Category: events

Notes From A Small Con 3

  • Alas, the recording of the overly masculine panel didn’t work. I do have some notes, though I’m not sure how much sense they’ll make now, and I’ll try to get those typed up.
  • Final tally of books bought: North Wind and Phoenix Cafe by Gwyneth Jones (I already have White Queen — not that I’ve read it, but my intentions are good); Breakfast With the Ones You Love by Eliot Fintushel; Memories of the Space Age by JG Ballard (because I’m under-read in Ballard, it’s a beautiful edition and a great title; read one story on the way back, though, and thought interesting the writing was somewhat uneven); Fools by Pat Cadigan; The Darkening Garden by John Clute; King of Morning, Queen of Day and Hearts, Hands and Voices by Ian McDonald; Nearly People by Conrad Williams; a replacement for my lost hardback of The Year of Our War; and back-issues of NYRSF to 2000, or thereabouts. A respectable haul, I think you’ll agree.
  • I very much enjoyed the post-BSFA-Awards discussion on Sunday, largely because the three panellists didn’t agree on any of the nominated novels, which always makes things interesting. The vote itself, it turns out, was ridiculously close: Nova Swing and The Last Witchfinder were joint second by one vote.
  • No full con reports seen elsewhere yet (well, I guess it’s not technically over yet, even if I’m home, but here are a few photos, plus Paul’s abbreviated update, which unaccountably fails to mention glands.

Notes From A Small Con 2

  • The guests of honour for the 2009 Eastercon, LX, have been announced: Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Tim Powers, and Dirk Maggs (with Mary and Bill Burns as fan GoHs)
  • This morning’s panel on “Is UK SF publishing overly masculine?” covered a lot of ground, featured some full and frank exchanges of views, and good contributions from panellists Liz Williams, Jo Fletcher, Graham Sleight, Gareth Lyn Powell, and Jaine Fenn, plus various audience members, in spite of thoroughly inept moderation by John Richards. I’m hoping my recording of the panel will come out ok, in which case a transcript will be forthcoming. One note: the selection of future masters mentioned in my previous post was apparently made purely on the basis of previous sales (and there was some debate within Gollancz about whether that was appropriate, given the resulting gender balance).
  • A third row posse went to see Sunshine. Opinion is somewhat divided as to whether it’s deeply stupid and quite fun, or just painfully stupid. I tend towards the latter category, although it was quite pretty; this may be because all the pre-film publicity about their physicist consultant had raised my expectations, or it may just be because it starts out as an interesting Cold Equations-style story and turns into a slasher film in space.
  • The hotel really is an excellent Eastercon venue. Everything is on one floor, the bar space is large and convivial, the staff are friendly and the food provision is excellent — they serve a good cooked breafast until the thoroughly civilised hour of 11am, and there are hot baps of freshly-carved pork and beef for lunch! I have a feeling it wouldn’t work if the convention was any bigger (the dealer’s room isn’t huge, for instance), but future medium-sized cons should bear it in mind as a potential venue.

Notes From A Small Con

  • The reviewing panel (which was me, Penny Hill, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, John Jarrold, and Paul doing a fine job of moderating), went well, I think. Lots of contribution from the audience, representing a wide range of opinions and preferences — short reviews, long reviews, spoiler-averse, spoiler-tolerant — and lots of interesting ground covered. I couldn’t summarise it, especially at 1am, but one useful concept that came up was the operation of filters at various stages of the reviews process: what gets reviewed, what the reviews editor publishes, capsule reviews serving as, essentially, notification of publication, then more detailed reviews for those who want more information. Which is to say, what makes a good review depends on who the review is written for.
  • Paul Cornell will be writing for Primeval next year.
  • Last year Gollancz did round-cornered masterworks; this year they’ll be doing eight “future masterworks”, and the innovation will be no titles on the cover. (Don’t know about the corners.) The included books: Evolution, Stephen Baxter; Blood Music, Greg Bear; Schild’s Ladder, Greg Egan; Fairyland, Paul McAuley; Altered Carbon, Richard Morgan; The Separation, Christopher Priest; Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds; and Hyperion, Dan Simmons. Commence arguing now. (Personally I think it’s a good selection — particularly Evolution — except I’d have gone for Distress over Schild’s Ladder.)

