systems, "sensible" designs only
• one German aircraft manufacturer was allergic to symmetrical airframes
  • one British test pilot said "entry into the cockpit is difficult -- it should be made impossible"
• if you tell the Army something is ruggedised, they will at best take it as a challenge, at worst an insult to their ability to destroy it
• crossbow with 6" nails -- shoot through the throat and nail to the wall in one go!
• In the field people try to fix things
  • the computer couldn't talk to the router -- sent out several routers -- eventually went to look -- cable joining them was short, joined with gaffer tape -- it had been "shortened"
  • surviving contact with the enemy is nothing like surviving contact with the people using it
• sticky grenades carried by dogs -- but targeted their own side's tanks, which they'd been trained on!
• misinformation -- had the Germans developing anti-infrared paint for their subs, but were actually developing millimetre radar
• pink camouflage paint for tanks in the desert -- works great, but it's pink !
• DTI had an Enigma machine they'd bought at a trade fair before the war -- they didn't realise its value
  • The US film about Enigma -- it would be like showing British Marines storming Iwo Jima!
• SCRAM -- Safety Chain Reactor Axe Man -- cut the cord to drop the rods in the pile
• Allies never developed rocket tech, because, until the V2, it was thought to be a toy
  • rockets are heavy metal tubes full of gunpowder and couldn't possibly be scaled up to V2 size
  • didn't think liquid propellant could be made to work
  • don't use anything that stupid unless you have to!
• there were many miracle weapons that won the war
• Archimedes had a good publicist
• Steampunk -- steam in the present day
  • diesel punk -- 1920s and 30s tech into the Cold War -- eg Charlie Stross

Panel -- Fu Manchu and Mr Big : Xenophobia and Bad Guys

Marcus Rowland, Jessica Rydill, John Richards

• long history of evil foreigners
  • James Bond , 2nd book, Mr Big -- a black criminal
    • had black villains and black goodies
  • Fu Manchu -- Chinese -- sinister orientals
  • 1890s technothrller The Angel of the Revolution -- Natas, an evil Jewish ex-merchant, now running a evil international socialist conspiracy -- hypnotic powers
  • Carl Peterson (in the Bulldog Drummon books) obviously modelled on Natas
  • Blofeld
  • Dr Nicola, 1900
    • a foreign Moriarty
    • 2nd Dr Nicola novel -- he occasionally has noble qualities -- but all underlings worse, depending on nationality
  • Dr Doom
    • evil foreigners setting out to conquer the world
    • never explained why they want to do this!
    • in opposition to these, often had some good guy foreigners, but were often generalising from one person to whole race
• we have gone to the other extreme from the old "wogs start at Calais" view -- today can't have any foreign baddies at all -- so they now have to be the undead
  • in fantasy -- very few black characters at all
  • In Buffy , the baddies turned goodies are Irish/English -- very few Blacks or Mexicans
  • In Batman Returns -- Danny de Vito as the Penguin -- people of reduced stature protested!
• fear of being thought of making the generalisation
  • want a day when can have a baddie from a minority without making the assumption that all of that minority are bad
  • Magneto is a Jewish Holocaust survivor -- there's no such assumption there
  • backlash of Evil British villains
  • Mafia -- never any real suggestion that all Italians are bad guys
    • had an Italian anti-defamation league
    • Russian Mafia make great bad guys!
  • stock villains -- Nazis and neo-Nazis
    • no-one is going to come up with an anti-defamation league for them
  • robots!
• other cultures are also xenophobic
• generic villains are too boring
  • need more complex villains
  • Sauron has no personality! [... but see Diane Duane's (alleged) take on this point ]
• last thing you want is a hero who is completely good and pure
  • Victorian literature -- many heroes were flawed
    • Sherlock Holmes -- decadent tradition
    • more often, is a good ex-soldier, a rugged colonial, who can do things a British Gentleman couldn't do
• Captain Nemo was trying to keep the seas free of pollution and prevent war -- by sinking everything!
  • end all wars -- by destroying everything
  • Babylon 5
    • Shadows -- wanted to improve everyone evolutionarily -- by pruning the weak
    • Vorlons sent planet busters to destroy Centauri Prime to get Shadow minions
• Just because you are oppressed doesn't mean that you're not trying to blow up civilisation

Dave Lalley -- Miscellaneous 2

M2 tape -- a 2 hour compilation of ads, etc -- which we watched for the brilliant Doctor Who clips set to Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart (which is near the end). [2008: There are now several "next gen" YouTube variants available: good, but not as good as this original!] Also contains:

