marjorie73 | Entries tagged with eastercon

Monday started very late. Can't imagine why.

I made it for the 2nd half of of a panel on Language & Dialect in writing (would have made it for the first half, but I turned my ankle on the way, which slowed me down.) Very interesting, with discussions about whether readers in different parts of the world pick up on the same nuances when writers use different dialects or accents, particularly in relation to class and hearing the work in the author's voice once you have heard him (or her) speak.

Then nipped out for lunch with Cheryl Morgan (McDonalds seeming more appealing than anything available in the hotel....) before returning for the 'Icons, Symbolism & Archetypes' panel which was, on the whole, amiable (except for a few raised hackles at the suggestion, from the audience, that science was a belief system!) - favourite comments - "I'm an Anglican, but I like a bit of Wicca at the weekends" - Paul Cornell; Paul's assurances that not all Christians are narrow minded bigots, and Piers Beckley's response that not all Atheists are like Richard Dawkins...

Then headed to the 'Dollhouse, ethics and identity panel' but found it a bit frustrating as I could only hear 2 of the panellists.. I slightly regret not having gone to the Clangers symposium instead...

The final panel I went to was titled 'London as a SF/F Setting' - with Mike Carey, Mike Shevdon, Roz Kaveney,Sebastian Bleasdon and Pat Rigby-McMurray. It ended up being more about London in fact, than fiction, but was so interesting I didn't care it had wandered a little from the topic.

Looked in on the Dead Dog party, had a final pint, and then headed back to the hotel to pack, and sleep.

Then this morning, back to the hotel to breakfast with Cheryl Morgan and Anne K Murphy - hotel no longer sporting recruitment posters to combat the Cylon Threat, screens in lobby showing BBC news instead of Odyssey logos, in fact nothing interesting to look at at all.

Roundup of my EasterCon:

Panels etc. attended - about 20?
Books acquired 7
Books signed by authors 5
Hats acquired 2
Hours of sleep - far too few
Fun had - lots..

Current Mood: Asleep
Current Location: Home

An early start - I had put my name down for the Kaffeeklatch with Mike Carey, which was scheduled for 10 a.m., so necessitated getting to the Radisson by 9 to check the list. Happily, it was worth it, as I was on the list, so having marked myself in I was able to forage for coffee and ensure I was actually awake, before heading down to reclaim the room from the Clanger knitting panel immediately before us.

We were very lucky as not only did we get the conversation with Mike, there was no-one using the room from 11 and so we were able to simply carry on, and the kaffeeklatch ended up continuing until 1/4 to 12. Bonus!

There seemed to be a cross section of those who were primarily fans of Mike's comics / GNs and those coming in as fans of the Felix Castor novels, so part of the conversation veered into a quick run down of Mike's back catalogue and recommendations of where to start for a non-comic reader (possibly 'Season of Mists' followed by Lucifer)

There was talk about the 'grittiness' of the settings - the fact that the London in which F

elix lives, and he other places he visits are very real, (except of course specific buildings etc which Mike invents - and which people apparently regularly claim to be familiar with!) as are elements such as the time taken to get from one part of it to another. Also talked about adapting other people's work, the fact that Mike has been offered but turned down suggestions that the Felix Castor books should be adapted as GNs (because, at least in part, of the difficulty in representing music in comics), but that a possible film is in the offing (Contracts have been "on the verge of being sent" for 2 years now...

We also talked about the Constantine film (general consensus seemed to be that it wasn't necessarily a bad film, as long as you don't expect it to be anything much to do with Hellblazer...) the importance of characters taking responsibility for their own actions and mistakes, Felix Castors's sex life (or lack thereof), families (born and made), Frankenstein and the morality of monsters, torture, John Constantine's successor, and reading recommendations from all around the table.

I'm pretty sure a good time was had by all - I certainly enjoyed it, and hope Mike did, too. The extra time meant that I missed the '1st editions & fine bindings' panel, which was a pity, but one cannot have everything.

After a couple of hours in the Green Room, which included a brief conversation with Paul Cornell & other waiting panellists about Jane Austen, lost in Austen and Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, all conducted with the faint background smell of smoke & cordite from the Pyrotechnics display in the main hall, I headed down to the Hall for the Guest of Honour interview with Mike Carey, conducted by Paul Cornell.