Eastercon Highlights

Following in the footsteps of Paul and Shaun, here are the bits of the Eastercon programme I’m particularly looking forward to. Of course, no plan survives contact with the convention, so I’ll undoubtedly miss some of these, and end up going to others.

Friday

What makes a good book review?
What makes a good book review? Do you read book reviews? Do you take any notice of them? Do writers and publishers take notice of them? Do they serve the reader, the industry, or no one at all? Do you give a flying squid? (18:30 to 20:00, Edward 1)

Should be a lively way to get things started.

The Great Clomping Foot of Nerdism
M John Harrison sparked debate with his statement that “Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over worldbuilding”, that “…worldbuilding is not technically neccessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey a place that isn’t there. A good writer would never try to do that, even with a place that is there.” (20:00 to 21:00 Charles 1)

Alas, I will be having dinner during this panel. But I’ll be there in spirit.

Current SF, a Fireside Chat
Paul Cornell, author and scriptwriter, chats with Dave Bradley, editor of SFX magazine, about the current world of British SF.’ [And from Cornell’s blog: We’ll have to build that fire. And isn’t it a bit warm for that? We’re planning to cover everything and offer a kind of overview, and give an insight into SFX itself. Really pleased we got this together.] (22:00 to 23:00, Edward 1)

Saturday

Universal Donor
Is it time for science fiction to stop bleeding? Other genres – fantasy, technothriller, historical – have been recently reinvigorated by taking a science-fictional approach: the New Weird in fantasy, the recent work of (e.g.) Greg Bear, the resurgence of alternate history and time travel. Authors identified with SF have ‘bled’ towards the mainstream or other genres. Science fiction has become the default multimedia landscape. Is SF making a blood donation – or bleeding to death? (15:00 to 16:30 Kings)

Again via Paul Cornell’s blog, apparently the full panel for this is Jo Fletcher, Freda Warrington, Graham Sleight, and Ian Watson, with Cornell moderating.

Un-American Futures
SF has traditionally had a white western bias, in literature and in the fanbase. That’s changing rapidly. British SF has been described as “the most dynamic movement in global science fiction of the past decade and arguably one of the most important forces in world culture during that period” – why us and not the Americans?(16:30 to 18:00, Kings)

This panel description looks a bit odd to me — I have to wonder where that quote comes from, and the way it’s written makes it sound like they’re claiming British sf isn’t white and Western, which is clearly daft. So I assume the panel will be about debates like this.

BSFA Awards
Presentation of the BSFA Awards (21:00 to 22:00, Kings)

Those of you not going to Eastercon have all voted, right?

Sunday

Is UK SF publishing overly masculine?
“I hear that a number of women writers have felt that the atmosphere in the UK is very hard science, hard men at present — not that all the editors of male or whatever, but that the culture seems to be be for quite macho type books.” True? (11:00 to 12:00, Kings)

Again with the unsourced quote. But again an interesting issue.

Post-BSFA Awards discussion. The panel look at the results of yesterday’s vote. (15:30 to 17:00, Charles 1)

And I heckle from the crowd. Possibly.

Artetypes
There are many conventional images of artists (in whatever medium they work). For example, there is the iconoclast, the rebel, the self-absorbed and so on. To what extent are these archtypes reflected in SF and fantasy? Are there different archetypes that are unique to these genres? (17:00 to 18:30, Edward 1)

Potentially fascinating, potentially rubbish.

What would you like to see at Orbital?
Come along with programme suggestions for next year’s Eastercon. (18:30 to 20:00, Roodee)

Because I am a minion on the literary programme for next year, and my boss will be elsewhere, watching …

Not the Clarke Awards.
A discussion of the 2006 Clarke shortlist. (18:30 to 20:00, Edward 1)

.. Which is always one of the highlights of Eastercon for me, except that this year I can’t go.