• Vodaphone/ X-Files ads -- including Jon Pertwee and the "Doctor on Call" sign
• some very chilling North Korean propaganda ads
• 1984 Apple ad
• Walkers crisps -- Gary Lineaker cloned into Vinnie Jones
• various Carlsberg and Carling Black Label UFOs
• several car ads including
  • "V-Dubya" aliens / Golf GTi / Ford Escort
  • Almera : Professionals / Sweeny
  • Honda sequence
• weightless Flake / Kitkat / Longlife Milk (filmed on Mir!)
• Kitkat Daleks
• program clips
  • Dead Ringers: Terminator sequels and Gandalf Big Brother
  • Gay Daleks [ very strange...]
  • Big Read

Ben Jeapes -- GoH Desert Island Discs

• [audience hummed the theme tune]
• choices are in alphabetical order, to avoid questions
• I would grow sick and tired of pop faster on a desert island
• Beethoven, 6th Symphony
  • has a photocopier which had that rhythm
  • Immortal Beloved -- Gary Oldman -- music reflects state of mind of composer when composing it -- 6th has a pleasant mood
  • can listen to same piece of music over and over again
    • can do this with some other things, like comedy routines -- the anticipation is part of it
• Flanders and Swann -- Madiera M'Dear
  • clever uses of English language
  • Gilbert & Sullivan , Tom Lehrer,
    • Madiera M'Dear -- zeugma
• Handel's Messiah -- Unto Us a Child is Born
  • would have loved to be Isaiah writing the prophecy to this music!
  • never been to the whole thing -- it's 6 hours long!
  • first publication -- Digital Cats Come Out Tonight -- a short story in Digital Dreams , edited by David V Barrett
• Human League -- Seconds
  • was 15/16 in the early 80s -- New Romantics seared onto consciousness
  • totally synthetic -- not a natural note in it -- like eating a chemical cream bun -- guilty pleasure
  • did my degree in Philosophy and Politics at Warwick
    • second novel -- Winged Chariots -- mostly regurgitated my medieval philosophy notes!
      • developing scientific method
      • anything that counteracts Libertarian politics is a good idea
    • relatives asked "do you want to be a politician?" -- just because you are a medical student studying nasty tropical diseases doesn't mean you want to catch one!
• Bert Kaempfert -- Swingin' Safari
  • earliest musical memory
  • I listen to Radio 2 to and from work -- Classic FM at work, until 2, with its "soporific classics" -- at home it's REM, complete hits of Abba, ...
  • Clooney chose Shatner's "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" -- incentive to get off the desert island -- would hollow out own leg to make a canoe!
    • Shatner was Christopher Plummer's understudy in Shakespeare plays -- he never went back to the stage after Star Trek
• Ennio Morricone -- Once Upon a Time in the West
  • music was composed first -- the film was built around it
    • in pre-Internet days, could watch it and be surprised that Henry Fonda was a bad guy
    • such a wonderful ending
  • listening to Classic FM -- there is some good modern stuff, but it doesn't hold a candle to the older stuff
  • latest novel -- New World Order
    • this was me "doing Turtledove" -- altering the English Civil War
    • there is intervention from outside -- but not aliens or time travellers
    • Cromwell's undercover resistance army against the invaders
• Queen -- '39
  • I'm almost convinced it's an SF song -- either time travel or very long space travel
  • now working on the first of what will hopefully be a series for younger readers -- "Harry Potter meets the Illuminati" -- Unseen Forces
  • I'm almost Sebastian Rook, hack writer, Vampire Plagues trilogy
    • another Sebastian Rook is writing the next trilogy
    • write to a script
  • next real novel -- Return to Space
• Shostakovich -- Jazz Suite #2, Waltz 2
  • incidental music in Eyes Wide Shut

• Finally: you're given the bible, Shakespeare, and LotR -- what other book?
  • the complete Calvin & Hobbes !
• and your luxury item?
  • a Ruined City for exploration, and generating ideas for plots and settings

Armand Leroi -- George Hay Memorial Lecture

Human Mutants

• Reader in evo/devo biology, Imperial College London
• New TV series later in the year on C4

Robert Rankine -- GoH

An hilariously scurrilous talk, accompanied by a chavification transformation

World Premiere Audience Participation Richard III

A David Wake Production -- including a cast of thousands (if you count the audience, several times) -- and a bemused Jasper Fforde -- in the hotel Rotunda (see Souvenir Book cover photo -- an appropriately hi tech metal and glass Globe Theatre)

Filk concert

• .../Then he got his soul again/.../They're acting like arseholes again/...
• SteveK and Fi performed their "Watching Angel Instead"
  • Just a glance/I saw him on Buffy/And I was enthralled/...
    .../Then the chance arose for a spin-off show about the undead/I'm watching Angel instead/...
    .../I wanted Spi-i-i-ke/He's the one who's sexy/He's the one who gets me/...
    
