FRIDAY 9^th August 2024

After a 19 year hiatus Worldcon returned to Glasgow for five event packed days from Thursday 8^th to Monday 12^th August 2024. The schedule included nearly 1000 separate programme items with over 400 panels where the passion and erudition of the sci-fi and fantasy community tackled issues ranging from ‘Systems as Villains’ to ‘How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse.’ This was my second Worldcon, having attended Dublincon in 2019. Over a series of posts, I will try to share a flavour of my own Glasgow Worldcon experiences drawing on photos and very rough notes jotted on my phone.

Helping Out and Fitting In

For those who might be hesitant about making a solo first journey to such a big con, one advantage that Worldcon has is its desperate need – hunger even – for volunteers to lubricate the smooth running of the convention. It could be anything from holding up ‘5 minute warning signs’ for panel moderators, or guiding Hugo nominees into the bowels of the presentation arena to rehearse their potential acceptance walk. No prior experience was necessary, you could volunteer for as many or as few hours as you wished, but you got paid 1 groat each hour worked (groats could be spent at an exchange rate of 1 groat = £2 with the dealers). If you worked at least 12 hours you got an exclusive Worldcon Helper’s T-shirt! On top of all that, working alongside other volunteers you got to meet and connect with like-minded people so for those still looking for their found families, volunteering was a good place to start.

Book Signings

Worldcon offered a great chance to meet an author in the actual flesh and get a treasured copy of their book signed with a personalised dedication. On a strict timetable for each hour long signing session, five different authors would take their seats at a table and await the massed queues. Some authors to be honest attracted much larger followings. Having found a mercifully short queue at my first attempt I rocked up with five minutes to spare before the start of the Martha Wells signing session. How foolish I felt when I saw the queue already snaking away from the signing area. I experienced a moment of relief on discovering the queue was for John Scalzi, sensibly arranged at one end of the signing table to allow his queue to develop into the void of the exhibition hall. However, the Martha Wells queue at the other end of the table was even longer. I walked for ages before finding the end of it – proof of which came when the last person in the line handed me a piece of paper to hold with the inscription “This is the end of the Martha Wells queue.” It was not long before even more Johnny-come-latelies had arrived to pass the sign further into the bowels of the exhibition hall.

I will confess I was wondering if I would get to the head of the queue in time, but professional authors are also skilled professional signers. I reached the head of the queue with 20 minutes left in the hour and enough time to briefly explain the inscription I wanted.

The organisation was very efficient, with helpers marshalling the queue to ensure it hugged the walls and left gaps at the gangways. They had also set a limit of three items per person, slightly to the chagrin of the girl ahead of me who had brought her complete Martha Wells hard-cover collection. However, the fast-shrinking queue was being so efficiently addressed that she simply rejoined it at the back, and I expect managed the extra two or three circuits to complete her selection.

I also managed to take in a couple of panels.

Combining Genres: from science-fantasy to romantasy (11:30 9/8/24)

Trip Galey, Mandy Belton, Emil Petersen, Maquel a Jacob, Nicholas Binge (moderator)

While drawn in by the mention of Romantasy, this panel was more about the whole notion of genre blends rather than anyone particular blend. The authors on the panel tended to reject the notion of writing with a particular genre in mind, but accepted that their publishers tended to impose a genre at a later stage for marketing convenience.

Mandy Belton, as the agent on the panel, admitted that genre plays a big role in selling a book. There is a need to pull out genre markers to help people find the book (eg enemies to lovers) – people need those comparators/labels/marketing soundbites to help find spaces to fit the book in.

Emil as an Icelandic author almost single-handedly launching adult fantasy in a market where (despite Icelandic fondness for fairies, elves and spirits) the fantastical is seen very much as children’s literature. With his own works – drawing on fantastic horror with a medium who helps solve wrote a crime – he had to constantly resist publisher pressure to mislabel the books and emphasise the crime element.

Other observations by the panel included the fact that science-fantasy and romantasy, genre blending was not new, although sci-fi romance probably suffered by not having the same easy portmanteau word as romantasy.

Trip writes interactive fantasy where the reader selects protagonist’s features, gender etc. While this does immerse the reader in the text it also involves creating files that pull in different text sections according to reader preference which can change the genre.

Trip asserted the value of genre in that “They (the readers) want to know what kind of fun they’re going to have and you have to communicate what kind of fun that is”

Maddy added a simple example with the descriptor “sad messy space gays” as the descriptor for “Lord of the Isles”

The panel concluded by offering some possible genre mash-ups to follow Romantasy onto the taxonomically challenged book sellers shelves.  Some of the ones mentioned included

• Necromantasy (?!)
• Cottage-whore,
• magical spy-fi,
• Fantastically gritty noir crime
• Solar-punk,
• frost punk,
• Cosy horror

However, the last word should belong to Maddy Belton who said

“Anything is possible but not everything sells… borrow from the successful genres”

Angels, demons and modern tales (19:00 9/8/24)

James Webster, JJA Harwood, Rajan Khanna, Rebecca Rajendra, Dyrk Ashton (Moderator)

Another thought-provoking panel set me thinking about some examples of authors who have played with the angelic and demonic. Obviously Tolkien’s Valar and Maia are an allegory for arch-angels and angels, with Melkor/Morgoth as the fallen angel Lucifer. However, Teresa Frohock’s Los Nephilim series explores a different kind of dynamic with neither Angels nor Demons as particularly moral, with the world and humanity being simply the battleground in which they play out their eternal conflict, rather than the domain the angels strive to protect and nurture.

The panel raised the interesting question of whether, if angels could fall, could demons not rise, and how relatively rare are tales of demonic ascension.

They also discussed how angels’ appearances conform to the viewers own internalised expectations, with the 1980s David McCallum and Joanna Lumley TV show Saphire and Steel, surely being examples of angels walking amongst us? They also referenced the TV mini-series Midnight Mass with its intriguing presentation of a vampire managing to pass itself off as an angel to the wilful delusion of a devout island community.

They finished with an observation about souls as being the currency to motivate demons/angels moving up (or down?!) their respective career ladders!