Monday

Politics and Ethics in Battlestar Galactica
Spoiler Alert – this discussion will be wide-ranging, and may well cover episodes of Season 3 you might not have seen on Sky, even if you can get Sky any more, who knows. (12:00 to 13:00, Edward 1)

Of course, this assumes I manage to watch the finale between now and then.

And that’s it. My train back is mid-afternoon on Monday, so I won’t be around for the Dead Dog. But hopefully there will be plenty of hanging out in the bar and in the dealer’s room over the course of the weekend, maybe even an expedition to the cinema to see Sunshine. See you there?

Eastercon and Reviews

It’s Eastercon this weekend, and I am on one programme item:

What makes a good book review? What makes a good book review? Do you read book reviews? Do you take any notice of them? Do writers and publishers take notice of them? Do they serve the reader, the industry, or no one at all? Do you give a flying squid? (Friday, 18:30–20:00, Edward 1)

The website doesn’t list the other participants, but I know Paul is moderating.

I mention this in part because, with impeccable timing, Jetse de Vries (one of the current Interzone editorial team) has posted in defence of Interzone‘s policy of using 350-word reviews, instead of the longer, column-review format favoured in the Pringle era, thus giving us at least one starting point for discussion. The criticisms of the current reviews policy that he links to can be seen on Urban Drift, and specifically (though he doesn’t attribute them), they’re comments made by me and by Jonathan. So I feel obliged to expand on my thoughts a bit.

I think Jetse’s post raises some valid issues, but hides them behind smokescreens. He asks:

Maybe people could wonder why there is such a 350-word limit on book reviews. It is, after all, the industry standard. Not only SFX is using it, but the utmost majority of professional publishers. Like, in the UK: New Statesman, Spectator, and the Independent. Or, for reference, check out this overview of the National Union of Journalist, where most reviews mentioned are also 350 words or less.

Looking at the linked overview, I see a wide range of word counts; there are indeed several that give a 350-word limit, but it doesn’t leap out as an obvious standard, since there are also plenty of publications that use other lengths. The Scotsman, for instance, has entries for both 200 and 1600 word reviews. And if we look at what the Independent, say, actually publishes, the “latest book reviews” at the moment include 400 words on The Red Princess, 800 on On Chesil Beach, and 900 on Welcome to Everytown. I’d also query Jetse’s use of “professional”, since (a) it implies that SFX isn’t a professional venue which, for all its faults, seems a little harsh, and (b) I’m not sure what criteria are going into his definition — it can’t be payment, since Interzone doesn’t pay for reviews. Later Jetse mentions Sci Fi Wire as an online venue that enforces word limits — which they do, not to mention enforcing a strict formula of summary in the first half of the review, value judgement in the second half. But even Sci Fi Wire allots 700 words to a book, twice what Interzone allows.

Of the two guides to reviewing that Jetse links, one doesn’t mention length at all (though it does recommend noting effective passages for quoting, which would seem to be a bit of a squeeze in 350 words), while the other notes that “in newspapers and academic journals, [reviews] rarely exceed 1000 words”. Both guides emphasise the need to give a full response to the book at hand, which is as it should be. So my first objection to 350-word reviews is, as you might expect, not that they are short but that they are too short. Too often they end up being little more than glorified blurb. Sad to say, I think the review Jetse offers in his post, of Peter Watts’ Blindsight, fails on this level: there is almost no context for the book (Jetse tells us that Watts is a biologist, but nothing about what sort of biologist or how that might be relevant to the book at hand; and Blindsight itself is treated in a vacuum), and precious little evidence to back up the value-judgements he makes (saying that Blindsight is “Definitely not a novel for escapists or the occasional reader” comes across, to me at least, as somewhat patronising, in part because I get no clear idea of why that might be the case).

