Ah, the wild synchronicities of modern life! This is one of those weeks where I appear to be doing a gazillion out-of-the-house things at once – or, if not at once, very close together.

Are-Eee-Ess-Pee-Eee-See-Tea…

First up (by virtue of having already happened), I made another appearance at SF Signal for one of their Mind Meld topics. This time out the question was:

In your opinion, does literary science fiction and fantasy have mainstream respect? Why, if at all, does it need mainstream approval? What would such approval mean for genre fiction?

Do pop over to see me disassemble the question rather than giving a straight answer, and to see more sensible (not to mention concise) answers from such notables as Gene Wolfe, Ian McDonald and Paolo Bacigalupi.

A Waste of Space?

Tomorrow night (23rd October) sees me up the tracks in London… at no less a venue than the Royal Greenwich Observatory. The SciFi London people (who do such a super job of hosting the Clarke Award every year) are having an “Oktoberfest” at the Planetarium with assorted sf-nal goings-on, including a screening of the new Star Trek movie, for them what’s interested (and has tickets, presumably)).

One of the other events is a discussion panel called “A Space of Waste?”, which aims to determine “whether science fiction authors are wasting their time writing about interplanetary travel, space colonisation and the spread of mankind across the universe given everything science has taught us about the realities, possibilities and costs of doing so.” Yours truly is on the panel alongside authors Jaine Fenn, Philip Palmer and Paul McAuley… so I guess I’ll be providing the comic relief. Perhaps I should wear a silly hat?

I Like Trains and Aeroplanes

And then there’s Saturday night (24th October), which sees Aeroplane Attack playing our first “proper” support slot at the Wedgewood Rooms, supporting iLiKETRAiNS and The Strange Death Of Liberal England (the latter of whom were kind enough to hustle the promoter into giving us the gig, and who as such deserve our sincere thanks). Playing the Wedge is ace, because we can turn it up nice and loud without crippling our own hearing, and because we have room to shuffle about on stage (which is often a problem for a 5-piece rock band playing pub venues with four half-stacks and a full drum kit).

Also, the other bands are super, and it’s the night the clocks go back… so why not make a night of it if you’re in Velcro City? Tickets are cheaper from me in advance, so if you fancy coming along drop me a line and we’ll hook something up.

And if you can’t make it, be sure to have a damn good time doing something else, OK? That’s what the weekend’s for, y’know.

(Though if you could spare a moment to listen to the new Aeroplane Attack tune we’ve uploaded, that’d be jolly good of you.)

Didn’t get much done yesterday, blogging-wise, eh? Continue reading “Decaying aspirations of professionalism”

An environment that I’m rather familiar with, after all. Just having a beer to quelch my first-time moderator nerves, having a chat with Sandy Auden (my reviews editor at Interzone), and contemplating a last minute cigarette before heading off to the Green Room to meet the panel. Whatever happens, this will certainly be a experience! Dissection later on …

Looks like my first stint as a panel moderator will be rather more challenging than I expected. Let’s see …

First Jetse came out in defence of short reviews.

Then Niall took him to task for it (and generated a, shall we say, lively comments thread).

Then Jonathan put in his two pence (generating another busy comments thread that includes a visit from ((a possibly justifiably irate)) Andy Cox).

Meanwhile, Gabe sits tight on the other side of the Atlantic, wishing for an opportunity to deploy his critic-fu mad rant sk1llz, and A. R. Yngve certainly has reviews on his mind (although I’m not sure if he’s coming to the con or not).

And there was me thinking this was a topic hardly anyone would care about. I’m not known for my leadership abilities, so this may end up as an exercise in herding cats … metaphorically angry cats, with metaphorical guns.

Still, life’s a learning curve, isn’t it? Updating from a little after midday Friday (public transport permitting); until then, hasta luego, amigos.