I’ll be leaving for Bristol shortly. I have panels to do, and a convention to run. Bloggage may be limited until Sunday. Updates should appear on Twitter.
Where’s Cheryl?
Bristol This Week
I won’t be online much this week because I’ll be rather busy in Bristol.
Tomorrow (Tuesday) I will be at the Watershed to meet some Egyptian writers — most importantly Ahmed Khaled Towfik who is one of Egypt’s leading science fiction and fantasy writers. I’ll be doing an interview with him.
On Thursday I am moderating a panel at the Festival of Literature on writing speculative literature. The panelists will be Juliet E. McKenna, Gareth L. Powell and Jo Hall.
On Friday we have a couple of signings at Forbidden Planet, featuring Juliet E.McKenna, Justina Robson, Paul Cornell, Gareth L. Powell and Richard Morgan. Then in the evening I’m on a Festival of Literature panel with Justina Robson and Tim Maughan talking about politics in science fiction.
Finally, on Saturday, we have BristolCon.
Naturally I would love to see some of you at one or all of these events.
Moon Nazis Invade SFX
My goodness, some brave individual infiltrated the secret Iron Sky HQ in Finland and has spilled the beans on SFX. I wonder who that could have been?
I have, of course, seen rather more of the movie than I reveal. If I said any more the Moon Nazis would have to kill me. But you don’t have long to wait. The movie is due out on April 4th next year. The latest news on what my mad Finnish friends are up to can, as always, be found here.
Bristol Festival of Literature
Last month I blogged about a new Festival of Literature that will be happening in Bristol around the time of BristolCon. I’m pleased to be able to report that the full programme is now available and ticket sales are open. We have been involved in creating several programme items for the Festival. I’m involved in a couple of them. You can find out more about this at the BristolCon website. Please note that I didn’t write the panel descriptions.
Fly By Posting
The event at the British Library yesterday was fascinating, and a lengthy blog post is starting to come together. But today I have people to see in London. More later.
Busy Weekend
There’s a lot going on this weekend. I would very much like to be in London on Friday for the tribute to Rob Holdstock at the British Library.
Unfortunately I can’t make that, because I’d already promised Liz Williams that I’d come to her conference in Glastonbury on the Saturday. I’m not 100% certain that I’ll make it as this does depend on the generosity of other people providing transport, but the plan is to be there.
I could, I guess, have gone up to London for the day on Friday and got the last train back, but that would get very expensive as I do need to be in London on Sunday for another British Library event, this one featuring Neil Gaiman, Farah Mendlesohn, Kari Sperring and Peter Hamilton.
I’ll be staying overnight (I had a pile of airline points I needed to spend some of or they would expire, so I could get a hotel room). I would love to stay a bit longer, because S.J. Chambers is arriving on Monday for a Steampunk Bible event on Tuesday. However, at the moment I’m still doing the ice pack and heat pack treatment on my shoulder three times a day (down from five, which is excellent progress). I won’t be able to do that when I’m not home, so I don’t want to risk too many days away. I’m hoping to see S.J. for lunch on the Monday before coming home.
The Long Way Home
Today I traveled from Turku to Helsinki, the long way, via Tampere. It is sort of like traveling from Bristol to London via Birmingham, except much more fun.
The first leg was a road trip through more beautiful Finnish countryside. Marianna, Karo and I were busily brainstorming ideas for next year’s Finncon for most of the trip.
In Tampere Karo handed me off to Jarmo, who gave me a guided tour of the Secret Base at which post-production on Iron Sky is being done. It is packed with processing power, giant screens and talented young men. Norm Cates would doubtless sniff with derision, because there’s no way the Iron Sky boys can match Weta’s money, but it was still very impressive. I wish I could tell you what I saw, but they’d kill me.
The second leg was by train through yet more beautiful Finnish countryside. I have photos for Kevin. It was a lovely train. Otto met me at Helsinki station (where we were just in time to see the daily Moscow train pull out).
Since then we have eaten curry and sat in the sauna. (Yes, Finnish homes often have their own saunas.) Tomorrow will be yet more travel, and if all goes well I will be back home in about 24 hours time.
Helsinki, Media, Jet Lag
Here I am, safely arrived in Helsinki. It is warm and sunny — much nicer than the UK, I gather, having seen Al Reynolds’ tweet stream today — and Finncon is slowly coming together. This morning we did the traditional press conference. It was fairly quiet, but Jussi from Helsingin Sanomat (the most prestigious newspaper in Finland) did turn up and do an interview with Richard Morgan. Nalo Hopkinson’s books have not yet been translated into Finnish (and if you’ve read them you’ll have a good idea why) so she’s a harder sell with the national media, but I’m sure she’ll be a big hit with the fans.
After that we had a lunch meeting with a lady from the Finnish Cultural Institute to talk about how Finnish writers can get more exposure in the English-speaking world. Much to my surprise, we found Val Grimm in the same restaurant. She’s over here on business and won’t be able to make the con, so it was great to catch up.
