SUNDAY 11^th August

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.

My own con-experience was predominantly about panels and Barcon with a couple of showpiece events thrown in, so there were as I have said aspects of the con that either eluded me or I opted out of. One opportunity that I eschewed was the table talks where – by the luck of a draw – eight fans could get to sit down with a favourite author and have a conversation/seminar. For some there was a fear that in opting for one of those talks on the basis of having read just a couple of the author’s books, one might displace a devoted fan who had mastered the author’s entire oeuvre. However, one friend had a slightly different experience when the table talk he attended took a bit of a turn in the last ten minutes.

One of the attendees blindsided the author by demanding quite argumentatively why they had made such a balls-up of the last book by killing off one of the characters. Apparently, it took the author a while even to realise this was by way of an attack on their craft – not so much a Karen moment, as a Kathy Bates moment with echoes of Stephen King’s Misery. So yeah, if you’re ever worried you might have displaced a ‘true fan’ from a table talk, just remember that experience and ‘be nice’!

Sunday was another packed day for me of four panels leading up to the first set piece event – the Hugo presentation ceremony.

How to write fashion into SFF (11:30 11/8/24)

Ellen Kushner, Jelena Dunato, Melissa Caruso, Oliver K. Langmead, Sarah T. Guan (moderator)

I came into this panel having just noticed a meme where someone was moaning about Apple products as if their mentality was “let’s make this so thin that there is no HDMI port and you’ll break it in half if you type too hard.”  The response came back that “You have to realise Apple is a fashion company not a technology company.”

Being somewhat oblivious to fashion myself and knowing how significant a part it can play in worldbuilding, I thought I’d pick up a few tips to add flavour to my own writing. The panel were all gloriously enthusiastic, as loud and colourful as the clothes they write about.

The panel were gloriously exuberant in their views on fashion (my notes say “Everybody is so beautifully loud and enthusiastic!”)

They waxed lyrical about fashion as an augmentation to the plot for example Kell’s multi-sided, multipley reversible coat in V.E.Schwab’s Shades of magic.

Oliver K Langmead spoke of using opulent fashion in his book Glitterati – to emphasise the excess and ostentatious display of class differences in clothing. Certainly SFF can speak not just to our own times, but to past times where the ultra-rich have always sought ways to display their wealth. Rayleigh’s famous cloak, laid down to save the first Queen Elizabeth from a puddle, would have been a sacrifice of some significant monetary value. George Villiers Duke of Buckingham commissioned a cloak encrusted with diamonds for which the total value (in 1625!!) was estimated at £20,000. My own main take away from the glimpses I have had of The Hunger Games films, were the extravagant dress making technology.

The panel talked about cyber punk retro technology being integrated into what characters wear and one example of creative fashion excess was to have live spiders incorporated into a dress.

As with many SFF writers some of the panel were heavily into research.

“If you’re obsessive like me you have to research it all, and if not I congratulate you.”

“I think it (obsessive research) is just for my peace of mind. I’m hoping that all this research will show somewhere and readers think you do know what you’re doing.”

For example, in medieval times people were not dirty and drab. They liked colours and craftsmanship in their clothes. Which makes sense for, just like the absurdly fabulous Duke of Buckingham, people at all levels in society would like to flaunt what they had through what they wore.

Others noted how Terry Pratchett’s incomparable Captain Vimes understand the language of clothes, not just in the famous quote about shoes and poverty, but in the way fashion illustrates the progress from captain to commander to Duke.

As other writers have noted, the description of clothing, like the description of any object is a matter of smoke & mirrors.

“I don’t describe the clothing, I’ve created a sense of the people wearing it. The reader’s imagination fills in the rest”

“You don’t need to keep repeat writing what people are wearing! Focus on what is different/distinct – the readers brain will fill in so much detail!”

