GLASGOW WORLDCON 2024 – Day Five
MONDAY 10th August
After a 19 year hiatus Worldcon returned to Glasgow for five event packed days from Thursday 8th to Monday 12th 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.
And so we came to Monday, the last day of the con with events ending early-ish to allow for people to begin their journeys home. However, the day was enlivened by arguably the best panel I’d been to so far and a closing ceremony that had some surprising personal resonances.
Surviving the zombie apocalypse (11:30 12/8/24)
David Cartwright, Emma Newman, Joanna Corrance (moderator), Pepper, Ric Bretschneider
My zombie exposure has mostly been through my wife Ash, who has a love of Zombie films and TV shows, and my daughter Maisie who instinctively checks houses and other locations for their zombie-apocalypse-survivability. I also enjoyed the Woody Harrelson comedy Zombieland with its protagonist’s many rules for survival including “Cardio” and “Doubletap” – so this panel was already set up to play to my personal zeitgeist.
Joanna’s first question asked the panel what skills and experience they would bring to help them survive the dreaded ZA. There was an impressive range of expertise on show.
Emma ‘s dad is an army survival specialist who has trained pilots in skills of surviving if shot down behind enemy lines. Much as I get annoyed by bad Physics in films/books (Piggy’s glasses in Lord of the Flies anyone?) Emma’s dad would tut and explain the multiple flaws in ‘fighting the odds’ survival fiction. Emma herself, as an infection control obsessive and dress maker felt she would bring very relevant skills to the team.
Pepper promised to train an army of zombie killing cats
Rick was one of those people who, when buying houses, considered the defensibility against Zombie attack as a key aspect of their desirability. (Coincidentally Maisie has also explained to me how she thinks her house is more defensible than mine and Ash’s and even has a planned emergency escape route – tightrope walking the overhead boiler feed pipe to get to the outdoor shed.)
David ‘s parents were into self-sufficiency so he felt his agricultural expertise would help feed the survivors, while his counselling skills would be essential in helping people cope with the “my loved ones got eaten and then tried to eat me” kind of trauma. He’d also use his extensive research (watching lots of zombie moves) to identify how people died and so avoid those risks.
Joanna then asked about the range or kind of zombies they panel would prefer to face.
“I don’t want the fast ones really” was a fairly universal and understandable response, although the “I would not want hard to recognise zombies!” was an interesting additional observation. The panel toyed with the idea of smell/sound sensing zombies in The Girl with All The Gifts (oops! Spoiler), while the Rage Zombies from 28 days later and 28 weeks later were considered less dangerous in the long run since the rabies like virus should kill them eventually.
When asked what their first actions would be when the apocalypse broke, the panel had some robust answers.
“Kill any narcissistic out-for-themselves bad guys straight away” because, as we all know from The Walking Dead it’s ultimately other surviving humans that become the enemy, with the zombies themselves reduced to a complicating natural (or unnatural) hazard.
The panel anticipated there would be initial chaos as a sceptical populace denied the existence of zombies, doubtless rushing towards them in a frenzy of “you’re a false flag actor/I don’t need a mask or body armour!”
Another option was taking refuge in libraries (as we don’t know how to do anything anymore and will need books to look stuff up in), while Emma’s preference was for a rural location near an Amazon wholesale distribution centre (since looting will empty the high street retail outlets pretty quickly).
Emma’s dad’s priorities would be shelter, food and water – and Emma’s plan would be to rendezvous with dad. Sounds like they already have a zombie survival plan! but then again apparently so does the city of Bristol.
When asked about the impact on power, communications and transport, the panel noted how the surge in domestic solar cells and local wind turbines means power may be less of an issue than we used to think. Bicycles could/should be the main mode of transport, rather than the more fictionally popular lorries and horses. Diesel and petrol has a shelf life of about 6 months before it degrades into a useless jelly-like consistency so the notion of combustion engine driven vehicles being used years after the ZA is absurd – it may be the time of the electric car after all! Horses were viewed as something of a liability, since they require a great deal of care and specialist treatment as well as being gifted with the kind of child-like stupidity that usually gets the adults killed in an apocalypse. (How many adults did Caaaaaarrrrl inadvertently kill in The Walking Dead?)
On the assumption that the team could escape to some refuge, other issues would then become more pressing – particularly food.
Mushrooms are really high risk, and foraging can only go so far. Being able to forage for sufficient calories to live off is very unlikely, while killing animals for food is a skilled business. Something that was covered in Emma’s dad’s survival course with participants required to kill a chicken!! Keeping seeds ready to plant was one ZA survival preparation strategy.
