This past weekend was the sixth Sci-Fi London film festival; I didn’t go to as many films as usual, primarily because I don’t think the programme was as interesting as it has sometimes been. (Which is to say there was no Primer this year.) Still, not a wasted weekend: on Friday, Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex — Solid State Society looked and sounded fabulous, even if, having not seen any other Ghost in the Shell ever, I had very little idea what was going on. On Saturday, The Mars Underground was, as expected, pure Mars-porn, and left me wanting to read Voyage and the Mars trilogy again. And on Sunday, the shorts programme was, as ever, a mixed bag — my favourites were “Victor Y La Maquina”, which was funny and touching and stylish, and “Coming to Town”, which starts out Wrong and gets Wronger (you can watch it here) — while 28 Weeks Later is, on balance, worth seeing, although inevitably suffers somewhat from diminishing returns syndrome. (Those of us who went to see the latter had a post-film discussion that with any luck I managed to record; I’ll try to sort out a transcript by the end of the week.) Also on Sunday, of course, was the quiz, where the oh-so-modestly named Team Awesome managed to trounce all comers, most importantly the SFX posse. (More accurately, perhaps, Graham and Paul answered most of the questions, and the rest of us ate muffins.) Magnanimous lot that we are, though, we invited them to join us in St James’ park to drink through the drinkable part of our winnings (a crate of the ubiquitous Cobra Beer), and proceeded to geek about Heroes, Drive, and other such things.
What’s next? Everything I haven’t had the mental energy to tackle over the past few weeks, plus a couple of other things. (It’s amazing — or perhaps not — how comprehensively the Clarke had been dominating my thoughts.) I need to get some of the content from V251 up onto the website (any requests?); I need to work on a piece for Scalpel; I need to plan Wiscon and related antics (including the vital questions: do I attempt karaoke, and if so what do I sing?); I’m going to see A Matter of Life and Death on Wednesday, and have the film to watch at some point as well. Oh yes: and to celebrate having decided one award, I’m immediately going to try to read the shortlist for another, which may or may not lead to reviews. Have I missed anything?
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I didn’t realise you were coming to Wiscon too. I knew Liz was. How much of Third Row fandom will be there? Are you all going to Chicago first or is that just Liz?
You will love it – much discussion of SF in many forms, all the dessert you can eat, more interesting panels than you can imagine. It’s just a shame Cabell won’t be there.
Oh-ho I really want to know what you sing at that karaoke (because of course you will – you must!).
Niall, do you ever sleep?
Unfortunately, yes. Puny human physiology.