Discussion also touched on the economics of fashion. “Where did Mr Darcy get his money from?” In Austen’s Mansfield Park, When Fanny Price’s uncle heads off overseas to attend to family business affairs it’s going to be a slave plantation. What does clothing tell the reader about the society that produced them! How is clothing profession specific.

Material is a basic element (silk, linen (flax), wool, satin, leather, cotton, corduroy, denim, embroidery, lace) but does the economy support that material. For example silk is terribly difficult to produce – silk industry in Venice employed 40,000 people.  What new fantasy materials can you come up with? spider silk dress?!

However, as one panelist noted, authorial imagination finds it hard to get there before human invention does. “You make it up and then somewhere it is actually true.”

“You make it up and then somewhere it is actually true.”

The panel also talked about the relationship between fashion and the body – does your body conform to fashion, or does fashion conform to the body? While today’s fashion can be almost punishing the panel posed the key question, “Does fashion make you feel good about yourself? Are corsets supporting you or imprisoning you?” And one panelist averred that “Corsets are fabulously comfortable!”

“I would not be a queen for all the world” The lure of monarchy (13:00 11/8/24)

Delia Sherman, Jean Burlesk, Kari Sperring (moderator), Samantha Shannon, Tasha Suri

The panel’s very caring moderator began by checking everyone was well hydrated, and had at least some sleep and one shower in the last 24 hours. The panel themselves covered a range of perspectives on monarchy both in their writing and their lived experiences. Tashi Suri drawing inspiration from North Indian Monarchies, Delia Sherman exploring fantasy, Samantha Shannon’s Bone Season filled with a lot of dead monarchs, while Jean Burlesk was an enthusiastic advocate for the hereditary ‘monarchy’ of his home country Luxembourg, the last Grand Duchy left in the world.

Being better situated in this panel I was more able to attribute somequotes to the individual speakers.

When asked “What is the appeal of the individual hierarchical power of hereditary rulers?” They gave the following responses

“History and fantasy is tied together, so people expect fantasy to be “historically accurate’” Samantha Shannon

“As writers there is an attraction to individual power and empires provide ripe circumstances for intrigue” Delia Sherman

“Nation stories are a lot of propaganda!” Tasha Suri

“The symbols of living gods works well even if absolutists monarchs weren’t as powerful as fantasy depicts them” Jean Burlesk

Jean and Kari got into a bit of discussion about how the great power of monarchy is the sense of stability and nationhood – a stable conservatism where empires by name and nature tend to be expansionist! The claim that monarchy offers a valuable stability put me in mind of the philosophical differences between Locke vs Hobbes, and the question is it better to destabilise an imperfect monarchy and so trigger a short (or maybe long) period of anarchy, or to subscribe to a system that is at least stable.

The discussion touched on the limited powers of some monarchs – particularly The Goblin Emperor, constrained by ceremonial duties and civil expectations so that his power was one of soft influence more than divine right despotism.

Thinking too of recent UK Royal concerns, the panel mentioned the public ownership almost of the body of the monarch, it was literally a kind of public body – with a key role in creating heirs!  The need to be a scared royal vessel – is actually very dehumanising!

However, my final note is the panel’s observation that

“You can’t be in a position of power without doing some things that are pretty rancid”

Best Cats of SFF (14:30 11/8/24)

Erin Hunter, John Scalzi, Naomi Kritzer (m), Nnedi Okorafor, Seanan McGuire

Although allocated to one of the larger halls, this panel still came pretty close to being packed out suggesting that the Venn diagram of cat lovers and SFF enthusiasts is close to a circle. Certainly the panelists’ embracing of their feline overlords was quickly revealed in a variety of entertaining anecdotes. Nnedi Okorafor’s perseverance with her first cat, an adopted cat with serious psychological issues, was to be applauded though whether a second cat would prove to be the solution to those psychological issues remained unclear.

It was perhaps that which put John Scalzi in mind of Church the born-again cat from Pet Semetary. “He comes back, and he’s a chaos demon, and I’m OK with that.”

