Tag: BSFA

British Science Fiction and Fantasy: A Panel

As noted in the original post about the survey, one of the panel’s at last week’s BSFA/SFF AGM event was a discussion of some of the questions it raises. For those who weren’t able to attend (and indeed those who were), here’s a recording — you can download the mp3 direct from here, or listen to it on the BSFA site. The panelists were Nick Harkaway, Paul Kincaid, Paul McAuley, Juliet McKenna, and Kit Whitfield, with me moderating.

British Science Fiction and Fantasy: A Survey

Earlier this week, Liz posted the agenda for tomorrow’s BSFA/Science Fiction Foundation AGM event. Those of you who were paying attention may have had your curiosity piqued by this item:

10:05 BSFA Panel – Launch of the British Science Fiction and Fantasy Survey 2009: chaired by Niall Harrison, and featuring Nick Harkaway, Paul Kincaid, Juliet McKenna, Kit Whitfield, and Paul McAuley

This is entirely Mark Plummer’s fault. A little over a year ago, he posted me a copy of a fanzine he picked up at Orbital, produced for Mexicon III, a UK convention held so long ago (1989, to be precise) that information about it available online is limited to a few cryptic mentions in Ansible. Mark sent this ‘zine with a note:

Niall — I picked up the enclosed at Eastercon. I can’t remember if I’ve thrust a copy at you before [he hadn’t] but in case not I thought it might interest you. Also, I note — with no ulterior motive — that next year will be twenty years since Paul’s survey, a convenient round number for a suitable fan to contemplate updating…
Mark

I didn’t actually read the note all that closely when it arrived, and I put the fanzine on the Pile Of Stuff To Read without looking too closely at it, either. Skip forward a couple of months, and I pick it off the pile as my “something else to read in case I finish my book” for a Eurostar journey.

It turned out to be no normal convention ‘zine. It’s about a hundred pages long, for starters, and consists almost entirely of the results of a survey of working British sf and fantasy writers, orchestrated and analyzed by Paul. The questions were, as the introduction put it, deliberately broad — Do you consider yourself a writer of science fiction and/or fantasy? Do you consider there is anything distinctively British about your work, and if so, what is it? And so forth — with the answers to each considered in separate chapters of the ‘zine.

As Mark quite accurately predicted, the idea of repeating this survey, twenty years on, appealed to me. And now I am doing just that. The results will be turned into a standalone publication for BSFA members towards the end of this year. The plan is to include the original survey, as well, since obviously a large part of the aim is to see what, if anything, has changed.

So that’s what the panel tomorrow morning is about. We’re going to be talking about, essentially, writerly identity — how writers perceive their work; how others perceive it; how that changes, or doesn’t, over time and from place to place. Do come along! Only the AGMs are limited to BSFA and SFF members; the rest of the day’s panels and talks are open to all.

In the meantime, I’ve been sending out surveys to every active British writer of sf or fantasy that I can think of, and find contact details for. In keeping with the spirit of the original survey, I’m casting my net wide, to get as wide a spectrum of opinion as possible. So I’m including writers published within the genre, and writers published by mainstream houses (or as YA); writers from other countries resident in the UK, as well as UK-born writers resident in other countries. Because there has to be a threshold somewhere, my arbitrary definition of “active” is “has published at least one sf book, or more than three sf stories in semiprozine-or-higher-level publications, this decade”. If you meet these criteria, would like to participate, and I haven’t contacted you, please email me! I have a list of publishers to write to this weekend — I keep thinking of more — but as I say, I want as many responses as possible, from as broad a range of writers as possible.

London Meeting: Ian Whates

The guest at tonight’s BSFA London Meeting is Ian Whates, writer and (as Newcon press) editor of various anthologies, including Celebration for the BSFA last year. He will be interviewed by Simon Gilmartin.

As usual, the interview will start at 7pm, though there will be people in the bar from 6-ish; the meeting is free, and open to any and all, though there will be a raffle (with sf books as prizes).

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.

London Meeting: Jaine Fenn

The guest at tonight’s BSFA London Meeting is Jaine Fenn, author of Principles of Angels and Consorts of Heaven; she will be interviewed by Kari Sperring (author of Living with Ghosts).