    
• Highlight was probably the finale: an improvised Theramin and Hammer Dulcimer duet! Differently different

James Steel and David Wake -- To Live and Die in Costume

• James Steel
  • Horse, White Rabbit ( last year ), Griffin, Nessie, ...
  • it's important that your costumes don't have sharp bits -- my costumes get fluffier and cuddlier over time!
  • transport -- it should fit in the car -- get a bigger car!
• David Wake
  • Alien Queen
  • Intuition 1998 Masquerade -- won, and broke ankle!
  • every joint is articulated -- then covered in black stuff so that it doesn't move...
  • advice: no stilts -- I practised on carpet -- reality was a lot more slippery!
    • proper stilts, strapped up the leg a long way, look like stilts
    • leaf spring sprung stilts -- people can run in them -- very expensive
  • everyone said I would break my neck -- they were all completely wrong!
    • broke a bone in one ankle, and twisted the other knee
    • did the next MIB okay
    • had a limp by the time of the photocall
    • next morning, sat down for breakfast, and realised couldn't get up again -- I had breakfast, then called for an ambulance
• the 15 foot test
  • must look good from 15 feet, doesn't matter what it looks like close up -- unless you are going for the Workmanship Award -- don't bother with small details
  • can tell fur from canvas at 15 feet -- but can use very cheap fur unless want it seen close up
• anatomy and skeletons
  • Mr Tumnus leg shape -- insulating pipe is wonderful -- can use the plastic plumbing it insulates as reinforcement if required
  • "anatomy for artists" -- go back to basics -- build the skeleton, then build the body up from that -- so it has an anatomy underneath
  • horse jaw is properly hinged at the back -- pipe and gaffer tape
  • " 24-hour centaur " -- hold close to body so that the rear doesn't waggle independently, and moves properly
• remember it's theatrical
  • big obvious dramatic movements
  • use the whole stage -- fill the stage
  • even a short walk up the aisle is an acting job -- you have to feel like an invulnerable alien queen, and move like one
• visibility -- seeing out
  • can use netting -- but as soon as the spotlight hits you, it becomes opaque!
• accessibility
  • triffid costume -- bushy base + fibreglass triffid
    • completely disguised fact there was a person inside -- where does the person go?
    • in the base, on castors
    • but there were three steps down to the catwalk!
  • other problems: small doorways, low ceilings, chandeliers, ...
• tend to reuse costumes, so build well
  • make them break apart -- for reuse, and for transport from home
    • velcro tends not to be strong enough -- use ties
• heat
  • in the Griffin, was wearing boxer shorts only -- was boiling in there!
• RSC Narnia
  • the movement of the animals was very good
  • they studied real animals
  • the costumes helped this movement -- eg sprung tails
    • wooden snakes move well -- something like that with a small amount of elastic should work well as a tail
    • get someone to direct you, to say what works
• Nessie
  • used flag support belt -- could lean over close to horizontal
  • yellow hard hat -- attach poles at 3 points, up to Nessie's head, can move head independent of neck
• one con there was a costume that combined a weightlifter and gymnast -- looked very good

Panel -- Altered People : SF and the Divided Self

Caroline Mullan, Julian Headlong

[missed the first half]

• Tanith Lee 's Drinking Sapphire Wine is a riposte to Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars
• end up with universities dedicated to educating a single person and all their clones
• real life is complicated and messy and takes a long time to learn to deal with it -- none of these stories worry about this
• Altered Carbon makes a very good job of discussing this
  • the sequel has more sex, violence and torture than any book ought to
  • I don't know how much SF Morgan had read before, but he had read some
  • first 8 pages appear to be pure gratuitous sex and violence
    • story starts with a bang
    • have to read through this, which I actually don't like, to get to the story
• Jon Courtenay Grimwood also integrates nastiness and violence into stories of transcendence very well
• David Brin doesn't
  • Kiln People is just lots of shiny balls around every corner
  • trying to write a noir book -- and failed
  • sequel, Kiln Time , due out soon
• Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel is about clones -- but don't discover that until 2/3rds through
  • Margaret Atwood -- In the Woods ... which of course isn't SF because there are no squids from outer space...
  • Roth has just written an alternate world story of Nazis in WWII, and said he had no literary tradition to work with...
• Suzy McKee Charnas -- female societies that clone themselves -- the Rosemary tribe thus has bad teeth and hot tempers, etc