Jetse also says, of what he learned from a reviewing workshop:

The gist of it is that a 350-word book review is more challenging to write than a lengthy one, and if done well is – in general – better for both the reviewer and the reader, and also better from a publicity point of view.

This strikes me as being about as fallacious as saying that a short story is more challenging to write than a novel. Writing short and writing long are different skills. I’m not saying that it’s impossible to write a useful 350-word review — indeed, the review Interzone actually published of Blindsight (IZ207, by Graham Sleight), does a perfectly reasonable job. The first paragraph (you’ll have to take my word for this, since I’m not going to quote the whole thing online without permission) sets up what’s distinctive about Watts as a writer; the second paragraph establishes how Blindsight fits into Watts’ canon, as well as into the larger sf canon; the third describes what’s interesting about the book’s subjects, and how Watts makes it interesting; and the fourth sums up, relating the value-judgement of Blindsight back to Watts’ other works and other sf. Jetse argues that “We expect fiction writers to be sharp and concise, and not waste a single word,” and suggests that we should expect the same from reviewers — which is, of course, absolutely true. But it’s a principle that applies as much to a 2,000-word review or a 10,000-word critical essay as it does to a 350-word summary. As for this:

When limited to a 350 wordcount, reviewers must write only about the essentials. It forces them to concentrate on what they really need to say, to get to the heart of the matter. No roundabout reasoning, no self-important side remarks, no bloated blathering, no snarky references for the incrowd. No excess baggage, not a single gram of it. It compels reviewers to develop and hone their craft to perfection. First learn the ropes, the basics before one is allowed to do lengthier essays. Show that you’re a professional, build a track record and an outstanding oeuvre before you’re allowed more leeway. As mentioned, we expect the same of fiction writers, so why should non-fiction writers be exempt to this?

I can only say that I like reviewers to have a personality. As in fiction, I find voice incredibly important in non-fiction, including reviews. I’m all for tightening up arguments, and cutting bloat, and keeping the focus on the reviewee and not the reviewer; but the very last thing I want to read (or, let’s be honest, write) is a review that aspires to some perceived “default” tone.

There is another issue, though, and that’s the question of who the reviews are for and what they’re trying to achieve — which brings us back to the Eastercon panel. Audience, in fact, is probably a more important consideration than length. Interzone reviews, Jetse makes pretty clear, are aimed at the casual reader, intended to quickly give them an idea of whether they would like to check out the book. That’s a valid choice, in the abstract; but I think it’s a shame that Interzone has chosen to go down that route. Interzone used to do something different and, I think, valuable — and note that I’m not talking about the words-per-book specifically. What my original comment on Urban Drift was arguing for was a return to review-columns, covering maybe four books in three thousand words. That, it seems to me, would achieve the best of both worlds, giving Interzone‘s non-fiction contributors (who are, more often than not, a knowledgeable, articulate bunch — although Clute seems to have gone AWOL recently) room to say something meaningful without the reviews section becoming a home for the “prolonged protractions from a geeky pedestal” Jetse is so critical of. Aiming for the lowest common denominator is all very well, but SFX already exists; there’s no need to re-invent it.

From Last Night

Your discussion points for the day, drawn from discussions at last night’s BSFA meeting, on the subject of Awards:

  • Does the sf field have too many awards, or do they all serve valid audiences? Which awards would you get rid of?
  • Is a shortlist more valuable than a final award, as a guide to what to read? At what point does a “recommended reading list” get too unwieldy?
  • Should an award recognise what seems most vital now, or what seems most likely to last? Is there a difference between the two?
  • In theory, juried awards take a longer/more contextualised view; does this mean they have a better chance of getting it “right”?
  • Juried awards — allegedly — tend to favour compromise candidates. But is that a bad thing? If a book is the second-favourite book of the year of five different people, isn’t that in itself a strong recommendation?