As usual, the interview will start at 7pm, though there will be people in the bar from 6-ish; the meeting is free, and open to any and all, though there will be a raffle (with sf books as prizes).

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.

London Meeting: Amanda Hemingway

The guest at tonight’s BSFA London Meeting is Amanda Hemingway; she will be interviewed by Roz Kaveney.

As usual, the interview will start at 7pm, though there will be people in the bar from 6-ish; the meeting is free, and open to any and all, though there will be a raffle (with sf books as prizes).

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.

BSFA Awards Voting — Final Reminder

Yes, for those not attending Eastercon, today is the day to get your votes in. Those who are attending Eastercon can vote now if you want, or can vote at the convention itself.

As a reminder:

And here’s what you do: send your votes (nominees ranked in order of preference) and your BSFA or Eastercon membership number to awards at bsfa.co.uk by the end of the day. Easy.

Oh, and a service announcement: something’s gone wrong with the BSFA website, such that it seems to be crashing peoples’ browsers when they visit. So you might want to avoid it for a couple of days. I’ll post another announcement when it’s fixed.

BSFA nominee: “Little Lost Robot”

And last but not least (yes, I know I got my order mixed up), we have Paul McAuley’s “Little Lost Robot”: read here [pdf] or listen here. The roundup:
Martin Lewis:

This is very much the winner by default. There is nothing massively interesting about it – a giant robot flies around the universe exterminating humanity before being confronted by its origins – but at least it isn’t completely bloodless. The stories by Chiang and Rickert are icily perfect and pointless, the story by Egan could have done with being a bit more abstract, out of all of them only McAuley is having fun and being serious at the same time.

David Hebblethwaite at The Fix:

In his notes on “Little Lost Robot,” Paul McAuley says he was aiming to subvert the usual template of the killer-robot story by telling the tale from the viewpoint of the machine. So, here we have a “superbad big space robot” dedicated to roaming the universe and destroying all life. It’s nigh-on invincible—so good at its job, in fact, that it’s running out of targets. The robot is keen, therefore, to chase after a new signal it picks up far away, even though it seems naggingly familiar for some reason. By the time the robot arrives, the signal is gone, but then the machine notices an apparent infiltration into its own programming, and then…

As may be anticipated, this story is rather dense with information; it’s a mark of McAuley’s skill that the tale drags so little. The beginning is especially striking, as the author weaves language evocative of space opera movies (”Sooner or later it’ll be coming to the star next door to you, and it will rock your world”) into prose of a more literary style, which has the effect of anchoring this impossible creation into the fictional reality—it’s an aid to suspending disbelief. As for the rest, good prose can only take “Little Lost Robot” so far; its ultimate success depends on its ideas. And, though the ideas were interesting enough whilst I was reading the story, sadly I didn’t find them striking enough to think about them much afterwards.

James Bloomer:

Paul McAuley has written novels and stories that I love, Fairyland and Gene Wars are both stories that I often think about. And I really enjoyed this story too. Little Lost Robot starts with fun big robot prose. Boy’s toys stuff perhaps. I loved it. A quick quote from the opening:

“Sooner or later it’ll be coming to the star next door to you, and it will rock your world.”

Nice. The story is fast, fun and entertaining and yet ends on a thoughtful note, suddenly casting the story in a different light. With a chunk of hard science thrown in too. Great stuff. My favourite of the nominees.

Karen Burnham:

Paul McAuley’s “Little Lost Robot” is just about the Exact Opposite of the Asimov story he references in the title. Asimov’s lost robot was simply a man-sized robot trying to get away with something, trying to escape. McAuley’s is a planet-sized solar-system-killing war machine… that finds itself with not much left to kill. It finds its way to a solar system and has a conversation with what may be a remnant of humanity. McAuley has done an interesting thing in giving the “robot” four distinct functional avatars: Librarian, Philosopher, Navigator and Tactician. However, the Philosopher got damaged somewhere along the way, and that lack gives and extra frisson of tension to the story.