“He comes back, and he’s a chaos demon, and I’m OK with that.”

Other literary cats getting a passing mention included Greebo, Nanny Ogg’s fearsome feline – the cat who ate a vampire.

Given some contemporary discussion about cat ladies, it is perhaps timely to mention Jones from Alien, Sigourney Weaver’s sole surviving companion from the Nostromo. Sensible cats and sensible women whose advice should always have been heeded are definitely a theme for our times. More significantly, at the opening of the sequel Aliens Jones the cat very sensibly opted to stay behind – just because you’ve got nine lives doesn’t mean you want to waste any of them.

The panel also mentioned The Keeper Chronicles, with cats as the avatars of angels sent down to Earth to help guide humans. Possibly the ancient Egyptians were on to something in the divinity they ascribed to cats.

In general though, the panel felt that “Cats are too much for any predator to deal with” being “pointy at every end.”

When asked about the importance of verisimilitude to them, one panelist waxed furious about the depiction of Maine cats in general and Grudge in particular, in Star Trek Discovery, although my limited googling couldn’t substantiate the accusations of inaccuracy. Never mind faster than light speed, have they got the cat right? – but it was ever thus. It is by the little details, not the big things that our suspension of disbelief can get … er… unsuspended.

Erin Hunter – in seeing her stories of Cat warriors in space rendered in graphic novel form – was insistent that her cat sit like a cat, not a person, in its command chair, patting at a button festooned dashboard.

One fascinating aside (which could explain a lot of contemporary cover art) was that having a cat depicted on the cover of a book led to a 10-15% uplift in sales. To be fair my current WIP does feature a cat, or rather the consciousness of a cat trapped inside the head of its killer … yeah might not be one to mention to cat lovers everywhere.

One final quote was so stunningly beautiful that I failed to note down the book it referred to. It was about a cat without the power of speech, but still guiding humans through a kind of telepathic feline power to enter their sleeping minds.

“He walks in others’ dreams.”

Sustainability 4: It’s only the end of the world again! (17:30 11/8/24)

Elliot Craggs, Jill Engel-Cox, Katrina Archer, Steve Willis Fairhaven – A Novel of Climate Optimism T.C.Weber (moderator)

This was an interesting hybrid panel with both the moderator and one panelist appearing online, and questions also being delivered online. It was one of several climate change related panels that caught my eye, as you might expect given my PhD was all about climate change fiction, its impact and its obligations. This panel therefore felt like something of a busman’s holiday for me.

The panel had a good range of scientific expertise to back up their creative endeavours.

Elliot Craggs being geo-engineer ground water analyst

Steve Willis chemical engineer working on climate solutions with an oil company.

Jill Engel-Cox – environmental scientist

Kerry Archer – software engineer and fantasy romance author as well as editor of the Blue Marble climate fiction journal

T Weber – was co-authoring a cyber punk novel – halting collapse of ocean biome

One had to admire Steve Willis’s commitment to marketing, having the name of his novel embedded in his convention name so it appeared on his name badge, desk label and everywhere he was mentioned in the programme. It reminded me of the way advertisers used to sneak product placement into show jumping through the naming of the horses “Here is Harvey Smith riding Everest Double Glazing.”

The title of the panel captured the sense of climate doomerism, apathy and general ennui which makes the climate crisis so dangerous. To be honest, some of the points raised (with the notable exception of Kerry Archer) seemed to exacerbate more than address that danger. The suggestions seemed more about luring the debate up several blind alleys rather than focussing on the fossil fuel elephant in the room.

Perhaps it is the nature of SFF to be focussed on creative technological solutions to problems rather than the basic socio-economic issue of late-stage capitalism. For example when the panel were asked which, if any, of the solutions presented by fiction authors are the most promising.

