WORLDCON, 2005 

This is my report on my time at Interaction, The 63^rd World Science Fiction convention, held at the SECC in Glasgow, 4th - 8th August 2005.

Opinion and comment on the various panels and readings appear in this slightly different font. Overall I can certainly say that I had a very happy time at the convention. Events happened where and when they were supposed to, and I enjoyed just about every one of them. The dealers room was perhaps not as impressive as I hoped, but I still found a book or two to buy! Glasgow itself was wonderful and I really enjoyed the time I managed to spend there, away from the convention site itself.

[This page last updated: 6th September 2005]

Wednesday 3^rd August

My British Airways flight out of Gatwick was delayed about an hour and a half, apparently because a Russian plane had landed too hard on the runway and blown two tyres. We had to wait for said plane to have its tyres replaced so that it could be removed from the runway to make room for us.

Lunch on the plane mainly consisted of a fairly unpleasant tuna sandwich.

Caught the 905 bus into Glasgow without any difficulty. Had a quick look round the city centre, but my bags were so heavy I soon gave up and got a taxi to the hotel. Settled in and then walked to the SECC to register for the convention.

Later on I had an excellent meal at the Asmaan Tandoori restaurant on Bath Street.

Thursday 4^th August

Thursday 12.00, M(Boardroom). Reading by Simon R Green.

Thursday 12.30, M(Boardroom). Reading by Joe Haldeman.

One of the highlights of the whole convention for me. Joe read from his new novel, Old Twentieth.

Thursday 13.00, L(Lomond). Panel: The Family Business: So Maybe It's In the Genes?; with Sean McMullen, Adam Stemple, Jane Yolen.

Thursday 14.00, M(Boardroom). Reading by Alastair Reynolds.

Alastair read from his forthcoming novel Pushing Ice.

Thursday 14.30, M(Boardroom). Reading by Cecilia Dart-Thornton.

Apart from the reading (which I enjoyed) this was notable in that Cecilia showed an animation created by a games company, which takes you on a virtual tour of locations from her books. If I remember correctly, she said that the disc will be included with her forthcoming novel, The Well of Tears. An interesting development.

Thursday 15.30, S(Hall5). Opening Ceremonies.

Thursday 17.00, L(Boisdale-2). Panel: The Art of the Reviewer; with Paul Witcover, Elizabeth Hand, Gary K. Wolfe, Mark Kelly.

I enjoyed this a lot, but I felt they were just getting started when we ran out of time. For instance, the panel asserted that they don't tend to dwell on a review once it's written. It's gone and they get on with the next one. But it seems to me that in the internet age reviews generally have much greater longevity and may be googled for all eternity. This subtly changes the reviewers' responsibilities, in my view. Another point argued was that reviewers should ideally be extremely knowledgeable and able to assess a given work in the wider context of that author's career or the state of the genre as a whole. All well and good but does this mean that someone who does not have that expertise - with regard to a particular book - should not be reviewing it?

Thursday 18.00, L(Carron). Room 101 with the Guests of Honour: Greg Pickersgill, Christopher Priest and Connie Willis.

The room 101 panel was very funny! Connie Willis was particularly funny with her tale of "The Panel From Hell," which she then followed up with "The Panel From Hell 2." On a more (very) serious note, Christopher Priest is on the warpath over Jim Owsley having changed his name to Christopher Priest.

Thursday 19.00. Met up with Liz Williams, Liz Counihan, Cherith Baldry, and others and went to dinner at the Ubiquitous Chip restaurant.

The food was very nice. The conversation is a bit of a blur but I recall discussing with Cherith Baldry the question of what makes a novel a Young Adult novel, as opposed to an Adult novel. It's easy to pinpoint reasons why a novel wouldn't be for Young Adults, but not so easy to pinpoint reasons why it would be.

Esther Freisner was present at the far end of the table, but too far away to attempt a discussion.

Friday 5^th August

Friday 10.00, M(Shuna). Panel: From the Glens to the Stars, with Gary Gibson, Richard Morgan, Jack Deighton, Michael Cobley, Neil Williamson.

Friday 11.00, M(Jura). Panel: Promoting New Writers; with Shelly Shapiro, Sheila Williams, Jetse de Vries, Carolyn Caughey.

Unsurprisingly, the audience seemed to consist entirely of new writers eager to be promoted! The message from the panel was that you really have to promote yourself when you're starting out. For the most part, even the bigger publishers have a vanishingly small budget for promoting newer authors.