The other notable part of the evening, for me, was receiving a small pile of old back-issues of Vector, dating from the early eighties, courtesy of Mark Plummer. Back then, the magazine was A5 and had a cover price of 75p. I was particularly excited to discover a copy of Vector 98:

This is the Vector of the month of my birth. It contains articles by Chris Evans and Simon Ounsley; book reviews by Paul Kincaid, David Langford, Roz Kaveney and others; and a transcript of a Novacon Guest of Honour speech by Chris Priest, on what’s wrong with science fiction:

The only thing wrong with science fiction is the “science fiction” label, and all the misbegotten attitudes that have arisen around it. We are all aware of the close-minded attitudes from people outside the sf world who have not read the stuff … we know that their dislike of science fiction is based on ignorance and prejudice. My point is that there are similar attitudes within the field, just as ignorant, just as prejudices, yet they are mostly invisible to us because they appear to be on our side. These internal ignorant attitudes will eventually destroy the freedoms fo creative writers, unless they are exposed for what they are.

Science fiction writers are blessed with many valuable things. They have an active, intelligent and open-minded readership. They have a successful commercial framework within which to work. The “science fiction” label conceals a multitude of sins, but it also provides a liberal framework within which to write. New writers are still being actively encouraged. There is room for the experimental story, for the avant-garde, for the work you can’t easily pin a label on. All this is valuable, and, as far as I know, unique in modern publishing. I say to the remarkable men and women who are my colleagues: write up to the level of your audience. Make life difficult for them. Give them autonomous, demanding novels. Stimulate them and entertain them. Don’t listen to the Loser del Ray-Guns of the world, don’t settle for the imaginatively second-hand, for the easy sequel to your first success. You’re not writing for beer-money, you’re writing for minds. Put your language first; language is the test of reality, the medium of ideas.

EDIT: And I’ve got to quote this section from the same speech, on sf critics:

Then there are the critics, who divide into camps of such extremism that neither side knows where the other lot are.

Doctor Johnson once said: “Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense.” So it is … but whether we like it or not, sf needs responsible criticism.

Writing is an art, and criticism is the natural companion to art. It defines and shapes it, it interprets it, it sets standards, it provides an overview of what individual writers are doing, it provides a context of intelligent debate. Original work can survive withuot it, and can of course be appreciated without it, but responsible criticism enhances art.

Science fiction critics are usually one of two sorts. There are those who have discovered that sf is literature, and have promptly gone barmy. These are the academics, who come to science fiction from the comfortable security of a chair at a university. There are a few good academic critics, but most of the criticism I have seen from academics has been pompous and narcissistic, apparently written with no love of literature, just a desire to impress.

The other lot are the crowd-pleases, the likes of Loser del Ray-Gun and Creepy-Crawly Crusoe, who shy away from criticism and call themselves “reviewers”. They claim to know what the common reader enjoys, and from this position of arrogance and ignorance parade their subjective opinions with all the certainty of the closed mind.

Neither kind of critic is worth a damn. They say nothing to the writer or the reader, and neither is able to join a larger debate.

Of course, there are a few exceptions. There are some perceptive critics in fandom, who are not showing off, who are not trying to agree with anybody and who write with honesty and insight. And the British magazine Foundation has a well-earned reputation for clear, unpretentious criticism. But this simply isn’t enough to form a body of critical work. There should be a sufficient amount of sf criticism that there is disagreement amongst informed critics, that there is a continuity of debate.

London Meeting: Not Robert Holdstock

The guest at tonight’s BSFA meeting is Robert Holdstock, author of Mythago Wood (winner of the BSFA Best Novel Award in 1984) and, more recently, the three books of the Merlin Codex. He will be interviewed by Paul Kincaid.

Breaking news:

Rob Holdstock is sick and sends his apologies (he really, really did want to be with us tonight).

At short notice Paul Kincaid has agreed to lead a discussion of this year’s BSFA and Clarke Award lists, so this is your chance to air your views.

Looks like I’ll be lurking at the back keeping very quiet for this one, then.