This started late due to

the pyro stuff, and some of the clean up had to go on during the interview, with people from (?Ops) mopping the stage as the interview continued!

The interview covered some of the same areas which were discussed at the Kaffeeklatch but also featured the Pantera comic "Probably the worst comicbook in the history of the world [,...] I convinced myself at the time that it was ironic, but it wasn't, it was just bad"- Mike Carey and more discussion of Lucifer, an how the character changed from Neil Gaiman's original character (Prompting Paul Cornell to declare "I love Lucifer. [pause] that wouldn't go down well with my wife")

Mike also talked about "The Unwritten" (including explaining that if/when JK Rowling's lawyers come knocking claiming it rips off Harry Potter the defence will be that no, it wasn't nicked from JKR but from 'Books of Magic'....

Both Paul & Mike seemed to be having fun during the interview, and we learned Mike's research consists of "bumming about on the internet..."

I had planned to stay for the European Torus & Alan Moore talks, but the lure of a shower & nap won out. I must say, that whatever its other failings, the Ibis cannot be faulted on water pressure :-)

I got back to the hotel in time for Ian Sorensen's "Harry Potter and the Half Cut Prince", billed as ' a musical with jokes and live quidittich. It was very funny, involving many appalling puns, reworked lyrics to such classics as 'Fame' and 'Pinball Wizard' , lots of Dr Who, Alan Rickman, Galaxy Quest and Rocky Horror references, and audience participation. All good, grubby fun!

An hour later, back in the hall for the Mitch Benn gig - introduced by Paul Cornell "He is one of us", Mitch's set included 'Be my Dr Who Girl', 'I might just have to Murder James Blunt' The Very Hungry caterpillar rock opera, 'Crap Shag' plus singing in dalek voice... this is a man who knows his audience.

Lots of comedy between songs, including comments on not being a real Dr Who fan as he has never built his own Dalek, (and that what can what do with a dalek, except perhaps sulk) which amused me as I left, as I overheard a plaintive little voice saying "but I can think of *lots* of reasons to build a dalek"...

There seemed to be a lot of people queueing up to buy CDs afterwards some of whom didn't appear to have previously heard Mitch's stuff.

There were also lots of people milling around the atrium in fantastic costumes, preparing for the Steampunk Ball - also a rather splendid 10th Doctor.

It was shortly after this that I ended up in the Polo bar, where I had interesting conversations with several strangers, congratulated Paul Cornell & Cheryl Morgan on their Hugo nominations, drank guinness, and acquired a perfecty splendid hat from (I think) Sith Happens, before staggering back to the hotel at around 2 a.m.

Sadly, I didn't make it to the dealers room on Monday morning to get the e-mail address of the dealer from Brighton I was chatting to in the bar, so if you're reading this - sorry :(

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: The Radisson Non-Euclidean

So, it turns out that the Ibis has the worlds narrowest hotel beds and smallest duvets, so it is just as well the keep the place madly overheated... And who needs sleep, anyway?

The first event I wanted to attend was Iain M. Banks' GoH interview, which was at 11, so had a leisurely start to the day. The interview was excellent - very funny - speaking about the 'snobberati' looking down on him for writing SF, abut his early attempts at writing - as a 16 year old "..lot of sex and violence, of neither of which I had any experience of..." and about having wanted to write SciFi, but being unable to get published. he described writing 'The Wasp Factory', and those voices in his head criticising him for "giving up on writing SciFi for the miserable self satisfaction of getting published".....

He also mentioned having watched 'Mastermind' in which one of the contestants had his 'Culture' novels as a specialist subject. The contestant scored 26/27. Iain scored 19!

He claimed that he wrote primarily in winter when the weather is too unpleasant to go out, and therefore that were he to live in Southern California, he would therefore never write anything at all (except perhaps Haiku!)...

I have to confess that I haven't actually read any of his work except 'The Wasp Factory' but even without much prior knowledge I really enjoyed the interview (Now, if I can only manage Stretchy Time in order to have time to read more, I shall have to seek out & read some of his SF!