Panel -- Dan Dare and the BSEF

???, Simon Bradshaw

• Dan Dare : British Empire in Space
  • Sikhs in space suits, Mounties on Mars, ...
• Journey into Space -- last radio series to get larger audiences than any TV series at the time
• assumption that the British would have a meaningful space programme
  • started to die in the early 1960s -- after cancellation of Blue Streak in 1960 as a nuclear launcher -- early 1970s Dr Who still have British astronaut (coming back with strange plagues) -- oil crisis in the mid 1970s was the end
  • so British space programme now relegated to Alternate Histories
    • Ministry of Space -- short graphic novel -- Warren Ellis -- Brits get to Pinemunde first -- dark parody of Dan Dare towards the end
• Hugh Walters -- Chris Godfrey series -- UN Space Agency, but run by Brits
• Quatermass films -- based on a British space programme
• Dr Who -- Remembrance of the Daleks -- two female scientists, bomb disposal squad "let's get back to Berlin and see how things are doing at the rocketry group"
• Jeff Hawke -- Express newspaper comic strip
• Prospero One -- Simon Bradshaw and Stephen Baxter -- Interzone ~1997
  • UK one of the few countries that has launched its own satellite with its own launcher (and that after the project was cancelled!) -- Blue Streak as first stage of the launcher -- decision was made to go a joint European route -- never worked -- plug pulled in early 70s
  • if the UK had built the whole thing themselves, international management issues would not have arisen -- turning point for Prospero One -- set in 1974, beginning of oil crisis -- programme cancelled, test launch, gets into orbit, then something goes wrong ...
  • Another, written a few years later, set earlier, BIS design of the 1930s was built -- Rocketship to the Moon -- 100s of solid rocket boosters strapped together, electromechanical firing -- stainless steel and cordite -- set in 1950s, after a WWII where Edward VIII never abdicated and had an armistice with Germany after Dunkirk -- Britain to moon first -- von Braun and nuclear rockets, so off to Mars!
• another assumption -- we have Australia, full of empty desert
• Alan Bond -- Hotol -- late 1980s
  • very unusual design for an airbreathing rocket
  • BAe and RR were interested -- but RR not that interested in building only a dozen engines
    • also reluctance because of Concorde -- very expensive, very limited production run
  • new version -- Skylon
    • each new version looks more and more like Fireball XL5
• Surrey University have launched about 20 satellites
  • "nano-satellite" ~ 1kg -- can rendezvous with another satellite, photograph, etc
    • got a "hint" from the US government that they didn't want their satellites investigated
  • DMC -- Disaster Monitoring Cluster
    • low cost rapid response system for natural disasters
    • used during the Boxing Day tsunami -- very useful
• Beagle 2
  • grossly underfunded, so almost no internal redundancy
  • parachutes redesigned at last minute -- too small
  • very little quality control, but everyone tried very hard
  • too much inertia, not enough funding, no-one willing to pull the plug
  • can't fly on that much of a shoestring
  • other Mars shots have gone spectacularly wrong with more money
• ESA
  • UK don't fund launchers or manned space flight missions -- so don't get any contracts for these
  • British space industry ~ 1bn/yr -- mostly satellites -- comms/land use/GPS/...
• at the moment, every Atlas 5 that launches uses a Russian engine
• single stage launcher -- ~95% fuel, 5% spacecraft
  • multiple stages -- better ratio
  • currently trying to improve economies so that losing a stage isn't so expensive
  • smaller companies going back to kerosene and hydrogen peroxide
    • lower energies, but higher densities, than hydrogen and oxygen
  • X-prize -- making people try other technologies
    • nitrous oxide and rubber -- hybrid rocket