The meeting is open to any and all who might be interested, and will be held in the upstairs room of the Star Tavern in Belgravia (map here). The interview starts at 7.00, but there are likely to be people hanging around in the bar from 5.30 or so.

Poco a Poco

And we’re back. I can’t remember having been quite so comprehensively laid out by an infection for years. To all intents and purposes I did no reading, writing or editing, or to be honest much of anything else, for the best part of three weeks, starting just after the Clarke shortlist announcement, so I’m feeling a bit rusty. (I did rewatch about thirty episodes of The West Wing and listen to a truly staggering amount of Radio 4, so the time wasn’t entirely wasted.) Still, it’s amazing what a course of antibiotics can do, even if it takes two attempts for your doctor to realise they’re needed, and last Friday evening I was feeling well enough to head over to Oxford to see Philip Pullman deliver a lecture titled “Poco a poco: the fundamental particles of narrative”.

It was an extremely well-structured and well-delivered lecture; Pullman is never less than an engaging speaker, and here he was on top form, both witty and erudite. The subject of the lecture was, more or less as you’d expect from the title, an exploration of a way of thinking about stories that Pullman has been playing with for a while, and if anything I say below is unclear, there’s another post about it all here. Pullman was careful to present his argument as an observational work-in-progress, not an attempt to declare any sort of fundamental truth, but if (he asked) we were to try to break down stories in a manner analagous to the way physicists break down matter, what would their fundamental particles be?

You might instinctively say “words”, but Pullman’s argument was slightly different. Because stories are things that take place in time, he suggested, the fundamental particles of narrative are events — small, abstract events that can take on many different meanings depending on the context in which they appear. When we read a story, we instinctively apply the context to the event to derive a meaning. His example, which he mined with what can only be described as admirable thoroughness, was the act of pouring liquid from a vessel. He showed a variety of pictures that positioned this event in different ways, from the background detail of a man in a speakeasy topping up his drink from a hip flask, to an Addams family cartoon in which boiling oil is about to be poured over unsuspecting carol singers, to paintings by Rembrandt and Goya and poems by Coleridge. As his examples became more involved, Pullman introduced the concept of “metaphoric charge”, analagous to the electrical charge that some particles carry; metaphorically charged events carry a meaning beyond the literal. For example, wine being spilt from stolen goblets in Belshazzar’s Feast can be understood as a metaphor for excess, in addition to being a literal part of the story the painting tells. In fact, Pullman argued, it is the combination of the literal and the metaphorical, or the transition between them, that makes a story more than just a sequence of events.

I can’t quite decide whether all this has an aesthetically pleasing neatness to it, or is just a bit obvious. Since I can see a case for words as the fundamental particles of stories, I suspect it’s the former, but some of what was said still sounded quite familiar. (At one point, when he was talking about how we as readers contextualise events based on where and how they occur in the story, I thought Pullman was going to move into a discussion of genre, but no.) It did strike me as interesting that so many of the examples Pullman was using were pictures; no doubt part of that was driven by a desire to make the lecture more visual, but it also left me wondering whether Pullman is at all familiar with Scott McCloud‘s Understanding Comics, which I think articulates a compatible view of the way stories are put together. Pullman also suggested that events build up layers of meaning over time, which reminded me of (obviously) the way the Alethiometer works, and also some of the things Hal Duncan has said about the structure of Vellum and Ink. (It also justified this person’s dissertation, which is nice.)

Towards the end of the lecture, Pullman said that one reason he’d found himself so sympathetic to this way of looking at stories was that he felt it emphasised that our lives are grounded in physical experience, that we are more than just ghosts piloting a machine — in other words, as this post points out, an Epicurian perspective. I can’t argue with the idea that much, perhaps most literature is written in accordance with this assumption, whether consciously or (more likely) unconsciously, and there are undoubtedly reasons for that. I’m just not sure it’s actually an accurate way of portraying how we think, as opposed to how we think we think. It’s not a big deal, though: the idea of breaking down stories into component events works either way.