Friday 12.00, L(Carron). Panel: What's Hot and What's Not; with Donna Hanson, Paul Billinger, Charles N. Brown, Ellen Datlow, Paul Kincaid.

I guess it was here that I first heard mention of Margo Lanagan's collection, Black Juice. Over the whole con, I heard many people enthuse about this book. One to track down.

Friday 13.30, L(Fyne). Reading by Greer Gilman.

I went to this out of curiosity as much as anything. Greer is perhaps one of a kind, and I'm not quite on her wavelength as yet, but she seems to be making an impact with what she's doing.

Friday 14.00, M(Orkney). The Agent-Client Relationship: Joshua Bilmes.

Probably the most interesting aspect of this for me was that Bilmes was encouraging newer writers to have some self-belief and not just to take the first offer that comes their way. At the same time he called for professionalism and for newer authors to be realistic about their place in the food chain. This seemed entirely reasonable to me.

Friday 14.30, M(Boardroom). Reading by Elizabeth Hand.

One of the most enjoyable readings of the convention. Elizabeth read from a forthcoming mainstream suspense novel titled Generation Lost.

Friday 20.00 onwards. Went over to the Hilton hotel for the Albedo One party/Aeon Award presentation. Spoke to John Kenny and Bob Neilson from the Albedo team. Got chatting to Ralan Conley of ralan.com fame (who I then seemed to bump into regularly through the remainder of the con). Ian Watson came in and announced the winner of the Aeon Award.

Later I went to the SFWA suite for a quick chat with Sheila Williams, who had very graciously invited me. Many other authors were wandering through. By this time, Ralan was perhaps beginning to get the message that we all really appreciate what he does with ralan.com. Eventually I returned to my hotel room for some much needed sleep.

Saturday 6^th August

Saturday 10.00, L(Boisdale-2). Panel: British Landscape and the Fantastic; with Deborah J. Miller, Peter F. Hamilton, Elizabeth Hand, Susanna Clarke.

Saturday 11.00, M(Shuna). Panel: Fit to be Tied In! Tie in Books and Why Authors Write Them; with Marc Gascoigne, Keith DeCandido, Karen Traviss, James Swallow, Kevin J. Anderson, Elizabeth Hand.

A very entertaining and enlightening discussion. The panel argue that tie-in novels can be just as good as any other novel, and I wouldn't disagree with that. But often these novels are written under severe time pressures, and so it seems to me that there is a high risk-factor involved. For a writer, one's name is everything, and so you don't want to be putting your name to work that isn't good. I guess the important thing is to ensure that you do good work, regardless of whatever pressures you may be working under.

I also think that if a writer gets a chance to earn some good money from writing, then this is probably a good thing!

Saturday 12.00, L(Alsh-1). Panel: Not the Hugo Award Panel; with Ginjer Buchanan, Gordon Van Gelder, Lou Anders, Niall Harrison, Charles N. Brown.

Saturday 13.00, M(Boardroom). Panel: Pulling Agents Out of the Shadows; with Claire Weaver, Joshua Bilmes, Ian Irvine, Mary Turzillo, John Jarrold.

Saturday 14.00. Had lunch with Nigel Brown and Larry Matthews.

Saturday 15.00, L(Alsh-1). Reading by Susanna Clarke.

This was tremendously well-received by the audience. Susanna read an additional "footnote" that she would like to have added to Strange & Norrell but which couldn't be completed in time to meet the book's deadline. When the convention staff tried to stop the session before Susanna had finished reading, there was an almighty cry of "noooooo" from the audience, and then when she asked for a few more minutes: "oh pleeeease." Thankfully she was allowed to finish and we all left happy.

Saturday 15.30, L(Carron). Panel: The Art of the Anthology; with Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Jane Yolen, Sheila Williams, David Hartwell, Andrew Wilson.

The hectic convention schedule was starting to catch up with me at this point, and so I can't recall much about this. I do remember there was an interesting discussion about how to work out the order of the stories in an anthology.

Saturday 17.00, M(Orkney). Panel: The Magazines are Dead: Long Live the Magazines; with Gordon Van Gelder, Ellen Datlow, Niall Harrison, Gavin Grant, Jed Hartman.