I then stayed on in the main hall for he next item, which was Ben Goldacre's Bad Science talk. I had been particularly looking forward to this as I had missed seeing him when he was at the Bath Lit. Fest. - it was lots of fun - serious points about bad science and poor reporting of scientific stores (NB: much of this seems to be due to editors, not scientists...) also, the 2000 years of medicine in 90 seconds!

having made reference to the Eloi & Morlocks and commenting on how this audience did not require the reference to be explained, he also christened this the "Picky fuckers convention" having been corrected for referring to Morpocks instead of Morlocks...

Ben made the point that having had some genuine, ground-breaking medical discoveries and advances in the last centaury, with antibiotics / polio vaccines etc we/the media expect these to keep coming, and make them up when they don't.

I think Ben could easily have talked for much longer, and I would have been happy to listen for much longer - whilst I was broadly familiar with many of the problems he highlighted I really enjoyed the entertainment as well as the information part of the talk! (And managed to say hi & get my copy of Bad Science signed, at the end, which was nice!)

Following this I'd signed up for another greenroom shift, and then a quick dash back to the hotel to chill briefly before coming back for 6 p.m. - I had a dilemma, with 3 clashing events I wanted to go to, but in the end I decided (in common with 75% of the con) to watch the Dr Who premiere, on the basis that if I didn't, I might then find it hard to avoid spoilers...

I have to say, other than the practical issue of finding a large enough sofa to hide behind, I can definately recommend watching Who in company with 900 or so fans...! I am not sure I am entirely reasdy to transfer my alleaigence from the 10th to the 11th Doctor, but I did enjoy it:) And the new TARDIS. Several very funny moments.

The evening continued for me with converstions with random people found sitting on sofas, then Sing-a-Long Buffy "Once More With Feeling" a small, but word-perfect audience and some excellent singing voices. I seem to recall calling in to the Friendly Scaninavians party, too (I can't help feeling there ought perhaps to have been an unfriendly scandinavians party somewhere else, for balance...)

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Location: london

So, this week has been mostly dealing with mundane and unexciting stuff, hence not a lot of blogging.

Monday Tybalt had a visit to the vet, so I was very unpopular - he has been having some skin problems, one place on each of his shoulders, and one on his belly, which looked as though he had perhaps been scratched, and of course he keeps worrying at them, making them worse. So he has been wearing a lovely cone-head collar and being dabbled with antiseptic at regular intervals, as well as having an antibiotics shot. The verdict is that this could be a sensitivity to something he has come into contact with, or stress related, or it could just be that he did have a fight with someone and get scratched. However, it does appear that everything is healing now he can no loger get at the sore areas to lick them to pieces, although I am keeping the collar on for a few more days until they are completely gone, for fear that if I take it off him too soon, simply because I feel sorry for him as he walks into doorways, and complains about not being allowed out, he will undo all the good work.

This weekend I am off to EasterCon in London (or rather, Heathrow) - should be fun. Last time I went (to my first ever con!) was EasterCon two years ago, which was at the same hotel and had Neil Gaiman, China Mieville and Charles Stross as Guests of Honour, all of whom are writers I'd go a long way to hear talking about their own work, which is really why I went - in combination, they were irrestistable.

This year, the GoHs are Alistair Reynolds, Mike Carey, Liz Williams and Iain M Banks - I have read and enjoyed Mike Carey's 'Felix Castor' novels, and the 'Lucifer' GNs, and I've read Iain Banks' 'The Wasp Factory', but I think that is all. This year I decided to go because I thought the con in general would be fun, rather than going to see a specific writer.

Hopefully I may meet an online friend or two - I believe

slovobooks will be there, for instance..

I'm hoping that there will be internet, both at the Radisson (where the con is being held) and the (much cheaper and less posh) Ibis down the road where I shall actually be staying. If there is, I should at least manage to tweet, if not blog. If I go silent, you will know that internet failed to matierialise...

I should be back home some time on Tuesday, probably in need of some major catching up on sleep....

(Originally posted @ http://margomusing.blogspot.com/ - comment here or there)

I probably ought to go & do some packing, now...

Current Mood: cheerful

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EasterCon - Final Day
EasterCon - Probably Sunday
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Entries tagged with eastercon

EasterCon - Final Day

EasterCon - Probably Sunday

EasterCon - Saturday - Bad Scienve & Dr Who

Quick Update, EasterCon & Stuff