I popped up to Bradford for Eastercon last weekend, and I must say I think it was very well organised, with, in particular, a terrific programme. It’s good to see a serious comics strand at an SF convention, for one thing. Many old friends met with, several new ones encountered. I did two panels, one about comic book universes, and the many continuity issues arising thereof (good fun, a buzzing audience) and one about the grand old UK comics of yesteryear (which was mainly enlivened by David Lloyd and D’Israeli’s expert knowledge). I’d like to have done some more non-comics ones, but I’d joined up at the last minute, and had to opt out of being parachuted into one on teraforming, not being around on the Monday. I’d have enjoyed pretending to know something about the subject, and randomly picking a side in ‘Terraforming vs. Pantropy’ (oh, pantropy, every time, thanks for asking) without knowing anything about the issues. It’d be like going to the tutorial without having read the book, and nevertheless having lots to say (which I did, often). I also went along to Padraig O’Mealoid’s Alan Moore Show And Tell, which is basically Padraig getting exciting stuff out of a box and saying that he’s got it and we haven’t; and the Not The Clarke Awards panel, which made me want to read all the nominees (yes, even that one, you never know, it might be literature). Actually, I do wonder, considering the knee jerk reaction to literary authors attempting genre novels, if, if this was one day done really well, with said novelist doing their research and not innocently re-writing something that was groundbreaking when Brian Aldiss first did it in 1958, and coming up with a really good book that refused to be labelled as genre… would we then accept it and love it? Or is most of this hatred not because such books are bad, but because they won’t join in? (And let’s assume the author isn’t decent enough, like Michael Chabon is, to declare they’re an SF writer.) Hmm. I got to have a sit down with Tim Powers, long enough to tell him how much I’ve enjoyed his work, and heard some wonderful tales from him and his charming wife about Phil Dick. (Winona Ryder, it seems, thinks she’s in possession of a note from Dick to Timothy Leary, but actually, Mr. Powers knows different. And it must be very weird to suddenly realise that when watching a DVD commentary.) The BSFA Awards were splendidly presented by Kim Newman and Paul McAuley, the theme this year being predictions that didn’t come true, including a fab ‘letter’ from a very West Country Arthur C. Clarke, predicting how the whole solar system, in 2009, would run to the dictates of the BSFA. Ken MuckLeeOdd (as Mr. Powers pronounced it, and he was on a panel later with Suzanne McLeod too, and I really hope they got him to make the introductions) was a popular winner of Best Novel. It was a real thrill to see Doctor Who amongst a big audience of people, laughing, cheering and applauding at all the right moments. And later that evening, the highlight of the convention for me, the National Festival Orchestra occupied the main hall, performing SF themes (a wonderful original Star Trek, complete with bongos) and related pieces (like ‘The Blue Danube’). A real coup, something people will be talking about for years to come: James Bacon should be very proud. I ducked my head into Pictionary With Artists long enough to yell ‘The Cat from Outer Space!’ and saw large chunks of fabled and largely unseen telefantasy shows Undermind (really rather excellent, if very of its time) and Counterstrike (funky, but the jury’s still out). That’s two off the huge list I had in my head when I was a child and there was no video. One of my favourite things was meeting David Clarke, the Fortean researcher and broadcaster (whose book about UFOs in the UK, Out of the Shadows, I still can’t find a copy of), after his excellent panel on the elusive nature of Spring-Heeled Jack legends (it seems the term was applied more like ‘hoody’ than as an individual phenomenon). I added to the crowd, and then found I didn’t need to, at the well-attended launch of Liam Sharp’s excellent God Killers, and, the only disappointment of the weekend, I stood there in ‘Blow Things Up’ and witnessed only two very small explosions, framed in the context of what might have been an artistic statement about V For Vendetta (or equally, might not). It did strike me as funny, though, that the whole audience were asked to don V masks (we’re all individuals!), and I thought best heckle of the weekend went to the small boy who shouted at the end of it ‘is it finished now?!’ Finally came the moment I was most looking forward to: the Rock Band contest. Forbidden Planet had brought all the gear along and were offering prizes. I’d recruited a band: Liam Sharp (vocals); Al Davison (drums); D’Israeli (lead guitar, kind of like Pete Townshend I was thinking) and me on bass. We were called The Victors, after the British comics weekly. Liam, a real front man in a real band, picked a track he was familiar with. So obviously, nothing could go wrong. Except D’Israeli bottling it and being replaced by someone we met in the crowd who knew the lyrics to the number Liam wanted, said number then proving to be unavailable, us thus flailing about on stage so long they assigned a random song to us, which turned out to be something by Nirvana that none of us knew, me panicking, seeing the gesticulations of Juliet McKenna’s son in the crowd, assuming he knew how to play and thus giving him my bass and running; Al playing the bass track on the drums, and audience staring in horror at what resulted. Which was actually nearly saved by Liam’s rock heroics, screaming and sliding across the floor to the strange plunkings from behind him. It was like Yoko Ono as performed by Can. (And this was being piped on live video feed to the convention website.) ‘You know that dream,’ said Liam afterwards, ‘where you get up on stage to sing, and suddenly you don’t know the words? I think we all got great therapy for that.’ Third Row Fandom’s band Mothra and the Godzillas kicked our arses anyway. Add to all that dinner with Kim Newman and Maura McHugh, lonely walks and later good bus services from con hotel to my hotel through Ballardian industrial wasteland, a dealer’s room that didn’t take plastic (what will they do when we’re all implanted with credit chips, barter books for turnips?) and the company of people as varied as Marc Gascoigne, Simon Gilmartin, Mike Carey, John Clute, Toby Frost and David Bishop, oh, and endless endless Twitterstorming by everyone, and it was very memorable and wonderful weekend. Phew. The bar has been set for next year.
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