This took place in a tiny room that was jam-packed. Lots of interesting comment from the panellists. It became apparent that almost everyone in the audience was a writer!

I don't see any particular reason to suppose that markets for short fiction will vanish. Whether the traditional magazine will continue to be a viable format remains to be seen, but it seems that if anything there has been a slight improvement recently.

A perceived lull in British short fiction writing was probably largely to do with Interzone being inactive for much of last year. I was interested by a comment suggesting that US editors may shy away from a story that was too obviously an "Interzone type of story." And yet all the editors here, and others I spoke to, expressed great enthusiasm for British writing.

Saturday 18.00, L(Boisdale-2). Panel: Growth of the Slipstream; with Colin Greenland, Mark Rich, Elizabeth Hand, Hal Duncan, Delia Sherman, Kelly Link.

Sunday 7^th August

Sunday 10.00, L(Lomond). Panel: The Aesthetics of Fantasy: Writing the Fantastic; with Farah Mendlesohn, Greer Gilman, China Miéville, Susanna Clarke, Michael Swanwick.

Sunday 11.00, L(Lomond). Panel: Where is the Heart of the Genre?; with Harry Harrison, Paul Kincaid, Lou Anders, Stanley Schmidt, Ian R. Macleod.

Everyone agreed that short stories used to be the heart of the genre. Certainly as far as Science Fiction is concerned. But has there now been a shift to novels? Perhaps financially, yes. Emotionally, perhaps no.

The panel was enlivened by Harry Harrison encouraging Stanley Schmidt to make up (ie write his own) reader letters for the Analog letters page.

Sunday 12.00, L(Lomond). Panel: Genre Killing Ideas; with Alastair Reynolds, Karl Schroeder, Charles Stross, Ian McDonald.

Sunday 15.30, A(Gala2). Panel: In Another Media: Script Writing; with Craig Miller, Paul Cornell, Eldon Thompson.

Sunday 17.00, L(Boisdale-1). Panel: Great Europeans as Fictional Characters; with Liz Williams, Diana Pharaoh Francis, Maureen Kincaid Speller, Susanna Clarke.

An interesting discussion this one. My own opinion is that a reader of a fictional novel should have no expectation that any real persons appearing are accurately portrayed. However I do see the argument that authors have some responsibility to behave, err... responsibly.

Retired to the Moat House where I had a quick chat with Neil Williamson and others.

Later that night the Hugo awards were presented.

On the whole I was very happy with the results. But I remain bemused by the nominations in the short fiction category. What happened there?

Much later I bumped into David Pringle, ex editor of Interzone and recent recipient of the Interaction Special Award, at one of the Moat House bars.

Monday 8^th August

Monday 10.00, M(Barra). Panel: Scottish Imaginative Writing; with Neil Williamson, Angus McAllister, Andrew Wilson, David Pringle.

Monday 11.00, S(Hall2). Kaffeeklatsch. Sat down for a chat with Jetse de Vries, new Interzone co-editor. Also present was R. Ann Dryden who is also a writer.

Monday 12.00, M(Boardroom). Reading by Hal Duncan.

Monday 12.30, M(Boardroom). Reading by Justina Robson.

Justina read from her forthcoming novel Living Next Door to the God of Love. I've previously read Silver Screen, which I thought was excellent, and have been meaning to read Mappa Mundi for ages (it pleads with me from the bookshelf).

Monday 13.00, L(Boisdale-1). What's New From Pyr/Prometheus; with Lou Anders, Ian McDonald, Martin Sketchley, Chris Roberson, Keith Brooke, Justina Robson, Joel Shepherd, John Meaney, John Picacio.

I think the arrival of Pyr as a publisher of Science Fiction could be a very significant development. Lou Anders seems to be man on a mission. And it was good to see the announcement of a forthcoming anthology series.

Had a last look around the dealer's room then headed into Glasgow centre by train. Had a good look around, which there hadn't been much time for up until this point. It's all a bit of a blur. I remember having some coffee in Borders.

Tuesday 9^th August

Checked out. Had some lunch in a pub called The Gallery. Took the bus back to the airport. Got confused about which departure gate I should be at. My boarding pass said 19 but the display said 21. Then the display continued to say "Wait in Lounge" when the plane was in fact boarding. Still I made it onto the plane. This time the food was an unexpectedly edible chicken salad. The pilot seemed to be in a hurry and we landed early. Train to Brighton. Taxi home.