Nalo and Richard have been whisked off to Turku by train in the company of the ever-efficient Tino and are getting a tour of the Ã…land archipelago tomorrow (weather forecast excellent, thank goodness). I’m staying on in Helsinki for another night to get some work done, and to try to get my head into Finnish time. Fortunately I have no problem cat-napping. Falling asleep is something I’m very good at.
Live From Stockholm
Well, approximately live anyway. After a couple of days of a fun convention there is a certain zombie air to proceedings around here. What’s more I have had to be intelligent all morning as I have been at work. But let me start from the beginning.
Firstly the convention went very well. My congratulations to Carolina and her team who not only managed a very well-run event, but also created the largest SF convention ever to be held in Sweden, by a very long way. The final warm body count was apparently over 700, which is also quite big for a Eurocon (except when it is in Finland, or combined with a UK Worldcon).
The awards ceremony went very smoothly, and the results of the first ever SF&F Translation Awards have been published (details here). My congratulations to Hannu, Georges-Olivier, Edward and everyone else involved. A press release will go out as soon as I hear back from Hannu who was surrounded by adoring fans for Saturday evening and then had to dash off.
The ESFS Awards were also given out, and much to my surprise one of them went to Wales. No, it wasn’t me, or Langford. It was, of course, Al Reynolds, who was voted Best Author by the assembled national delegations. The Swedes, in the form of artist Nicolas Krizan, produced some marvelous trophies based on the famous Dalahäst wooden toy horse that is so popular with tourists. These are not traditional Dalahästs though, they are SFnal. One was a robot, another was green and had three eyes, a third had eight legs. And Al’s? Well, Al got My Little Space Pony.
He’s very cute, and as I was the only British person daft enough to be doing Eurocon and Alt.Fiction back-to-back I was given the job of looking after him and taking him to Derby.
There will be a full con report later. Right now I need to do other things as I am working here in Stockholm today and tomorrow. There is a major energy economics conference going on, and I’m meeting up with a few colleagues. I’m not going to say too much about that here, partly because I get very bored with having my job mansplained to me by people who have never worked in the field, and partly because it will attract cl*m*te ch*ng* trolls from both sides of the debate.
On the Road
I’ll be off to Sweden tomorrow for Eurocon, and am staying over for a couple of days on business. The convention says that there will be internet access at the venue. Fingers crossed. I have no idea what the situation at my hotel will be. However, I can no longer afford to spend large sums of money on access, so I can’t promise I’ll be online until Wednesday.
Half Monkey, Half Pony
Last night I took myself off into Bristol for a concert at Colston Hall. It featured Jonathan Coulton as the headline act, with Paul and Storm as the support band. I wasn’t just there for the concert, however. My friend Marjorie had seen an online plea for people to help with merchandise sales at the gig and she had volunteered. She asked me if I wanted to help out. Hey, free gig, right? And while I wasn’t hugely aware of what these guys did, I knew that they were good friends with Neil Gaiman, so they came well recommended.
The music feels a bit to me like what happens when filk moves beyond the convention scene. Not that these guys actually filk much. The opening guitar riff of Paul and Storm’s first number sounded to me very much like Eric Clapton’s “Willy and the Hand Jive”, which would have been awesome, but they soon dropped into their own stuff and as you’ll see, they are serious musicians. Nevertheless, the material is very much like what you might expect from filkers. Many of them revel in geek culture, and those that don’t are still the sort of things that fans would enjoy. Here, especially for you, Chris Garcia, are Paul and Storm performing their fabulous “Nun Fight” song.
The geeky element stretches over into the merchandise. As well as the expected t-shirts and CDs, both acts had 2Gb USB drives available containing all of their recorded music. As you’ll see below, Coulton makes all of his music available under a Creative Commons license, which has allowed people to do all sorts of fun things with it. Paul and Storm’s USB drive is shaped like a candy bar because, as Paul said, everyone likes candy.
Everyone Likes Candy is the name of my Velvet Underground cover band.
Most of you are too young to understand that.
While I think Paul and Storm have a better stage presence (it helps having two of them as they can play off each other), Coulton has some wonderful songs. And, thanks to that Creative Commons thing, some great videos have been produced for them. Here is his answer to Charles Atlas (something else you may well be too young to remember), because who needs to kick sand in anyone’s face if you can build a robot army.
If that’s a little sexist for you, here’s another classic, “Skullcrusher Mountain”. While this one is narrated by the boy, it is very much from the girl’s point of view. And at least in the video she gets her own back. (This is also the song that gave me the title of this post.)
And finally, here’s me modelling some of the merchandize — the t-shirt comes with a free washable marker so that you can customize it. (You need to follow Scalzi on Twitter to understand this. Thankfully some of the audience got it, and John liked it too.)
Oh, what’s all that clapping? You want an encore? Alright then. This is my favorite Jonathan Coulton song, because I have sat through business meetings that are so very nearly like this.