The panel advised caution when eating liver as it is rich in vitamin A, which is toxic in large quantities, while a vegetable only diet requires a lot of eating to get sufficient calories. The temptation to eat the zombies’ dead victims was significant.
In the long term, recovering lost pre-technological skills of preserving food, spinning wool, using nettle yarn would not only be difficult talents to pick up but also very labour intensive, so survival as an individual was unlikely. The post ZA civilisation would have to work through a progression of technologies.
The panel had strong views on what essential skills would be needed within a group. Basic medical skills was a must, more a matter of first aid and basic wound cleaning and suturing than invasive surgery since the latter needed a lot of equipment and appropriate antibiotics. This brought up the difficulty and psychological consequences of allowing sick people to die; the shelf life of insulin or thyroid medication was limited so chronic conditions could quickly become fatal ones.
There was some scepticism about the construction process post-ZA, particularly in relation to barrier walls which require a lot of foundation work and concrete pouring before you could even begin to use them to keep zombies at bay.
Natural medicines might be of some use – willow bark for aspirin, maybe extracting insulin from pig pancreases? Dosage would be very difficult to judge although, for most natural medicines, there is quite a large difference between a therapeutic dose and a lethal dose. One exception was nutmeg where the margin between a hallucinogenic dose and a lethal dose is actually very narrow.
One issue raised was the cognitive decline that might arise from trauma in ways which would degrade the quality of decision making. Excessive stress makes people do stupid things – and what could be more stressful than the ZA? The panel did feel nonetheless that indecision could be a big killer, and there would be a need for someone willing to make hard decisions.
Extrapolating from real world disasters to the ZA, the panel noted how the initial human impulse is to help, although Western culture is more individualistic. When drawing parallels with the Covid pandemic the panel noted how after an initial pulling together – a new normal was achieved and people start being ass holes again!
Emma pointed that, being autistic, she is good at identifying threats and using clear direct communication, and consequently would prefer to be in a group with fellow neuro-divergent people!
Other panellists highlighted
- The importance of storytellers & music for mental health!
- The many good points raised in Max Brook’s World War Z (not to be confused with the alleged film adaptation action-hero Brad Pitt vehicle).
- They wouldn’t recommend going to a pub (looking at you Shaun of the Dead)
- Zombies are definitely not using their prefrontal cortex so a blow to the front of the head should not actually stop them!
And as a final point-
“the stupid are a self-solving problem in an apocalypse.”
Closing ceremony (16:00 – 12/8/24)
The closing ceremony was another chance to gather as a community and hear some of the statistics of a very successful and enjoyable event. The con had over 8000 members of whom over 7000 attended in person. That included over a thousand first-time con goers and I’m sure, like I did after Dublin, many of those will be determined to visit another con when next it comes within reach.
Professor McCallum-Stewart was effusive in her praise for the contribution of the many many volunteers and helpers without whom the con simply could not have functioned. She also explained the heroes of the convention silver award for those people who went over and above to rescue a difficult moment/solve an unexpected problem, for example the committee member who leapt to Fangorn’s aid at the technical glitch in the Hugo awards ceremony.
The logistics of an event like this are mindboggling, many years in the planning, with multiple layers of committees and leads on different responsibility. Professor McCallum-Stewart, as leader of the entire enterprise was understandably a little emotional at times in her speech as she brought proceedings to a close and handed the baton on to the next Worldcon host city.
This brought in a presentation from the Seattle 2025 team. A city with resonances for me as the setting of one of my most favourite books (Mercedes M Yardley’s Pretty Little Dead Girls) and also the nearest conurbation to Olympia in Washington State where our eldest daughter Ellen and her wife Kirstie live. We’d even spent a day in Seattle on our visit to them back in May, when we’d walked the famous Fish market and seen the Seattle Space Needle. By a happy coincidence I was even wearing my Space Needle T-shirt for the closing ceremony.
The Seattle team’s amusing presentation, which included throwing some stuffed fish at each other, highlighted Seattle’s role in hosting the first Worldcon back in 1961 and promised us a brand new convention centre for 2025.
And just to emphasise how the SFF community continues to evolve and adapt – for such is the nature of humans and society – the Seattle team announced a new Hugo category for 2025 – Speculative Fiction Poetry.
So in that spirit, I offer this early entry, with (many) apologies to JRR Tolkien and the Song of Durin!
Glasgow 2024
The con was young, the delegates green
No drink yet on the bar was seen
When Theo woke and walked among
The crowded stalls, the dealers’ throng
He watched so many panels fine,
Drank some whisky, quaffed some wine,
He queued to sit in t’Armadillo
To watch awards and speeches brillo
Sharing fun with the ‘found family’
The essence of our community.