Richard Morgan -- GoH

• Why did you reset Mad Max in Suribiton?
  • (I was an English Language teacher for 14 years -- one of the things you learn is to get the class to talk)
  • I thought people had misunderstood Kovacs in Altered Carbon -- "He's a bastard, but he's got a code of honour" -- I looked back through the book -- nope, no code of honour -- So I wrote Broken Angels to show him up in a military context -- but I prefer noir, back alleys, etc, so I went back to that
  • violence is very exciting, when you are observing from the sidelines -- attraction, but also a repulsion -- so I have an unwillingness to airbrush out the nastiness -- a gun is an advanced knife, a means of putting holes in people -- it's not clean, not A-Team -- don't even get any of the thrill
  • very often violence is very swift, and people aren't even aware it's happened -- my characters are acquainted with it, however, and have a level of comfort with it -- not fazed by it
  • I really enjoyed the books, but then felt guilty -- but that's the reaction I'd want from my readers -- most of the negative reactions are to the political assumptions, especially in the US, or to the sex
• Do you set out to put in a lot of violence, or does it arise from the story?
  • It's from impotent fury -- to teach English, you need to hand over control -- this is sometimes interpreted as weakness by the students -- have to listen to a load of shit ! -- spend whole working life being immensely polite to a load of wankers -- Kovacs leaked out of me!
  • He has a very incisive mind -- slashes stupid ideas to pieces -- but he's very questionable, and not always right
• Whence the Japanese name? [Takashi Kovacs]
  • Two names collided in my head -- Kovacs is the Hungarian surname of a pen-friend -- I'm also getting into Japanese culture, food, literature -- Takashi is a common name, and I liked the way it sounded -- so then had to create an entire global culture based on this!
• Is the world going in as dystopic a direction as Market Forces ?
  • it's a kind of funhouse mirror
  • Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 but never believed all books would be illegal -- never thought people would say "The Bible! it's a book! burn it!" -- he was exploring a trend -- McCarthyism, etc -- turning up the dial
  • this takes mobile capital, 1st Gulf War, etc, and turns up the dial
  • but tendencies to hand over to private finance is an alarming tendency across the whole political spectrum -- lack of faith in municipal power -- power rooted in the community -- nothing is guaranteed to turn you into a Thatcherite faster than working in the public sector -- they know their job is secure, so just don't do it! -- state power is subject to abuse -- but why do capitalists say these people need a kick up the backside, then when we get PFI, say people are angels again -- they're either bigoted idiots, or lying through their teeth
• Where did your Altered Carbon background come from?
  • Bladerunner -- Poul Anderson 's The Enemy Stars Protectorate, death lands on colonies, Ancient Alien Civilisation at a distance -- Bob Shaw 's Ship of Strangers , cartographical survey, very dull job, grumpy middle-aged engineers, and a barely touched on alien civilisation -- reaction against Heinlein : we get there by nicking stuff -- -- Poul Anderson 's After Doomsday , loaned alien tech
  • have an interstellar civilisation, but no idea how to run it -- a mess! -- most of the time I don't know what's going on -- I like the messy feel
  • Market Forces is not like that -- I'd written it as a screenplay -- it's rather too clean
• What now?
  • I like writing about Kovacs, but can't think of another slant on it -- maybe in some years time
  • I'm currently writing a nearish future detection fiction Black Man -- issues about what's behind race -- externalised fears -- main character is Black, but that's not an issue, but other things about him are an issue -- but is the guy he's chasing the Black Man?
  • also doing some Marvel Comics stuff -- Black Widow -- originally she was to stick a knife in someone's back to cripple them -- had to go right to the top -- everyone freaked -- eventually got the okay, but she mustn't use a knife -- so she has to do it with her bare hands !