Update: Whoops, nearly forgot. The boys are playing Manchester Academy tonight, and Union Chapel in London tomorrow. I think that there are tickets left for both gigs.
My Eurocon Program
The draft program for the Eurocon is now available here. There will inevitably be changes, but as far as I know my stuff is firm. Here’s what’s going on.
My flight is scheduled to arrive at Arlanda at 17:20 so I’m afraid I’ll miss Tanja Tynjälä’s SF in Latin America talk at 18:00, but I hope to get to the con in time for the Worldcon panel at 20:00 and I should definitely be there for Pierre Gévart on SF in France at 22:00.
Saturday should keep me very busy:
- 11:00 “E-books – the current development and the future”, which I am on
- 12:00 A session about next year’s Eurocon in Zagreb
- 14:00 A panel on Feminist SF, which I’m not on but which should be interesting
- 17:00 ESFS Awards Ceremony, including me announcing the winners of the translation awards
- 18:00 Charlie Stross interviews Hannu Rajaniemi
- 19:00 “The Hugos Today and 40 Years Ago, A Comparison”, which I am on
Sunday is a little less frantic for me, but I will be at:
- 11:00 Jukka Halme’s Guest of Honour speech
- 16:00 “Women, men and neuters in sf and fantasy”, which I am on, together with Ian McDonald and Elizabeth Bear
I look forward to seeing some of you there.
Expo Time
I’ll be spending much of the weekend at the Bristol Comics Expo. They are sold out, so there’s no point in my encouraging you to come along, but I will get to see a bunch of good friends, including Paul Cornell, Sissy Pantelis and Simon Gurr. The event hashtag is #bristolexpo. I’ll do my best to report on what is going on, and I hope to grab a quick interview with Bryan Talbot about Grandville.
British Library Update
There’s only a week to go now before the British Library exhibition opens. Newspaper articles are proliferating. The Guardian has a nice photo collection, and is promising to devote the whole of their Saturday Review supplement to SF. My favorite thus far, however, is this piece in the THES by my friend Prof. Roger Luckhurst.
My interview with John Clute in the new Salon Futura also discusses the exhibition.
Somehow I have managed to score an invite to the official launch party on Thursday night. I intend to take a voice recorder and try to gather reactions from the Great & Good there gathered. Hopefully it will be worth podcasting.
The exhibition opens to the public next Friday (20th) and that evening they have the first public event. It is a discussion panel featuring, amongst others, China Miéville, Adam Roberts and Tricia Sullivan. Thanks to Adam reminding me of this on Monday I have booked a seat. Hopefully I will see some of you there (so that I don’t have to be “the shameless idiot who asks the first question” yet again).
Travel: Slows the Mind
Yeah, I know, travel is supposed to be good for the mind, but I’m getting old.
So I had a great time in London last night with China and various other friends, and a very productive meeting at 8:00am this morning, which involved getting up at 6:00am. Combine that with lots of time on trains, and I was pretty much wiped when I got back home. Then I had lots of email to attend to.
I am finally getting started on finishing Salon Futura #9, and there’s not much left to do, but it will be tomorrow morning before it goes live.
Travel and Book Update
Kevin and I have been having a great time looking at trains and odd bits of history. Very shortly we will be off to Eastercon, where hopefully we’ll see quite a few of you.
Meanwhile the blogosphere is taking note of Ben’s books. Ben himself has been writing about the history of His Majesty’s Starship here and here (and there should be a Part 3 to come). In addition Mike Glyer has a post, which he has decorated with this very fine photo:
Ben is the one on the left.
The books are currently not available on Amazon because they are refusing to believe that I have the right to publish them. Hopefully this will be resolved soon. But in the meantime you can of course buy them here.
Podcasted
A quick drive-by posting here to report that I have been interviewed by the fabulous Julia Rios for the Outer Alliance podcast. The episode also includes the very wonderful Elizabeth Bear. You can find it here.
More about that later, but as Flight Tracker tells me that Kevin’s plane is somewhere over Greenland I need to hie myself to Heathrow to collect him.
Easter Schedule
I shall be on the road for much of the next 2 weeks. Here’s the plan.
Tomorrow morning I am off to London bright and early. Kevin arrives at Heathrow early in the afternoon. We are staying in London overnight.
For the next few days we will doing touristy stuff around Bath and Bristol. We should be at the Bristol F&SF Group meeting at the Shakespeare on the evening of Monday 18th.
We will be at Eastercon, and after that we are heading down to London for a bit more tourism. Kevin is wisely fleeing the country before the wedding insanity reaches its peak. I will be at the Clarke Award ceremony.
During that time bloggage may be limited.
Off to Caerdydd
I’ll be off across the Severn Sea today (or rather under it, by railway tunnel). Tomorrow you will be able to find me at the Cardiff Comics Expo.
Drive By Posting
I have a few more things I would like to say about shame and guilt cultures, and how the Blogosphere works, but I also have a train to catch and will be offline for much of the next two days. Hopefully I will see some of you at Picocon.