Lois Tilton:

A superbad big space robot, bigger than an asteroid, smaller than a moon. A self-aware, heavily-armed killer machine on a mission of no return, seeking out the enemy wherever the enemy may be hiding and destroying every last trace of the motherfuckers. It’s a midnight rambler.

But after wiping out all traces of life in this side of the galactic disc, it has run out of targets. Driven by its prime directive, it sends out radio telescopes to search for any signs of life elsewhere. But it is not prepared for what it encounters.

McAuley is clearly re-imagining the sort of autonomous killer machines epitomized by Saberhagen’s Berserkers. But this encounter seems rather anticlimactic and lacking conflict, after all that has gone before.

And my original thoughts:

This is a fun story on several levels. For starters, it’s about an immense civilization-killing robot, travelling from solar system to solar system, carrying out a prime directive to wipe out The Enemy, which basically seems to be any organic life. It’s not hugely pyrotechnic, but there is a sense of intoxicating power hanging over the story. The style is rather droll; the robot is described simply as “the big space robot”, and the narrator says things like, “Sooner or later it’ll be coming to the star next door to you and it will rock your world”. And although the dilemma that ultimately faces the robot – it uncovers evidence that it may be about to destroy the civilization that birthed it; can said evidence be trusted? – is familiar, McAuley finds an angle on the dilemma, and a resolution, that feel fresh. It’s big, clever fun in five pages.

So perhaps the most varied reception of any of the nominees — to which, of course, you are invited to add your thoughts. And, since this is the last of the four nominees, feel free to give your opinion on the shortlist as a whole …

The Rest of the Mailing

Really, never mind Vector, how ’bout the rest of that mailing?

It’s turned out to be a fiction-heavy mailing, but that’s no bad thing (and don’t worry, non-fiction fans, there are counterbalancing projects in the pipeline for later this year). We have:

  • Focus fiction special — presenting the winner and final shortlist of the BSFA’s 50th anniversary short story competition: “Nestbuster” by Roderick Gladwish, plus stories by Nina Allan, James Bloomer, Nigel Envarli Crowe, Gary Spencer, and Andy West
  • Postscripts sampler issue — a special issue of the magazine for BSFA members, featuring stories by Stephen Baxter, Joe Hill, Lisa Tuttle, Gene Wolfe, Paul McAuley and others.
  • BSFA Awards Short Fiction Shortlist — for the first time, we’ve been able to make all the nominees for this year’s BSFA short fiction award available to members. Many thanks to the authors and venues involved for making this possible; and to members, you’ve got just over a week to read them. Final ballots are due, by post, or by email to awards at bsfa.co.uk, by Monday April 6th

Given the latter of these, I’m going to postpone my planned Hugo short fiction reading for a week, and instead read the four BSFA nominees, then make discussion posts here. For those who’d like to play along at home, the schedule I’m going to follow is:

(EDIT: In the comments, Tony reminds me that anyone going to Eastercon will be able to vote there, until late Saturday afternoon; it’s only people who aren’t going, like me, who have to vote by April 6th.

And on an unrelated note, I meant to mention the details of this year’s BSFA AGM, as announced on the cover sheet of this mailing — Saturday 27th June 2009, at 12pm, in Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London.)

Review of 2008

The latest BSFA mailing should have been dropping through peoples’ doors this week, including Vector 259:

Torque Control — editorial
Letters — from Farah Mendlesohn, Bob Ardler, and Rich Horton
Vector Reviewers’ Poll — edited by Kari Sperring
You Sound Like You’re Having Fun Already: The SF Films of 2008 — by Colin Odell and Mitch LeBlanc
Progressive Scan: 2008 TV in Review — a column by Abigail Nussbaum
First Impressions — book reviews edited by Kari Sperring
Resonances — a column by Stephen Baxter
Foundations Favourites — a column by Andy Sawyer
The New X — a column by Graham Sleight
Celebrating 30 years of Luther Arkwright — Bryan Talbot interviewed by James Bacon

Enjoy, and send letters to the usual address; and, as ever, if your copy doesn’t arrive in a timely fashion, let us know. There is an updated website in the works, to be more fully incorporated with the main BSFA site; but if nothing else, I’ll put some content up on the old site next weekend.