Panel -- The Hero as Villain

Ian Watson, Richard Morgan, Juliet McKenna, Geoff Ryman

• distinction between villains and anti-heroes
  • a villain is a bad guy -- there are charismatic villains, but they're not heroes
• problem today because heroes are enmeshed in the culture of literature
  • not a problem earlier -- Gilgamesh is unquestionably the hero, and is a bad man, an oppressor -- about the struggle to build civilisation
  • we're so use to thinking of heroes as good guys, we forget how uncomfortable it is to be near them
• antihero: one who takes the tools of evil to do good
  • nobody ever sees themselves as the villain
  • we see all sides of the argument nowadays -- a level of sophistication -- difficult to see anyone as all good or all bad -- there is no simple side
    • eg, there were black slave owners in the South
  • this recognition eliminates the savagery necessary in an expanding culture
    • the Raj was incredibly brutal -- but it did attempt to eliminate things like suttee
• we are no longer as a culture able to take a simplistic stance on heroism
  • movies are more simplistic -- heroes fulfilling the role of villains
  • The Matrix -- system is preserving the human race in the highest state of happiness that it can -- utopia is impossible, but 1999 Chicago is 2nd best -- Earth is ravaged, and it's impossible to sustain all those people -- Neo et al are stupid terrorists -- it is a fashion movie
  • Star Wars -- The Phantom Menace -- find a slave culture -- don't free slaves, but kidnap children and bring them up in a strange religious cult
  • can do this re-reading for anything -- even LoTR -- what do the orcs think?
• but people still want a traditional hero
  • one book -- deeply unpleasant person who is the leader of an oppressed minority -- readers complain "you can't do that!"
  • another -- leader who is "good", looks after his family, takes leadership role seriously -- yet rules a militaristic slave-owning society
• number of tricks to get readers to identify
  • have a very bad system with very good people in it
  • it's better to be confused by a book than by real life
• Mary Gentle's Grunts is from the PoV of the orcs
  • mutant cannibalistic halflings is a stroke of genius -- works, because it's funny -- Armies of Light are quasi-fascistic Jedi Elves
• can a hero have a sense of humour? -- the clean-cut all-American hero can be very boring -- but so can the villain
• anti-hero: good destroyer, tearing down the oppression of the "civilisation" we have built -- destruction is intoxicating, as anyone who's been to the bottle bank knows!
  • The Terminator as hero gets to do what we would all love to do -- stalk through things that get in the way
  • Trickster in myth -- proto-anti-hero -- transgressor -- licensed misrule
• reconstruction of vampirism -- tragic sensual figures of overriding magnetic fascination
  • Werewolves -- Robert Stallman Book of the Beast trilogy
  • we heave learned to empathise with the villains more than we've felt the need to give heroes flaws
• we don't find heroes and villains interesting any more
  • can just about identify with hobbits -- the heroism of the small and powerless taking on a hopeless task
• heroes are dangerous -- Osama bin Laden fits the "classic heroic profile"
  • noble birth -- leaves home to take up arms in a foreign land (Afghanistan) and wins against the oppressor (the Russians went home) -- then has to take on a new higher task
• acts are good or evil -- but when you apply these labels to people, it doesn't fit
  • there are no metaphysical agencies -- Israel and Palestine both have right on their side
  • Bush has absolute belief in Good and Evil -- "The Axis of Evil" -- he doesn't read
  • Star Wars is crap because of this division of the world into good and evil
• the further we get from WWII, the more we reinterpret it -- eg fireboming Dresden is now interpreted as an Allied war crime -- allied leaders' decisions allowing people to die "for the greater good"
• there is a difference between "hero" and "main character" -- eg Darth Vader, Hannibal Lector
• Michael Moorcock -- the hero acts -- the hero is a verb -- just follow the actor -- then there's the horrible aftermath
• someone other than Lucas could take the first Star Wars trilogy, and take the Jesus Christ figure being satanised by his experiences
• WWII -- right decisions made -- don't go to war for as long as possible -- but then when it's clear, you fight -- so this means you never disarm -- need a well-trained army, so that they don't mistreat prisoners, etc
• Indian Ocean tsunami -- it's your moral duty to sunbathe on the beaches while the corpses are being cleared up -- so as not to destabilise the economies
• good and evil, have a mechanism for a happy ending -- both sides right, only tragedy
  • have to demonise in a war, because heroes have to do unconscionable things
  • leader/hero must die at the end -- don't want them around during the aftermath -- as Churchill discovered when he was voted out of office as soon as possible
• we want to read about a slightly simpler world -- offers a release
  • early heroes were "larger than life" rather than "good guys" -- at some point, they also got to be virtuous
  • Touching the Void -- Joe Sullivan -- horrific climbing injuries -- dragged himself back to camp -- in the film you see the driving determination to keep going, but not a very likable guy -- the other guy has not dealt with it
• as children we have no problems with heroes -- then start to see the greys
  • 2nd Indiana Jones film -- "Messianic White Thug"
  • Poul Anderson , Dominic Flandry -- took a while to realise there is a torture scene done by Flandry
• LoTR is a monster movie -- all the evil characters are bestial -- men slaying fell beasts -- as soon as it becomes man against man, can't have that escapism
  • Alien , Predator -- really good monster movies
• Smeagol/Gollum
  • heart and soul of the moral ambiguities
  • crux appears when Frodo has betrayed Smeagol
  • diversity of goodness is important -- difficult to get right
  • ring bearers -- Frodo, Sam, Smeagol
  • he's a catalyst -- makes you see shades of grey -- saves it from being unthinking black and white
  • fallen angel -- corrupted by power, rather than a petty god
  • LoTR different from all fantasies -- no gathering plot coupons -- need to destroy the power, always tempted to use it instead
  • the Ring wouldn't have been destroyed without Smeagol
• Gone With The Wind
  • deeply ambiguous hero story
  • Scarlett O'Hara -- the South was held together by the women, because the men came back broken
• Tolkien also shows the price the heroes have to pay -- Frodo has PTSD! -- makes it very real
  • human errors are tragic figures -- squabbling Marines in Aliens: stupid humans who can't get their act together