I have a note about someone mentioning “refreezing the oceans” and I have written too much about the “hey look squirrel” distraction technique of offering unscaleable (carbon capture/storage anyone?) solutions or talking about adaptation without mentioning the basic need to stop using fossil fuels. (Fossil fuel consumption has increased by 44% since the turn of the millennium FFS).

I have a note of something which Kerry Archer may have mentioned which makes the point well.

“The first thing you do when you have a flood in the house is turn off the stopcock – not get out the mops and buckets!”

If I had a coffee I would have spit it out at the suggestion “The (fossil fuel) industry that caused the problem is the only one that’s big enough to solve the problem.” That’s like saying the only industry big enough to solve lung cancer is the tobacco industry. That this should even be a comment in a serious discussion highlights the grip the fossil industry, their lobbyists, and their paid media and politicians have on the narrative.

While, with the exception of Kerry Archer, I felt the panel could and should have tackled this question more robustly, I was heartened by the questions which generally showed more awareness of the fossil fuel industries increasingly criminal negligence in the unfolding crisis.

Ultimately to be fair, it may be the insurance industry that solves this problem, particularly if fossil corporations are sued over (and need insurance cover for) the environmental damage they are indisputably and extremely wittingly doing.

(In a similar vein if gunowners required insurance to cover the risk of their weapons being used in a mass shooting we might find the insurance industry taking down the gin lobby!)

The Hugo Awards Ceremony (20:00 11/8/24)

After that slightly frustrating panel, my next activity was the Hugo Awards Ceremony. Back in 2019 at Dublin there seemed to be a ticketed entry system but, as a lot of seats went untaken, we were able to get in to see the awards in the auditorium. Again, this year quite a few of the group thought an hour or two in a theatre listening to speeches and watching presentations was not really floating their boat. However, there is something about the Hugos spectacle which epitomises and emphasises the family feel of the SFF community. It is like the Academy Awards for our community and, if you were in the film industry would you not love a chance to attend the Oscars.

In Glasgow the Armadillo venue was confident in its capacity, so there were no tickets just a well organised queuing system that had us file in to fill up the stalls of the auditorium.

John Scalzi delivered a humorous introduction giving a whistlestop tour of the awards themselves and how the first one was left unclaimed on the platform by its recipient.

The community’s pushing of technological boundaries extends to the scope of the awards. Not just novels and novellas, but podcasts and coverwork, and for a first time this year, games content – for which Baldur’s gate was a worthy and much appreciated winner. I find it interesting how the human imperative of story-telling finds its expression in so many different forms. There were the epic poems, then books, then films, now games – all gradually acquiring recognition as being of both artistic merit and rigorous academic interest. (After all the Chair of Glasgow Worldcon Esther McCallum-Stewart is professor of Games at Staffordshire University). mostly smooth transitions and suitably short but pithily pointed speeches. The jellyfish, and the sea cucumber!

The transitions were largely smooth, apart from one pre-recorded clip that refused to play, much to Guest of Honor Fangorn’s dismay. Having already shared his nervousness at the very public role he had (announcing nominations and winners for two categories), one couldn’t help but feel for him as he struggled to fill the gap, but one committee member leapt up to read the script for the absent recordee.

In 2019 The Hugos were enlivened by Jeanette Ng’s impassioned acceptance speech where she denounced the fascism of the person for whom the award she had just won was named. She also spoke vehemently about the Hong Kong democracy movement. As a socially and politically aware community, it was no surprise that a number of winners used the opportunity of their own acceptance speeches to denounce the ongoing genocide in Gaza, although the speeches in general managed to get a good balance of length, gratitude and message.

The evening also saw some great costumes, besides Esther McCallum-Stewart’s tartan attire there was a glorious Jellyfish hat, and an entertaining, if slightly horrific, story about the biology of the Sea Cucumber.

Although the ceremony ended quite late at night, there was still some food available from the bars for the thousand or more who emptied out of the hall. As with the Hugo Awards at Dublin, I had the warm feeling of having participated in a community event, even if I hadn’t gone as far as helping at it.