London Meeting: Gwyneth Jones

The guest at tonight’s BSFA London Meeting is Gwyneth Jones, author of Bold as Love and many other books, and winner of the 2008 Pilgrim Award for SF Criticism. She’ll be interviewed by Tanya Brown.

As usual, the venue is the upstairs room of The Antelope, 22 Eaton Terrace, London, SW1W 8EZ. The closest tube station is Sloane Square, and a map is here.

The meeting is free (although there will be a raffle), and any and all are welcome. The interview will start at 7pm, although there’ll be people in the bar from 6 onwards. (Annoyingly, those people won’t include me.)

London Meeting: Christopher Priest

The guest at tomorrow’s London Meeting is Christopher Priest, interviewed by Paul Kincaid.

As usual, the venue is The Antelope, 22 Eaton Terrace, London, SW1W 8EZ. The closest tube station is Sloane Square, and a map is here.

As ever, the meeting is free and open to anyone who is interested; the interview will start at 7pm, with fans in the bar from around 6.

Goodbye, Sir Arthur

Something for the weekend: the latest issue of Vector is out, complete with fine cover by Pete Young:

I know this because the mailing arrived here today, so hopefully everyone else will have their copy soon as well. As usual, email if it doesn’t show.

The contents:

Torque Control — editorial
Letters — from Martin Lewis and Tom Hunter
Memories of Sir Arthur C Clarke — by Stephen Baxter, Pat Cadigan, Angie Edwards, Gwyneth Jones, Alastair Reynolds, Geoff Ryman, and others.
Sir Arthur C Clarke remembered — discussion by Graham Sleight, Edward James, Ian McDonald, Martin McGrath and Paul Heskett
Influence and Intersection — Roz Kaveney interviewed by Graham Sleight
The Destruction of Benton Fraser: Season One of Due South — by Sarah Monette
First Impressions — book reviews edited by Kari Sperring
Transmission, Interrupted — a TV column by Saxon Bullock
Foundation Favourites — by Andy Sawyer
Resonances — by Stephen Baxter
The New X — by Graham Sleight

Of course, this mailing also contains a new issue of Focus, featuring articles by Christopher Priest, Jetse de Vries and Paul Raven, plus news of the future of the James White Award; plus the second BSFA Special Editions booklet, which contains extracts from Farah Mendlesohn’s Rhetorics of Fantasy and Paul Kincaid’s What It Is We Do When We Read Science Fiction.

And if all that‘s not enough, there’s a new, Steampunk-themed issue of Matrix, featuring an interview with Bruce Sterling, Martin McGrath on steampunk cinema, a guest editorial by George Mann, and much more.

For anyone who was reminded by the new issue to check this blog, here’s some recent (ish) content you may be interested in:

The first three installments of the Baroque Cycle Reading Group, as plugged in my editorial. Next installment to follow mid-August.
A discussion about Swiftly, Adam Roberts’ latest novel, with Paul Kincaid, Dan Hartland, and Victoria Hoyle
A discussion about Stand on Zanzibar

London Meeting: Terrance Dicks

A day early on this one: the guest at tomorrow’s London Meeting is author and Doctor Who script editor Terrance Dicks. He’ll be interviewed by Tim Phipps.

As ever, the venue is: The Antelope, 22 Eaton Terrace, London, SW1W 8EZ. The closest tube station is Sloane Square, and a map is here.

The meeting is free and open to anyone who’s interested, and the interview will start at 7pm, although there’ll be people around in the bar from 6; in fact, I may even aim to get there earlier, since I suspect this one will be busy.

Happy Birthday To Us

As I mentioned, this weekend saw the BSFA/SF Foundation AGM event. It was a pretty good day all told, with several enjoyable panels and talks. (I’m particularly sorry I missed the first half of Geoff Ryman’s talk, which appeared to be a story reading interspersed with commentary on said story.) But the highlight was definitely this:

Yes, to mark the BSFA’s 50th Birthday, Foundation brought cake! Two cakes, to be precise, one inscribed with a list of British sf authors active in 1958, and a second inscribed with a list of British sf authors active in 2008. Of course, you can only fit so many names on a cake, so there were print-outs with the full lists:

And here’s the BSFA’s new President, Stephen Baxter, doing the honours:

I’m happy to be able to confirm that the cakes were as tasty as they looked, and much enjoyed by all present.

BSFA/SFF Joint AGM

A quick reminder (or news bulletin, for anyone who hasn’t seen and may be interested): this Saturday sees the BSFA and SF Foundation’s joint AGM event, to be held at Conway Hall in London (near Holborn). The full programme:

1000 Doors Open
1030 Opening, then Guest – Geoff Ryman
1130 Panel: The BSFA – Historical Footnote or Force for the Future?
1230 SFF AGM
1300 Lunch break
1400 BSFA AGM
1430 Guest – Peter Weston
1530 Break
1545 Panel: Fan Media in the Dock – the legal status of fan art and fiction.
1645 Close
1700 Pub

As with other BSFA events, this is free and (AGM excepted) open to all. So why not come along?

London Meeting: Andrew J Wilson

As noted yesterday, the guest at tonight’s London Meeting is writer/critic/editor Andrew J. Wilson. He’ll be interviewed by Tony Keen.

The venue is the same as usual: The Antelope, 22 Eaton Terrace, London, SW1W 8EZ. The closest tube station is Sloane Square, and a map is here. The meeting is free and open to anyone who’s interested, and the interview will start at 7pm, although there’ll be people (not including me, this month) around in the bar from 6, and possibly from a bit earlier than that.