Masquerade

• Ken Shinn -- Baudicca
• James Steel -- Centaur
• Peter Westhead -- Shaman of Erir
• Arthur Chappel -- Nazgul
• Concussion 2006 Committee -- League of Extraordinary Conrunners
• SMS et al -- Clangers Low Concept Movie

Panel -- Drummond, Templar et al: the Clubland Heroes

Marcus Rowland, John Richards

• started with Richard Hannay, up to the 1950s -- James Bond was either the last, or the first of something new
• Bulldog Drummond, the Saint , ...
• Bulldog Drummond builds his own fascist organisation to right the wrongs -- the Black Gang
  • Drummond out of WWI -- he had a "good" war -- public school jock -- direct
  • unbelievably thick! -- strength of two men
  • too thick to fall into any of Peterson's subtle traps -- one skill Peterson has is to uncork champagne bottles, drug the contents, recork, and no-one notices -- wonderful villain in his own right
  • Drummond has been filmed several times, with no success at all
    • casting Walter Pidgeon as Drummond was by the same casting people who thought Val Kilmer would make a good Saint
• Hannay changed character after the war
  • changes into this kind of hero in Three Hostages
  • he's official, working for the government
  • not as fascist as Drummond -- South African (foreigner, so can get away with not being a gentleman) -- mining engineer -- has worked for a living
• Drummond's Phyllis is the wimp -- she's born to twist her ankle -- she's born to scream!
  • she pales into insignificance before Irma, Peterson's mistress
• Patricia Home
  • usually rescues herself -- rescued by the Saint a couple of times
  • the antithesis of Phyllis
• Simon Templar also went through the war, but it left him stronger than Drummond -- Drummond would have kicked the sick
  • Templar needs the money, and has a dislike of bullies
  • pursued by Claude Eustace Teal who is convinced he is a cat burglar and jewel thief -- mainly because he is !
  • making someone's mum cry is a reason for the Saint to drop you down a lift shaft -- and he will!
  • the Saint is not a nice man
  • George Sanders -- most iconic Saint movie -- went off to become the Gay Falcon -- urbane, elegant, air of menace
  • change in the Saint books after The Last Hero -- last book of first era, where he murders an arms manufacturer -- moves him to Europe with the police on his heels -- with the Saint acting like a psychotic League of Nations -- then off to US (couldn't have the Saint running around Europe during WWII) -- Charteris seems to be losing faith in the Empire, and the Saint becomes less the typical Clubland hero
  • Vendetta for the Saint is by Harry Harrison
• Biggles is not a clubland hero
  • he works for a living and is a serving officer
  • he's also a colonial -- more like Hannay
  • not a clubbing type -- hangs out with the mechanics!
• Templar cultivated odd acquaintances -- eg gem cutters
• Campion is more a detective -- starts off a bit shady
• John Creasy has the Toff, and the Baron -- the Toff is more a detective
• Raffles is the wrong era -- dead before WWI
• Lord Peter Wimsey -- has a bad WWI
  • less of an action hero -- not acting outside the law -- friends in government -- quasi-official capacity
• Colin Watson -- Snobbery with Violence -- sung of clubland heroes
• Vincent Price -- radio Saint -- wonderfully definitive Simon Templar
  • the humour -- song in his heart, laugh on his lips, knife at your throat
• James Bond isn't in the genre -- works for the government and is trade
  • his secret identity is a clubland hero!
• Dennis Wheatley -- Gregory Salhurst
• Kim Newman -- "Pitbull Brittan" [as by Jack Yeovil] -- great satire -- anthologised in various places

Panel -- Death of the Hero

Ken MacLeod, John Richards, Richard Morgan

• traditional part of the legend is the hero leaving, dying
  • Hercules, Beowulf, Hector, Achilles -- famed for their death
  • necessary end to the story
    • John Wayne in the Searchers -- walks off into the desert
  • Duke of Wellington would have been so much more beloved by the British people if he hadn't been PM
• heroes are supposed to be an inspiration -- how to live and how to die -- so they have to die -- important thing is to die well
• so why do so many heroes today go over the Reichenbach Falls on a bungee rope?
• Comic Book heroes of course never die, now matter how much they've been killed
• in our culture death, as part of life, is fading
  • meaningless of individual heroism in two World Wars -- whether you lived or died was independent of heroism, actions
  • improvement in healthcare and life expectancy -- experience very little death in the family nowadays
  • sheer narrative pressure of SF -- life extension, technological resurrection -- fun to explore, even though wishful thinking
• capitalist necessity of making money from story telling
  • in the past, could tell the same old story -- the skill was in the telling
  • recently, hunger for new stories
  • also, plot device of "coming back"
  • disappears to be reborn in hour of need
    • King Arthur -- Christian myth of resurrection and rebirth
    • Gandalf
• KMacL: the Arthurian myth isn't one that resonates with me -- don't know why
• Arthur's adventures
  • decline of pagan power -- Merlin represents all that is to pass away -- pagan/Christian tradition
  • dealing with a culture that lost -- can still live in his image, and he's coming back
• Christianity has a lot to answer for
  • pagan -- death wasn't the end, but you didn't come back from it
  • something very beautiful lost -- Twilight of the Gods
    • can lead to an enormous power in life -- make the most of it!
  • heroic tradition is savage and beautiful -- from a distance
  • Christianity -- forgiveness -- Vikings delighted -- can give up on death feuds
• Icelandic sagas
  • realistic accounts of people who have no fear -- die with a joke
  • ideals -- how they would have liked to have been
  • Valhalla and Walsall have the same roots!
• there have been many Christian heroes
  • martyrs/soldiers on both sides of many recent wars -- very devout Christians
  • strange concept of a Holy War -- politically expedient, rather than flowing from the gospels
• Joan Aiken -- Dido Twite novels -- 4th is an Arthurian legend, and is rather weird...
• John Whitbourn -- Royal Changeling -- 17th Century Arthurian -- he's the bad guy
• today, it's a cop-out if the hero dies -- expected to stick around and deal with the consequences
• Che Guevara fits the heroic pattern in the arc of his life
  • became a really crap politician -- hated the whole process -- preferred to go and chop sugar cane
  • finally went off and got killed -- couldn't sit still
  • very bad at being post-heroic
• we're not so much death averse as wanting the comfort of the familiar
  • if we like the hero, we want a trilogy!
• there is also the archetype of the hero who fails to die
  • King David -- became corrupt
  • the tragedy is that they didn't die -- not up to the subtle non-heroic problems of the adult, rather than those of the young man
• Paul Maud'dib - I wish he'd died before God Emperor !
• the heroes of modern culture aren't warriors
  • pop stars die young -- Kurt Cobain, etc
  • by dying young you preserve your purity
  • hero going in to politics needs totally different skills
  • crisis phase -- "emergency services hero" -- then recovery phase -- different set of people -- hero goes back into the box
• maybe in the past, didn't identify with the hero -- today we do, so don't want the hero to die
• American culture -- terror not only of death, but of being not a winner -- a "loser" -- their sports do not have draws
• in a crisis, lots of "ordinary" people do heroic things
  • Indian Ocean tsunami -- a woman couldn't tell the one next to her to run, so snatched her child, and her two own, and ran 500 yards, the other woman chasing her -- later, didn't know how she'd done it
• sagas -- can add new scenes on retelling
  • comic strip -- need to add new scenes on the end -- so can't kill them -- hard to get any dramatic tension!
  • tension between super life and mundane life -- paralleling growing older -- heroism as freedom, versus adult responsibility
• heroism as everyday person fighting the good fight day after day
  • fighting a continuing ongoing battle against evil
  • the hero can't die at the end of the big battle, because there isn't one
• "Unhappy is the land that has no heroes" -- "No -- unhappy is the land that needs heroes" -- Galileo
  • civilised society shouldn't need heroes
  • heroism is getting on with everyday life, which isn't very exciting
• JR [aside]: we are living in a universe where Battlestar Galactica is better than Star Trek !